The unfortunate news that my Teach For America teacher would not be at school Monday due to food poisoning lead to a great opportunity that others on my trip will not get to experience. Since I was not able to go to Howe Elementary, I tagged along with two other group members who were going to Manley High School to help with Algebra II and AP Statistics. I purposely chose to go with this group because it allowed me the opportunity to work with the oldest students (11th & 12th grade) and the youngest students (1st & 2nd grade) that our group would be interacting with this week .
The day began with a very confusing journey to the high school. After a couple wrong turns and almost missing our train we finally arrived. As soon as I stepped off of the bus it was very clear that I was now, probably for the first time in my life, the minority. This observation became even more apparent when walking into the school and when we asked our TFA teacher she confirmed that the school was 99.9% African American. The feeling of having eyes watching me, wondering what I was doing at this high school was something I had never experienced before. When we talked in the Alternative Breaks class about having to step outside our comfort zone, this was not what I expected. Rather than stepping out, I was leaping far out of my comfort zone.
Though the entire day I was out of my comfort zone, today was one of the most rewarding days I have had in regards to helping students. During the last 30 minutes of each class period the students worked independently on a worksheet while we walked around to see if any of them needed help. My expectations were greatly exceeded when many of them openly asked for help, the even better part was that those who asked for help didn’t only want the solution to the problem, they wanted to understand how to solve it and once they finally understood how to solve the problem, the satisfaction they had was priceless.
While I loved interacting with all of the students today there were two girls that will stick with me forever. After introducing myself and telling them I was from Kansas one girl asked me if I had ever heard of "The University of St. Mary’s". I was shocked when she asked me this because this school was in my hometown of Leavenworth. She went on to tell me that she had been accepted to the school, along with her friend and they had both received quite large scholarships. They both went on to ask me tons of questions about the school and told me about all of the scholarships they would be applying for. These two young ladies absolutely amazed me. While a majority of the students were goofing off, they were working extremely hard to create a better life for themselves. Showing that regardless of where you live or the money you make there is the ability to achieve great thing and be successful. Before class ended I gave my contact information to the teacher and told them I would be happy to give any more information about Leavenworth or even have them come down to visit the school. I hope that I will be hearing from these girls and be given the opportunity to continue to help them achieve their goals.
I am sad that I will not be retuning to the high school for the rest of the week, but I am so excited to see what a day with 1st and 2nd graders holds for me! Don’t worry, I’ll let you know how it goes!
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