Blessings Blog

Today I'm thankful for a flexible weekend for work, food, friends, and reflection. I'm thankful for company to have the excuse and extra hands to make spring rolls on Friday night, and I'm thankful for hours to spend on Saturday preparing food for the rest of the week. I'm thankful to always have enough to eat and enough time to even experiment with some cooking projects.

I'm thankful for the opportunity for "professional development" this past week as well. I got to pile in the car with three other AmeriCorps friends working in schools in Northfield and drive up to St. Thomas for a conference called "How are the Children?" on the status of education equity and the achievement gap. While it was primarily focused on how to address how schools and the public education system can better serve African American children in the Twin Cities, I am so thankful that there are rooms full of people coming together to talk about what we can do to love and encourage each child. I'm thankful to gain more tools to understand each child's circumstances and to love each child because of and in spite of their behavior. It's funny being inspired and frustrated all at the same time. I'm thankful to now have opportunities to figure out where we as impermanent AmeriCorps members can fit within the giant scope of education access and engagement apply some of what we learned within our context of serving a mostly Latino population.

I'm also thankful for an incredible conversation I had in a guidance session with a student I have been meeting with a few times about his post-high school options. He desperately wants to be the first in his family to go to college but is understandably nervous about the financial aspect, and being the middle child of five complicates things further. Another bump in the road: he was almost a high school dropout. But he says he woke up one day and saw people his age passing him by. He was perhaps not hanging out with the "right crowd" either, but in his words, he "went from bad kid to good kid."

I cannot imagine this young man as a "bad kid." He has such a naturally good heart that just melted mine. Every time I see him he asks how my day and week have been. While for so much of his life, he went through the motions in school and his limited natural ability for math coupled with lack of engagement means he needs to go to back to the basics to learn his times tables (because those are actually applicable in real life situations), in his recent history he made the link between pursuing an education and having a better future. In the face of educational assessments that he says make him feel stupid, he now cannot wait to get his diploma. He wants college so badly, and though we are talking about the right next step in his educational path, if he has to take the ACT he said he'll do it even though he put it in terms of the ACT fee equating to three days worth of meals.

He is also concerned about leaving his friends behind even though he does not want them to "drag him down" as he admitted. How alone can that make you feel. He is trying to be the first in his family to go to college, and definitely the first in his social circle, and it will be a huge adjustment, but I am so thankful to be able to learn from him as well as how appreciative he has been in asking my advice and opinions on so many aspects about college and the world beyond Northfield. 

I was amazed also how he used the word "blessed" when I was navigating explaining why I have been so fortunate to have been born into a family that prioritized education and travel and had the means to do so. Because I have been so accustomed to a nerdy household, a globally aware and socially conscious church community, and an intellectually stimulating college environment, I have taken for granted people being aware of language and exposed to the world. In many respects, this young man has been shut off from it, but he feels comfortable asking me about ways to have fun in college that do not involve getting drunk, about studying abroad in China and how receptive people are there to people from the U.S., and about ways to pay for an education that would give him tools to capitalize on his strengths of social skills, empathy, and wanting to take care of others. He likes to learn. He has a natural, nerdy curiosity and a unique self-awareness that should serve him well if he is given the right opportunities.

Working with him just makes me think even more about circumstances and choices. We often cannot change the circumstances we are given, as just for one example, he was born into a family that may or may not support his drive to go to college, but he woke up one day and decided an education was how he could give back to his family because they have already done so much for him. How could you not be touched by that? I am so blessed to work with him and learn from him, perhaps more than he says he is learning from me, and I am nervous for his challenges ahead but excited to see where life takes him.