As a senior in college, I've already finished my required core courses, and I'm one class away from completing my major.
As much as it saddens me to face the idea of leaving Duke, a place where I've spent three of the best years of my life, I'm also trying to make the best of the time that I have left. Part of doing so, for me, meant taking some classes that truly interested me -- classes that didn't fulfill some required curriculum.
In searching through our online coursebook, I came across a class called "Education 100," the first in a series of courses toward earning a teaching license. I was intrigued by the idea of learning about American public school systems, and even more excited about the class' service-learning requirement that called for us to tutor young children for two hours per week. I love working with kids, and was eager to spend some of my free time productively.
A week into the course, my classmates and I were each assigned to tutor a child at different local elementary schools. My charge, an 11-year-old sixth-grader, turned out to be energetic, cute, fun and popular. She always seems excited to see me and wants to work on her homework right away.
As we sounded out letters together and looked at different multiples, I felt like I was actually helping someone -- a mutually beneficial relationship, because I loved seeing her get an answer right or learn something new.
But she's not the only one who has been learning during this experience. I've discovered a lot of things about kids that were really surprising to me.
For instance, my tutee brought M&Ms one day, and unselfishly offered some to everyone around her, including me, regardless of the fact that she hardly knew the other children. None of the kids seemed too surprised by her action, like they would have done the same if they had been the ones with candy.
I've also noticed that the children were very eager to help one another with games or work. Two kids playing Othello excitedly invited my tutee and another child to join in the game and play teams. As I watched them all huddle over the game board, giggling and whispering strategies, I wondered when exactly I'd lost that sort of innocence -- the kind that allowed me to make new friends so easily, to just join in instead of judging or hesitating.
These kids seem to love everything about their lives. They can't wait for an after-school snack. They're excited to learn, thrilled to make new friends, and unconcerned about appearances or obligations outside of homework and family. And it's not that their lives are problem-free. Many of these students have parents that are divorced, many live with multiple half-brothers and sisters, many are from "bad" neighborhoods.
They're just happy, content with what they have, always looking for another opportunity to have fun.
Part of me wants to freeze them at this stage in life, hold them back from the years where they have to face teasing or may get into destructive relationships, keep them in this place where everyone is a friend. I wish I knew where childhood stops and the real world begins. I wish I saw more of childhood in my young-adult life -- the sharing, the making new friends, the not judging and not worrying.
It's funny. We had it right when we were younger. What happened?
