To be honest, I don’t remember a single thing that happened when I volunteered on January 30th. All I have to share with you guys is that it’s very important to do your blog posts around the same time you do the thing.
This would’ve been my sixth visit, though, so I can construct a memory very close to the actual one by inference. It was a very cold day. I supervised the kids as they built things. I gotta say, the creative output has declined over the course of the year. These kids are running dry. Some days it ends up being a lot more like babysitting until the parents come and pick everyone up. Some of the kids are incorrigible, and I genuinely worry for their development if they already resent following instructions this much. Watching Mr. Vitucci handle them continues to be an invaluable learning experience. He picks his battles and supplies levity when things get out of hand.
— Hartek
Your posts make me laugh lol. So true
I think it’s disappointing and apathetic of you to categorize a child as “incorrigible”. I’m sure your feelings come across when you volunteer there, which may explain some of the experiences you’re having.
Hi kaj93,
I can understand why you’d be disappointed. You’d want a volunteer that has boundless faith in every child and never gets frustrated when someone doesn’t heed what they say multiple times a day, day after day. I get that, and it’s part of the reason I decided not to continue with the program next year.
But I won’t take “apathetic.” When I signed up to be service scholar in August, I genuinely wanted to be able to teach kids and make a difference in their lives, like I had so many people do for me as a public school student. When I messed up and a kid got hurt, I thought about it for weeks. I still remember his name even though I haven’t seen him in 6 months. I went to all my appointed sessions this year, regardless of it whether I had to wait at the bus stop for half an hour in negative degree weather, regardless of what I had due at midnight, regardless of it being Slope Day. I didn’t have the flexibility to do whatever fun Rose event fit into my schedule, and never did I regret that. Each time, I carried with me the same energy that I started with, often just hoping someone would ask me to spell something for them. So yes, I get disappointed when I just supervise people build and when they don’t even do that. But you can’t accuse me of apathy in anything.
– Hartek Sabharwal, hs786