The End!

I came, I saw, I conquered. Actually, the end of my service learning wasn't that dramatic, but it did leave me quite sad. On my last day at Whitney, I probably did the most work I've done the entire time I was there. I helped at least 4 kids and for the first time, I already knew or learned their names. Now if I saw them, I could put names to faces. Why am I sad? Because that was my last day, so I wouldn't be able to put myself to that test. You can tell that this experience was a good one when I, the laziest person in the world, wish I could still participate. Whitney taught me so much and working there definitely humbled me. Some of the kids had such great personalities and I would have loved to see what they could do in life. All I can do is wish them all the best and hope that what I did these past few weeks could help them, even just a little bit, become successful.

Lucy

Lucy is the most curious little girl. Very talkative. Another volunteer was helping her with her math, but I couldn't help but observe her. She is very spunky and loves to talk through her work. She explains every step she goes through as if trying to explain it to someone who didn't know better. The way she works through her math problems is very... Different. But she always comes out with the right answer. I can't help but admire her enthusiasm. I dubbed her Lucy because she reminds me so much of Lucy from Charlie Brown. Kind of a know-it-all...

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Whitney, I bid thee farewell.

In the last week of my service learning, I must say, I'm sad. I truly enjoyed my weeks at Whitney. I've met a lot of great kids and people. I wouldn't trade this experience for the world. From what started out to be considered a burden turned out to be one of the greatest opportunities of my life. I'm sad that my time there is wearing down to its last day. But hopefully this experience will lead on to bigger opportunities. All I can do is express my appreciation towards my teacher for giving me this opportunity to begin with and my appreciation for the people whom I worked with. They are marvelous people. I can't stress enough the value of this opportunity. If anyone were to ask me about what service learning option they should choose, I would try my best to steer them toward Whitney. They won't regret it.

Nicholas

Today, I helped a young man out, we can call him Nicholas. I took up almost my entire hour and half helping out Nicholas. Why? Well, what started off as a productive string of addition problems turned into just glancing and guessing at word problems. An example would be, Which number has the greatest value? (24,27,32) Nicholas would just look at the problem and guess whichever number looked good to him. And every time, his guess was wrong. This upset me. Why was he just guessing? I mean, he wasn't even looking at the problem. Then I thought, he must not be getting help anywhere else. This made me slightly sad. I can't imagine what it would have been like to not get any help whatsoever. It must have been frustrating for him. So, after this occurred to me, I set aside my own frustration and helped him through his entire assignment. I hope that someone helps him out after I'm gone.

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