Paul In Seabrook: Part 1

Monday's day of work started with a small snowball fight in the parking lot of Timberland. It was a great way to return to service after the weekend but also a reminder that we won’t have many more sixty-degree days until May. The winter season is coming, and things will get rough.

Thankfully, I am having some success in the classroom. I am connecting with many of my targeted students as well as others in the class. In fact, my joy for Monday was when two students, including one of my targeted students, decided to begin going to our Homework Help club after school during the week. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, a few corps members stay at Seabrook Middle School to help students out with whatever homework they have. One of the students that is signing up is driven to do better and while she struggles with her classwork at times, she is making an attempt to do better – an essential first step. She came to Homework Help on Tuesday and spent time working with another student. Though she was only there for an hour, she got a lot accomplished and plans on returning.

Outside of our classroom service, our team has been working on combating the misuse of words such as "gay" and "retarded" as derogatory terms. On Monday, we interacted with a person who referred to a lame joke as "gay" but I said nothing. It really bothered me that I shut down instead of speaking up -- I allowed unacceptable behavior to remain unchallenged, making me complicit in the action. However, I put a positive spin on it and declared it to be my delta for the day; I had an area for improvement. The next day, I was working in an English class when I heard two students mocking the movements and speech patterns of handicapped people instead of working on an assignment. Because of what happened the day before and my reflection on it, I was prepared. I firmly told the two students, "Making fun of people for things they can't control is offensive and unacceptable, so stop what you're doing and get back to work." However, I know that I still need to work on my approach to these situations. I should have explained more about why the behavior was unacceptable instead of simply giving an order to follow. Still, challenging such common misuses of these words requires small victories each day.

Friday brought a half day of service. My team for the day was responsible for steam vacuuming rooms at New Generation, a home for homeless women who are pregnant or recently had children. We worked with other corps members to clean the women's bedrooms and other areas of the home. I was a bit stressed since I hadn't gotten enough sleep all week and as with most service projects, it took us some time to figure out how best to tackle the project. Once we got into a rhythm, we were able to get a lot accomplished, cleaning most of what we had been assigned. I'm glad we could help out this place, even if it was only in a few small ways.