Tutoring in a school for homeless children

I feel that the way to lift our society is to embrace some of the weakest populations.  If we empower the weak, it makes the whole stronger.  That's why I love working in my school for homeless children.  Most of the kids are homeless and all of the families are below the poverty line.

True, it's difficult in the school.  Many of the kids have tired looks on their face.  Some fall asleep in class.  We try to feed them breakfast and snacks throughout the day in addition to lunches.  The raw power and talent these kids have is wonderful.  The problem, I believe, is they are not challenged enough.  They can do anything.

When they begin to succeed, momentum builds.  Esteem builds.  I love seeing that.  The children just haven't been challenged enough.  I worked with a fourth grader today who missed three months of school.  She can't read a simple book (like See Spot Run).  She hadn't been able to sound out simple words.  But, I had worked with her the other day and she felt success.  Guess what happened?

Today during recess, she came over to me and brought me a book.  I first thought she was going to start reading it to me.  Then I remembered she had trouble even sounding out words.  The word, "the" was trouble.  All during lunch we read and read.  I began, then she continued.  Almost immediately, she attempted to read.  With assistance she got through a sentence.  Then another.

Then we would repeat sentences for practice.  Not only was her confidence building, but her trust in an adult was building.  You know what else was building?  Her trust in herself.  Later during class, there was a writing assignment.  She finished it.  It was only a half-page essay, but simple writing was a challenge.  Certainly spelling was a challenge.  Even being creative was a challenge.

She came over with a blank piece of paper and sat next to me.  One word and one sentence after the other she wrote, and misspelled, but she wrote.  She was creative and very thoughtful in writing about what she would do for her Mom.  Back to my original point.  Investing time with this population has more rewards than you can name.  Maybe I'll write about them some day.  :)

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