Bouncing Back

After a less than stellar week, this week has been much better. I started my weekend last week by writing letters to all of the parents of the students I worked with. It was a great way for me to inform the parents of the progress being made and to request that they keep on reminding their children to work hard this last quarter. It also helped me keep in perspective what they have already accomplished this year and how far they've really come in the last year.

I ended the weekend helping my kickball team to 2 victories including a lead-off homerun in our last inning to start a rally for the victory. Despite the cooler weather, our team hung out for a while after the game and ended up having an improptu get together at someone's house for a barbecue.

This week has been going pretty well compared to last week. I have a couple of kids who seem to be finally kicking it into gear in school. Today one of my students was late to school, but when I saw him I reminded him he had a spelling test. I knew he had studied for the test and I wanted to make sure he got to class in time to take the test. After telling him, he ran to his locker and got to class in time to get a 10 out of 15. It's still not perfect, but a month ago he was getting a 3 at best. When I told him what he had got, he was even disappointed that he didn't do better and told me next week he plans on getting a perfect score. It was refreshing to finally see him and others take pride in their school work and want to do better.

Tonight I'll be helping at a lock-in which I'm really looking forward to. It's always fun to see kids from other schools and see how they are compared to the students I work with. It will keep me later than normal for a Friday, but it's definitely worth it. The rest of the weekend is undetermined besides kickball on Sunday followed by the All Star game/barbecue. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and get better before Sunday.

Hope everything is well with everyone else.

Not One of the Better Days

Well, it's finally happening. The first two days of this week have been less than stellar. I shouldn't say that I haven't had any bad days since I've been in St. Louis, but most of them were the result of frustrations with the organization more than the anything at school. However, I will say that if this week is the worst week I experience all year while I'm serving at L'Ouverture Middle, I have to consider myself fortunate.

The last two days have been very difficult mainly because I haven't been feeling that great. I think it's a combination of allergies and some sort of respiratory infection. Put it this way, my eyes, nose and throat are either very itchy or producing fluid of various sorts depending on the source (not a pretty picture I realize). On top of the allergy feeling, my chest and back feel like a ton of bricks are being pushed against them from both sides. Unfortunately, it hasn't been debilitating enough that I feel like it warrants staying home from school. It's the classic case of being just bothersome enough that you feel like crap all day, but you'd feel guilty using a sick day for something so minor.

Because I haven't been feeling that great, I haven't been too enthused about pulling kids out for one-on-ones or even being around them for that matter. I don't think most of them understand that I'm not feeling very well, which means my tolerance for little things is greatly reduced. Today, there were several times where my rarely-used angry demeanor came out. I'm happy to say I was able to hold back, because one of the things I've been able to avoid all year is yelling or showing that I have lost my temper. Today my patience was definitely tested, but in the end I practiced the same restraint I have tried so hard to instill in the students that I'm working with.

To top things off, I got a chance to look at all of my students' report cards. Much to my disappointment and dismay, not a single one of them improved. In fact only 1 maintained the same GPA from 2nd quarter the 3rd quarter. The rest of them all dropped in GPA. I wasn't happy to see that there wasn't any improvment, but I was even more devestated that not a sinlge one had a 2.0. For the first time I started feeling like my work has been pointless. In the past few weeks, I thought I was really seeing significant gains in their classwork, but it appears that it was merely a figment of my imagination. What I find really frustrating about the grades is that several of the students could be decent students, but they just don't do the work or miss so much school that they fall too far behind to make up any of the work. As I sit here and think about the situation, it makes me think that some of the blame for the poor performance in school lies on me. The reason I took on this role was to help kids improve academically, and when I see that the results are going in the opposite direction, it makes me wonder where I've gone wrong.

I apologize to everyone for making this post a bit depressing. I'm still searching for the silver lining. Writing about the situation is definitely helpful in this search. You can all be sure that I won't let these last couple of days drag me down so much that I can't recover and thrive for the last 6 weeks of school.

Enjoying the Spring

The past few weeks in St. Louis have been awesome weather-wise. I have to say I really love a spring that starts on time. I know it's been unusually nice everywhere this spring, but to be in the upper 70s and low 80s in early April is incredible. To make it even better, it cools down to a very comfortable sleeping weather.

I've already had plenty of chances to enjoy the weather during my weekends. Yesterday I took part in my first kickball game (the team has been playing for almost a month now, but I told them I couldn't commit until after basketball season was over). I don't think we could've asked for a more beautiful day to kick a rubber ball in the park. Saturday I helped paint a youth shelter. It was a small group of us working on it, but we got a lot done and had a lot of fun working together. With the spring also comes the lighting up of the grills. I think they'll be plenty of barbecues to go to from here on out. Saturday evening wasn't the exception to this as a group of us got together for food, fun and beer.

Of course I am still serving at the school, and despite the ideal weather, I continue to enjoy my time here. Just last week, our team painted our first mural on the wall. I didn't know what to expect, but the finished product is impressive. The staff and students have been equally impressed, giving us the thumbs up for future murals around the school. Our hope is that by making the school more aesthetically pleasing, the students, staff and parents will take more pride in the building and more importantly the school community. One of the hardest things for me to deal with all year is this idea that the school is "bad." It's a myth that is perputated by students, parents and teachers, and it seems to only breed an attitude of living up to that myth rather than overcoming it and exceeding expectations.

Besides the mural, I had a moment today that validates everything that I came here for. That's not to say there's not more to do or that I haven't felt validated before today, but this sits atop everything else. One of the students I work with, Dominique, has been a handful all year long. He's a good kid and a decent student when he wants to be, but he's very, very, very moody. I've never seen a kid who has such dramatic mood swings in such a short period of time. Several times this year I've had to deal with him throwing tantrums at the most inopportune times. There are many days I'm very frustrating in having to deal with him because I'm never sure what he wants or how to get him to listen. Today, we were talking about lots of things, his grades, cars, his interests, etc. At one point he told me that these past few months I've been his best friend. I didn't really even know how to react to it because I never saw it coming, but it made all the hours I've spent with him trying to get him to understand life and why I am the way I am with him worthwhile. It's a moment like that not only makes what I've been doing and will be doing with AmeriCorps worth it, but makes me want to continue doing work like this forever, because I know it's important for me and it's important for the people that I'm serving.

Long Time No Blog

So it's been quite a while since I last blogged. In the two weeks since my last post I've gone to Southern Missouri for spring break, went home for Easter, and have been to the Final Four.

For Spring Break our whole corps went down to Lesterville, Missouri for a week of training, service and relaxation. It was fun to get out into the outdoors and do some physical labor (building a segment of the Ozark trail) as well as spend time with other members I don't see as often. I think it was a day or two too long, but overall I had fun and got to do some things I don't usually get to do.

After break, I got home to Green Bay for a long weekend. It was nice to be home for the first time since Christmas. I really got to relax, watch basketball and hang out with my family. Of course Joey wasn't home which was disappointing, but being home geared me up for the next few months before the end of my term and was enough to help me make it through until June when I'll be home for the wedding.

After a long break from school, I was ready to get back to the grind. Last week was calm at school which made the transition that much easier. To top things off I was getting excited all week for my first Final Four. Saturday morning I took a group of kids to a free basketball clinic put on by the NCAA. It got me ready for the big day. Despite having terrible seats, I was floored just to be in the atmosphere. After watching so many games this year on TV, this was a great reward. Of course I'm really looking forward to tonight when I'll see the last nets to be cut down and the final game of the 2005 college basketball game. Now that I succeeded in seeing a Final Four I can move on to the next part of the goal, being on the sidelines for one.

That's all I have for now. I hope everyone's doing well and hopefully it won't take me so long to post my next blog.