(Fall 2015 Student)
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.- Maya Angelou
People talk about the future of this world and worry about the intelligence of the people we will be leaving it to, yet there doesn’t seem to be a big rush to change the way we teach these upcoming children. There is so much violence in the world but we aren’t teaching love to counter that. There’s fights but that’s because discipline has been moved out of schools. Children go to school and learn things that may be important for a bit but in the long run won’t help them succeed in life. The school system needs to teach life skills, how to get along with each other, how to serve, how to run a bank account and pay taxes, instead of worrying so much about test scores and how many math formulas you can memorize.
For my service project I went into a small private run preschool, which has only about 45 children. There have so many nice things said about this school, the love it has for its children, the kind teachers, and the way that all the children love to come back every day. This is the kind of school I want to be a part of one day. I want to make an impact on children’s lives and show them the beauty in the world. My sister teaches three days a week and has about 8 children who are 2 or 3. I got the pleasure of going in and spending time with them, reading them books, and singing songs. I loved seeing the joy in their eyes when I would pull out a book and the little ways they would dance to the songs. At this age these babies are so innocent and so easily influenced. These should be primary teaching times. My favorite moments were when I would knock on the door and hear from inside all the little voices yelling, “Miss Jill’s here!” What love.
I’ve heard the stories, and seen the stress of teaching from my sister, but I am excited for those parts as well. I plan on making an impact in the children’s lives, and why not start today?
The quote at the start of this paper is applicable to this topic in the way that the little lives you touch may not remember how you picked them up and held them after they fell down but they'll remember how you made them feel better, or how you gave them a snack after a long day at school but they'll remember how you provided for them. Feelings stick around even after the specific memory may have passed.
