Helping Others

Psalm 121

Yesterday I actually had time to visit one of the students I work with in his science class. I say I had time because during that particular class period I have to visit two other students as well as be "security" for a building during lunch. When my time needs to be divided that much I usually visit the students who aren't doing as well, focusing on helping them get their grades up. The student I visited yesterday is getting a great grade in science, so I spend less time with him than I would like to.

I walked into the class and saw another Educational Assistant (EA) sitting with him, which made me feel less guilty for not stopping by more often. I stopped by other tables, talking with and helping the students at those tables. Finally I stopped by the table of the student I am responsible for and the EA looked at me with a puzzled expression.

She said they were stuck on a page in the worksheet they were working on. I took a look at the page and it was filled with numbers and charts. Add to that we had to divide the information into north and south hemisphere into appropriate seasons; winter in the south is summer in the north.

I should mention here this student has certain physical and learning abilities which causes him to be socially unaccepted. He's never been bullied, not that I know of, but he really has no social interactions outside his teachers.

I told her I could work with him. We talked a little about how other things were going in school for him. He talked about wanting to go to junior prom but not being able to. He talked about this girl he likes and how he doesn't know how to approach her just to say hi. We talked about his upcoming trip to a neighbor island for the spring break. We just talked about life.

In between the conversations I broke down the assignment into little pieces, explaining each step along the way. He began filling in the chart and drawing his bar graph. We began talking about what the graph meant and why the seasons were different for the top and bottom halves of the world. We noticed how the graph showed a trend of where and when shark bites happen the most (fyi - don't swim in the southern waters during their summer).

Before we knew it the period was almost over and he was done with that page in his worksheet. When the bell rang he slung his backpack over his shoulder, smiled that beautiful smile he has at me, and said thank you.