Monday, December 1, 2008

Last Blog. St. Mary's

This first semester at Loyola, I volunteered at Saint Mary’s; at the beginning of the semester I was not planning in participating in any community service since I did not know what college was going to be like, but I decided to do it to see more about what surrounded Loyola. Saint Mary’s school provides education to many kids of the Loyola area; their parents have enrolled them here because public schools are not as safe as they would want them to be. I helped a group of students with their homework; they were all different ages and in different classes. Helping the students here is very challenging, but I learned a lot from this experience.
It was very hard for me to keep the students focused on their work. Some of them got distracted very easily, and some of them did not do homework at all. I created different ways to keep them focused by lowering the amount of distractions and asking them to take out all the work they had. This worked most of the days, but it was still really hard. I enjoyed it a lot because it was very challenging and I learned about all the trouble that teachers go through to teach these children even though they have the knowledge to actually educate them.
This entire semester I have heard that students at Loyola College participate at different community service events. Many people came to St. Mary’s with me and I got to know a few of them. The Jesuit education at Loyola has taught us to give service without expecting anything back; I see it as giving back what we have gotten from society itself. By doing this kind of work we learn about the city we live in, especially if we come from other places other than Baltimore. Also by participating in community service events we not only help others, but we learn and meet people; we feel better about whom we are as humans.
After reading “Twelfth Night or, what you will” by Shakespeare, we see one of many confusions that happen in society. Sometimes we see strange things happening in the world and we wonder why they happen. It is always unknown, but we also learn that to every action, there is a reaction. Every time we do something nice for others, we will receive something nice, and vice versa. It is always good to stay true to yourself and give service to those who really need it.
Even though I only went to Saint Mary’s once a week, I met many kids who enjoy learning disregarding their situation. Like I wrote in one of my previous blogs, we learn from every experience we have, it is part of our Jesuit education at Loyola. The purpose of providing service is for us to become better rounded and to realize that we have to get out of the so called “bubble” and experience what other people live like. Volunteering at St. Mary’s gave me another perception of Loyola and Baltimore, I learned about the challenges that many people have every day, and I realized how comfortable our lives are in our bubble. We should get out of our comfort zone and help those who really need it.

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