Summer of Service - School Edition Part 2

We wrapped up our first week of summer serving at the kids' school again in one of the middle school teacher's classrooms.  The younger kids were a little tuckered out from our last project of moving books just two days earlier so I left this project up to the three older kids.  It was mellow, low key, simple, short, and sweet.  Just the balance they needed to keep them interested in continuing on with serving for the rest of the summer.

Cameron's French/English teacher asked for help in her classroom organizing, filing, sorting, and searching for lost books and re-shelving those.  This was a welcome and restful change from their previous day of service at school.

After reading their journals Cameron and Emma both had a good time just hanging out and helping.  Nothing profound came to mind for them this day.  I haven't gotten Annie to write for me yet, and I was a little worried about how she would do since she was our least happy on the book day and not exactly thrilled that I had pegged her to do another day of book work.  I was relieved to hear her say when she got into the car that she really enjoyed that day A LOT better than the previous one and that she was really glad she went.  She also enjoyed getting to know one of Cameron's teachers and told me a few stories about the conversations they had and how nice she was.

This report got my mind going a bit more.  I wasn't thinking about the benefits of them interacting with adults more one-on-one.  And getting to know a teacher one-on-one like that would probably open their eyes to the fact that yes, teachers are nice, yes, they are normal people, and yes, they have a lot to offer if you allow yourself to get to know them better.  Bonus!  This sparks my curiosity even more for the rest of the summer to see what more we can learn from others and how we can open up our world to them.