Event Analysis: Tutoring at St. Mary's School

The service-learning event in which I participated this week helped me to reach out to others less fortunate in a way I had never before. I really felt like I was helping, learning, and inspiring others to learn simultaneously as a result of the one-on-one contact I had with the individuals. As a component of Loyola’s partnership with St. Mary’s School, Loyola students, like myself, volunteer as tutors and “homework helpers” on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays each week. Initially, I joined this activity simply as a way to get involved on campus and participate in community service, but after my first experience tutoring the children I realized that this opportunity is so much more. Interacting with the kids at St. Mary’s school is a truly rewarding experience, and one of the greatest opportunities in which I have ever participated. Although I was at St. Mary’s for a mere two hours my interaction with the children, the school, and the area helped me learn and understand a great deal about myself, my experiences in life and at Loyola, as well as the experiences of others, particularly those less fortunate. I felt that this experience was particularly inspiring because it so perfectly portrays one of Loyola’s greatest and most unique qualities, the dynamic of a small, Catholic, predominately Caucasian school in large, diverse, predominately African American city. I feel the need to admit that, when I first arrived I was slightly intimidated by the two thirteen year-old students (Diamond and Jerome), with whom I was paired, perhaps because they looked at me like I was some type of foreign specimen, or maybe because I wasn’t quite sure how to approach interaction with them. Should I try to be a friend? A teacher? A mentor? These were the types of questions flying through my head. After working with the kids for a couple of hours I realized that it was my responsibility and moral obligation to myself and the community to be all three.
Furthermore, I feel that participating in this type of volunteer serving learning is really putting the definition of Jesuit education and the motto “Men and Women For Others” into context for me. I graduated from a public high school, and although I was brought up in a Catholic household, we were the type of family that went to church about 5 times per year; Christmas, Easter, Ash Wednesday, the occasional Sunday when my dad would try to get all six of us together to do something as a family, and once a year for confession. For this reason, attending a Jesuit college was not one of my top priorities, but my experiences at Loyola thus far have proven the importance of Jesuit ideas and educating “the whole person”. My experience at St. Mary’s shed light on different lifestyles that exist in the world today, and how important this lesson in diversity is, in pursuing Jesuit higher education.
In addition, many of the literary themes we have examined in class overlap with the insight I gained and lessons I learned from my experience at St. Mary’s. When we discussed the roles of barriers in class, we concluded that they can be physical, mental, or emotional. I had to cross many of my own boundaries to interact with the kids, and they also crossed boundaries in opening up and being receptive to me. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” also illustrates an important theme to which I can relate as a result of my experience at St. Mary’s. Essentially, The man in the story is struggling to see the beauty in a birthmark on his wife’s face, because he believes her “otherwise perfection” (pg.346) is being overshadowed by the birthmark on her face. I feel that the theme of seeing the beauty behind something unique or defining such as a “beauty mark” is also applicable to the city of Baltimore. Often, people are so caught up with the idea of rebuilding and revitalizing the city that they oversee it’s beauty, diversity, and uniqueness.
A similar theme is expressed in Jane Jacob’s “The Life And Death Of Great American Cities”, in which the author explores the characteristics and intricacies that define cities and give them personality. It is this very concept, of embracing differences and diversity that is essential to our growth as individuals and as a society. Even helping the kids with simple tasks such as math homework or practicing vocabulary, for as few as two hours, helped them because it gave them a safe place. A place where they could ask for help, learn, or just talk without being judged by classmates or many of the family-related issues they face at home. Positive and encouraging messages such as those emphasized in the Year Of The City initiative should guide or actions and words. Just like we taught the kids to let their guards down for a little bit, and give others the opportunity to help them, we should not look down upon the city of Baltimore, but embrace it. By the same token, the volunteers like myself were faced with the challenge of opening up to the children, who need guidance and support more than anything else in their lives. We had the challenge of providing an environment where the students felt an appropriate comfort level in which they would reach out for help and guidance.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores a similar theme in her “The Yellow Wallpaper”, because it is not uncommon for people to believe that they are helping themselves by keeping themselves away and protected from perceived “dangers”. In the piece, the narrator suffers from depression and is thus quarantined in her home by her husband for her own safety. Perhaps by shutting her away her husband is taking away her opportunity to grow, and get help. Moreover, maybe it is the fact that people are inherently close-minded and in a sense “shutting themselves away” when they cast others off of patronize people and places for their differences. It was in effectively crossing these boundaries and seeing my time spent at St. Mary’s School as a learning experience from myself also, that made this experience particularly meaningful and positive.