Stories are always about telling others something they don't know, refreshing their memories, conveying emotions and ideas that haven't been thought about for quite some time, if at all. They're about entertaining others, about keeping histories alive, and about teaching a lesson. That's what this is about: sharing our own experiences to those younger than us, to better prepare them.
When I first heard about our Service Learning component, I was dismayed. I was terrible over phones and didn't interact well with children at all. I remembered being the age that we would be targetting well (5th-8th grade); I wasn't motivated in the slightest towards any kind of post-high school study, let alone a specific few jobs. How was I going to pull this off?
After some discussion and checking around, I managed to find someone I could easily worth with, someone that wouldn't cause friction while working: my sister. She was young, almost beyond the age bracket for the project, but willing enough; the first assignment caught her fancy. She'd done much crafting when she was younger and continued doing artsy projects throughout elementary school. We got started and began working together.
After gathering some magazines, we got to work on a collage. It was more work than I thought it would be; her choice "careers" of teacher, musician, and veterinarian were harder to find in the magazines I had collected than I thought. We spent a lot of time on the collage, finding pictures not only in the magazines but online, having to be creative and look for images that would work well on paper.
As we cut out the images and began to glue them to the posterboard for the collage, my sister had an inspirational moment. Although the entire posterboard was nearly covered by images, it was plain; there were only pictures, nothing else. She grabbed some kind of paint-in-a-tube set and we got to work using them to create words, borders, and little things that spiced up the collage. Her excitement was overwhelming.
What astounded me the most, however, wasn't the first project or her creativity during it; it was has she listened when we went over things, how dedicated a young child can be at times. I'm sure she'll soon let these incidents slip her mind, forgotten for many years; she's still young, and college and careers are far off. But I believe she'll one day remember these times and the feelings she had during the projects, and perhaps she'll remember this story, the experiences we conveyed and created together, and work towards those dreams she shared.
