The kid’s chatter is loud and scattered, their smiles bored but gentle, as they are every Wednesday. I walk into the room as my watch beeps 3:45, and try to help with the hustle and bustle of organizing our class. I search the swarm of faces for the familiar ones: Marian, whose received mechanical pencils for her birthday two weeks ago; Edgar, who comes every week and knows every answer; Griselda, who I gave a new pencil the week her stub broke; Darwin, who always takes more pieces of candy than he is supposed to. All us Hockaday girls stand at the front of the classroom while Mr. Abbo begins another one of his crazy stories, and I try to figure out the twisted connection he has made to today’s lesson so that I can re-explain it to the kids later. We pass out the worn, beaten workbooks, labeled with the child’s grade and sometimes name; there are not enough for everyone, but we must make due. A paper airplane flies across the room, someone discovers the scraping sound of chair against floor, and the sticky-sweet aroma of candy fills the room as snacks are passed out. It is only their ringing laughter that reminds me of the kid's eager thirst for learning.
It takes five miniutes to get to the Middle School from my High School. An hour and five minitues to enrich and touch the lives of someone else who needs it. Every week after school I return to those hallways lined with orange lockers and noisy classrooms, every week I find myself at the front of a classroom teaching material to kids not much younger than me. It can be tiring or difficult, but I know that what I am doing is helping the world by filling time with much needed education. I'm not to young or inexperienced; a ear to listen and voice to talk to are just as powerful as workbooks and digits. Every week, I leave that classroom with a feeling of satisfaction, having quenched a need of others that I recieve every day for granted.