A Pleasant Surprise
June 27, 2018
By Josephine Rosene, AmeriCorps Promise Fellow serving at Minneapolis Sanford Middle School
In April I had the opportunity to take a few days away from my host site to spend with my family on a family vacation. As it was my fourth month working at my host site with my focus list students, I knew it was going to be hard to leave my students for five days- we had already established daily norms and routines that I knew would be shaken upon my absence. I did my best to prepare my students for my upcoming absence, then I took my vacation.
When I came back to my host site after vacation, I had already prepared myself to encounter total chaos. I expected my students to have piles of unfinished or missing work, I expected stories of behavioral issues to come from administrators or teachers, I expected to see unexcused absences on my students’ records.
Much to my delight, I returned to my host site only to encounter exactly the opposite of what I had expected. My students had gone to school and to class, they had completed the majority of their assignments and class work, and there were fewer behavioral issues than expected. This experience gave me so much hope for the sustainability of my work with my focus list students and made me extremely proud of their progress and dedication.
From Voices from the Field, Summer 2018