By Marcos Macias, AmeriCorps Promise Fellow serving at White Bear Lake Area High School, North Campus
On the Tuesday before semester break one of my students came to me with a request. She had trouble articulating what she wanted from me initially. She ended up saying that she shared a document with me for some reason. Her friend noticed that she was struggling and said that she needed help editing her final paper for one of her classes. I happily obliged and told her I would look at it after school when I had time.
Several hours later I decided to open my email to check her paper. To my surprise I saw that she shared a document titled "Thank You Letter". Oblivious as I am I thought that the letter was for a teacher and she needed my help writing it. It turned out that she was writing this letter for me in order to thank me. In the letter she expressed that I was one of the few adults in the school that genuinely meant it when I asked her how she was doing. She really appreciated that I was able to jump in and help students during AVID time even if neither of us knew what was going on. And most of all she said that she welcomed my attitude towards the students- how I treated them more as equals than as students.
I feel as if that is the main goal of the Promise Fellow position as a whole. It gives us the opportunity to empathize with both students and teachers and bridge the gap between these two roles. All throughout reading this I had a giddy smile on my face. It is rare that a student will express their appreciation towards you to your face, but when they do it makes it mean so much more.
[From “Voices From the Field: Reflections from Minnesota Alliance With Youth’s AmeriCorps Members.” Spring 2017.]
