How Can We Do More?

My roommate Mikey Vogue and I asked this to John, the community coordinator at Hamilton Elementary here in La Crosse, after we had helped with cleaning the teachers lounge on a Service Saturday in February of 2023. He replied that they could use some Teacher’s Assistants for some of the Kindergarten teachers. Mikey and I accepted this offer and began working with one of the teachers as aids and tutors for 8 students.

I miss this experience more than any of the others so far and it was the hardest one to walk away from once their school year was over. I have always loved working with kids, enough so that I have been pursuing becoming a pediatrician since high school, so I knew this would be a great experience to have. I learned so much about what it’s like to truly work with kids as I helped them learn how to write, do simple math and interact with others. Mikey and I served as role models for them and they truly looked up to us in ways I will always remember fondly thanks to the wonderful card they made me and the dozens of art pieces that adorned the fridge in our apartment. Working with young kids was a challenge to pick up on, their perspectives of the world being so different from ours that we had to figure out how to get them to understand what we needed from them and figure out what they needed from us when they couldn’t find the words for themselves. It was a challenge, but I woke up completely excited when it was one of our days to go to the classroom and see the kids. There was even one day where I was given the opportunity to be a chaperone on their field trip to the children’s museum; by far the most difficult experience of all trying to keep four of them together and in my line of sight while also making sure everyone was happy and did what they wanted to do. I struggle to find the words to describe everything that I learned from this because of how much I learned and grew from being “Mr.Ben” to these students; all I can really say is that I will carry all of the knowledge I gained to my future career as a pediatrician to give my patient’s the best care possible and into the distant future role as a father to help make my future children great members of society.