Mahatma Ghandi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Although spoken years ago, those words bring truth to my experience at MORE School. Through the eleven months I have had the privilege to teach here, I have found my place in the MORE community and with my students.
One way in which this has happened is that this summer, I had the benefit of having a smaller class, making it easier to take trips with my students. These outings have included visiting the library and the Minnesota Zoo, museum visits to the Minnesota History Center and Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis, as well as service-related trips that consisted of picking up trash around the neighborhood.
Visiting the Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis - Sa Ka Paw Htoo, Xee Xiong, and Teacher Michelle
At the library, we did a three-week unit on book reports, the Internet, and using library resources. Since then, one of my students, Sa Ka Paw Htoo, is now using the library on his own every Saturday. He has even purchased his own laptop to do Internet researching and practice typing.
As a teacher, one of the best rewards is to see your students becoming more of the people they want to be and reaching their goals. I am very proud of all of my students and I am extremely honored to be a part of their journeys here in Minnesota. Although they thank me every day for teaching them, I remind them they have given me much to meditate on and be thankful for. A quote from St. Francis of Assissi sums up my experience with them, “For it is in giving that we receive.”
Michelle can be contacted at mjacobson85@gmail.com.
