By LINDON DODD
Life is always teaching us that we are never really in control. If life were fair I would look like Brad Pitt and have Bill Gates’ money. Instead, I look more like Bill Gates, and fall ridiculously short of even Brad Pitt’s riches. Dec. 31 will mark an end to one of my life’s most enjoyable ventures and mark the beginning of a new and as of yet unknown journey.
For the past two years, I have been the 4-H School Enrichment program assistant and have had the distinct honor and pleasure of sharing time on a daily basis with the school children in 21 elementary school classrooms throughout Clark County. Together we have learned to plant and grow things, talked about ourselves and how to become better people, we have unmasked the magic of electricity and magnetism and shared various other bits of knowledge about things of which they were unaware.
Some kids were lucky enough to witness the transformation of an egg into a living chick in the classroom right before their astounded eyes! It has simply been the best two years of my life from a professional standpoint. For almost 30 years I worked for a paycheck in a corporate environment. For two years, I accepted a much lower paycheck that paid me much more in the form of job satisfaction and personal fulfillment.
I first and most want to thank the elementary school kids in Clark County. You have accepted me and made me feel like I can still relate to you with no hint of a generational gap. Elementary aged kids are the most honest and accepting people I have ever met. They will certainly let you know when they think you are wrong.
Most importantly, they always let you know when they appreciate anything right you do for them. If a warm smile and an occasional hug could be converted to a salary, I would be much closer to having Bill Gates paychecks over the last two years.
To the scores of teachers who have invited me into your classrooms over the last 24 months and the principals who have allowed me into your schools, I wish to offer each of you my heartfelt appreciation. Some of you have become very good friends. I have been party to witness some of the most dedicated and hard-working professionals that have ever accepted a task that can be most daunting and intimidating.
The first time I walked into a group of 100 kids in a large presentation room knowing I had to educate and entertain them was a terrifying challenge. At other times, I was in a single classroom and had to hold the interest of 20 or so young minds that collectively have an attention span roughly equivalent to a rambunctious young puppy.
I became a better educational assistant with each new day in the classroom and am certainly a better person for having many of your children who shared a bit of themselves with me on a regular basis.
Upon many occasions a student has asked me such things as, “How come you know so much?” and “Do you know everything?” I always used such obviously false assumptions to let them know how they can read and study and accomplish anything I have done so by the same method — taking the time to learn new things.
I have often stressed such ideas as to stop using the computer for games and realize that there is an unlimited wealth of knowledge that is at their miniature fingertips. I have tried to explain that there are few dumb kids and mainly lazy ones who simply haven’t put out the effort, energy and time to study.
The programs I shared with them were not consisting of lectures and stale reading, rather, mostly interactive presentations with hands-on crafts and projects. I was most often met with exuberance because my lessons were a respite from the everyday schedule. I knew early on that if learning could be fun most kids would jump on board.
I only had to somehow accomplish that goal for anywhere between a half hour to an hour at a time in a classroom. I can only imagine the challenge for the regular teacher to attempt that task all day long for five days per week. Only a professional educator can experience the exhilaration that I have over the last two years on a regular basis — that absolute moment a light bulb goes on an a child’s mind and the eyes twinkle from understanding an idea or a concept for the first time. Very few jobs offer someone that satisfying immediate feedback.
I do not know the future of the 4-H School Enrichment program. I think it is a wise investment for the kids. The county budget problems certainly have other more imminent issues and more essential services. Quantifying the extent to which educational programs enhance or affect a student is an impossible task.
As one of my colleagues stated, the overall education of any child is the result of input from many sources and a compilation of the efforts from those teaching starting with preschool through college graduation. Each positive addition is simply another building block in the educational DNA. The term enrichment is simply what is defined by Merriam-Webster — “the act or process of increasing one’s intellectual or spiritual resources.”
I have had many people inquiring as to my next move. As of this writing, my future is unclear and as always I will move forward in an act of faith. In the interim between searching and working I might put some effort into a writing project. I might revisit my musical-comedy script while still waiting for someone who is musically talented and would like to compose an original musical score with someone who is musically challenged to be sent to my door by fate.
I would hope that another opportunity will present itself to me where my talents and desire can be utilized in another manner as personally satisfying and meaningful as the last two years have been for me.
I just want to again thank everyone with whom I have shared the 4-H School Enrichment program. I have been richly blessed by the experience and have probably learned as much or more from the children than what I have been privileged to teach them.
I would like to leave them with one of my mantras I have shared with them in the classroom — there is no such thing as wasted knowledge. We desperately need to raise educated children for the sake of their future and ours.
For those who come from humble beginnings and being raised in an environment of poverty and ignorance, it is the only way for them to escape it — and to break the chain into which they were born.
As teacher/writer Sydney Harris once wrote, “The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.”
Lindon Dodd is an Otisco resident who is a freelance writer and can be reached at lindon.dodd@hotmail.com
