It's All in the Details

This week I attended the training session for my service learning at Tunbridge Public Charter School, and spoke a lot about what types of roles we will take on it the school. We also focused a lot on understanding the backgrounds of the students we would be working with, and what types of relationships and interactions we will have with them.

This week’s readings share the subtle but common theme of details, noticing details, fixating on details, especially ones that might not be noticed by others, and what affect fixating on these details will have on others and our interactions with others. In “I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud” by William Wordsworth, the speaker describes how one day he came across a field of daffodils, and is so taken with the beauty of the simple scene he found that he thinks about it whenever he finds himself in a “vacant or pensive mood” (line 20). In “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two main characters, a husband and wife, find themselves so obsessed with the wife’s one small flaw that it becomes the focal point of an otherwise happy marriage, and they eventually go so far in their efforts to get rid of this imperfection, that the wife loses her life. Similarly, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is confined to her bedroom and becomes determined to “understand” the wallpaper, convinced there is some sort of pattern, meaning, or secret behind the wallpaper. Our narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper quite literally drives her to the point of insanity, taking over her marriage, and ultimately her entire life.

These readings are relevant to my service learning experience when thinking about the interactions I will have with the students at Tunbridge. I may come from a drastically different background than some of the students at Tunbridge, and I also may not know about their lives beyond my interactions with them during the school day, and may not necessarily know the effects that small aspects of our interactions might have on them. As depicted in the two short stories, sometimes something that may seem small to one person, may be a big deal to others, and can negatively impact their self-image or perception. Although sometimes our actions may be negatively interpreted, Wordsworth’s poem shows us that these small interactions can also be positive. Although many probably passed the daffodils without taking much notice, it meant something important to the speaker in the poem. This is the very reason that it is so important to engage with others through things like service and service learning: because something so small to us may make a significant impact on another’s life. When interacting with the students at Tunbridge, it is important to remember that even something as small as sitting with a child and working through an activity with them can help them in so many ways, making them feel cared for, instilling confidence in their abilities, and building their desire to engage more with others in the same way you have engaged with them.

This week’s readings, combined with my earlier service learning training, have reminded me why exactly it is so important to do whatever I can to make a positive impact on others, and to listen to them, and understand their stories.