Humility: Reflections by Lydia M.
I wouldn’t say I was cocky when I graduated from college. I just thought I knew something about the few things I knew. Writing, community service, teaching. These were the areas I felt comfortable with. My first month of service at my host site has humbled me, though, and it has reminded me of something a Comparative Asian politics professor said in class four years ago. We had started a unit about the history and politics of China, and as we slowly waded into the absolute ocean of Chinese culture, she warned us that the more we learned about China, the more we would realize there was to know. Our best hope for the class was to get a sense of the vastness of the field and how much we could never hope to learn. To become a student of China was to be humble.
Stepping into the role of Ink Spot (after school program) coordinator and volunteer coordinator at Lake Erie Ink: A writing space for youth sounds tidy enough. It rolls off the tongue, and it comes with a built-in service description. A quantifiable list that ought to end in 1700 hours. But beginning my job as the first AmeriCorps member at Lake Erie Ink has left me humbled and with a growing idea of how much I have to learn about teaching, about the complexities of the Greater Cleveland community, about the writing life, and about what it means to be a grown-up. That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed myself. I’ve felt welcomed in every conceivable way. My supervisors are caring and supportive. They take advantage of teachable moments and they support me in the ways I need to be supported. But the situation – the sometimes helpless feeling of being in charge without feeling like I ought to be – has humbled me.
Today, the last day of September, was an open house event that I have been working toward since I started my service year. And while outwardly, I was making last minute preparations, bustling around, and introducing myself to board members; internally, I was riding over the peaks and valleys of my own consciousness. At once, I felt nervous and proud, overwhelmed and excited. Read more…