This Tuesday I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer at my ICR site for the first time. I am volunteering on Tuesday mornings this semester at the IPS Newcomer school. This school is for students in the Indianapolis community who are experiencing their first year in the United States. Almost all of children are refugees or immigrants. I am helping out is Mrs. Latta’s art room for the semester.
I helped the kids with their art projects on pointillism for this unit. I spoke to kids from many different countries with many different cultural backgrounds. Many of the students speak little to no English so being in an art room with them is great because art is a language in itself. I was speaking Spanish with a few of the students, and mind you I am not very good at Spanish, when I must have messed up a phrase and a group of them laughed at me. Initially I was embarrassed, but then I realized that they must feel like I did every single day while trying to learn English. In that moment I could sense the children getting more comfortable with me and that mutual failures can bring people closer together.
In Tao Te Ching, I interpreted text 33 as you need to understand yourself before you can begin to understand and help others. I think this text is directly related to the somewhat embarrassing experience I had with the language barrier. Before I could even begin to understand what some of these kids have been through, I need to understand myself first and be able to make some connections to them.
This experience helped me gain an understanding of probably the most diverse community that I have ever worked with a little bit better. This community is diverse in terms of culture, childhood trauma, and places of origin. Even on the first day of class I improved upon my listening skills as a girl told me all about her picture she drew that represented strength for her using as many words as should could in English. We were able to use art through images to combat our cross cultural differences. I am looking forward to seeing the kids smiling faces next Tuesday morning.