Yesterday was an emotional day at Shortridge. The Goodbye poem exercise truly awakened some of our student’s inner-feelings. In a way, I think it helped them express themselves and their feelings to a trusted audience. They bonded together and supported each other when they were down. One student I was working with wrote a poem about her mother and cried while reading it. Others broke down mid-sentence while reading aloud; however, the one encouraging aspect of the day is that they picked each other up. When one student couldn’t read, someone would read for them. If one student started to cry, they would embrace each other. It was an emotionally charged day, but I think we all grew closer (students and tutors) after experiencing this together.

Contributed by Emily Luc