Time, Memory, and Service Learning

     Both of the recent works we have read have had a strong emphasis on memory. More specifically, the relationship between them. Memory transcends time and time often alters memory. The two are interconnected yet constantly sabotaging each other. In Brown Girl Dreaming Woodson creates a collection of memories that are equal parts in-depth yet minuscule. Compared to the entirely of her life, the memoir captures so little. In class, we discussed the fleetingness of memory, and how we have to train ourselves to remember more. Now, as we are reading Date and Time we get this sense of how our past memories and our current reality mesh to create new conversations and new ideas in the present.

    In regard to service learning, I find it hard to connect our current conversations of memory to the students at Bridges. However, I will do my best to reflect on my experience so far. Recently, I've been helping middle school students with their math homework. A concept long-forgotten in my head. I haven't taken a math class in four years. Let alone reviewed my middle-school concepts. I can get the answers that they need for their homework, yet when it comes time to explain how I am struggling to find the words to articulate. Why does 7x3=21? Because it does. Because it's the same as 3x7 and you know that one? Whenever I feel myself get a little embarrassed at how little my brain tries to articulate math concepts, I am thrown back to my seventh-grade self, sitting in their shoes. Although I don't remember how my old curmudgeon of a math teacher taught me, I remember the frustration and the anxiety I would get for not understanding. So I let the students help me through it. I let them walk me through their thoughts and we dismantle them together. It's healing in a way. Like how in Date and Time there are conversations between the author's current self and past self, helping these students with math is much like me getting the help and understanding I didn't have back then. So if anything, those students are helping me. They are helping me overcome what I lost back in seventh grade. I am grateful for that. And I hope that by helping them is at least the littlest impactful for them as well. Although I am happy to help with math, I would much rather start doing things with some English students! At least that would play to my strengths. 

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