Asking for help

We work in under resourced schools, no doubt. What I have been reminded of recently, however, is the amount that that can be addressed by simply asking for help.

First, I had a student's father come in for a very positive parent-teacher conference last week. The girl is wonderful to have in class, and meeting her father made it easy to see where she got it. At the end of our conference he looked at me and explained that their family had the resources to make donations to the school and would really be very glad to help wherever they could. Did I have anything that I needed? I took just a moment to think about this and responded honestly. I was having a hell of a time getting a classroom set of simple, four function calculators. He got visibly excited that I had actually said this and promised that I would have a set of 30 within the next week, as soon as he got into Albuquerque. At first I felt conflicted about letting this family make such a substantial donation, but when I was able to hand out calculators to all of my students today to work on trig ratios, I realized what a great thing this donation was. It was amazing that this family had volunteered and I felt good for doing my part and asking for help.

Second example, as I left the east coast last summer and put so many miles between myself and my family, they really wanted to support me and do their part to support this movement that I was joining. My dad asked me for ways that he could help this community. While I wasn't sure about how he could help in the classroom, I suggested that in this area athletic teams have little or no money to operate and the athletes might have a hard time buying equipment on their own. With all of his connections to the running community in New Hampshire and my new "Track Coach" title, my dad started a shoe drive. It has been incredibly successful. Within a week or so the Crownpoint Track teams will have 40 pairs of brand new spikes at their disposal, donated by the track community in Southern New Hampshire. Again, I'm overwhelmed by my dad's generosity and willingness to help out. I'm also excited though because all it took on my end was asking for help.

The schools in this area need a lot of help in a lot of different ways. While we can only do so much as teachers and corps members, there are a lot of other people out there, both in the community and from our home communities, who are eager and able to do their part. We need to do the best we can to ask for help and utilize these resources.