Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2008. As you can see Mattie was in the Halloween spirit. In addition, you can probably see stuff piling up all around our walls. The amount of items coming into our home while Mattie was ill was beyond overwhelming. However, given I was managing Mattie's care and needs, I had no time to sort through things, organize them, and so forth. This witch's hat was given to us years before by our neighbor. Mattie liked my neighbor's hat so much that she gave it to him.
Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.
- Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 44,748,141
- Number of people who died from the virus: 720,910
In the mean time, I tried a home remedy of baking soda, white vinegar, and boiling water. It definitely helps with the smell, but the problem remains.
Mid-day, I took Sunny out for a walk. He is definitely walking on all fours now, slowly, and with support, but he is doing it! Along our journey we found this cute turtle just hanging out in our neighbors yard.
Later in the day, I drove to Mattie's school for a meeting. The school's community service coordinator wanted to meet with me to discuss the school's connection with Mattie Miracle and ways for students to get further involved.
What I found fascinating is that in the service learning contact that students have with a community group/organization, it specifically says that the student can't obtain hours through administrative or clerical type work. This statement did not sit well with me, mainly because I can't think of any job out there in the real world that doesn't involve having to do some admin and clerical work. It is part of a professional's daily routine and I think an important task that students need to be educated and trained to do right from the beginning. Service learning should have a hands on component, certainly, but I think we are doing students a disservice by sugar coating the reality of work/a profession. Especially since the school is interested in cultivating students' interest in entrepreneurism and non-profit work. In many ways, I feel like I run a non-profit but also I am an entrepreneur. As with the inception of the Foundation, we incurred many personal (and still do) financial obligations and risks.
Running a Foundation involves a great deal of administrative and organizational skills, skills I think are worth understanding, learning, and having an opportunity to practice. Yet this type of grunt work, I am sure is not attractive to the average teenager. In fact, as I told the school today, the teen age group is not my favorite to work with, mainly because it is hard to capture their interest, attention, and focus. They are pulled in so many directions with school demands, not to mention social media, and frankly developmentally they are in a place that typically revolves around through own self identity and needs. So in essence NOT a good match with service learning.
There is also the debate of whether mandating service learning is a good way to inspire service. When did service learning become part of a high school curriculum? It certainly wasn't when I went to high school, and yet guess what?..... I did a lot of community service as a teenager. I did not get credit for it, and it did not impact my grades. I understand why schools try to integrate this into curriculum, but at the end of the day, I do think the service learning experience becomes an after thought. Or just something one has to complete in order to graduate. So despite good intentions, I don't think the requirement actually inspires one to be more community minded, giving, and to volunteer. Which makes sense, because how many of us enjoy something or are passionate about something we are required to do?
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