"I Like School"

On our second day in the village Khwamba, my groups enrichment activity was teaching the older kids about paragraph structure and planning. During the writing activity, many of the kids wrote about the importance of education and how much they enjoy learning. Three kids wrote the sentence “I like school,” one wrote a paragraph titled “Education,” another wrote about how much she wanted to be a teacher, and another wrote a paragraph titled “Importance of Education.” This surprised me because one thing that is common amongst most American kids is how much they don’t want to go to school. School was always a drag, the homework kept you away from doing what you want to do, and school lunch was terrible.

This made me realize how much we take education for granted on a daily basis. All of these children were eager to go to school, excited to get their paragraphs looked over, and even did it with a smile on their faces after they warmed up to us. I also realized how much I take school for granted. I’m an honors student at the University of South Carolina and I’m able to take classes so I can do what I want to do in life, but I take it for granted every day. Most students complain that they have class, we don’t like doing our homework, and we don’t even recognize how fortunate we are to be able to do have these opportunities.

The Malawian kids would jump at this opportunity and make the most of their time at school, which made me appreciate everything we have so much more. It inspired me to approach college with more gratitude and commitment. I want to become more involved in the college community and I am getting a good start at that as I will be a National Fellowships Ambassador for this coming school year. Now, I attack my assignments from the perspective of “I get to do this” rather than “I have to do this” and I hope that mindset sticks with me for the rest of my life.