My time at Hilo Rojo ends this Wednesday. With only a few days left, my thoughts have turned to processing this whole experience. I don’t think I’ll be able to fully process it until I get home and assimilate my experiences here to my life in Colorado. However, my hope is that I can use these last few posts to help me gather my thoughts as I bring closure to this experience.

I have been thinking a lot about the impact that I did or did not have here. Was my time worthwhile? Did I leave an impact? Did I somehow “change my small corner of the world”? In any big way, I don’t think so. However, I do believe that some kids went home happier at the end of a school day, because I got to be their teacher. I believe that some kids learned something that they would not have known had I not been here. I believe that some kids laughed and smiled and had more fun during their day because we got to share it together. Did I leave some sort of a little mark on the kids in Hilo Rijo? Little marks- I thinks so. Big marks- Hilo Rijo left on me.

The past few years, I have questioned whether I wanted to stay working in education. When I looked at our schools, I saw all the things broken about them. Parents with too much entitlement, teachers with too little respect, safety concerns every day in the forefront of our minds… the last few years have been tough. But, then I came here and I saw tougher.

Yes- our education system in America may be broken. But, when you have the chance to immerse yourself in someone else’s culture, you learn that you might not have it that bad. You learn that our broken system is actually better than many others. Our kids get to go to school, our kids get fed at school, our kids have supports like Special Education, our kids have textbooks and heat and pencils and running water- some things that we normally take for granted and some things which are part of a very complex education system. Here I saw kids who will never have those opportunities, and it breaks my heart. I see kids who are so smart but will never learn, because they don’t have the opportunity. I saw a really broken system where great kids will grow up and never able to follow their dreams, never be able to reach their full potential because those doors will never open for them.

So, when I return to my school this fall, I am returning with a different perspective. When parents annoy me or when I feel overwhelmed with the politics of education as opposed to the learning- it won’t anger me as much as it used it. I can keep the issues that we face in perspective as I see the big picture so much better. Yes, the broken things are annoying and frustrating and take up way too much time- but I didn’t go into this profession for those reasons, I did so I could help change a life.

Therefore, I am going home excited to once again provide an education to our children- to potentially continue to change their lives. There is a small corner of the world waiting for me back in Colorado… I am ready to come home with a renewed spirit that I do have the power to “to change my small corner of the world” – the corner right in my own backyard.