Personal Narrative: My Experience Of Volunteering At Cove School

“You’re going to volunteer at your brother’s school for this week!” my mother shouted. I whined about having to go, especially since the Chicago Public School teachers were on and strike and these were my days to sleep in. Eventually I gave in and reluctantly got into the car, my brother in the back seat, on our way to Cove school.

My brother was different from the kids at my school. In fact, his entire school was unlike other “normal” schools. Cove school was a special education school, a perfect fit for my brother whom struggled with a reading disability. Other kids suffered from various symptoms that were more drastic than my brother’s condition. Taking care of my brother and teaching the kids at Cove brought up a newfound interest in

I didn’t realize how much patience I would need. Not only that, but sometimes they wouldn’t understand the way the lesson was taught and we had to find an entirely new way to teach the lesson so that the child could understand it. The issue was frustrating until I developed the patience and knowledge to understand their situations.

While volunteering at Cove I took on a lot of responsibility. Helping children understand certain subjects required a lot of tolerance and focus. It required thinking outside of the box to get them to understand addition or a sentence in a short story, but once they understood it the payout was rewarding. Seeing their faces light up and a smile replace the frown on their faces was satisfactory. Listening to them cheer and watching them jump around made me happy. Their joy made all the work worthwhile.

With all the frustration, patience, hard work and focus came a reward. Inside I felt better because I felt that I was doing something good for these kids and their families. I felt as if I was making the world a better place. I was teaching them the essentials needed to survive the real world. They felt successful and because of that I felt successful too.There was a happiness inside of me that I have not felt before. It made me excited to wake up every morning and come to Cove. I wanted to continue volunteering to help these kids