Great Stories
Montana Campus Corps:
College Students Meeting Critical Community Needs
A Lesson on Responsibility by Madeline Levesque

As a volunteer in the classroom, I worked with a student who was repeating English I for the third time. Jim (his name has been changed) was often frustrated with the repetition in the curriculum, and understandably so. My supervising teacher and I created alternate assignments to engage Jim's interests and encourage him to keep coming to school. For a while, Jim turned in assignments pretty regularly, or was at least willing to complete the assignments and turn them in late. This positive progress led my supervising teacher and I to trust Jim to go read independently in the library while we taught the English I class. When we discovered that Jim was skipping class, I had to tell Jim that the priviledge had been revoked, and he was expected to be in the classroom now. I appealed to Jim's sense of responsibility, and encouraged him to see that accepting responsibility is part of becoming an adult. Jim did return to class and continued to show great progress in his attitude toward school and his accomplishments in the classroom. When I finished my term of service, Jim asked me not to forget him. I told him that I wouldn't. Jim taught me how to respect my students as individuals, and that when I seek to understand my students' unique needs, I am better able to serve them.

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