Tutoring Begins Anew

Tonight was the first night of my new year at the after-school tutoring program at Back on Track.  My tutee Charles is now 10 and in fifth grade--and he is very proud of this, pointing out on several occasions that he is no longer in 4th grade.

Back on Track is a free one-on-one tutoring program.  Charles is one of four children in his family who come to the tutoring center; his parents are younger than I am, and don't make much money.  I try not to think about the challenges facing him now and in the future, focusing instead on his multiplication tables and on Connect Four.

At Northwestern--maybe even earlier--I worried that all volunteering is a band-aid that doesn't come close to addressing the underlying causes of poverty and inequality.  This was certainly on my mind in New York, when I volunteered for a similar tutoring program. 

I still worry about this.  But I've decided that the world would be even harsher than it already is if nobody stopped to volunteer.   That keeps me going, even if the long-term impact of my efforts will be small.  

Comments

[Eric]

I think I saw the picture of you with your tutee--looks like a very animated kid! I'm sure you'd agree that such volunteering helps jolt us out of our self-absorbed demographic bubbles; hard to imagine that a fifth grader could have parents younger than you.

As for whether or not volunteering is a band-aid, maybe it would help to just think of it is as pure giving and an expression of love. Whether it is Christian love, or Tolstoyan love, or even moderately self-serving love, it still has the capacity to transmit from a person-to-person level...which hopefully someday Charles will recognize and be able to give of himself as well. It's social welfare by accretion. And this individual love is far easier to articulate--and often interpreted as far more sincere--than the broader love for humankind. To me, that's the problem with underlying causes of poverty and inequality--it's always underlying and there's no agreed-upon genesis. Perhaps these days you're generally as secular as I am, but no doubt we can both agree that it is a deeply flawed world consisting of deeply flawed individuals (sinners, if you will), which renders it impossible for the truly utopic horizon many idealists and humanists dream of. Personally, I enjoy serving the homeless at a local soup kitchen.