Get Involved – Get Engaged

Maureen Haqq, 8th grade Language Arts

David arrived at our middle school in mid-year dressed in black clothing with long dyed hair, and a scowl on his face. His former school career had not gone well. At our school he attended classes, did not create any problems, but other than art class was not engaged in anything. He was polite and quite bright, but didn’t put forth more effort than what was needed to “just get by”.

Our school was involved with an H2O for Life project and the excitement level was high. Students and staff had worked all year to raise funds to bring water to our partner school in Nicaragua. Our last planned event was “hat day” and would be followed by an all school celebration. I watched David as the event approached and asked him if he was going to pay $1.00 to wear a hat. He shrugged his shoulders and mumbled “I don’t know.” The following morning, he found me before school and handed me three posters that he had made and said, “I thought maybe you could use these.” The posters were beautiful and must have taken hours of work. I hung them in the most prominent areas that I could find. For the next few days I noticed that each time David walked by his posters, he glanced at them with a little bit of a smile. And on hat day? David wore a hat.

I don’t know if this event will change David’s life, but I do know that he had a chance to be involved in an activity that provided him an opportunity to feel good about himself. Incidentally, he moved on to high school, and continues to visit our school to deliver art work for our school newspaper. He is also involved in the H20 for Life project at his high school.

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