“Miss Abby, you listen to Drake?”

“Well sure, I’ve heard of him.”

“But you listen to his stuff? Like, you be singing it in your car?”

“Not exactly, no…”

“You like Lil Mouse?”

“Who?”

“Aw come on! What’d you listen to?”

I frantically search for the name of an artist this fifteen year old has heard of. R&B, hip hop, oh shoot what have I heard on the radio lately… “Beyoncé?” I venture.

“Oh.  She’s okay.”

I breathe a sigh of relief.  I’ve passed the test—for now.

This summer, I’m teaching middle school at the Salvation Army Kroc Center.  My students spend their mornings in summer school, either because they’re struggling during the year, or because they failed a semester and are hoping to make up the credit.  Then they come to me for a couple of hours of math tutoring (I know, I know.  Insert English major joke here), and we finish up the day with something fun: archery, swimming, board games, or even cooking class.

My students all attend Grand Rapids Public Schools, and they’re all black or Latino.  Most have parents who work odd hours, picking up second and third shifts each week.  They’ve got lots of little siblings.  They’re interested in music and cell phones and sports and the opposite sex.    They still think cartoons are cool.  They are so over school uniforms.  They’ve heard that this year’s football team is going to be unstoppable.

I love teaching at the Kroc.  I get to hear about music I’ve never encountered, family arrangements I’m unfamiliar with, and school culture I never experienced.  I never knew these students when I was in middle school.  Maybe a few of them existed at my private Christian institution, but I certainly never hung out with them.

 **

Two robins are singing a call and response near the treehouse.  The gates of the Meijer Gardens have closed to the public, but a few dozen parents and kids have come in for a special event.  Wheelchairs and custom-built strollers line the pathways of the children’s garden, and a chorus of unique voices and screeches and uneven footsteps joins the birds.

I volunteered at an art therapy event at the Gardens this week.  Kids with mental and physical disabilities roamed the children’s garden playing with boats and making sandcastles and learning about sculpture or animals.  My cart, featuring a variety of real animal furs, was a hit.  It was engaging for many of the kids to feel the different textures of the furs or to try to guess which coats belonged to which animals (skunk was especially easy, mink not so much).

The range of ability levels was fascinating.  Some kids had clearly studied animals at school or had a special interest in them—they guessed every fur correctly, right down to the tricky white tailed deer.  Some kids didn’t talk, just felt.  Some squawked or babbled and buried their ears or noses into the furs.  Some were just too timid to come up to the cart.

I loved volunteering at the event.  I got to interact with a type of student I don’t often encounter and watch some nontraditional learners do their thing.

**

This week I’ve been thinking about diversity.  It’s an overused, and thus often ignored, word in our society, but there’s really not a better one to replace it.  I crave diversity.  I love my job at the Kroc and opportunities like the art therapy night because they allow me to run into a whole new set of people and experiences.

I don’t think I’m alone in this.  I’ve been watching my friends slowly scatter across the country (even hitchhike across it!) and take up jobs I never would have expected them to.  They’re taking trips and learning new hobbies and meeting new people.  They’ve all been in college for at least the past four years, and it’s really time for something new.

But in the midst of all of this, I’ve decided to stay in Grand Rapids.  Initially, I wasn’t sure what prompted my decision.  I had grandiose plans my sophomore and junior years to get a job in some obscure school district in Maine or even to move overseas for some completely new encounters.

This year, though, I decided to stay.  I’m still looking for diversity—maybe an alternative school or a downtown charter—but I’d like to find it close to home.  I want to find something new in the old.  Or rather, the familiar.

I get some skeptical looks when I tell people I like Grand Rapids, and that I’m hoping to stay.  They seem disappointed, almost, that I’m not “branching out” or “moving away from my comfort zone.”  Like maybe they want to say, “Didn’t Calvin teach you to go out into the world and reform it?”

I’ve decided to ignore it and make peace with the familiar.  It comes down to personal preference, I guess, but do we really need an adventure every other day of our lives?  That sounds exhausting.  And really, the moment you find some new, diverse experience and spend a week immersed in it, it’s no longer new.

I think the harder task by far is to settle down in the familiar, to create routines that still make us happy and to find something exciting where we may not have seen it before.

4 Comments

  1. jenn langefeld

    I think there’s a lot to be said for returning to what you know, and finding the challenges within it, going to what is unknown amidst what is familiar. Reminds me a little of the Eudora Welty quote: “A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.” Not that what you’ve described sounds sheltered! But we can be daring, seek adventure, and find new experiences, even in the places we already know. Good for you.

    Reply
  2. Sabrina Lee

    This reminds me of Jake Schepers’s encouragement to “valorize the quotidian.” Lovely.

    Reply
  3. Annie Williams

    This is wonderful, Abby, the concept of “making peace with the familiar.” Going/staying home does arouse skeptical looks–and sometimes the “what’s after this?” question–but it need not insinuate complacency or settling. Lovely.

    Reply
  4. Sarah VanderMolen

    Love the post! I still am struggling with this idea. I never thought I’d be working in GRPS, but I want to stay!

    Reply

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