Making a Little Big Difference

I was talking to two of my students yesterday about classes for next year, their majors, scholarships and fellowships. Both had looked at websites for scholarships, and read the biographies of the winners, of college students who, while maintaining the highest GPAs, playing varsity sports, and conducting research in molecular biology, create medical clinics in foreign countries, develop plans for peace between various warring nations, play first violin in the orchestra, write poetry, serve as the editor for the campus newspaper and win the prize for best thesis……

“How does anyone do all that, Dr. Chew?” my students asked me, pointing out that they could hardly go for a year to an “underdeveloped nation” and teach English in an orphanage: Most of my students have to work—to pay for college, to help out their families. They set up their schedules so they are able take care of younger relatives, or elderly grandparents, while their parents work the graveyard shift. If they go abroad, they have to work more to pay for it. Those who have gone to various places around the globe have deeply benefited from the experience. And yet, when I think of college students doing work to make a difference, it’s the many young women (mostly) and young men who have chosen to spend time with Charlie and autistic kids who I think about first.

There’s Charlie’s teacher. She had come over for a home visit on Wednesday and we talked about setting up an afterschool schedule for Charlie incorporating the use of his Language Master to prompt his speech. Charlie was running up and down the hallway—-thumping all over the wooden floor—out of excitement at his teacher’s visit and, in part to calm him, I had him practice cello, and his teacher offered suggestions and encouragement.

There’s Charlie’s speech therapist whom we’ve known for five years and who is among the very (very few) people who I feel completely at ease for him to be with for long periods of time. After meeting Charlie’s bus, I had to go back to work to hear honors students defend their senior theses. I drove off with Charlie watching from the sidewalk beside the speech therapist, whom he matches now in height. “Take your time, don’t rush,” she assured me.

My drive back to Jersey City was slowed by a bad accident—-part of a tractor-trailer had fallen across three lanes of traffic in the local lane side of highway 78 and cars, yellow schoolbuses, and tractor trailers were crossing the concrete median and driving on the shoulder thisclose to my car in the express lane—-and by another big rig carrying an OVERSIZED LOAD that had, very mistakenly, gone up the entrance ramp of the no-trucks-allowed Pulaski Skyway. Nonetheless, I was just in time to hear the third student speak about the change to a market economy in Bulgaria and the resulting economic crisis. He was eloquent and passionate: This student is from Bulgaria on a full scholarship and, while far from home, it was clear that his research was motivated by something deeply personal.

The roads were clear as I drove west towards home. Charlie was smiling and called out “get socks!” and “bye, see you next time” to his therapist. He had gone for a ride on his scooter, did speech exercises, worked puzzles on the floor and clicked through more on his computer, played some board games; whatever the therapist had requested, Charlie had done, and happily.While Charlie packed his backpack and put a Capri Sun in his lunchbox, I graded a stack of quizzes. I was pulling on my coat so we could stop by the pharmacy when the thought hit me: I had forgotten to ask the therapist to return the housekey I had given her.

I quickly called her cell. “Oh, I left it right by the door, along with the garage door opener,” she said. And there indeed was the key.

What would I do without her, or Charlie’s teacher, or Jackie who works in my office and can decipher my handwritten notes to her……… What would I do without their help, and Charlie’s?

As I drove up the hill towards the pharmacy with Charlie singing in the backseat , I thought about how the work that we do for those close by us—for those who are part of our daily lives, close to heart if not to home—how that’s the work, the service, the achievements that makes a real difference to the world, and how it’s work that lasts and grows.

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