Navigating my service journey at AMASE

Throughout the last two years of my high school career, I worked with an organization called Academy of Music and Arts for Special Education. While initially starting at AMASE, I was nervous because I had no background of working with the neurodiverse community and I hadn’t heard much about the community beforehand. Because of this, undergoing the training process of AMASE really helped me gain an understanding of how to maximize working and teaching the neurodiverse community because I learned from other students about their tips and experiences. I think it was initially difficult for me to step back and listen to what my students wanted to do. Sometimes I would push to practice the music, but the student would rather just talk, so I had to learn to respect that they know what is best for their learning that day. I think what was rewarding was building relationships with my students. It took almost 6 months for my buddy to fully recognize me and call me by my name, so when the moment came where my student recognized me, I felt so satisfied because that meant that I had been making at least some kind of impact on his life for him to recall me. I think for this semester, Water Drop will be a very different experience. It doesn’t offer the chance for me to build a long term relationship with someone like I did at AMASE; however, I feel that with Water Drop I will reinforce the skills I learned from AMASE about listening because I’ll have to orient myself to the unhoused person’s story and their specific needs that may not just be clean water. I hope that with Water Drop I can learn about project based organizations and learn about how I can reach out to this side of the organization if someone reaches out to me about a particular need they have. I’ve heard the recurring single story of unhoused people being on the streets because of drug addiction and laziness but I know that I have to keep my mind open to the fact that this stereotype really isn’t the case.