A few months ago, I began volunteering at a Salvation Army Facility, about a 20-minute drive from where I live. The program, a Chinese and music school, was, in truth, more a childcare center than an educational institution, with the responsibilities of volunteers being not only to assist the students in class, but also outside the classroom during lunch and break time. I thought that this was a great idea – doing volunteer work at the facility would provide me with volunteer hours, allow me to meet new people, and make me feel more productive, helping the community instead of sitting at home.
On the first day of the program, after sitting through hours of presentations and having gotten my indigo blue sweater and polo shirt, I was thoroughly excited.
The morning Mandarin class, being relatively unremarkable, went by in a flash.
After eating lunch, it was time for the afternoon classes. As processions of students slowly materialized through the sea of yelling voices and shuffling feet, line by line, they made their way up the stairs to the classroom. However, I was not accompanying these students to a classroom.
I had just been informed by my supervisor that two students had been left behind in the cafeteria, and that they had been a “nuisance”.
When I went back to find them, I noticed that they were both teary-eyed, their hands wiping away bitter tears; they had just been in a fight. I grab their hands and begin to lead them up the stairs as they stare at each other menacingly, wiping away at their reddened, pudgy cheeks with the back of their hands from time to time. As we reached a landing in the stairs, one of the students suddenly surged out of my hand, and lunged silently towards the other student.
I froze.
Think! What should I do…
The other child covered his face with his arm to protect himself.
I took a step forward, putting myself between the two students.
The student who had initiated the struggle, aiming for his foe, was now met only by my back, presenting a firm defense against his aggression.
I grabbed his hands, preventing him from performing any more offensive maneuvers.
Disaster abated.
I looked to the right, at the student who was now trying to push me out of the way to reach his adversary in self-defense, and I grabbed his hands as well, leaving him struggling to pull free.
“Stop it. Please don’t fight with each other… it’s not nice.”
Slowly, the student loosened his grip on my arms, and to my surprise, began crying profusely. A fresh stream of liquid poured forth from his eyes and down his flushed cheeks, dripping down to the ground with unmatched delicateness.
I turned around, and found that the other student was similarly crying. I put an arm around both of them and led them up to their classroom for an afternoon of piano classes.
Although the rest of the day passed without incident, that event stuck in my mind. I had worked with children before, but I had never seen such a violent confrontation. I didn’t even know why they were fighting.
But one has to ask: Does that really matter?
Wars have broken out all throughout human history over broken egos and personal vendettas. What I did on that day was certainly not what I should have done; I could have had another volunteer come with me and escorted the two students up separately; I could have distracted them by chatting with them about what they were excited to learn. Furthermore, this was something seemingly inconsequential, something to be frustrated or annoyed about.
However, it is through these underwhelming experiences that we come to the most profound conclusions.
Having been through this experience, I now have a better understanding of something that is indescribable, an almost tactile sense of the power of human emotion, and yet, a deeper understanding of the soft underbelly of our innate humanness, our incorruptible spirit, merely hiding beneath our multifaceted shell of emotions.
It’s not about the conflicts that we experience, or about the ones that we failed to prevent.
It’s the little things that matter.