Taj Taher 1

Essay 2 Community
Good morning Mr. Taj! chimed the cheery children. It was the greeting I was met with
every morning I stepped through the doors to the preschool in the basement of the small Seattle
church. The greetings consistency was matched only by my own response: breaking into the
widest of smiles as I was bombarded by bodies clamoring for hugs.
It felt great to be home.
During my freshman year of college I volunteered for Jumpstart, a program run by
Americorps. We were assigned to teams and charged with visiting a preschool in an underserved
or underdeveloped neighborhood twice a week to engage children in activities geared towards
bolstering literacy. This entailed reading books (although it was more like acting, with plenty of
funny faces and sound effects) and then having the children participate in a variety of games and
crafts related to the book.
When committing to the program, I felt certain of what to expect. I knew that the 300
hours I would spend in the classroom would provide me with an invaluable educational
opportunity of how to interact with and engage young children. I knew that by serving I would
be providing the children with enrichment they might not otherwise have access to and easing
the burden of the hardworking faculty. I knew that it would be an experience that would
relevantly aid my endeavor to become a pediatrician, as both a form of training and establishing
credibility.
While all those expectations came to pass, it became rapidly apparent that what I knew
hardly mattered as much as what I felt. For I could not have foreseen that within a few short
weeks of beginning, I would anxiously anticipate my visits to the preschool, a place where I
found myself consistently exuberant and unabashedly happy. How can I articulate the gush of
warmth that blossomed from my chest as the laughter of an entire classroom of children
blanketed me while I pretended to be a ballet-dancing hippo? How do I recreate the same surge
of manic energy as when we played Simon Says and I had three year olds doing the dance
from Single Ladies after shouting Simon says be Beyonce (nothing more comical than
preschoolers doing that has yet to be seen)? How do I convey the pride I felt watching my kids
go from not knowing a single letter of the alphabet to being able to read and write their own
names? How do I describe the bittersweet taste of farewell at the finish of such festivities, my
body heavy with children unwilling to ease their hugs and a heart yearning to never leave?
A community is a collection of individuals, but what made DH Fame the best of
communities was that by the end, we no longer gathered out of obligation. I came to love my

Taj Taher 2
teammates, the preschool teacher, and every last child I had the privilege of teaching. It is that
communal love which I will cherish above all else.