This summer, after a year of pursuing an English degree that somewhere along the way branched out into an English/History degree (double major for the win!), and writing article after article for the Bi-Co news, Bryn Mawr’s newspaper, I took a job at local prep school Northfield Mount Hermon as a teaching intern for their annual Summer Session program.

This was a bit of a pivot away from my usual journalism fare, but I took it in stride, helping teach English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and a class on community service for kids ages 12-17 from all over the world. Let me tell you, it changed my life.

Now, you folks already know I love kids. I wrote all about it last December, when I wrote in about the ski team I was coaching then. Yet this summer I took it a step further, bonding with kids in academic, athletic, and residential spaces through my triple roles as ESOL teacher, middle school swim coach, and residential staff member in the dorms.

Coming into it, I was terrified. I quickly realized that the job I was in for was not what I had initially been expecting; something along the lines of a camp counselor. Instead, I was thrust into a full-fledged teaching position, leading Community Service on my own while constantly wrangling teenage kids and their unique issues.

It was in that struggle, though, where I found the most space to grow. After two weeks, the initial anxiety began to subside, and I found myself ending each day with a feeling of satisfaction from a job well done. My teaching began to improve as well.

I taught my middle school Community Service class through the lens of youth activism, passing down my own knowledge of activism and social issues to the next generation, as well as facilitating their own research so they could feel confident to do activism work on their own. It was an immense task, getting up in front of the kids each day, but they were truly wonderful, each finding their own way to engage in the class itself and the practice of youth activism.

It was also in the dorm space that I found opportunities to grow. The first few weeks, I kept more to myself, detaching myself from the young girls that lived around me in hopes of protecting my peace. As time went on, though, I found it was much more meaningful to engage with the girls, instead of hiding from them in my room.

I began setting up friendship bracelet materials in the common room, or talking K-pop while I was on night dorm duty. Girls across the dorm flocked to me, vying for my attention and being their most raucous, true selves in my presence.

I could not possibly talk about my experiences at NMH Summer Session without talking about Rose. To protect her privacy, I’m using a pseudonym, so Rose isn’t her real name. Rose came to NMH Summer Session incredibly quiet. She barely had any friends, and didn’t really speak up in the ESOL class I taught. Yet day by day, something magical happened.

The girl who sat next to her, Aya (another pseudonym), struck up conversations with Rose, and by week two, they were best friends. Aya didn’t stop there, bringing other girls from both the middle school and high school programs together until Rose had a caring, supportive friend group to call her own. It showed in class, as Rose began to speak up more and even gathered the courage to read out loud a beautiful poem she wrote on the last day.

I’m not going to get into the details, but Rose has had a hard life. She had to leave most of her family in Afghanistan about two years ago, and has been living with her oldest sister and next oldest brother in Maine since then. Yet Rose has since flourished, in one year going from no English to the point in which she was in the most advanced ESOL class this summer. She is a beautiful writer, and a powerful poet, and I am in awe of her every day.

This is usually the part where I would impart some sort of knowledge upon you folks; some lesson I’ve learned in my life that I can then turn around to you. In some ways, this article is that, with me talking about how I was able to achieve something seemingly insurmountable in being a teaching intern at NMH Summer Session, and possibly the youngest teaching intern in NMH Summer Session history.

But I really, really don’t want to make this about me. I want to make this about Rose, and not because I want to pat myself on the back for being her teacher as she overcame this adversity, but because I want to shout her success to the world, and express my deep gratitude that I could be a trusted person in her life during this deeply transformative period.

Rose fills me with so much pride, and a deeper understanding of what it feels like to step back and watch the next generation shine. The truth is, I am getting older, and beginning to pull away from the person I was that wrote all the articles you folks loved. I am growing away from my identity as a teenage activist and journalist, and opening myself up to the opportunities that await me in the next, more adult stage of my life.

Yet I am not afraid, as I have seen this summer those who will take up the mantle of the work I have been doing. With people like Rose in the world, I know this work will continue.

Madeline Raymond is a former columnist for the Recorder and student at Bryn Mawr. She lives in Goshen.