90 Minutes at a Time
July 2021: the summer before my freshman year of high school.
My older cousin parked across the street from an apartment complex — the place where I'd be spending the next two hours earning community service hours. I looked around the neighborhood as I crossed the street. I'd sometimes driven through the Vickery Meadow area on my way to Northpark Mall, but I had never actually walked its streets. Kids in bare feet nimbly wove through cars on scooters with a hand in their pockets. A mother carried a baby in her left arm, held hands with her three-year-old on her right, and gave her third child a piggyback ride. I was only two miles east of the I-75 I frequented, but the area looked like an entirely different world to my 13-year-old eyes.
I pushed open the front door of the first-floor lobby. The room buzzed with fluorescent lights overhead and kids squealing as they played tag around tables. Ms. Alysa greeted me at the door and sat me down for orientation. She explained the structure: read the Bible story of the week, give the student a timed literacy check, sprinkle in a decodable or two, and maybe open the grammar workbook if they were up for it.
The orientation took 20 minutes. That's it? Am I qualified to teach now? I scanned the room. Some students were my age. Probably older than me. Definitely taller than me.
I had no experience, no training, and most importantly, no idea how to teach literacy. There was no sense of purpose or calling. I joined Refugee Resources to earn community service hours and add another activity to my resume. I thought of what my mom had said earlier that day — she came to America as a refugee herself and told me she could relate to the people living here.
"It's like you're mentoring me in English," she said. At the time, I thought she was being dramatic. I was volunteering for an hour and a half a week. How much could I really change anyone's life, 90 minutes at a time?
After a year of mentoring with that superficial mindset, I met Tuan*. When Ms. Alysa introduced us, I did a quick mental assessment: second grader, quiet, already knows the alphabet — score. An easy student.
I was so wrong. COVID protocols were still in place, so plastic screens separated us across the table. The language barrier made us feel even farther apart, and our masks muffling our voices didn't help. On top of all that, Tuan pushed my patience to the limit every session — it seemed like we couldn't agree on anything.
I asked him to read aloud. Tuan preferred to read in his head. I told him to sound out longer words syllable by syllable. Tuan would skip half the word and hope I wouldn't notice. When I pulled out the grammar workbook, he rolled his eyes and put his head down on the table. At times, he had me putting my head down too. I forced myself to remember the saying: "God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers."
I thought being a good teacher meant controlling the room and getting immediate compliance. But my teachers at school were adults, decades older than me — and that was my problem. I was asking for respect I hadn't earned yet; I was just a teenager teaching another child. Once I stopped pretending otherwise, our mentor-mentee dynamic turned into a friendship. Over the next four years, Tuan and I grew up alongside each other, and we're pretty similar. We both wake up early for school. We both complain about homework. We both waste time scrolling on Instagram and TikTok. We share the same sense of humor and the same instinct to procrastinate.
Across hundreds of Tuesday nights, the thing I will forever remember about Tuan is his attendance. Though he has progressed exponentially in his literacy skills, he hasn't yet mastered English — but he is always waiting in his seat when I walk through the door. Rain or sunshine. Bad mood or good. Long school day or not. That consistency changed my understanding of education: true progress in learning comes from repetition and dedication, not innate intelligence. Ironically, teaching made me a better student myself.
Fast forward four years: our Reading Circle program has moved into the Northwest Community Center, has a growing list of refugees who want to join, and even has a police officer who greets you at the front door. I'm no longer a freshman — I'm graduating from high school this week, and I won't be in town to mentor anymore. So here's a quick letter to my best friend of four years.
"Tuan, you're a smart kid. Keep learning. I hope that one day you can read this little reflection without a single mispronunciation or mistake. I know you'll probably struggle the first time, maybe at the very first paragraph. And I also know that no matter what, you'll keep trying until you can recite it from memory. Thank you for not being an easy student. Thank you for testing my patience. Thank you for changing my life. 90 minutes at a time."
Written by: Doan Nguyen
Edited by: Emily Thompson
*Name has been changed to protect privacy.