Final Service Learning Reflection #3

Jonathan Kozol mentions many of the situations I have been observing at the Easley Center as problems in America’s school system in Savage Inequalities.  He mentions that magnet schools, for example, are great for the kids to get into them because they take challenging classes and are prepared for college and encouraged to achieve higher education, but also says that it creates an environment for those who don’t get into one in which learning isn’t just a low priority, it’s not even on the list.  Also, magnet schools are given new buildings, materials, and the newest technology whenever they request it, but regular schools could ask for a new set of books every ten years, or for a new building since theirs has no heating or air conditioning, and either their request will be grudgingly granted or deemed unnecessary.  In one particular instance, a new magnet school was built in the area where regular school kids lived and went to school, and they had just requested a new building because theirs was falling apart.  And every day they had to walk past the nice, new building of the privileged, “smarter” kids on the way to their broken down classrooms, being constantly reminded that they weren’t good enough.

His main point, however, is the idea of being spatially separated in the city, which definitely happens in Nashville.  Numerous times I’ve been told, “Are you aware that you’re just five minutes from one of the poorest, roughest neighborhoods with the worst school in all of Nashville?”  And my temptation is to say, “Yes, do you live there?”  Because people admitting that there are neighborhoods that are at an extreme disadvantage at no fault of their own, and using it as a subject for gossip, not a reason to help these people out, is disgusting to me.  And it’s disgusting to Kozol too.  The town he looked at is even separated by a bridge, far away from the nice city where all the “good,” wealthy citizens go.  People avoid crossing that bridge, for fear of entering this awful town that is run down and barely breathing; and yet, what I would want to say to them is, “You should stay there sometime.  Because people do live there—are you aware of that?”  How can we as Americans, as humans, allow others to live in such a state that we would never even go near?

“Don’t cross 8^th, because you know what’s on the other side of it.”

“What?  More people?”

Final Service Learning Reflection #2

The Easley Center has four bookshelves in the small tutoring room, mostly filled with "reference" books and novels that seemed unrelated to anything the students would ever learn about, having strangely specific and prestigious titles about the development of birds, or a novel involving a forbidden love.  It seemed that they were perhaps gathered from garage sales and super sales at old bookstores, especially given their rugged, worn quality.  There were three encyclopedia series and a couple of dictionaries as well, but I couldn’t even remember the last time I opened an encyclopedia or even thought about using one.  I found the reading materials they had interesting and quite representative of the amount of help these kids probably received in school.  Many times, they would have some questions based on a reading they did, but not the reading, and it would be because the teacher didn’t make copies for them, or they didn’t get to bring their books home because the school didn’t have enough.  So I would struggle through trying to help them answer the questions on their homework, but there were some I simply couldn’t help with because I didn’t have the materials to do so.  I can only imagine how much harder it would be for their parents, who maybe didn’t receive much higher education, to try to help them with their homework when they don’t even have all the information required to do so!

The small space used for the tutoring room is also representative of the level of importance placed on doing schoolwork, because there’s a room that’s at least twice as large that is used as a ping pong/gaming room just across the lobby from the tutoring room.  The small room is cramped, filled with three large tables and a metal teacher’s desk and as many metal folding chairs as they can fit.   There’s a TV on a cart that never gets used, two storage cabinets that have some craft supplies and other random items, four bookshelves decked with dozens of virtually useless novels, and a collection of junk that didn’t seem to fit in the tutoring room, much less at the center.  Obviously it’s expected that not many kids will do their homework, or the room would be larger; they also don’t expect the kids to stay long, because in just half an hour I can feel parts of my body going asleep from the awkward positions I have to seat myself in just to fit all of myself in the small space I’m given.  The repeated crossing lines on the windows, gray walls, and fluorescent lights make the room feel more like a prison than a space for learning, and I find myself wondering when I can get out of there, just waiting for most of the kids to be done with their homework and hoping for just one of them to ask me to play with them.  Pathetic, right?  Sometimes I feel like I’m back in grade school, just waiting for class to be over so I can go play.  No wonder the kids feel the same way.

Final Service Learning Reflection #1

My literacy experience is similar to the experience these kids are experiencing, because some of them attend schools with teachers that don’t like their jobs, don’t care if the students learn or not, and are only concerned with the extracurricular activities they’re involved in.  I’m from a small farming town in the southwest corner of Missouri, where FFA (Future Farmers of America) is the biggest club, and Home Economics is the most important class.  There was a select group of kids that cared about their education and wanted to go to college, and I was part of that group, but the vast majority of kids took off school or only went to school for half of the day so they could farm with their family.  The kids at Easley might not be farmers, and they might not know a farmer, but football, basketball, and stepping are easily the most important parts of school for both them and their teachers.  College isn’t just a dream, it’s not even a thought that passes through anyone’s mind—except the kids at magnet schools.  The division that existed at my school between farmers and future college students exists at Easley between “dumb school kids” and “magnet school kids,” and it’s incredibly sad.

The main differences I noticed are the presence of magnet schools; I didn’t even know what a magnet school was until I took this course, and when I first heard about it, I thought that it would’ve been a great opportunity for me in school.  Be solely around people that want to learn and go to college, and the kids who don’t desire that can go to a school that focuses more on vocational classes.  However, I very quickly realized that this division helps out the magnet school kids, but ruins any hopes or desires the “dumb school kids” might have had for going to college.  Their chances of going to college are ruined before they even enter high school; at least at my high school, if someone decided their junior or senior year to suddenly care about school and try to go to college, they had the classes and opportunities available to try.  If a “dumb school kid” were to decide to try to go to college, they would have no chance, because the school they go to is not for college bound kids.  This affects their desire to study, and it shows when I tutor them.  And as I’m tutoring them, I can’t help but think, “Who ruined your zest for life, the desire for learning you could’ve had?”  And when I try to tell them that they’re smart, that they can figure out the answer on their own, they look at me as if to say, “No, I can’t.  You know I can’t.  I don’t even know how to try.”  And the defeat in their faces breaks my heart, because they’re so young, and they have their whole lives ahead of them, and already they’ve decided… it’s over.

Digital Storyboard

Easley Escapades #7 and 8

On Thursday I spent most of my time trying to encourage the kids to do their work, do it themselves, and do it well.  Usually after encouraging them a couple of times they're fine and will do the work so they can go play.  But that day we were having a particularly hard time getting them to be motivated to do work.  And the sad thing is, I wasn't terribly motivated to do work either, so that made it even more difficult to motivate them.  But after a little over an hour, the girl I was tutoring finally finished her homework, and it appeared that there wasn't anything left for me to do in the tutoring room.  There were three tutors there already and three kids, and one of them was an older girl who said she didn't need help with her homework, so really there were three tutors for two kids.  I thought having a two-to-one tutor-to-student ratio would be a little over the top, so when the girl I'd been tutoring asked me to go play with her, I agreed.

We played four square after she convinced some other kids to join us, and I quickly learned that four square had changed a lot since I was a kid.  They had things separate from just bouncing the ball into each other's squares; now there was something called "cherry bomb", where you had to jump out of the playing square.  If you were the last person to jump out, you were out of the game and the next person in line joined in.  Also, if the "king" or "queen" said "bus stop" and put their foot in a certain place on any line in the playing square, everyone else had to run up and put their foot in the same spot.  Again, if you were the last person to get your foot right next to the "king" or "queen's," you were out.  The "king" or "queen" could yell any of these things at any point when the ball was not in play, and they did so quite frequently.  Sometimes multiple times in a row, alternating between "cherry bombs" and "bus stops."  Personally, I found the extra running around completely exhausting.  However, the kids seemed exhilarated and energized by it, and often wound up rolling on the floor laughing (literally) either because of someone falling, someone being last and getting upset about it, or from the sheer enjoyment of playing the game.  And soon, I felt young again.  Someone would tell me I was out, and I would quickly give my rebuttal of why I wasn't out.  Whenever I caught myself doing this I would quickly straighten up, cease arguing, and state that I was out and step back in line, reminding myself that I was an adult now, and this was just a silly little game that didn't really matter.  Furthermore, I had real-life, adult things to worry about, and couldn't afford to waste my energies on child's play.

Oh how quickly the good die young.

Easley Escapade #6

At the Easley Center on Thursday I mostly spent my time tutoring and getting to know the kids I was tutoring.  There was one little boy in particular who was six years old, just in the first grade, and he asked me for help with his homework fifteen minutes before my shift was up.  I agreed to help him because he was working on learning to write/spell out basic words, so I figured it wouldn't take terribly long.  As we worked through the assignment, he would point to the picture, say what it was rather enthusiastically (apple!), then start to spell it.  After each letter he looked up at me for approval and once I nodded or said, "Yes, that's right," he would beam with pride and carefully draw the letter in the oversized blank (with dashes in the middle to distinguish upper case from lower case, of course).  Sometimes he would look up and say questioningly, "t?" (or whatever letter it was), searching my face for an answer with his large brown eyes.  I would either commend him or make the sound of the letter it was supposed to be ("puh, puh, puh, puh, puh"), and then he would say, a little more confidently, "p?!" and I would reply with a yes or a no, providing him with more clues if necessary.

He was an adorable little boy, but all I could think the whole time was that he was at the beginning of his life, and there was no telling where it would go.  Really, there never is any way to know how anyone's life will go.  And for a moment, his innocent joy seemed indescribably sad to me, because I knew that someday someone would try to take that away from him, and they might be successful, and he would know that for the rest of his life he would have to watch out for himself, perhaps by himself.

But each time he smiled at me I couldn't help but think that his joy was a beautiful gift to all those around him, and that for a little while, his zest for learning for the pure sake of knowing would inspire, encourage, and bring joy to everyone he meets.  So perhaps that childlike innocence; that love for life, every moment of it; becoming excited over the smallest of things, is really a blessing meant for us adults in the world.  Maybe, instead of feeling the need to educate the child and bring them back to "reality," we should take the opportunity to remember what that felt like and enjoy that sweet innocence that lasts for that short period of time.  The adults may be here to help the children grow up, but the children are here to remind the grown ups what life was like in the beginning, what it was meant to be, and that sometimes you can beam with joy over learning something simple, like how to write the word "apple."

Digital Short

Part of the ethnographic study we're doing is creating a digital short that addresses one aspect of our projects.  For mine, I'm using the headline "they're just like us" to develop the concept that even homeless people are "normal" people too, or at least "were" at one time.  My plan is to use a combination of audio from the interviews I had with homeless people and Belmont students, some instrumental background music, video from the sites where I interviewed the homeless people, and some images of homelessness/homeless communities available from Google Images.  I'm debating using a screen shot from the online homeless forum (mentioned in a previous post) of a question I posted and the responses I received.  I will need to determine if it really fits with what I'm trying to convey via this short.

Specifically, I'm going to use the interview clips that include questions pertaining to how homeless people were raised vs. how Belmont students watched their parents treat homeless people (when they were raised).  The first clip I'll play, probably with no visuals or the background music (though if I do visuals, it will be of a kid who looks spoiled), is Saw (a homeless person I interviewed) saying that he was a spoiled kid growing up, in order to relate him to the Belmont students.  Then I'll start the music/video of homeless people and continue the interview clips.

The purpose behind showing the sites where I interviewed the homeless people is to show a number of things:  1) these sites are less than five minutes away from Belmont, 2) they are areas most Belmont students drive past several times a week, 3) they're very "normal" areas with plenty of "normal" people around (therefore, why can't the homeless people also be considered "normal?"), and 4) to show the number of people that drive past without helping those begging.

I hope that this digital short will take away the veil that seems to exist over "normal" people's eyes, and once existed over mine, to help them to be able to see that homeless people are people too.  They aren't rodents, pests, or people who are intruding on our "normal" lives.  They're people, with a past, a life, and hope for the future (sometimes).  They deserve to live, and live well, too.