Karen's City Year

The latest

2006-11-25T00:44:00.000-05:00

So, I'll just continue this from where I left off in my last post...

Last Wednesday was 18 minute networking, which allowed me to pick the brains of City Year alum about, well, my own future. I think I've pretty much decided on doing a Senior Corps Year (the next step above Corps Member). This really means I get to have another year to delay making long term plans and basically fuck around. Hurray! In honesty, I hate making long term goals and plans, because something always changes and I end up disappointed and confused with what I had done to accomplish now moot goals (case in point, my half-filled out grad school applications). I still find it really funny that I can have this attitude and still be the control-freak that I am.

On Friday, we did service at The Greater Boston Food Bank. It was all sorting food and stuff like that. My specific job for the day had been "runner." Basically, I went and got things or put things back... I had made a sarcastic comment to my Senior Corps (who was also a runner) that "We should stretch before we start." To which his response was "Ya know, we're not actually running." I got shot down on one of my few attempts at sarcasm... I guess this is what happens when you make it known that you don't get sarcasm. But yeah, it was okay. I'd rather paint or landscape... especially because the weather has been AMAZING lately.

I also found out on Friday that I got Developement Team for CYFK. Basically, I'm gonna learn to in-kind... Which means that I'm going to be making phone calls to get donations for the February and April camps and then track everything. I kinda knew it before, but documentation is kinda my thing. I do it well and I enjoy it... I've been told that means that there will always be a place at City Year for me... That's really dangerous.

Saturday, more service. I got to meet the City Heroes (High School Students that I'll be mentoring). We put together literacy folders for younger kids. It was only 4 hours and only 3 of that was spent with the City Heroes, but it's cool. I actually think any more would have been a high pressure situation for me... One of these days, I'll master the art of small talk.

Obviously, because of Thanksgiving, I had a short week. Monday was exciting for two reasons. 1) Service was postponed at the Mason, which meant I had time to lesson plan and didn't miss Step. 2) I got to meet my mentor. She works up in HQ, something to do with developing CMs into staff and then integrating them with external people. This is cool since I would like to be developed into at least a Senior Corps - if not further. Tuesday was a usual day... I got observed in civics, which went fine and my 6th & 7th grade teacher offered me a job as a nanny to her 1.5 year-old... I turned her down, at least for now.

I always feel weird over long weekends and breaks... Something about having my routine messed around with. I don't want it was (the weather, change in rountine, something else), but I had a headache for almost 48 hours in a row. I think it's gone now, but I'm not gonna push it. I have some cleaning and an application for a leadership academy to fill out. I'm such a work-a-holic.

A long short week

2006-11-14T21:44:00.000-05:00

So, last week, it was a 4 day week (woot Veteran's Day)... However, it ended up being a rather long week (at least it felt that way).

First of all, I caught the cold from hell. By the end of the week, I had basically completely lost my voice. It was rather ineffective in attempting to teach and make little kids be orderly. I rested up over the weekend and am back to normal :-D

Wednesday was ridiculous. First, my boss made the announcement that she's taking away our lesson planning time on Mondays and making us go to afterschool instead. Now, some of my teammates aren't using their Mondays for lesson planning and they certainly should go off and do service during that time. But I've already stayed late planning the past 3 weeks in a row. I don't mind staying late in the office, but I can't exactly be there until forever. Second, the licensing person came to my afterschool. So, while Gal & I ran PT with the youngest kids, Red made a mad dash around the school, making sure everything was in place so as not to get us shut down. Yeah, that was stressful enough. Towards the end of the day, a kid had a seizure in front of the licensing agent AND a group of kids. After all of this, we still had to go to a team dinner in JP which went until 10pm (i.e. I got home after 11pm and had to wake up at 5:45am the next morning). Wednesday night, needless to say, I got to suffer with the ill-effects of stress.

But, of course, not everything's bad. Even though there isn't much for me to do with my new 6th grade class (because they're the "Advanced" class), they're great kids. They sing to start every class and are generally polite and well-behaved. My civics kids are a bit rambunctious, but they are super-eager to learn, so I forgive them. Even my 7th graders aren't misbehaved. I somehow ended up with a bunch of middle-school kids who are actually well-behaved... And yet, maybe it's just that I've gotten along really well with middle-schoolers all along and this is no exception.

So, the beginning of this week is looking good so far. Monday, we performed PT at the EPA conference, which was fun. We also had to listen to a really boring econ lecture on the development of brownfields, which was fairly boring and resulted in even my bosses cracking jokes. Finally, we got to do service at my afterschool. We picked up glass and did some other landscaping. I absolutely love my afterschool and was so happy that we got to help out there... We'll even be back to some work in their library and paint some murals. Afterwards, of course, I stayed at the office until 7pm, lesson planning *sigh*

Today was pretty normal... I don't get to say that often and I'll take it. The one humourous story from today is that Red & Gal's 8th graders think that they're dating... yeah, I laughed forever about that.

I have 4 more days left of service (woot 6-day week), but we have a lot of service days, which are ALWAYS fun. And then, next week, we only have 2 days of work... hooray!

More changes...

2006-11-05T21:35:00.000-05:00

Monday was my first day of actually prepping for a full course-load. It wasn't that bad and I felt like I could manage prepping 2 or 3 chapters every Monday...

That was until Tuesday rolled along. I arrive to my meeting with my civics/ESL teacher only to find out that the schedule has been changed... YET AGAIN! So, I've had my schedule changed now 3 times in a month. I remember a time when that would have severely frustrated and caused me a lot of anxiety. Now, however, I found myself laughing... the situation with Dearborn is the funniest thing ever. And yet, I'm not a student there. My success in future education doesn't depend on having a stable school now... my students, however, may be adversely affected by it and that does worry me.

Alright, so, at least a solution was arrived at reasonably quickly this time. I will be with 7th grade geography, then 8th grade civics/ESL, and then 6th grade ancient civilizations. Yeah, I now work with every grade from Pre-K through 8th. This is actually pretty awesome. If I get the City Heroes team leader, I'll then work with every single grade... *crosses fingers*

In afterschool, we started the PEPSI program this week. Parts of it worked really well and parts worked less well. I just hope that the kids got it and start using good sportsmanship. In addition to our sportsmanship stuff, we also have to prepare for a Nutrition and Wellness event to take place the last week in November... Yeah.

In final news, my classroom partner left City Year... that's all I'm gonna say here.

And so things have started actually happening and I've gotten into the swing of things, despite being moved around a lot. I'm really happy to be with City Year and I think I'll probably end up doing a second year.

Insanely busy week!

2006-10-29T21:55:00.000-05:00

Break down of the week:
Monday: We spent the morning assembling laterns for a festival in Jamaica Plain. I also did some lesson planning for my civics kids.
Tuesday: Meeting with the Dearborn administration about the classroom situation. I finally got my classroom assignment: two 7th grade geography classes added to my 8th grade ESL/civics class. I'm so happy I finally have a stable classroom. I've also been assured that I'm staying here permenantly. YAY!
We also had a meeting with the head of our afterschool where we proposed the PEPSI program (Physical Enrichment Program Sportsmanship Initiative) and it was excepted with open arms. Another YAY!
Wednesday: I had to plan two lessons in the morning and help run the PE program at afterschool. Probably the least stressful day of the week.
Thursday: I started teaching in my 7th grade classroom. I'll be pulling small groups aside and working with them on that day's lesson. It was also parents, friends, and family night at City Year (kinda like a parents' night at school). My mom, apparently, is more confused about City Year now than she used to be. I don't know how to make anyone understand it... There are just so many components to it and I never feel like I do it justice when I do attempt to explain it all.
Friday: AmeriCorps Opening Day. It was a lot of fanfare and I got to go on a tour of the State House (something I had never done, despite living in Boston all my life). I actually I had a lot of fun. And then, there was paperwork. I went back to the office and did about 3 hours worth of paperwork... wow.
Saturday: Make A Difference Day! We did service at the Middle School Academy (a school for troubled youth) in Dorchester. We painted in almost every room in the entire building. I got to paint a mural of the Boston skyline. I had never painted a mural before and was, well, rather nervous about my artistic ability. It turned out awesome! And now, I'm overly proud of myself.

And yet, not only did I survive this week, but I also came out relatively okay. Even though, there was a lot of stress and a lot to do, I managed it. I feel like I'm finally at the point where stress doesn't paralyze me anymore. It still got to me, but I handled it much better than I would have in the past.

Still waiting for service to start

2006-10-22T15:32:00.000-05:00

I took a week off from posting, because, well, last weekend was unduly stressful. Ironically, taking time off from City Year to spend 3 days at Hamilton for Alumni Weekend made my life worse... Let's just say, ex-boyfriends suck... a lot. While at least Alan left me alone, Wex decided to be an immature jerk and start a screaming match that all of Babbitt heard. It truly showed me just how much I've outgrown college and am so much better off with City Year/any group of more mature, idealistic individuals.

At the end of the week before my Hamilton visit, we had a meeting with the middle school principal, the civics teacher, and a ESL teacher who taught one civics class. There was also some talk about connecting with the 7th grade social studies curriculum. Things were looking promising. It looked like I was finally going to get a chance to get into the classroom and teach.

This past week, I somewhat got to. I arrived on Tuesday to find that I was not permanently assigned to a full-time civics teacher. I had my definite assignment in the ESL class (thanks to my SHINE experience/certification), but that was only one class period a day. I'm loving my ESL kids (I'm assigned to about 5 8th grade boys... which is surprisingly working out). But yeah, I spent Tuesday observing a class that was not mine.

Thursday, I arrived at the school still not knowing where I would be ending up. Last minute, I was told that I would be in a 6th grade social studies class... Excuse me? When was this decided? Well, apparently, not even the 6th grade teacher was informed that I was assigned to his classroom. I didn't even find out what the 6th grade curriculum was until about 10 minutes into the first class. I also later find out that the teacher, a rather reticent individual, will not be in school for all of January and February. Obviously, this is an unacceptable assignment, which means I still don't have a classroom assignment.

I got my team role assignment this week: Documentation Coordinator. In sum, I'm responsible for keeping track of everything: timesheets, photographs, service projects, etc, etc, etc. I basically get to be anal and put my sociological documentation skills to work. Yay!

I'm still in love with my afterschool program. My 1st and 2nd graders are absolutely adorable. They've started drawing me pictures and seem all excited when I show up. We've successful run the PE program for the past 3 weeks and are looking to start a related program called: "Physical Enrichment Program Sportmanship Initiative (PEPSI)," which will develop good sportmanship while teaching general respect.

So, yeah, it's been a rough week. My hope is that next week will be better.

First Week of Service - maybe

2006-10-08T21:14:00.000-05:00

So, this past week was supposed to be my first week of full-time service... Only my middle school has apparently peaced out of the process. We've had such problems contacting them that I may end up at a different middle school (which already has a literacy team) So, I've spent my mornings doing random office work (including the giant calendar on the 3rd floor - yes, a ladder was necessary). I've just been so anxious to do service for so long that this past week has felt like agony.

My one saving grace has been my afterschool program. They've started to have regular programming this week, so each day has a theme:

Tues: literacy
Wed: physical education
Thurs: science/art

Obviously, there are themes for Monday & Friday, but I'm not there, so clearly it doesn't matter ;-) But yeah, my teamlet has basically been put in charge of organizing the PE programs. Honestly, I would've felt more comfortable putting together any of the other programs, but I've got my other teamlet mates to rely on for support.

We did do PE this past Wednesday, which was absolutely adorable. We got to lead a bunch of kindergarteners in PT... The best was when they did boom-shakalas. I really think it's good that I'm with little kids in afterschool. After dealing with 8th grade drama (and there will be drama) on Tues & Thurs mornings, my feeling is that it will be relaxing to hang out with little kids.

On a side note, Jordan came to visit on Thursday, which was f***ing amazing. I missed him so much and we had so much fun. And yet, it was weird because we were no longer sharing stories of common reference. No stories about dumb freshmen boys or crazy professors. I have my CY stories and he has his abroad fair stories. And while they're both entertaining, it's a little weird. We'll manage.

Well, it's a 3-day weekend, followed by a 3-day week (for me), and then a 3-day weekend at Hamilton.

And the real work starts...

2006-10-01T09:07:00.000-05:00

Friday was Opening Day... I was officially sworn in and now have my full uniform. It still doesn't seem real. All of City Year has just been so abstract. I spent 9 months waiting to get my uniform (the same amount of time I'll spend wearing it) and experiencing all that anticipation has made the transition into reality hard - almost like I'm not really here. Obviously, I am here. I've been with City Year for a month. I guess with the BTA uniforms it just didn't have a true City Year feel. And now, I hardly believe I have my uniform. On Thursday, after the Red Jacket ceremony, I kept touching the CY logo on my jacket, like I was making sure it was real.

Honestly, the beginning of the week is kind of a blur. We did some training. I got to go to my afterschool program on Tuesday and Thursday. I'm in a 1st and 2nd grade classroom and they are absolutely adorable. CY has been at this school before, so they recognize the Red Jackets... they even know boom-shakalakas (a PT exercise I have yet to learn). I think I may end up working with kids of all ages. Elementary kids during afterschool; middle schoolers during the day; and high schoolers on Saturdays (as part of the special program, City Heroes). This has the potential to be incredibly rewarding or overwhelming (most likely both).

So, as I mentioned above, Thursday was the Red Jacket ceremony. Basically, we got our bomber jackets and had the opportunity to dedicate them. It was a really intense ceremony. A lot of people broke down in tears (myself included). I dedicated my jacket in memory of my father, who made sure to teach me the lessons of social justice, and to my mother, who has demonstrated amazing strength in the face of overwhelming hardships. All of this made it extremely hard to be "on" at my afterschool.

Friday was a significantly more uplifting day. I have a bunch of pictures of everyone in their red jackets (coming soon to my Facebook account)... It's amazing. We also got to do an afternoon service project at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. I've spent countless hours there and will probably spend countless more. I feel so proud and inspired that I could do service in my own neighborhood AND see the results of it for weeks/months/years to come. Friday night, I went out for dinner and drinks with a friend from home and some other CMs, continuing my constant feel like this is a 5th year of college.

Of course, there has been some drama over the past week... We lost some people this week, including one girl who was fired for discipline reasons. Some people in the Corps have started dating each other, including two members of my team. I'm worried about how that's going to affect team dynamics, especially if they have a messy break-up. But it's out of my hands. Of course, I have to have my own drama... but that's not appropriate to discuss in this forum.

Tomorrow (Monday) is my first official day as a full CM. I'll be hanging around the office all day, hopefully getting some much needed training for Civics in Action.

Week 3

2006-09-24T15:04:00.000-05:00

So, I wrote a giant long post on this past and subsequently deleted it... yay Karen!

So, the gist of this past week: First half, sucked balls. Second half, much better. We had a service project on Thursday with Timberland called Serve-a-palooza (I sh*t you not) in Lawrence (45ish min away). I really enjoyed and it was the first time I really felt that my team worked well together.

I got my school assignment, which was my last choice. Mainly this was because it's the least safe neighborhood in probably all of Boston. Oh well. I did finally get some training on Friday, but I'm still unsure of what my school teacher will want from me specifically... My hope is that it'll come together once I get there.

I'm also starting to find my niche within the corps... I have friends. I even went to a party on Saturday - where my dear friend from South Carolina exclaimed his surprise that I, as a Jew, can dance. I showed him otherwise... hehehe

But yeah, I have less than a week left before I need to memorize the pledge, get my red jacket, have Opening Day, and a lot of other stuff that I don't even know about yet.

Into the woods...

2006-09-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

So, I spent this past week in the woods. On Tuesday morning at about 7am, we left Copley for a three hour drive to Western Mass... on school buses. You can imagine how happy I was with that (albeit, I did not get sick).

So, after we get there and after a brief orientation, they give us our teams for the year... Only, they give us each puzzle pieces and tell us "Find your group." I got Civics in Action, which was my third choice (behind the Saturday service programs for middle & high school students). I will be teaching 8th graders about civics. I haven't gotten much more info beyond that, because that's not what the retreat was about.

Tuesday night, we did an exercise about priviledge. They lined us up shoulder to shoulder. Depending on the statement, we'd either step forward or backward... Guess who, with her female, queer, working class, disabled status ended up towards the back? My only priviledge, of course, is my white skin...

Which of course made Wednesday morning's workshop on racism incredibly uncomfortable. After being a part of ICWES, that's all discussions of race do for me. I'm glad CY does not take the accusatory approach that ICWES did, but I'll always have the thought in the back of my mind that no matter what I say/do/think, it'll always be trumped by my white skin and that everyone who isn't white is judging me for it. I really want to yell at DR & the other girls for f***ing me up so much...

Alright, digression over. Wednesday night was a bit harder... We discussed sexism. As much as I feel I have progressed over sexism, I feel confronted by the reality that not everyone has and, unfortunately, this is something that holds me back. The guys in my group were amazing - I could actively see them opening their minds and changing their opinions based on the stories we all told. I'm proud of the courage the girls had in telling their stories (myself included); however, I'm not sure the internalized sexism went away at all. That night, a bunch of the girls from my cabin were boys-this, boys-that... Drove me crazy. It's like no one had listened to themselves talk about how much they had been controlled by men and the resulting standards of women set by the patriarchy. *sigh*

Thursday morning was the heterosexism workshop. This was the hardest one for me to do. Not because it brought back painful memories or that the CMs were homophobic, but because of the organization of it. Those leading the discussion set up a gay-straight dichotomy. Yeah, I felt actively excluded. I understand the need to start a basic level for everyone, but it was incredibly frustrating for me. I'm sick of teaching everyone to be accepting of gays, when I'm not even gay. I just wish we had had the ability to have a more complex conversation than what was had. After the workshop, I did get a number of pats on the back from CM and SCM for bringing it up, but then no one spoke up for me during the workshop. I'm still not sure how willing CY admin is to embracing my lifestyle, but whatev...

Thursday afternoon, classism. I felt it was a little rushed (everything had been running really late all week and I think it was finally caught up with us). While we got some basic statistics (rates of poverty, HS graduation in the city of Boston, insurance, etc), we didn't discuss them all that much. Also, my concern is that we have yet to talk about how classism and ageism (and educationalism - is that a word? well, now it is) affects our attitudes towards the communities we serve. While I'm going to try my hardest, I realize that the temptation to act in a paternalistic manner is going to be great. I come to CY with my college degree, my 22 years of life, and having been originally raised in a upper-middle class household (albeit, that hasn't been true for years, but the mentality of my parents' status as academics still exists within me). I acknowledge that it will affect my service. Every single day, I have to consciously be aware to NOT be paternalistic and/or condescending.

Friday was mostly a wrap-up day. Honestly, a lot of it has faded and I presume this is because it didn't have too much of an impact on me... Also, I came down with the CY plague that day (*sniffle*). The one thing I remember is the Community Meeting, where I definitely felt talked at. However, I realize that it was our first one and that future ones will be more interactive and informative. Its purpose is for the whole Corps to come together and learn about what everyone has been doing at their service sites... Since we have all been doing the same thing, there wasn't much to talk about, save the structure of the meeting.

And lastly, we boarded a bus back home, where I've been attempting to get over my cold... woot!

Week 1

2006-09-08T21:00:00.000-05:00

So, I made it through my first week of City Year. It was long, intense, fun, exciting, over-stimulating, and a variety of other feelings.

In some ways, CY has felt like freshmen orientation. There have been icebreakers and team building games. There has also been lengthy, power-point lectures on rules and regulations. And, of course, extremely awkward moments with new people. The two major differences between NSO and CY are:

I get paid about $200/wk (as opposed to shelling out about $40,000)
CY is socially-minded.

In other senses, it's more like going abroad or joining the military. There's a whole new culture to not only learn about, but also to embrace. I have a month to become a City Year Corps Member. I need to learn the vocabulary and proper responses to certain questions/phrases, the CY pledge, all of the Unity Rally exercises, etc etc. I wear a uniform which must be worn in a very specific way. All of this is double-checked during "readiness check" ("Boots or Shoe! Black or White Socks! Pressed Pants! Belt! Shirt Tucked In! Name Tag! Heart! Mind! Soul!"). Of course, this isn't the military (altho, we are fighting for social justice) and not a foreign country (Sweden was never this welcoming).

Today was a bit of a change of pace. Instead of spending time in the office, listening to lectures or playing team-building games, we actually got to do service today (holla!). They split the 140 of us among 3 sites. Our site was all painting. My "Crazy" Team (temporary team until we get our permanent assignments next week) was outside doing maintenance painting on 2 four-square courts, 3 hopscotches, a kickball field, and a mural of the USA... We learned a valuable lesson today: the capital of Missouri is not St. Louis, but Jefferson City. It was exciting and I got to spend more time talking with people.

On a more personal note, I'm making friends. I'd rather not go into the details of these people in this forum (in case any of them run across my blog). Let's go with the general: I've really clicked with a few CMs (one of them perhaps too much, which is bad because he's Wex-reincarnate... yeah, no dating/relationships for me this year... "Single & Free!" I say). Others I've had some trouble connecting with... I get kind of a bad vibe from them, but I'm open to this changing. And then there's everyone else: people who I've met & want to know more and people who I haven't met.

Next week is the Basic Training Retreat (BTR). We're going out to W. Mass for 4 days. Rumour has it that even the most non-teary people cried last year... I cry a the drop of a hat... I'm bringing an entire box of tissues. More to follow... hopefully even pictures.

The Background

2006-09-04T16:10:00.000-05:00

Alright, more of an official post this time.

I got accepted into City Year way back in December. Luckily, I had my last semester at college and my 55-page thesis to distract me from my anxiousness. Lately, however, I've been really anxious. Maybe it was the fact that things were getting closer to starting or the fact that when my ex, well, became my ex, I lost my only face-to-face human connection in this area.

But enough of that. The point is I'm wicked excited to be starting tomorrow. This is exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to work with inner-city kids and education and build better and strong communities. I see this year as a means of breaking into the field and gaining experience so that I can go on to grad school.

City Year has had two events for us so far. First, we had a registration day. It was mostly filling out paperwork and getting fitted for our uniforms, so I didn't really get to meet many people. We did have a meet & greet party the last Monday where I got to meet some people. I was mostly amused by the Hawaii-theme... It was like being an awkward freshmen at orientation all over again (especially because my NSO theme was luau). It's still going to be a few more weeks before I feel comfortable.

Alright, that's it for now... Wish me luck on my first day.

Allow me my indulgence

2006-09-04T00:12:00.000-05:00

So, I thought as a means to record and process my City Year experiences, I would keep a blog... For those of you who know me, I'll try to be more diligent than I was with my Swedish LJ, which should be easier as I a) have regular internet access, b) won't be distracted by an unfamilar city to explore, and c) I have no homework and I'll need to exercise my brain.

This is my scant introduction... I'll post something more CY related soonish.