Date: September 23, 2008
Place: Bus to UTSA, after work
This was a good day, In some ways it was a culmination of a great many days not directly focused on helping people. It was also a little chaotic, unplanned. In a way those situations seem to fit my mind; the uncertainty makes reacting a bigger problem and holds my attention longer.
We got our uniforms today. I’m now sitting on the bus with a backpack stuffed to the seams, a trashbag with a coat and workboots, the bag I brought to work today, and a sweatshirt not really required in San Antonio at this hour. Riding a bike with all of this is an interesting challenge.
Over the rest of the week we’ll be introducing ourselves to the city. Tomorrow there wil be a lunch presentation to the Rotary Club, on Friday we have a ceremony at City Council chambers, and on Saturday we’ll be helping to run a number of service projects across the city. Next week we’ll dive into KIPP for our first full week, with a service lesson for ~80 7th graders on Saturday. I’m looking forward to it.
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City Year has a great deal of culture. They actively refer to it as their culture, talk about the “City Year brand,” and about making each event they do have CY’s imprint.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it’s a fairly brilliant way to unite a group like this, outwardly demonstrate their inward passion, and place and manage the perception of CY in an environment dependent on the generosity of others. CY San Antonio’s job, no doubt, is made far easier by the patterns and plans previously made. The culture itself, a beautiful way to share and adapt successful ideas among disparate sites, seems to be be a very successful way to run CY.
I have great respect on a theoretical level for what CY does based on what I’ve seen so far.
On an individual level, it’s a mite different. At times, the culture can seem like needless noise when I’d prefer to focus on what I came to do, help people. At others the patterns and plans and claps and calls and traditions can feel rigid, and my inherent love of flexibility rebels.
I recognise that it is early in the year and these by then familiar rites may keep us going when things become more difficult. I know that the patterns laid out do help others, if a certain rite bores me.
And for a program that takes people just out of high school and after a few short weeks of lore asks them to create complete lesson plans for 30 middle schoolers, the stored bed of knowledge that City Year culture represents is a a remarkable store and an efficient way to transmit it. It’s all useful somewhere, to someone.
But PT does get old quickly, and the call and responses never feel right.