Coming back here.  Soon.

Date: October 25, 2008
Place: #26 Bus to the Eastside Boys and Girls Club

It’s another early morning, and the sun hasn’t yet cleared the horizon where I can see it.  I’m on my way to the Eastside Boys and Girls Club.  It sits next to MLK Academy, one of the schools we’re working at.  Like many of the places we do service at, Eastside needs upkeep and revitalisation work done, but the cost of hiring someone would be prohibitive and take money away from their main mission.

Instead, City Year can bring in corps members, plus what is usually a greater number of external volunteers.  Supply costs may be borne by the site, supported by our own grants or, as in this case, come from our own stock.

Today, we’ll be painting light poles and window frames with Rustoleum, repainting a playground where paint has begun to peel, painting bleachers and stands at the baseball field, building a community garden, and placing a mural on the side of the gym.  Yesterday we spent the first half of the day in prep work.  The Civic Engagement team, which runs a lot of these types of projects, had already planned everything out, but we still needed to sand surfaces for painting, lay down primer, and mask windows.

Based on the few projects I’ve seen so far, I’d say we usually do one hour of prep for every 2-3 hours a project is scheduled to last.  On top of that there is planning and cleanup after volunteers have left.

Date: October 30, 2008
Place: #93 Bus to UTSA

One of the things I think I value most about City Year is what seems to be a genuine desire for open, honest communication. Granted, there are things we don’t know; the number of hours each team works seems to be specifically off limits.

In most corps communiques, though, honest but hard self and corps assessment has been encouraged from day one. One of our first days, corps members were introduced to a CY practice called Roses and Thorns.

In front of team leaders we’d only known for a couple days, we stated things we’d liked and disliked about the workshop that had been one of their first acts on the job. At the end of each day we do the same thing, discussing the best and worst (for us) elements of the day.

The degree of openness fluctuates, and I know I sometimes sit on a thought for a couple days till it crystallizes. But the benefit is a level of trust and insight into teammates that I would not have expected.

Date: October 7, 2008
Place: #97 North

We’re starting to settle into a routine.  Now, for me at least, it’s about incremental changes to make sure I don’t slowly drown.  I eat breakfast, try to get 7 or 8 hours of sleep, catch the bus with time to spare, and try to squeeze lesson planning into schedule cracks.

Today I was scheduled for an 11 hour day, and 10 hour stretches are going to be the norm on my time sheet, but it still feels like there isn’t enough time to plan, think, and pay attention, not to mention relax.

That slow stretching has caused its first casualty.  On Monday, we learned that one of the corps members would be leaving, deciding the program wasn’t right for them.  They’re the second to leave, the first because recovery from a knee injury would limit his participation.

Date: October 14, 2008
Place: #97 to the Rim, home

It’s been eight months.  She had to remind me.

Date: October 20, 2008
Place: Bus stop

As City Year, we have to walk a very fine line.  On one hand, we’re there to tutor, mentor, and help the kids.  At times this means managing a classroom, handling requests from students, or realising that they should be doing something else.

At the same time, we have few of the powers of a teacher.  We can’t discipline, only persuade and bluff.

This isn’t all bad, we’re trying to be peers, in a way, to these kids.  Not disciplining them, leaving that up to school administrators, is a quick way to set us apart from them.  But as students start to learn what our limitations are, as they do, they become adept at taking advantage of them.

I’m still getting used to the problem.  There are some small solutions: knowing details about the school schedule helps, though that ideally means knowing it for all grades and each class within.  Stubbornness seems to be a virtue in this, as well as a quick wit.

In the host of skills I thought I’d need for this year, being able to outwit middle schoolers didn’t really come up.

Date: September 27, 2008
Place: #93 bus North

So  much of my understanding of what these children should be reasonably capable of is tainted by a faulty memory and a unique education.  When I find a 7th grader who has trouble multiplying fractions, it’s difficult to say how worried I should be since I don’t precisely remember how capable I was.  There’s also the need to discover how deep their need goes, whether it’s a temporary brainfart,

I love my love and hope
that she loves me, for haps
she may feel something less than love
but still does care

For though I love her dearly, dearly so
and if did find she holds me somewhat less
would love her still
to be in loved is such great bliss
as is to love as well.

a misunderstanding of how to multiply fractions (say), or a problem with the basic understanding of fractions.  Today and yesterday I’ve spent the entire last tutoring sessions with kids who lacked a grasp of the basic rules for the problems they needed to do, never mind what their current exercise needed to teach.  I couldn’t even deal with their homework, and that placed them even further behind.

Date: October 6, 2008
Place: #94 bus from UTSA

The last week has been exhausting, and I can’t quite remember what we did.  The physical difference between working 60 versus 45 or 50 hours is dramatic, and I’m still trying to adjust.  This past weekend of Sunday doesn’t seem like a break at all, and my bones feel soaked in tired.

On Saturday we, with the help of the Young Heroes team, took 80 7th graders to a service project run by Civic Engagement.  They painted fences, and sometimes themselves.  On last Thursday we all ran our first electives.  Sasha and I had 11-12 kids in each class, while Nephiteri and Christina had 30, so it was a little uneven.  We had good classes though, and the kids seemed to enjoy it.

I’m off on Wed and Fri, I think I’ll sleep.  Don’t have time, though.

Date: September 25, 2008
Place: #93 bus North

There were two major parts of today.  First, the corps covered mandated reporting.  Since five of the six teams deal directly, routinely, with school aged kids, and the main focus of CY is school support, there’s a fairly firm policy in place.  Regardless of state laws applicable where the site is located, corps and staff members are required to report any reasonably grounded suspicions of abuse of any kind.

On a lighter note, the entire corps received phones provided by TMobile for the length of the term.  And Saturn, who is sponsoring the Civic Engagement team, will apparently be providing them with 5 cars so they can travel easier.

Date: September 29, 2008
Place: Crossroads Park and Ride

I made the mistake of biking to Crossroads from KIPP and getting there fifteen minutes after the bus.  The next one arrives at 8, and I’ll be at UTSA at 8:17.  It’s dusk, and the lights of the bus stop have just flickered on.

On Friday we had opening day. There was another presentation stage managed by Garro, this time in City Hall.  Saturday we had a local part of the National Day of Service, with our part based at UTSA’s downtown campus.  Erin and I managed teams that repainted benches in Milam Park.

We painted 29/75 and I learned that the typical attention span for service for middle schoolers is about 2 hours.

Today was our first full day in KIPP.  Mostly, we floated around classrooms, tutoring.  We also had our first introductions to mentees today.  Actually being in the classrooms makes it far more clear what the staff are talking about when they say we’re really needed here.  Large numbers of kids don’t do their homework at home, for whatever reason.  Maybe they don’t have a stable home life, parents with the time or background to help, or just don’t want to.  A good portion of the day was spent going over with students work that was nominally assigned for home, and there are multiple times (lunch bench, tutoring, no shortcuts) set aside for this.

There is also a wide disparity in skill levels.  While very few whiz through, most plod.

Date: September 24, 2008
Place: #93 bus to UTSA, home

We gave a presentation today to a local Rotary chapter.  It went well, and they seemed to like it.  We brought in about 40 kids from KIPP and scattered them along with all the corps members, throughout the room where the lunch presentation took place.  They’re reasonably articulate students, and the Rotarians got to meet actual students we’re working with.

It probably helped the presentation that our executive director, Paul Garro, is a member of Rotary.

It’s an interesting mix for an organization.  The corps members come from across the US, the senior staff are a mixture of former corps members and those who’ve had years experience elsewhere.  Paul Garro has been here long enough to develop roots, and the board is drawn from those with deep connections.  Even the San Antonio chief of police is on City Year’s board.

The board chair structure is also an interesting blend, and a solution to experience gaps after turnover that I’d like to borrow.  After a term as chair, members serve as “past chairs,” providing experience and advice to the current chair.

On the newspaper, I’d be interesting to do something similar, have dual staggered terms for major roles.

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.

—————

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.

And a little bit of cynicism disappears.

Date: Monday September 22, 2008
Place: 11 PM, home

Over the nest 10 months, I’ve promised to complete over 1700 hours of community service through a program called City Year.  I’ll be working in a local charter school designed to be a college preparatory middle school.  It’s called KIPP Aspire Academy; it’s overwhelmingly Hispanic, poor (92% or so qualify for free or reduced lunch), and intriguingly successful.

I’ll be mentoring, tutoring, running electives, and creating lesson plans along with my team of 3 others, plus a team leader.

Since the 1st, I’ve been training, team-building, learning about the school, and getting to know my teammates.  There are a little over 30 of us all together, from all over the nation, between 17 and 24.

In addition there are five team leaders, people our age who’ve gone through the program before or simply have experience with this kind of work.  There are also 5 staff members, older but mainly in their late 20’s, overseeing everything.

Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Place: 820 AM, McDonalds across from City Year

I’ve been training and doing a few small things for the past few weeks, and I find myself getting more tired, hungry, and cranky.  I don’t think it’s purely the unaccustomed work hours — the long days.

First, I feel I have little in common with most of my corps members.  Agewise I’m more on par with the team leaders, and I’m more interested in the work of the staff.  After a few days of poring through City Year finances and funding methods in spare moments, there haven’t been many intriguing opportunities.

Second, I’ll be working at a school where much of the team questions whether they really need us.  To all appearances, KIPP Academy is extraordinarily successful, taking disadvantaged and at risk kids and setting them on a path for college and elite preparatory schools when some of them had never heard of college before arrival.  This may change as the year progresses and I teach and get to know mentees.

For now, I’m feeling useless, surrounded by people substantially unlike me, working on problems I feel just a little bit uninteresting.

For the last two months, and until June 2009, I’ll be spending my weeks mentoring and tutoring middle schoolers, aiding and running service projects throughout San Antonio, and learning how to be a leader.

I’m part of a program called City Year, a national service organisation for young people between 17 and 24.  They dedicate a year to service in one of the 18 sites across the US (plus one in South Africa).

The days since September have been incredible, and I’ve been trying to document them as best I can.  This is an experience that changes you, as I’ve already seen in the two months so far.  I want to be able to look back afterwards and see how it has done so, and share that process with others.  Some of these will have incorrect information or points of view that I now disagree with, and I’ll still considering how to deal with it.  I’d like to leave much of it as it was written, reflecting how I thought at the time.  At the same time, I’ll try to note these errors or changes when they occur.

It should be noted, of course, that everything I write here is my own opinion, not that of City Year.  I’d like to think that’s part of the benefit — my experience, as it happens, without the changing perceptions of hindsight.

I have a stack of journal entries from the last few weeks, waiting to be posted.  This first one is undated, written at the beginning of one of the first days.

Date: Undated, written on the back of a flyer from the first day.

As I write this, I’m beginning a 40 minute bus ride early in the morning.  The sun has just barely begin to rise, and I’ll be taking this same ride every weekday for the next 10 months.  I’ve never been a big fan of sunrises, and I’m much more likely to see them from the other side of the clock.

The point of these predawn 40 minute rides is a program called City Year.  It’s a volunteer program that takes young adults from 17-24 and gives them a chance to work in one of 7(?) (actually, 19) sites across the US and one in South Africa.

They work on literacy in elementary schools, mentoring and homework help in middle and high schools, spend time on a long list of community development projects, and hopefully have some fun doing it.

Of course, fun in this case also involves getting up before dawn for nearly a year of ten hour workdays.  That’s part of the challenge, though, and it’s nearly as attractive as having some small impact on a community or school.

The next year should be interesting.