Down the Rabbit Hole Part I

As a brief summary of the purpose of this blog and the following post: I have been meaning to blog about my experiences in college since I graduated from high school as a way to reflect about them. However, I have previously lacked the impetus and motivation to begin and continue such a blog. Now, I have both. For the past six months, I have been working within the University of Denver's Public Achievement program which is coordinated by the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL). The Public Achievement program connects college coaches with high school or middle school students to work through the framework of Public Achievement to make tangible change in those students communities. Often this change comes in form of working on social justice issues or bringing programs and services into the schools that were formerly absent. The Public Achievement (PA) framework is based on models of community organizing that rose out of the work of Saul Alinsky and others from the Midwest and East Coast. Community organizing as opposed to activism works on empowering communities to make the changes they desire rather than simply mobilizing raw support for a cause.

My involvement in the PA program at the University of Denver has radically changed my perspective on what politics can mean while simultaneously unearthing doubts that I have about the democratic nature of the United States, the capability of everyone to engage fully in politics, and the social ramifications of the forming of purely political relationships. There is no doubt in my mind that my political understanding has undergone a metamorphosis, but I am unsure of the extent and nature of the change. Unraveling the meaning of my PA experience and finding the nuggets of certainty within it all that I can grasp a hold of will take quite some time. As I undertake that introspective journey I hope to record some small piece of my experience and contemplation here. To begin, I will provide a brief narrative of that experience so far.

At the start of my sophomore year of college, I faced a search to find a work study job on campus. The previous year, I had worked in a psychology lab as a research assistant, but as I had decided I did not want to be a psychologist I declined my supervisor's offer to return to the lab the next year. Instead, I searched for a job related to my newly decided upon majors of international studies and geography, or failing in that, one within the library or in some process of education. I had heard about the work of CCESL and the PA program from my friend, Anita (see her blog here http://neetachange.blogspot.com/) and decided to apply for a tutoring position within the Center. I was called in for an interview within the week and during my interview, the former coordinator of the PA program convinced me that I should work as a PA coach rather than as a tutor. Anita had beguiled me of the wonders, challenges, and benefits of working with high school students in the program and though I had doubts about my own capabilities, I acquiesced. Within two weeks we had our first training which introduced me to the community organizing model, followed by a retreat for PA coaches to provide us a crash course in our duties and responsibilities for the PA program.

The University of Denver PA program had partnerships with three local high schools for the 2011-2012 school year: South, KIPP, and Manual. Each school had a team lead or two, a graduate student to work with school officials and coordinate the coaching groups. I was placed in the Manual coaching group with Christi, Fransheska, and Anita. Our team lead's name is Sarah. The PA programs go into the schools on Fridays to work with the students for approximately an hour on a lesson plan within one of the PA model's four stages, briefly, building relationships, identifying issues, conducting community research, and implementing a project/program to deal with the issue (problem) identified and researched. Our start date was October 14th, but the coordination with the school did not work out and the official date was moved to the 21st, when I would be gone for a Model UN competition in Washington DC. Our contact at the school did encourage us to come in prior to the starting date to meet the students, which we did, though almost none of the students we met ended up coming regularly to our PA days.

Those first few days of PA were a journey through a real-life performance of the theater of the absurd. Our PA program was set as an after school program which students had to voluntarily come to when normally the program works through a during school time slot. As a result of the after school timing, we never were certain which students would be coming to the program nor where we would be at. Some days we would have 12 students, other days we would have 2. Some days we would be in a large room with space for activities and others we would be crammed into an office space within a single table and barely any chairs. The chaotic nature of the onsite circumstances led us to give Manual the nickname Narnia, as we never knew where we would be or what we would do once we stepped through the wardrobe. Poor communication and the circumstances of our situation prevented us from accomplishing anything tangible outside getting to know some of the students until after the end of the semester when we switched to an in-school time slot.

To be Continued...