This last Thursday, Fransheska, my fellow coach, and Sarah, our team lead met with our PA students and began hammering out the details of our project and the grant proposal for funding. On Friday, we worked out the rest of the details with the students and had them type up the grant proposal so we could submit the project. This was accomplished by only a handful of the students as many others were involved in planning and preparing for their Prom. The students chose to incorporate several elements that they had thought about previously into one project, by hosting a booth in their lobby to attract students to participate in a student video where each student could tell why they did not do drugs or provide other testimonies about how and why drugs affect students at Manual High School. This event will take place on Friday, May 11 and will feature food and decorations in addition to the video and the table.
So far I have been merely descriptive of our students' plans. I guess, that this is in part because I feel an immense sense of relief to have a project, a singular goal, after weeks of feeling constantly disorganized and behind schedule. It is a good feeling to have, even though I wrote last week about the process being more important than the project. Why? Well... I believe that having a project, gives the students something to engage in and work toward. In the long run, the greatest benefit comes to the students from the skills that they gain and the confidence they earn about changing and affecting things around them, but in the short run they need something to rally around, something to accomplish.
There is a great tension in life between the here and now and the far-off future, between preparing in the long term and living in the moment. At a young age, we live in the moment, unconcerned about the future beyond what will I do for fun today. Part of our education within primary and secondary school, is to learn about preparing for the future, about giving future days the same weight of importance that we give today and tomorrow. We learn of the consequences of sacrificing tomorrow for today, of the need for moderation, of how to live in a sustainable manner, emotionally and socially. As we age, we are continually reminded of these lessons, but there is an urge to return to the carefree moments of childhood, when we do not have to plan or prepare, but can just be, be ourselves, be anyone we wanted to be. Simultaneously, we learn of the rewards of a long term investment, of the benefits of preparation, though it is a subtler lesson, one easily missed amid the chaos.
Political goals, changes in the dynamics of power, and realizations of equality can not be achieved in the short term. Real change takes time. But it must be organized through the day to day actions of committed individuals, by the exercise of power here and there, steadily building toward a larger goal. But the balance between now and later carries significant risks and dangers, two of which I will elucidate here. One, we can get caught in the form, in the day to day gathering of forces and proclaiming of goals, in the politicking. It seems our politicians are often captured in this track. The form favors the moment, the rhetoric and the emotion, but sacrifices the substance and the tangible change that can benefit a community. The form is mobilizing, rallying, striking, and when the day is done, shifting back into the comfortable patterns of life. The second danger, is that of being consumed by the substance, by the ideas and plans for the future, for a better world. When we become wrapped up in the substance, we become armchair philosophers, who forget to take the steps to enact change, who make themselves impotent by caution, and sacrifice the form and the moment for dreams and wistful imaginings. I feel that many visionaries do just this and fail to share their ideas for change with the world. The Public Achievement Program is also prone to the second error, but makes that sacrifice with the hope that it can empower students and coaches in the future by providing them with a foundation of skills, confidence, and awareness about their own ability to make change. But ultimately, balancing between the two extremes is best.
And that is why the project at the end is important. It reminds the students of the importance of the moment, of accomplishments. It gives the students a place to anchor what they have learned in their memory. And when we can transfer the present to the past and use it as a foundation to build our new world, then neither present nor future need be sacrificed.
As for the Mad Tea Party? That comes this Friday!
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