Finding Inspiration in Hisory

An apology goes out to all who follow my blog for the overall sucky-ness of it this year. I'll be posting updates soon, I promise!

For right now, here's a link to my most recent blog post about what MLK Day means to me, in preparation for our "Day on, not Day off" service project on Monday:

http://cityyearsanjose.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/finding-inspiration-in-history/

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyday this week a City Year San José/Silicon Valley staff or Corps Member will share how the words and actions of Martin Luther King, Jr. has impacted their life. Today, Corps Member Laura Peters reflects on a social justice project she took on while she was a college student.

My supervisor, Nadia, had invited me to stay on campus for the January break during my junior year at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. I was to assist her in planning the January freshman orientation program, as well as take on a “special project,” of which I knew very little. My only knowledge at the time was that the project would need to be finished and ready to display by Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 2009.

My task was to organize the most important dates in the timeline pages into a magnificent Excel spreadsheet. Each sentence or paragraph described a defining moment in an American minority group’s history. The spreadsheet of events would eventually be printed and pasted to black paper that measured almost 100 ft long, and hung along the wall in my campus’s student center.

This was the finished Human Rights timeline that hung in the campus student center at Wheaton College.

Although at first the job seemed more like an art project than anything else, within a few hours I was completely engrossed in the information I was sorting. I learned more in a week about the social movements in our country than I had ever learned in a social studies class in high school or college.

As I sat on the floor of my campus center cutting and pasting the timeline information, professors and visitors on campus would ask me about my work. I was excited and proud to explain my project to them.

I sorted, cut, and pasted over 300 pieces of information for my timeline project. Each and every one of these events inspired me. The progress that our country has made since its birth is astounding, although we still have an enormous amount of work to do in order to ensure equality for every single person in our country.

Martin Luther King, Jr. day now has special significance to me.

For every person who believes that violence is the way to make change, there are brilliant souls like Martin Luther King, Jr. who have proved them wrong.

The project that I completed in 2009 will always be a reminder to me that a small group of individuals can make an immense impact on our society, and inspires me to follow in their footsteps, because our work is not nearly finished.

Laura Peters, Corps Member CYSJ

Ripples

I was recently asked to write a blog post for the City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley blog. Here's what I wrote:

Ripples

“Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation… It is from numberless diverse acts of courage… [and]… belief that this human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

– Robert F. Kennedy, Day of Affirmation Address, University of Cape Town, South Africa

On Friday, October 1, 2010, the entire City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley site will come together for our “Bomber Dedication Ceremony.” It is a City Year tradition in which each Corps Member dedicates his/her bomber jacket to a person, idea, or cause that inspires them to serve.

When I found out about this event, I was bewildered. I was completely at a loss for words or inspiration on whom or what to dedicate my jacket. I was told that in the past, many Corps Members have dedicated their jackets to relatives, mentors, specific students, even ideas as large as the fight for social justice or the imbalanced education system.

For me, finding a specific person to dedicate something as powerful as a representation of my City Year service year is difficult. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support of my family and friends. High school English teachers, dance teachers, and college professors inspired me to follow my dreams, no matter how lofty they were. Students from all over the country – a small New Hampshire dance studio, a charter school for at-risk students in Massachusetts, and every single student I serve at Mathson Middle School in San Jose – have fueled my passion for social justice.

came across the founding story, Ripples, in my Idealist Handbook and my bomber dedication began to form. Each corps member is allotted up to two minutes to speak, and all of the sudden this seemed impossibly short.

The past few weeks at my school have been tough. I have officially begun to feel the strain of this year of service. At the same time, I am starting to notice what I like to call “small miracles” happening on a daily basis. One of my “tough guy” tutoring students ran up to me before school started to make sure that I would be tutoring him today, and a student with exceptionally difficult behavior issues had two good days in a row. What I have realized this week is that no matter how insignificant or isolated these “ripples” may seem, they are the reason I’m here.

I’ve decided to dedicate my bomber jacket to all of the “ripples” that got me to where I am today: my family, friends, mentors, teachers, professors, school districts, and college. I am also dedicating my jacket to every “ripple” I hope to cultivate and inspire. To the idealistic leaders of the past, present, and future, I dedicate my jacket and year of service to each and every “ripple” you create.

The big, bad... middle school

Hello again!

I purposefully tried not to post for a while into my stay at the middle school. Some days have been extreme highs and others have been very low, and I was trying to wait until I had a real handle on the situation before writing about it. I've also been very, very busy!

We've officially been in the middle school for three weeks and it feels muuuch longer in some respects. Most of our days have been spent planning our after school program as well as lunch/yard duty (not the highlight of my day...) and other tasks that the school has needed help with. As of yesterday, I began what will become my more regular schedule of tutoring three students one-on-one during the second, third, and sixth periods of the day. I'm really excited to get to work so closely with a small group of students because I can already feel the relationships we're building and I'm excited to see where they go.

Our after school program has been slightly less structured this month than it will be in the following weeks and months, but I think it was a nice way to ease students into what is going to turn into a pretty rigorous after school program! We start with 1.5 hours of homework "center," where they finish their homework and can get help if needed. I worked with 5th graders for one week (they're awesome and adorable!) and 8th graders last week (a little less adorable and they have "hecka" attitude). I'm not quite sure what possessed me to do it, but I did indeed put 8th grade as my preference for the rest of the school year.

Which brings me to today. Today, we found out our specific placements in the after school programs as well as what enrichment programs we'll be leading, and what students we'll have for both of those time slots. I'm going to be an 8th grade tutor (as opposed to an 8th grade classroom leader), which I'm very excited about. The 8th graders have a lot of attitude, but they're also the ones screaming for help the most. I think the tutoring is really going to produce noticeable results.

I'm also leading a (surprise surprise!) dance enrichment! I was nervous that students wouldn't sign up for it, but it was actually one of the most popular ones! I have 18 students (7 of whom are boys!) and just had the first class meeting today. Although we didn't do too much dancing today, it was pretty hilarious to convince 10- to 14-year olds to do "Power Lunges" with me! We mostly spent time going over expectations and watching videos of different styles of dance today, and it was cool to see how excited the students got over certain things. I'm definitely looking forward to this enrichment!

I'll try to post some pictures soon... I've been pretty bad at taking them lately, so I don't have much to show you right now. I'll definitely work on it for next post, though!

Until next time...

Summer School

On to summer school! I just finished a week and a half with my adorable first grade class. Summer school is a new idea that is unique to the San Jose site, and this is actually the first year that the entirety of the first-year corps members were asked to participate! Summer school ran from 8:00 am - 12:00 pm, and consisted of math, literacy, PE, and Starfish Corps, which is a program designed by City Year to teach young children about community, teamwork, citizenship and service.

Overall, summer school was a very positive experience for me. I learned a lot about the demographic I'll be working with, even though these students were much younger than the ones I'll be working with for the rest of the year. Each corps member had a co-teacher who was also a first-year corps member, as well as Senior Corps members who serve as peer group leaders and peer mentors during our teaching hours, providing feedback after each day and assistance during the day if needed. My students seemed to have a lot of fun, especially on the last day when we took them to the San Jose tech museum! It was a great learning experience for me, and hopefully they are now excited to return to school and start the first grade!


A gift for me on the last day of summer school from one of my students. Apparently I have really awesome triangular dresses (I wore a City Year t-shirt, jeans and sneakers every day) and shoulder pads when I teach. ;-)

Wish me luck on my first day of middle school tomorrow! Until next time...

BTR

While in the process of getting settled in our new place (after flooded first floor, broken dishwasher, disposal, oven, stove, etc... were all fixed), my roommates and I were also going through what is called "BTA" or Basic Training Academy at the City Year office in downtown San Jose. We were in trainings throughout the morning and afternoon until about 6:00 pm every day for the first week. Then, on Monday 8/9 - Wednesday 8/11 we took off to Happy Valley Conference Center in Santa Cruz for our Basic Training Retreat ("BTR"... we like acronyms a lot).

BTR was full of team-building exercises, trainings that were both fun and serious, preparations for our 1 1/2 week summer school, and most exciting -- our placements and teams for the rest of the school year! I already knew I'd be teaching rising first graders at Cesar Chavez Elementary School for summer school, but I was anxious to find out where I'd be working for the duration of the normal school year.

Here is what I wrote in a notebook on the evening I returned from BTR:

Two weeks have gone by very slowly and also very quickly. I feel like I've been living in San Jose for a month, but I also can't believe I'm about to jump into a classroom of 20 first graders tomorrow!

BTR was amazing. Although I had expected there to be POSSE retreat/Preceptor training/Brown Center type activities, I absolutely didn't expect so many people to really open up. Members of my group shared so much about their backgrounds... it really was an incredible experience.

I'll be working in Mathson Middle School for the remainder of the year and I am SO excited to be on the only middle school team!! Even though I didn't know all of the members of my team before this weekend, I can already tell that we're going to be such a cohesive group - I couldn't have hand-picked them better myself.

Update Part 2 - Pictures!

Redwood forest where City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley resided for two nights and three days during our Basic Training Retreat (BTR)! It was gorgeous - but watch out for the mountain lion in the parking lot!


My new bedroom... with a bed on the floor for now!

Sunset behind the two palms down the road from my new townhouse :)

New Beginnings (Part 1)

Hello from the west coast!

After a week without internet, I am finally online (name of our wireless network: "Starving Corps Members") and attempting to share all that has happened in the past week and a half!

Quick catch up: I graduated on May 22, 2010 from Wheaton College with majors in Psychology and Dance Studies. I was lucky enough to be hired by the Works Cafe in Portsmouth for the summer, and had a blast while making a bit of money. I applied and was accepted into the City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley program which officially started on August 2, 2010! If you don't know what City Year is, you can check them out at www.cityyear.org, but here's a quick summary: City Year Service Corps members commit 10 (or 10.75 in my case) months of service to one of many cities in America. We work in elementary, middle, or high schools (but in the case of San Jose, only elementary or middle) for the duration of that period doing one-on-one tutoring, running after school programs, and providing other services that the school doesn't have the resources to provide for their students. I will be working in the Alum Rock school district on the east side of San Jose, one of the neediest school districts in the country.

SO, I packed up my two (giant) suitcases on Wednesday, July 22, and hopped on a Jet Blue flight to California! 6 hours later I arrived in San Jose and was greeted by all three of my new roommates - what a great surprise! My roommates are all also part of the City Year program, and although we had been trying for over a month, had not actually secured a place to live by the time we arrived in San Jose. We spent the first three nights of our journey sleeping on the floor of one of my roommates' brother's house near Santa Clara University. On the third day, we looked at a townhouse in the southeast section of San Jose and fell in love. 24 hours later, we were moving in! The place has 3 bedrooms and a den that we turned into the fourth.

The next two days were a whirlwind of IKEA, Target, Goodwill, and Mattress Discounters trips. Living on a stipend for the next 10 months meant I didn't have a whole lot of extra cash to burn, so many of my furniture items were purchased by means of elimination and had quite a lot of pieces to put together! By Sunday night I had spent about 5 hours assembling my new bookshelf and desk, but I did it!

Unfortunately my computer is still the same old slowpoke it was in college, so pictures are coming ASAP (that's Part 2!). Part 3 will also explain what I've been doing in training the past week, and what's to come!

Stay tuned...