After today's presentations, I noticed a trend. We are all passionate about issues in education, and every group highlighted different aspects of the issue that are all important. Whether it be the quality of the school and its teachers, the resources that students have or the high school dropout rate, we can all agree that every child is born with potential. The potential to do great things and achieve their goals.
During my group's presentation today, I mentioned City Year and the experience that I had volunteering with them in Miami. I thought that the class might benefit from learning a little bit more about my experience because we all share the same passion as City Year. They have the same beliefs that we do and they are wholly focused on fighting the national dropout crisis in inner-city high schools. They place corps of 17-24 year-old high school graduates in the inner-city elementary and middle schools where high school dropout rates are the highest. They believe that the earlier they can change student's ways and inspire them, the more likely they are to be successful in high school and graduate. City Year is an organization that has inspired the issues that I am most passionate about in philanthropy because I have seen the statistics first hand.
The first time that I worked with City Year was during my spring break of my Freshman year. I took a trip with Hillel at Binghamton to Miami to work in an inner city school. Since my only plan for spring break was to sit around and watch TV, I believed that for only $200, this was a better way for me to spend my week. We, the Binghamton students, along with students from other Universities did work in multiple inner-city Miami schools. Our group worked at an elementary school. We woke up early each morning and headed to our site for City Year warm-ups. After warming up, our days consisted of cleaning out classrooms that were being used for storage, painting classroom walls that were dirty and chipping with bright colors and murals and building and painting both indoor and outdoor furniture to add to the atmosphere of the school. City Year believed that our efforts to make their school appealing to students' eyes would encourage them to be more excited to attend school. It was rewarding for me to build benches and cubby shelves from scratch and paint these murals because I was able to see the smile on the principals face and his students' faces. Even though I was having fun with my new Binghamton friends, I was making a difference in these students' lives.
After spending hours working in one school, we traveled to another school in an adjoining neighborhood to work with students after school. We helped them with their homework, played games with them outside and organized educational activities for them. It was unbelievable to see how smart some of these children were and it was fun for me to work with them and know that I was making a difference in at least one of their lives. During the evenings, all of the university students working with City Year that week gathered for dinner and programming. We would share stories with each other about our day, compare the work we were doing to Jewish beliefs and take part in deep discussions. I loved the experience that I had so much, that I traveled with Hillel again during the spring break of my sophomore year. For a second time, I was able to work in a school to repair the classroom conditions and spend time with students after the school day was over.
City Year is a program that students (aged 17-24) usually participate in as their gap year before, after or during college. Throughout the year, City Year members are placed in a school where they work with a group of students for the entire academic year. Corps members act as friends, mentors, teachers, tutors and sometimes an older brother or sister for these students. Since we all have passion for issues education, I thought that the class would love to hear more about an organization that has the same mission that we do.
Here is a link to a couple of YouTube videos that do a great job explaining City Year and their mission. They are interesting to watch and quite powerful!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LgQGd5EJJSw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VGur6MN1DAc
And, here is a link to City Year's website!
http://www.cityyear.org/CityYear/Home_New_2011/Home_A_2011.aspx
What do you think of City Year as an organization and the work that they are doing? How does their mission compare to some of the core values and issues that we discussed in class today? Do any of you see yourselves being a City Year Corps member after graduating from Binghamton?
ReplyDeleteHannah, I couldn’t agree with you more! Education is truly the key to empowerment and success. After reading your blog, I thought of my experience volunteering at Korean Community Service Center. At KCS, I worked with five children for the whole academic year. Seeing them learn, grow, and change was super awesome, heartbreaking, but rewarding. I remembered walking into a big room with many small tables and children running free. Needless to say, my first week at KCS, I developed the ability to multitask in a small, loud, frenzied space. Although volunteering at KCS can be tiring and frustrating at times, I loved it. I remembered teaching Joel arithmetic, simple subtraction. It took him two days! It’s like you said, every child has potential but by helping that child realize his potential, I felt empowered; I was becoming the change I want see. So, I support City Year and the work that they are doing. If I can do so much as an ordinary high school student, City Year can make extraordinary changes through collective efforts by uniting volunteers across the nation. The mission to empower children through education is very similar to my mission to empower women through economic equality. Giving children or women support through education or employment or skills that empower them is life-changing for both givers and receivers. So, I can definitely see myself working with children in the future. City Year is a great organization and I believe in their mission, so volunteering with the organization would be a great opportunity for me. Thanks for the links! It’s very informative and inspiring.
Hannah, that's awesome. What I liked about your story was that you didn't begrudge volunteering... instead your program showed that we are all in this together. They invested in you with the programming while you invested in the school and the students. You even got to make some new friends. I definitely have many fond memories of volunteering experiences similar to yours and Saruta's.
ReplyDeleteYour questions made me consider the future, so I will focus on that rather than sharing another story. I may be graduating in December, so I have been considering my options. Similar to the blog post about researching, sometimes it's hard to determine what is the best way to make a difference? Should I start a program like City Year or Teach for America? Or should I get my master's degree and be better equipped to start a career where I can make a difference? I think the short-term projects you did with City Year are awesome because they gave you the opportunity to make a difference within the context of your normal transition to college. I will be thinking how I can use my next steps in order to make a difference where I can, whether it's a more abstract difference by receiving more education about how to better serve people, or by a service learning experience like the one you had. Thanks for sharing.
I enjoyed reading this blog since I did not really have a good understand of City Year. Before hearing about City Year the only education program that I knew about for college graduates was Teach for America. I think this would be a really good opportunity for anyone who is unsure of their long term plans but know they want to volunteer in education. The short term option makes City Year accessible to far more students/graduates than Teach for America.
ReplyDeleteI align with City Year in the fact that they focus on the students and schools that need the most help, specifically intercity schools. I feel that the drop out rate is something that we definitely need to be concerned with, but I also feel that it is not only the students who need help.
I believe that to help the students we also need programs to help the teachers. I have recently begun observing at a local high school and I am amazed at the apathy and disengagement that is present in our local schools. Even in classes of less than 10 students, where the teacher can be engaging directly with all members of the class, students do not understand the importance of what they are learning and therefore have no interest in succeeding. I believe it would be a great addition to this program to begin a teacher education subset. I would be interested in seeing how this type of program would impact the dropout rate of intercity students.
I just want to start off to agree that every child does have potential. It was amazing to see that the class had almost a unanimous value of education and its impact on children. City year does seem like a great program, however, I wonder its true impact on the kids that they work with. From looking at the video "Saving Philanthropy" I agreed that an organization cannot be successful and make positive change unless that org has a goal and tracks it. From looking at City Year's website under the "Annual Report" I noticed that City Years success in 2011 was based on children in the grades of 3-5 and for students who received at least 15 hours of tutoring from a city year worker (http://www.cityyear.org/uploadedFiles/AnnualReportFY11_web.pdf). This does not capture all the students that City Year serves to please (grades 3-9). With this being said, although this program may be rewarding to individuals who participate in seeking to help students decrease their drop out rates, is it actually rewarding to the students that they work with? Is City Year actually making in a change to students beyond grade 5?
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