Doritos for Ducks

Today our school took a field trip to the Bronx Zoo. Making sure that 50 special needs preschoolers made it through the zoo without getting lost or hurt or jumping into the duck pond was some feat. We had one-to-one supervision for all of the kids and I was in charge of a girl named Heavyn. She was incredibly cute but also close to impossible to manage. She took off at every chance she got and could not be prevented from sharing her Doritos with every animal we saw. She had a tantrum at the end of the trip because she couldn’t get her face painted and terribly wanted a “make over.” The experience reminded me how hard (though fun) it is to work with kids! To all the teachers that do this every day, your work is really amazing. 

Rain and Reflection

It’s been quite a rainy few days here in New York…perfect time for reflection and blogging!

Over the past few weeks, I have been in rehearsal nearly every day!  Under the direction of fellow Princetonian Pilar Castro Kiltz ’10, I performed with Ensemble Dance in Wayside, a 25-minute dance-theater piece inspired by the poetry of Princeton professor Paul Muldoon (a shorter, earlier version of this piece premiered at the CoolNY Festival this winter, which I blogged about in February). Last week, the newly developed iteration of this piece was showcased at Dixon Place as part of the venue’s works-in-progress series.  Because Ensemble Dance includes performers from all circles (9-5ers, BFA/MFA students at Tisch, freelance artists, etc.), our rehearsal schedule was complicated to say the least.  Minutes before the show, we were running through sequencing, cues, props, choreography, and light changes, and I will admit, it seemed that all of these moving parts were doomed to turn the poem’s “scene of a crash” into reality.  As the lights dimmed for the second and final act of the evening’s performance, Ensemble Dance took a final breath together in the darkness.

Onstage, 25-minutes of dancing goes by in a blur, but I distinctly remember feeling the confidence, physicality, and breath of the dancers performing around me, and we truly became an “Ensemble.”  The combination of weeks of rehearsal and last-minute adrenaline set in at the exact moment of performance; that evening, Wayside was the best it has ever been performed.  As a mentor of mine said to me, we “gave it all, and in the right way.”

Next up on the horizon, Education Through Music’s Children’s Benefit is next week.  Our partner school students are busy rehearsing for the big evening.  The evening will include performances by ETM partner school students and bands alongside classical guitarist and former Yankees outfielder Bernie Williams and the cast of Broadway’s hit musical Million Dollar Quartet.  Meanwhile in the office, ETM staff are occupied with party-planning, speech-writing, seat-assigning, and all the details that go into making our biggest fundraiser a success.  The date of the gala not only coincides with the unveiling of ETM’s new look(!), but also quite a few grant proposal deadlines, which means I am quite busy at work.

Finally, everyone at ETM is looking forward to having TWO new fellows on staff next year! Congratulations and welcome to all of the fellows who have accepted positions for the 2012-13 year.

Communicating our mission

When I first started working at AppleTree, I had a difficult time describing my job. Extremely difficult. None of my friends could describe what I was doing in Washington, DC, nor could my parents. “Some charter school job in DC” was the typical phrase. But anyone who has spent time with AppleTree knows it is so much more than that.

AppleTree has amazing academic programs and tools thoughtfully developed by our hard-working staff. Furthermore, we are looking to share these resources with others, so that we can fulfill our mission to close the achievement gap before children enter kindergarten.

However, as I settled in, I realized this was a common problem of the organization. People recognized that we were doing great things for children, but they did not understand our scope of work. They certainly could not explain it well to others. We realized our organization needed to hone our messaging and develop compelling language that we could share with our supporters and the community.

We have had numerous accomplishments on the communications front this year. But I think I am most excited about a new video developed for us by Jennifer Burton of Envision Communications. We shared it with select audiences this past month, and we have received wonderful feedback thus far.

In the video, we offer a cohesive narrative about our organization and programs. Viewers can finally understand our work and help us move forward to eliminate America’s achievement gap.

The video is now available on YouTube and our website. I hope you enjoy it!

Springtime!

You know the scene in The Wizard of Oz when all of the munchkins start to appear after Glinda announces that the Wicked Witch has been killed? I feel like that’s kind of how New York is at the moment, except replace Glinda with a meteorologist and the Wicked Witch with the winter weather. Now that spring has arrived, it's amazing how much more alive New York feels. Instead of just scurrying from place to place with their heads down to avoid the cold (and we didn't even have a bad winter) people are actually enjoying their time outside. Restaurants with outdoor seating are crowded, rooftop bars are opening back up, and parks are bustling all day long. I know lately I have definitely been more inclined to explore new places and make more plans to see friends. As a result my wallet is taking a bit of a hit, but it’s definitely worth it to make the most of the experience of being in the city in the spring.

It's April and Conferences Are Over!!

I finally feel as though my position at the Campaign is starting to wind down. I still have plenty to do. In fact, I am sure that I could sketch out enough projects to last me through my final day--somewhere around the end of May. But now that I have a firm grasp of almost all of my responsibilities until then, I have become aware of how limited my time at work is and how quickly the spring is encroaching on us.

Most of February and half of March I spent planning 2 large conferences for the Campaign: "Safeguarding Sound Basic Education in Hard Economic Times." Though I did some minimal event planning in the fall, I had never before planned any large-scale work-related event from start to finish. What was most intimidating was planning 2 invite-only conferences--one at Columbia University and one in the Albany area--for some big-time players in the education policy world. Read more about the conferences here.

At first, I could not wait for the conferences to occur and thought that I would be intellectually bored. This was not the case. When sending out invitations and calling individuals about their RSVP information, I was able to talk to interesting and important leaders and learn about a variety of organizations across the city and state. I learned how schedulers fill a Congressman's schedule. I learned how deeply appreciative many public sector employees are of substantive, innovative conversation related to better providing the support services and resources that students need to have meaningful educational opportunities. I learned how to more efficiently use Excel :).

And I learned how much time and effort goes into planning a panel/conference/event from the name-tags to the microphones to the hand-out folders to the catering. There are so many small details that go into planning events that I never had thought about.

Forever more, I will sincerely think the event planner of any conference that I attend. This is a promise that I made to myself after more than a few late nights at work. I hope that you do, too. Without that planning, the spirited and thoughtful collaboration, discussion, and arguments may never have taken place at all.

But I am certainly happy that March is over; I may now be happier about writing and conducting research solely behind my computer screen for a while . . .

Shocking Statistics, Continued

My peer Rachel wrote a great post about some of the challenges facing communities of color. She asked me to respond to her post and what follows are some reactions that ran through my head:

I think a good starting point for digesting any 'shocking statistic' is a frank discussion of privilege and its much less popular twin, oppression. I highly recommend this surprisingly shocking 'Checklist' for those who occupy a body sexed as male and raced as white. (If that post looks a little daunting, I'd also recommend this laughably simple analogy involving cute animals).

If, after reading those, you feel a little uncomfortable you should go back and read them again. If, upon second reading, your skin's on fire with shame and you feel as if suffering wouldn't exists without your presence, your on the right track. At least that's how I felt once it clicked. Radical shifts in perception are often the building blocks for radical change. I bring up privilege because it has the tendency to blind us to the suffering of others. And for those who've walked down the crumbling streets of Chicago's West Side or Hartford's North End it's readily apparent that many people are suffering.

For those involved in social justice work these shocking statistics aren't particularly new. African-American communities have been the subject of state sanctioned violence since...well, since the state was created. 400 year legacies of oppression don't just end overnight, and I think it important that those working in social justice gain a full appreciation of just how far we've got to go. This morning I heard Van Jones give an apt description using 'Beer Gate' as an example:

The most powerful man in the world, president of the United States, steps forward and says, "I think the police behaved foolishly." The right wing and the law enforcement establishment brought the wrath of God down on the White House. I was there. And suddenly, he’s forced to do a beer summit, to sit eye to eye with a racist police officer. As a black man, even the most powerful man in the world cannot speak about race. And if he does, he’s then forced to sit humbly across the table from a racist police officer.

The President of the United States of American must lay prostrate at the feet of a policeman who would arrest him for walking on the White House Lawn... So we know things aren't going to go well for poor black and brown babies (and other people for whom this nation is actively targeting). Aside from focusing on the gravity of the struggle, it's important to iterate the basic claim of Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow

I noticed that Rachel failed to mention one of the main tenets of Michelle Alexander's book: The criminal justice system operates as a system of oppression to silence, weaken and terrorize a community fighting for a larger piece of the American Pie. While commentators and critics may pick at statistics, or imagine other 'real' causes of black poverty, I've yet to see a thorough critique which directly confronts her claim. And when we talk about single mothers, they're single because all of the men are locked up...

In North Lawndale - a 99% black neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, 59% of adults have a criminal background and 80% of men have some involvement in the criminal justice system. And as someone who's generally skeptical of men with guns, the armed police presence is shocking. Officer friendly is no-where to be seen...And our clients at the Employment center are almost exclusively ex-cons.

As someone who regularly interacts with the formerly incarcerated I'm shocked by just how banal their offenses are. Drug possession and drug dealing are some of the most common cases our clients have. It's the type of stuff that Princetonian's do regularly in the privacy of mansions.

Perhaps what is most terrifying is the fear of climate that dominates the cityscape. As inter-personal violence spikes in the summer months, Police do little more than raid the houses of the indigent. And while gun violence is real, it largely pales in comparison to the broad injustices carried out by the Chicago Police Department. Chicago, home to John Bruge's 20 year reign of state sanctioned torture in the Black ghetto's of Chicago, has a police force notorious for its abuses ranging from the petty (like ignoring traffic signals and blowing through red lights without sirens of lights) to murderous drunken binges, homicides and even gang-banging.

I think its important to focus on education, providing support to single women, creating reliable affordable housing, repairing infrastructure, increasing access to public transportation and creating living wage jobs. But all of that is for not if The New Jim Crow still stands...

Office Redesign

Two weeks ago our office was under construction and we returned a week and a half ago to a newly redesigned space. Although I’ve stayed in the same room in my office since I started working, my surroundings have changed a fair amount since August. Initially, I was in a large room by myself, nicknamed the “Orange room” after the brighter-than-Princeton’s-orange wall that I faced. There were mixed feelings about the color, but I liked it. A few months after I was hired, two new staff joined me in the Orange room – a very welcome change after sitting alone for most of the day. Sitting in one place all day has definitely been a big adjustment to working life and it really helps to have company. The next step was removing the wall that connected our room to the rest of the office floor. As part of the redesign, the formerly solid wall has been replaced by stacked wooden cubes/boxes, some of which are hollow, making the space private but also open to the rest of the floor.

Seating has shifted so that our room (alas, no longer orange) includes the most of the Communications/Work on Purpose team - another junior staff, our supervisors, and myself. I’m looking forward to easier communication, since my boss and I are sitting next to each other and will no longer need to use our phones for quick questions. It will be great to have more space for and ease of collaboration. I’ll post a picture of the space soon – it’s definitely unique among office styles. The architects designed it to reflect our brand as an ecosystem where the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.