After reading the articles "To Hell With Good Intentions", by Ivan Illich, and "Why Servanthood is Bad" by John McKnight, my perspectives on community service were altered. These articles, while very inflammatory, made good points and while I did not agree with all of the ideas expressed in these essays, I felt they did have some good things to say about the importance of one's intentions when performing community service.
As far as good vs. bad intentions go, I feel it is important to come at your community service with a respect for and a certain understanding of the people you are serving. This means that you must look at things through their perspectives, not yours. You must not make assumptions. The people you are serving have a lot in common with you, but there are also often a lot of things about their experience that you have not experienced and thus cannot directly relate to. It is important to consider the different life experiences these people may be having.
For example, while I was at my tutoring job in a 3rd-grade classroom of a local elementary school, I was having a conversation with an 8-year-old boy who had a lot of questions about my nosering. At one point, he declared, "I'm going to get a nosering too, when I am a teenager!" I said, "Do you think your mom would let you??" He replied, "I don't have a mom." I felt terrible. It was uncomfortable because I had made the assumption that this boy had a mom. I was looking at his life from my perspective, assuming that his experience matched up with mine as a child in a certain, critical way. I should not have made this assumption. It put both of us in an awkward situation which highlighted our differences rather than our similarities, and it killed what had been a pleasant and interesting conversation. However, I am glad that it happened because it illustrated for me an important point made by the authors of the essays we read--the idea of serving people by considering their perspectives, and not making assumptions.
Moving forward, I will make an effort to be more thoughtful and careful about the way I interact with the people I work with in my volunteer jobs. I will try to make less assumptions about their lives, especially as they relate to my own experiences. My experiences are not universal, and do not apply to all people. To become a better volunteer, I must remember this.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
November Scholarships for Service Stories; New Urban Arts
I have been thinking a lot about service and what it really means to not just the community, but how it has impacted me on a greater level.
How I even become involved with the non-profit side of Providence really stemmed from this desire to find/or even feel some sort of connection to any community, really, since I felt that the RISD community did not have much to offer other than intensive self driven studio work. As much as I appreciated this independence that RISD fosters through our creative studio practice, early on as a freshman, I realized that as a consequence, RISD lacked that community strength. I started looking outside "the bubble" to see what things were out there; new things I could be a part of and really feel like I could belong and share my ideas with other people. I also just wanted to give back and have a place other than studio to focus on... sort of like a breath of fresh air from all that stress of just being a student... That is when I started volunteering for this non-profit called English for Action. I would take the bus down to an elementary school in Olneyville and just play and do arts and crafts with elementary school kids. I would do all sorts of crazy things with them; from building huge cardboard spaceships to marshmallow domes, it just seemed like the possibilities were endless! I always came back from those experiences instantly feeling better about myself, even if I had loads of work to complete... taking time out of my own schedule to do something like that was imperative to my well-being.
That experience with English for Action really jump started my "hobby" for volunteering and being a part of other communities... all this networking actually landed me to where I am as a mentor at New Urban Arts. I was previously a studio assistant last Spring semester of 2011 but was chosen to be a painting mentor this year. I was so excited but extremely nervous about taking on this new role.. being a studio assistant allowed me to familiarize myself with the space as well as getting acquainted with staff and the students.. this completely new role as a mentor was sort of daunting to me; I kept thinking to myself, how would I be able to actively engage these students and let alone have them interested in wanting to paint with me? This idea of actually being an "educator" but not in a formal sense, still made me nervous about how I would be able to interact with these kids. I was not sure about all these great ideas and plans of things I wanted to paint and create with them and whether the students would actually take interest in what I wanted them to do. As I went through the first few days of mentoring, I slowly realized that this creative process was something I really could not force. I am there to help facilitate and make whatever ideas they have into a reality; being a painting mentor, I wasn't there just to teach them the formal aspects of painting, but really to be someone who can openly listen to what they have to say and instill in them a passion for the ideas they were generating and just really get them excited. There was this one student who I really enjoy working with.. I would always ask her what she was interested in doing for that day and suggest a bunch of things we could do using the materials available.. One day we started off thinking we could make these giant popsicle forts with hot glue..but that eventually morphed into us making mosaics with beads... She would always get excited by new ideas I would throw at her about other potential materials or things that could be done to transform her art work. I absolutely enjoy working with her because she makes me realize that this creative force that drives New Urban Arts is something that is so spontaneous and special; art is not something that can always be planned... and sometimes the best ideas can come from something that does not require so much thought. The process of exploring and trying new things is what becomes the artwork itself.. along with bridge of communication that is constantly being expanded and strengthened.
How I even become involved with the non-profit side of Providence really stemmed from this desire to find/or even feel some sort of connection to any community, really, since I felt that the RISD community did not have much to offer other than intensive self driven studio work. As much as I appreciated this independence that RISD fosters through our creative studio practice, early on as a freshman, I realized that as a consequence, RISD lacked that community strength. I started looking outside "the bubble" to see what things were out there; new things I could be a part of and really feel like I could belong and share my ideas with other people. I also just wanted to give back and have a place other than studio to focus on... sort of like a breath of fresh air from all that stress of just being a student... That is when I started volunteering for this non-profit called English for Action. I would take the bus down to an elementary school in Olneyville and just play and do arts and crafts with elementary school kids. I would do all sorts of crazy things with them; from building huge cardboard spaceships to marshmallow domes, it just seemed like the possibilities were endless! I always came back from those experiences instantly feeling better about myself, even if I had loads of work to complete... taking time out of my own schedule to do something like that was imperative to my well-being.
That experience with English for Action really jump started my "hobby" for volunteering and being a part of other communities... all this networking actually landed me to where I am as a mentor at New Urban Arts. I was previously a studio assistant last Spring semester of 2011 but was chosen to be a painting mentor this year. I was so excited but extremely nervous about taking on this new role.. being a studio assistant allowed me to familiarize myself with the space as well as getting acquainted with staff and the students.. this completely new role as a mentor was sort of daunting to me; I kept thinking to myself, how would I be able to actively engage these students and let alone have them interested in wanting to paint with me? This idea of actually being an "educator" but not in a formal sense, still made me nervous about how I would be able to interact with these kids. I was not sure about all these great ideas and plans of things I wanted to paint and create with them and whether the students would actually take interest in what I wanted them to do. As I went through the first few days of mentoring, I slowly realized that this creative process was something I really could not force. I am there to help facilitate and make whatever ideas they have into a reality; being a painting mentor, I wasn't there just to teach them the formal aspects of painting, but really to be someone who can openly listen to what they have to say and instill in them a passion for the ideas they were generating and just really get them excited. There was this one student who I really enjoy working with.. I would always ask her what she was interested in doing for that day and suggest a bunch of things we could do using the materials available.. One day we started off thinking we could make these giant popsicle forts with hot glue..but that eventually morphed into us making mosaics with beads... She would always get excited by new ideas I would throw at her about other potential materials or things that could be done to transform her art work. I absolutely enjoy working with her because she makes me realize that this creative force that drives New Urban Arts is something that is so spontaneous and special; art is not something that can always be planned... and sometimes the best ideas can come from something that does not require so much thought. The process of exploring and trying new things is what becomes the artwork itself.. along with bridge of communication that is constantly being expanded and strengthened.
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