Loyola Univerisity, New Orleans
With folks from the CELSJR, we sat down with Kelly Brotzman, the Director of Loyola’s Office of Service Learning, and Joshua Daly, their Assistant Director for Service, Justice and Sustainability within the University Ministry Office.
—Kelly Brotzman—
Kelly’s office serves over 500 students a semester by helping them and their faculty to arrange for a broad range of service opportunities within the local community. To her, one of the most important lessons in this arena is to focus on impact by intentionally working with a small amount of partners and focusing on the most important and constructive projects, rather than having too unwieldy grab bag of not-so-valuable service options. This requires a strong connection with partners and thorough evaluation of student experience. Another important lesson is to always link service to curriculum. These should not be separate, but fully inform each other.
She encouraged us to take a developmental approach to service learning as well, suggesting that thinking incrementally (i.e. starting slower, more bite-sized, then graduating to fuller, meatier projects) would best serve both the students and partners. In every case, whether early or late stage kinds of service initiatives, the communities will need to be continually “read” for need and impact. Dialog within the community and a willingness to fully hear their needs should be central for all projects. This also means that you will have to select partners with similar capacities. This is not necessarily about size, it is more about expertise, time and culture. Always find good matches.
The “See, Do, Teach” model could work with within the UU Community Schools. Here, “teach” would refer to some form of deliverable, actually making a discernible impact, where “see” is an early stage learning and “do” are their first steps in service work.
At Loyola, coupling the Ignatian model of Discernment to prime students for their service with critical reflection after their work are great ways to get the most out of the experience. Of course, many ways to do this, but this is very effective for them.
—Josh Daly—
At larger Universities like Loyola it can be hard to coordinate service work, with the left hand not always knowing what the right is doing. But, they are working more intentionally recently and finding out new ways to collaborate amongst departments and finding ways to better plug in service partners. Having student led efforts are important as well. For instance, LUPAC, a student org, coordinates a valuable amount of service work for fellow students in areas as diverse as adult literacy and human trafficking. There is a lot of dynamism within the youth and that’s good, but a drawback can often be that when old cohorts graduate, their projects don’t always continue.
He encouraged us to look into the Janus Youth Programs model to get ideas for how our UUCS students could create their own service learning opportunities. The Warren Wilson College was also identified as a great place to look for ideas on how students could best organize around their school service. The Christo Rey schools might also have some valuable tools to learn from.
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Thank you Kelly and Josh for your contribution to our understanding of service work within a faith centered institution for learning!
The Center For Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal (CELSJR) in New Orleans, Louisiana
Our Campaign is lucky to have the CELSJR and their Executive Director, Quo Vadis Breaux, as partners in the development of our learning communities. I had a wonderful day today experiencing more of their current work and learning about their future plans and goals.
Here’s a introduction to their volunteer program:
“The Center [is] a secular project of the three local [Unitarian Universalist] churches in the New Orleans area. Working with community partners, the program connects volunteers with opportunities to address the needs of those affected by Katrina in New Orleans.” -CELSJR Website
For more, please visit their web site and explore what the center does for their community, through service, and for our faith, through justice education and training: http://www.celsjr.org/
A couple of students from The Met School in Providence, Rhode Island, explain why they love this outward looking school and its focus on community.
Boston Arts Academy students perform for the CES conference attendees.
Andy asks two students at Blackstone Academy Charter School in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to explain why they love their school community,
Tour of Blackstone Academy charter school in Rhode Island
Kyleen Carpenter, Head of School, and Carolyn Sheehan, Executive Director, gave a tour of their Blackstone Academy in Pawtucket today. Here’s what we learned about their service programming.
Being of service is important at Blackstone. Students love their Community Improvement Projects (CIPs). They often they strike out on their own and get help from groups like Americorps Vista etc. Their projects range wildly. They must be able to demonstrate that they have a good understanding of the problem that their addressing, not approaching it as a ‘volunteer’ task, but that they see themselves as helping the community. As an example of successful projects, one student helped a neighborhood group put on an Earth Day event and did a website, flyrers, etc. Kyleen noted that, “Our kids can develop an interest and get good at it and by the time they’re juniors they’ll have some concrete skills that they can use in their CIPs. This is great real learning for them.”
As staff, it is important to help them form the CIP opportunity, but not be too directing or begin influencing their ideas too much. At first you don’t know exactly where their projects are going and that’s part of the fun. The kids really need to have a say in what they do. When challenges arrise or the projects dont pan out as hoped, students make that part of their reflection. They see issues after embarking on their plans and learn that some issues are very hard to overcome (I.e. Age or legal limitations) So, reflection becomes as large a part of the learning as the ‘doing’.
But even when projects don’t work out in that year, they can be successful eventually. These projects sometimes plant a seed that will complete their vision down the road. A good example of this is a group of kids who advocated for a skate park and didn’t get it that year but got it 5 years later. That’s real change and a great testament to youth led action.
Denver, Colorado (Finished!)
It is done… Andy has completed his month long Listening Tour through the South and Mid-West. Here are the stats:
6000+ …miles traveled.
500+ …people chatted with and learned from (Y’all are amazing!)
63 …actual hours driving.
34 …overall miles per gallon in my Kia (not bad!).
31 …towns, cities and hamlets visited.
27 …days away from home.
18 …homestays on the road (The best dinners, beds and breakfasts ever!)
1 …truly thankful and altered person.
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$1000 …raised at our closing event in Denver (Thank you! $500 from party attendees and another $500 matched by our Treasurer, Heidi Baskfield. Sending thanks to Hamburger Mary’s as well for provding such an awesome space for our celebration, we appreciate your support! …see the pictures of our event above. :)
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is a wonderful community. I had a great time with Rev. Darrel Richey at the James Reeb congregation and Erich Pitcher, the Coordinator for Social Justice at First Unitarian in Madison.
Right off the bat we got into financing. Rev. Richey noted that as a faith movement we rank low in giving and that that will be a challenge no matter how inspiring an idea is. he also felt that in some ways our faith is losing a wider and stronger commitment to social action. We have drifted from the social action of a faith that published the Pentagon Papers.
A thoroughly thought out strategy will be needed for this campaign to reach its goal. And it is important to remember that you can’t do prophetic work and please everybody. There must also be a real commitment to shared stewardship, not ownership. This must include some kind of faith wide agreement to nurture this movement, even if in spirit, not financing.
Erich’s views centered more on the complex issues surrounding education in a bigger picture. The promise of an effort like this is that youth can be involved in a form of citizenship training earlier than college. This is important. Beucase we shouldn’t be just focused on creating ‘workers’, we must be at least as committed to creating strong ‘citizens’. Many times the kinds of soft skills that lead to better individual success and group outcomes in the ‘real’ world, like conflict management/resolution, collaboration, consensus building, etc, are not taught (or not taught well) in most of our learning environments, especially in ones that serve our youth. This could be because as adults we’re not really the best at these either or too often shy away from these topics.
The bottom line for Erich was that we be focused on creating nurturing environments, extending a radically welcoming nature to these schools like we challenge ourselves to do within our churches. This kind of environment could support a challenging and modern curriculum that unlocks leadership and love in our youth that could change the world.
But to reach this goal, Erich also feels our faith must consider creating alternatives to our traditional views on education and break into some alternatives. Alternatives that could truly advance social justice and democracy.
Detroit & Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ok, it was pretty rainy… torrential even, but I visited four churches in Michigan that were all pretty different. It was really good to see a great UU presence in Michigan, they’re really on their game!
One of my best conversations today was with Sandy Garges, who works in the Spiritual Growth & Development area at the Ann Arbor church. We talked about the future of our faith and how a vision like this might fit in it. While it will be a big challenge to realize, we were both able to see a path towards success for these little social justice academies.
Montessori High School and the Farm School, Cleveland
Last week I flew to Ohio in order to keep Andy company for a couple of days and visit a unique independent school. Immediately upon stepping foot inside Montessori High School we could see the warm community atmosphere as students socialized together at the steps of the main staircase in the vestibule of the large converted home. While sitting in on several classes, I was impressed with the students’ leadership, as they took turns facilitating seminars. The humanities classroom was converted into a cafeteria, where we gobbled up the delicious green beans, rice and tofu dish prepared by the students. The students, faculty, and administration were all very warm and offered advice based on their experiences with the International Baccalaureate diploma program.
A high light of our visit was spending dinner and breakfast the following day with David Kahn, a co-founder of MHS and several other Montessori schools. He prompted us to consider adolescents from a developmental perspective, explaining that a three-year school would build in time for students to acclimatize and “let down their mask.” We look forward to building a stronger relationship with David in the future in order to learn from his experience.
Both Andy and I were excited to hear that the nearby Hershey Montessori School (grades 6-8) has a farm school. David led us on a tour, in which we saw two youth preparing lunch in the kitchen, and a few youth assisting the farm manager near the barn. Andy and I looked at each other in amazement as we walked through the carpentry shop because we often discuss how students at the UU Community Schools will learn real-world skills like carpentry. I personally was enlivened by the possibilities afforded by experiential learning based in real-life service towards community.
KatyAnna-
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
In 2004 I had a transformative experience while visiting Hiroshima, Japan. After a few days in this city rebuilt with a commitment to international peace, I made a commitment myself: to build a set of small international high schools grounded in the values of my faith that could train our future leaders of peace and social justice.
My visit to the UU church in Oak Ridge was completing a circle for me. It was in this small town in Tennessee that the US’s nuclear bomb was developed. A group of scientists, engineers, and other professionals (…a number of whom were probably UUs and likely attended this church) worked with a wider group of people across many cities in the US to nurture the seed of Hiroshima’s destruction.
When visiting the Japanese peace bell in Oak Ridge’s local park, I had prickly questions: Did they really know what they were doing? Could they have imagined what the fruits of their labor would eventually create? In their old age, what does their heart speak to them about their very material part in this? Whatever the answers to these questions are, we have a great cautionary tale about focusing too much on the mind and ‘puzzle solving’ for the sake of discovery or the quest for ‘knowledge’. These pursuits can be dangerous and require more than our all-too-fudgeable ethics to guide us in their exploration.
So, here’s my opinion: the heart must be a large part of our calculus. Why ‘progress’ or ‘master our elements’ just because we can. Tuning in better to my heart often encourages me to slow down, notice the natural miracles around me, and see that being more in harmony with what the world is providing keeps my soul the clearest and most genuine. I’m better with the world, others, and myself when my heart and soul is at least as large of a part of my decision making as my mind.
This is why the campaign’s advisors and staff are ensuring that there is a strong spiritual component to our schools. A robust focus on awakening our youth’s experience of heart power and helping them to tune into its guidance is where a lot of their learning aught to take place. We’re committed to providing this kind of space for our students and believe that our modern UU faith has the spiritual capital to design a program that can facilitate this kind of learning.
Luckily, some of the most fantastic people in our faith are living right here in Oak Ridge. I had a wonderful meeting with Gina Grubb and Tandy Sheffler at our church there. Gina came to the faith relatively recently but is jazzed about inculcating our faith’s values in our world’s youth. After a life in law enforcement, she’s transitioning into becoming an educator herself (…a perfect UU success story!). Tandy is on a similarly exciting path, working towards ministry and exploring the nexus of education and the power of our spirit. Being Oak Ridge’s DRE she’s well placed to do this exciting work.
Lessons learned by Mel White and Soul Force were identified as good resources for our social action program. We also chatted abotu campus ministry and access the lessons being learned in that arena. The issues there may be that there is a group hungry for our message but can’t hear it well enough. How can we help them?
The bottom line for these two was finding a way to have future students in this program know and experience the following: “you are known here, you are loved here, and we are here to help you grow into your fullest self.” This is not an individual quest, but is found in community. We do this work with others and nudge each other when we need it and coast when we need it. These environments are not lightweight, they’re are important and real stuff.
People learn a lot on the margins, not always where we plan or assume learning will take place. What is important is that people know they are not alone; our staff must be ‘relational’ to their core.
Thank you, Oak Ridge, for being both the beginning and the future of this movement.
Memphis, Tennessee
Enjoyed a meaty conversation with Rev. Burton Carley, Minister of First U in Memphis, and their DRE, Cindy Sakaan.
Rev. Carley belives that the finance and ethical conversation happening now can provide some lessons for our campaign. Part of us, the elite with money, knows it’s not right to use this system for our sole benefit, but another part of us is very skilled at justifying it. There is important programitic and curriculum elements found in this struggle of our time.
Bottom line: Public schools are having a very real and most likely insurmountable problem. At least in Memphis it seems more and more likely that the public school system will not be able to be repaired or reformed. It will most likely have to be completely rebuilt.
Which leads to an importnant point: Those who balance their support for this effort (or other forms of quality alternatives to local public schools) solely on it’s form (independent vs public) are missing the point. Rev. Carley believes it may be a distraction keeping us from finding real solutions to our education disaster. His point is that we need models which can bring our youth to better outcomes (emotional, educational, etc.) and do the harder work of crafting a new way to provide for the values we hold that we call public ed to be (i.e. Universal, safe, quality, emotionally supportive, civic minded, etc.) public ed is largely not that today except for more elite public schools that serve the upper rungs of our population. We shouldn’t get caught up in the public/private debate, but focus on outcomes or what we hope to achieve through our various efforts at school improvement. Let’s get as entrepreneurial as we can be. Let’s stop trying to ‘fix’ or work on the edges of public school beauracracies or systems in places where it is clear that that will be a waste of a generation and not actually produce the result we’re looking for. It’s time for a revolution in these places, and it is clear from his work in Memphis, that this is one of those places where we need an entirely new way of approaching the problem.
Another important point related to the above is that, at a higher level, our faith ought to be less reactive. In many ways, we operate spiritually at a 5 yo level.
Ethics aren’t the best grounding for being in right relation with ourselves and the world around us. They go with feeling and need emotional as well as rational intelligence. A strong spiritual identity and practice is better than a reliance solely on ethics.
As you develop your schools model remember that our culture has trouble creating a sense of shared experience. We all do our own thing. Public education used to do this for us. Every one used to go to one high school and people bridged dvides. Only 3 channels on TV, now we all segregate our viewership to channels that agree with us and don’t challenge our thinking. Be intentional about creating opportunities for shared experience and bridging divides both in your school and especially within the communities they’re in.
We were also encouraged to look into Anytown camp. It is amazing and ransformed Rev Carley’s son. Also, there is a difference between giving youth experiences to see how to do things vs letting them run the show. Be clear how the governance program that allows students a large role in how the school operates is designed in a way that leads to your vision. Could be trickier than you think. There is a fine line in how you offer freedom with responsibility. Mentors are very important.
Very important to remember: having a quality and universal residential program is central to success of the program. This planned environment is so powerful. This vision/idea doesn’t work without the intientional community seated in the residential element, don’t lose that.
In the end, there must be an organizer locally to help sheperd the process of setting up these schools locally or you won’t be successful. Local churches will find it impossible to do this on their own. They must be full-time and onsite. When the organizer is good, you do good work.
Little Rock, Arkansas
Made a quick stop in Little Rock to deliver our materials and noticed an amazing natural setting. Their congregation is very lucky to be able to connect so well with nature. This must be a wonderful environment in which to worship and work together. Jealous! ;D
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Caught a lucky window of time and got the opportunity to hang out with the Rev. Deborah Bond-Upson and her husband, Rev. Leland Bond-Upson, in Fayetteville Arkansas.
Some of the more intense areas of our discussions centered around complex issues of financing and curriculum that must be worked out more in depth prior to completing our design. But, they are excited to help us think through many of those issues. More immediately, Deb encouraged us to make better use of social media to connect a wider audience of supporters with the inspiring way in which we’re doing our work here at the campaign. (note: this whole blog series is really her idea ;)
Had a wonderful day with the Bond-Upsons and our Fayetteville UUs and feel blessed to count them as friends of the campaign!
Dallas, Texas
Enjoyed chatting with MarySue Foster, Ellen Quaadgras (SJ Director), Jennifer Jennings (DRE), Alison Conger, Karen Lewis, and Jack Youngkin (chair of SJ cmmte).
Here are some of the topics we covered:
The building seems difficult but doable. Who will you get one? Aren’t there spaces around? Could you get one for free? Could it be an unused or underused church space? Or, like this church, perhaps a church could do a capital campaign to build the facility itself.
This kind of schooling makes a lot of sense. The intentional way we’re including our faith practice in these schools is a very inspiring piece. Through being intentional about student selection, curriculum, etc, they could solve many issues.
There are so many people left out of society’s advantages who just aren’t seen, and often the people who have those advantages take them for granted.
Keep in mind that many kids go to the same schools but experience it differently. Due to race, sexuality, etc. These schools should not be insular. They will have the ability to experience the local area and peers without being anonymous and while bing loved and supported in their quest to be positive and productive adults who care about their world and others. Most importantly, they will be able to connect with those who are vastly different from them in experience, culture, and views. They will also be able to see themselves as an important member in a wider community and respecting those who live in this world with us.
Row camp in Mass. Go there. Great resource for building your model. Kids like it there even if it isn’t faith based. Interfaith action in Boston also a good resource. Woman who started this was able connect very well with the young people. IBU Patel also someone to reach out too.
How could this be a more intergenerational program? Explore that. Think more broadly about location too, be resourceful. I.e. Locate at a decommissioned army base perhaps. There is an island up by Seattle that could be a model for how thats done, or Governor’s Island in NYC. Drawback may be that they are insular.
Thank you folks, very great day in Dallas! love, Andy-
