Yesterday’s class was such a great experience for me, and I’m sure my peers can agree. The Mentor’s Coffee was not only a way to learn about your mentor/s outlook on your performance at the internship but also a great way to collectively plan for the spring semester. This way we can continue to make differences in the populations we are serving. The idea of swapping interns for a day, so that we can all have an idea of the work Vera Fellows are doing at their agencies is just absolutely fantastic! It was really lifting to learn that some of us, as interns, are inspiring our mentors, and that’s really worth mentioning and applauding. I am extremely proud of all the fellows and the work we are doing to ensure positive and lasting change in our populations.
One common theme I noticed in our agencies is the idea of empowerment. Whether we are empowering victims of domestic violence to welcome positive change at DVLEAP (Domestic Violence Legal Education and Advocacy Program) or the youth offenders at The Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES). However, we often have cases where clients find themselves in the same situations as before. Now, my question is, does this happen because change is a requirement for services? Are clients demanded to change rather than empowered to change?
Whether you’re a child, adolescent, or an adult; we sometimes need to be reminded that we are worthy and capable of change for that ultimate push. I think people forget that emotional wellness has a great impact on your overall performance in all areas of life. When I interact with the clients, they often complain that they don’t want to come to the program; they do it because it is a requirement. It is an alternative to confinement. I always believed that a person must be internally free before any change can be made. Given that, come spring semester, I’d like to meet with my mentors to see how we can develop a program where the clients can be empowered with tools for positive decision-making, which will allow them to experience internal freedom and willingly change.
18 comments:
Popy, I'm blown away by your post, and even though I didn't want to be the first to respond this week, I feel so inspired by what you've written that I can't help myself. First, I want to join you in your excitement over hearing about the great work other Verons and their agencies are doing and getting a chance to listen to so many dedicated, smart, thoughtful, and inspiring mentors. The morning erased some of what seems to be my unfortunately natural cynicism about...well, pretty much everything.
One of the things that so inspired me about the morning was the presentation Laura from HSI gave about how they don't treat their "clients" like sick people who are dying or like invalid's who need to have everything done for them, and I feel that this approach is directly related to your point about empowerment. You write, "Whether you’re a child, adolescent, or an adult; we sometimes need to be reminded that we are worthy and capable of change for that ultimate push....I always believed that a person must be internally free before any change can be made." It's highly problematic that the people who come to your agency tell you they don't want to be there, and I think it's important for you to help your agency figure out not only why this might be (which I think you've already done) but also how it might be changed.
You and I have actually touched on this in class a little, if you remember, in our conversation about how people might play out the social roles expected of them in face-to-face interaction with others. In this vein, the questions I have concerning what you wrote about your agency's approach are the following: What are the assumptions about people built into the "remedial skills" approach to pedagogy? and How might these assumptions and the approach itself author social roles in such a way as to hinder the goals of the agency?
It seems to me that the remedial skills approach assumes a personal deficiency in which the acquisition of meaningful knowledge or the communication of meaningful speech is off the table, until the personal deficiency is overcome by having, for example, the conventions of standard English drilled into you until you can regurgitate them on command. The paradox of this approach is that in the midst of a pedagogical drama, if you will, the assumed deficiency itself is a show-stopper, a barrier to learning. Moreover, this kind of an approach makes students objects rather than subjects, to use Paolo Freire's terminology, of their own pedagogy, or, to use yours, it disempowers or demands rather than empowers.
The approach thus builds a highly unequal power dynamic into the social experience of learning and pre-determines the roles of those involved. It seems obvious to me that objects of learning with an assumed deficiency that supposedly makes learning itself impossible would perform the expectations built into the model and that they would not enjoy coming to the program.
An alternate is to build a model that assumes meaningful speech and comprehension precedes "remedial" skills and makes students subjects of their own pedagogy, makes them learning participants who already know things of inherent value and who have worthy views on things. Give them a good novel instead of a grammar workbook and ask them what they think. Have them write an essay about it. Why can't they learn algebra before multiplication? or learn the two at the same time? Raise expectations. Allow participation. Change the power dynamic. Ask them to teach you something about the grammar and syntax of the language they use with friends and talk about how it differs from and coincides with the grammar and syntax of Shakespeare or Frederick Douglass.
I bet they'd like coming to class better if you did!
The Mentor’s Coffee was great. Seeing so many passionate and motivated individuals was truly inspiring. I don’t know about anyone else, but my favorite part of the day was when Popy spoke about her fascination with the toxicology part of her job. But the question here is truly compelling. Certain programs simply work like a revolving door. Causing that participant to become stuck in a system which at times fails to help people gain self-empowerment. Without some form of self-motivation or self-empowerment one will never have the ability to eventually help them after the work within that program is done.
In Common Justice there are different types of programs which motivate self-empowerment not only for the participant but for the harmed party as well. This is a necessity simply because it assists both parties with a powerful weapon, self-confidence.
But back to one of Robert’s points earlier about that great push. At times there is a possibility that participants as Robert pointed out may “come to your agency tell you they don't want to be there” this will indeed make a participant’s time at the program all the more difficult. Sometimes people simply don’t want to be forced or pushed to do anything. They must ultimately first gain understanding of why they are in this program to move forward and get that push. But also there must be a push towards understanding then the greater push (which will come later on) towards growth and development towards success in that program will occur.
It is at Vera events where I realize how much I am missing out on. The fellowship becomes much bigger than one agency and their mission, but a collective effort for social justice. I am truly amazed by the amount of dedication and passion everyone at the table had. Hearing the stories, words of encouragement, and their optimism for the future is inspiring.
Like Robert states, it is all about finding new and innovative ways to engage the students in the material. Students need to care about what they are reading and feel that it has a direct connection to their future. Many students think what they learn in school does not benefit their lives in the “real world”. We need to make the students care. One way the Urban Debate League help keeps students in school is that it brings them together as a community. It is a way to encourage them to think critically about policy implications within their society. Many people perceive policy debate to be one that is centered on the law, but many debaters (especially in CUNY) will let you know their arguments revolve around Feminism, Heteronormativity, philosophy and ethics. These students debate because they believe it matters to educate the community about culture, class, and gender differences. If that kind of discourse does not start in school, what does it say about the policy-makers in future? People need to realize that philosophy is, and always will be, a prerequisite to policy. I would argue that the introduction of critical thinking is what empowers the urban racialized student in North America.
Here is a video on Urban Debate League and how policy debate benefits students, ESPECIALLY urban students:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOYh1O0ohg&feature=related
In the video they talk about how often times “violence becomes one of the only ways people feel like they have access to inform the immediacy of their circumstance”. This suggests that low-income minorities feel silenced in their community, particularly on issues of policy. Why else would they resort to violence if they could see an alternative? Debate gives value to their opinion and voice.
The Mentor's Coffee was really informative and showed me how diverse the projects we work on at our own agencies are. Despite all these differences, the same type of problems and situations seem to show up in each of our agencies too.
I have expressed multiple times the situations in my own agency where parents don't want to take the information that could benefit them. In the worst situations that I have seen was parents who were turned away, because the centers were full, would walk away from the centers saying that they didn't want to leave their children at the centers in the first place. Afterwards, when the head teacher tries to call up the parts of the Court to let them know the situation, the parents aren't willing to wait despite the teacher doing them a favor by explaining directly to the court officers. There's just a lot of negativity that we try to work around.
I do notice that the teachers and volunteers at the centers work very hard at trying to instill self-empowerment into the children who come in. They always let the children clean up after themselves, get their own toys to play with, and share or play with other children as much as possible. However, teaching these children to help themselves and to think for themselves what they want to do for only 1 day probably won't help in the long term of their lives. Unfortunately, these kids will probably go back to their individual lives. Unless the parents or guardians constantly teach the kids to think for themselves, they will probably grow up thinking the same exact way everybody before me talked about, unmotivated.
Robert,
Thank you for allowing my post to blow you away! I feel accomplished! Laura from HS is indeed inspiring; it was her talk, along with my experience at CASES that made me realize the potential absence of empowerment in other agencies. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross once said, "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen." This is the exact quote that skimmed through my mind when Laura spoke about her encounters with her clients. It’s really heart warming to know that she treats her clients in this conscious, gentle, and caring manner. She knows her clients are worthy, and I’m sure she helps them unlock their potential in any way that she can. The teaching dynamics at CASES vary from one instructor to another. Clients are given A LOT OF FREEDOM. CASES is formal in the sense that there is a routine to follow. Clients must be respectful, professional, and must follow rules. Clients are given opportunities to choose novels they are interested in reading. Clients are given the opportunity to think freely and draw their own connections to the novels. Client participation is promoted in all classrooms, and to put the icing of the cake, the clients are also given incentives and treats for coming to class. The GED instructors are very attentive to the client’s academic needs, and always try to meet them. As for math, the clients participate in hands-on experiences where they will make pancakes to sharpen their measurement skills. The lesson plans are fun and the clients seem to enjoy it, however, the minute the clients become a little frustrated, they feel discouraged and believe CASES is a waste of time. I don’t think the clients have an issue with the teaching methods, I think the discouragement comes from their low self-esteem, which is related to the strains and stressors they encounter due to their circumstances. I’m going to meet with my mentors, Sophia and Jessica to talk about this issue. I will definitely keep you posted as to how we will tackle this issue.
Roberto,
If you do decide to visit CASES when the swapping begins, I will personally take you to the drug unit, so you can see where all my excitement comes from! The “revolving door” idea that you mentioned demonstrates the perfect image of how some programs run. It’s a vicious cycle, agencies are helping clients change, however, the change never lasts because there is a lack of empowerment. As a result, clients steer old behaviors.
Christine,
I totally agree with Robert’s idea that if clients can relate or have a connection with the topic that is taught, they’d be more willing to learn. I really like your idea of building community through connections. Communities are a great support system! Critical thinking is a form of empowerment, I agree with you on that too.
Such a good blog already! Popy I love that quote by Elisabeth Kubler Ross!
Lora really is a dream-come-true-mentor. She's opened my eyes to what the clients are going through and given me a first hand account of what it's like to be hiv+. In our support group meetings that she's labeled "Keepin it Real," she always says 'you're not dying!' It's one of the stereotypes she pushes to break down, even among the clients. (I'm secretly hoping I can get her to come talk in one of our seminars next semester). Popy is very right on with clients needing to feel free internally. All of these agencies can only help so much if the client feels 'trapped.' Stereotypes are also a major 'trapping factor.' I'd argue that the one of the major internal fights within clients and even ourselves is fighting what the general public thinks of us. People with HIV+ are fighting the constant generalizations: "You're highly contagious!" "You're dying any day now" "You're dirty" "You must of been a prostitute or homosexual to get it"....
I hope I stay on to fight for those who's stereotypes are holding them back; for not just hiv+ people but everyone else who's getting beaten down with the System.
I agree that this week’s blog is very powerful. The immediacy and emotionality of everyone’s words is so striking, especially given the intellectual envelope that we are usually trying to push. It reminds me that learning (from tying one’s shoes, to mastering karate, to decoding Foucault, to not hitting your partner) is a deeply affective experience as well as a cognitive one. When self-esteem is under threat, how can you grasp multiplication?
Undoing the attack on esteem is a greater struggle than it appears. As Simon points out, it is difficult to untie in a day the knots of a lifetime. The work is very incremental, which accounts for some of the difficulty that providers have in sustaining empowering environments. And when the theoretical hits real life, sometimes all hell breaks loose because people’s defenses, honed to help them survive all kinds of trauma, simply won’t diffuse that quickly, no matter how well meaning the intervention. Moreover, there is such a strong systemic concentration on people’s errors, crimes, deficiencies, etc. that it is very difficult to focus on their strengths, which is what must happen to create the environment for learning, changing, growing.
I am reminded of a conversation with a colleague who recently asked my advice in the case of a man she was seeing in therapy. The man had assaulted someone sexually as a teenager and was quite fearful that he might assault again. Every session was turning into a close reading of his sexual fantasies, to the point that the therapist was feeling both overwhelmed and impotent, and the man was getting more concerned that he might act out in a criminal way. From my distance as an outsider, I could see that the work needed to be done in a different place entirely. Despite his fears, the man had NOT engaged in any non-consensual sexual behavior for over ten years. He actually had developed many terrific strategies to keep his fantasies in his head, where they could be cathartic, instead of acting them out in destructive ways. He had a good job and had married. Yet, because the power of a criminal record is so strong, it tends to obscure everything else about a person so that, instead of calling attention to all the signs that he was unlikely to reoffend, the therapist got lost in the panic that he would hurt someone and she would be powerless to stop it. I would probably get caught up in a similar enactment if I was the therapist, which is why it is so important to have case supervision.
Unfortunately, because time and money are in short supply, and because of institutional pressures to show quick results, it can be daunting to engage in this kind of reflection on every single case. Clearly, it struck a cord when Lora spoke of her clients so positively because she has somehow been able to keep front and center their humanity, perhaps because she has been on the other side of the table. I always quote my favorite psychoanalyst, Harry Stack Sullivan who, working with very ill schizophrenics, always insisted that “we are all more human than otherwise” and that all people-with or without mental illness, criminal records, drug addictions, physical disabilities-have the same basic problem: figuring out how to live with others. If we can keep it there, supporting others gets much simpler.
The Mentor's Coffee was an amazing and unforgettable event. This event was like a step of preparation towards taking action on solving any problems dealt with social justice in our society. The Vera Fellowship is not only about reading articles on social justice and discussing them, but also coming up with ideas on how to solve these social problems and eventually fixing them. "I want to make a change!" is the mentally I have right now.
Applying the term empowerment to my agency would probably decrease the likelihood of the defendant returning back to the cell. My agency (New York Criminal Justice Agency) does not deal on a personal level with its defendants meaning CJA is not there to teach the defendants anything. The only time they talk to the defendant would be when obtaining information from the interview. I have seen though some staff members give the defendants a word of advice, trying to uplift their wings to becoming successful person in life. The defendants are given a word of advice but it is all up to them on how act upon it.
Hello Vera Fellows!,
It was great to see you all again (since the interview process)and very good to see how much everyone is enjoying their time at their respective agencies.
Gary, unfortunately CJA does not provide it's employees with many official opportunites to actually "counsel" the defendants. As you know our contact usually only lasts a few minutes. However if you're interested maybe we can look at the pilot program that is underway in Queens call the Supervised Release program and discuss if this would be a valid program for the other boroughs.
Popy, you have asked a very provoking question. The scenerio of that question can be seen at my agency DVLEAP. Our program is to help the women or men affected by domestic violence to take hold of the power they have to change the situation they are in with our help. All our program does is offer them accessible resources and education on provisions that might help them become independent and free. Like Ms. White tells me most of the time, "We don't make the choices for them, we can only lay out the options they have and it's on them to decide if they want to make a change or not." This quote has sticked to me from Day 1 at the agency because I have to remember that the key to these client's independent life is empowerment. By empowering them, they feel that they can step out and start a violent- free life. Many of these women haven't even had a job or the oppurtunity to learn english. I am proud to say, though, that the women who do come to recieve help from this program end up becoming internally free. There are rare cases where sometimes the women at our shelter aren't ready to be in one or it's not the step they wanted to take. As for the Mentor's coffee, I got many ideas about the spring semester. At this point, I can't complain about the work I'm doing, but as current Vera Fellows, we can always give more of what we got and leave a great imprint of an advocate for social justice at our agencies.
I agree with the notion that teachers, service providers, etc, would be more effective in empowering individuals if they applied more creative strategies. Also, as mentioned in a previous post, people providing services can help more by also playing the role of a mentor. Like myself, many people are not inspired and empowered strictly by way of academics. Often times it's the spoken word; the personal testimony of another is where empowerment is obtained. The inspirational message I received at the Mentor's Coffee is that regardless of medical condition, criminal history or disability, success can be acheived if we can use our unfortunate situation not as a crutch but as a "push" to inspire ourselves and others. I think we also must take in consideration the fact that many individuals that we attempt to provide services to do not have all their basic needs met. Maslow's needs of hierarchy theory suggests that a person's basic physiological needs such as food, water and shelter must be addressed before that person can obtain a sense of safety, love and ultimately self-esteem.
Of course! Maslow. What a perfect tie-in to this discussion Timothy. You (and he) are so right about basic needs. Learning and growing can't happen without that. It's an excellent point.
And back to this thing about empowerment (being a subject of your own pedagogy) for a second... Look at this class. It's a perfect example. Yes, we have professors, and they're brilliant, but you know what? This class is allowing each of us to be brilliant too. We get to direct a discussion each week in the blog; the seminar format puts our views on the same table with those of our professors; and we're out in the real world where our skills and personal assets are valued, even as we learn new things and grow as people. It's nice to think that we're special in some way, because we were chosen for this and others weren't. But I'm convinced that we look special because we're allowed to, because the class and the method tell us we are. Ok, yes, we're all overachievers in some sense, but c'mon. Did you guys hear your fellow Verons at that mentor's coffee? That's the sound of a group of people being given room to shine. I want to figure out how to give other people that kind of room, people who maybe aren't overachievers and who haven't been chosen for things a lot. (And let's not forget that one of us almost wasn't chosen this time, and I for one can't imagine this class without what this person brought to the table all semester.) Anyway, sitting there listening to you guys made me really proud to be in this group with you. You're all amazing, and so is this class. In our work, let's not forget why it is.
I also agree that Laura was not only empowering but for me she exemplified strength and triumph over adversity. Dani is so blessed to be surrounded with such motivating, inspiring individuals.
We often in this society, myself included, assume that others who are ill or disabled are not as capable of accomplishing or fully succeeding at things that others without these ailments are capable of. I often find myself creating excuses for them and being overly protective. It's not until moments like when Laura spoke at our mentors coffee or when I'm sitting down with a participant and I'm presentied by either what they say or something that they've done that i reflect and remind myself of how perfectly capapble if not more empowered to do so.
Just a sign off to my road warriors before Thanksgiving. This blog has been wonderful, Moppy, oops: I meant Popy. I am very moved by the degree to which your hearts have been entwined in this process as well as your heads. It is truly a honor to be sharing the road with you.
Professor Stein,
I also agree with Simon on the grounds that change cannot be made overnight. It’s really saddening to realize that sometimes intervention programs will not be able to restore a person’s self-worth. It is also a pity that many institutions apply pressure for change within a very short time period. I believe this is an issue at CASES. I don’t think clients are given enough time to willingly change.
Robert,
This idea of giving others a chance to shine whether they are overachievers or not is really important. That is really touching and this kind thinking comes with maturity and cognitive development, which you totally display. I think everyone is gifted in some way or another and it’s our job to figure out what that is and make him or her feel good about it.
As for everyone else,
Great discussion! I hope you are all having a Happy Thanksgiving. I am really glad most of you, if not all have noticed the lack of empowerment in your agencies and I’m sure you are already thinking of ways to explore this issue to fix it.
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