A City Year

On the Streets and in the Neighbourhoods with Twelve Young Community Volunteers

Suzanne Goldsmith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351535830
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

In his inaugural address in 1993, President Clinton said: "I challenge a new generation of young Americans to a season of service to act on your idealism by helping troubled children, keeping company with those in need, reconnecting our torn communities." In the fall of 1990, Suzanne Goldsmith had signed on for her own "season of service" with City Year, the widely praised, Boston-based community service program frequently endorsed by political figures as a model for the nation. 'A City Year' is the story of Goldsmith's experience, an honest and gritty account of the triumphs and setbacks faced by an idealistic and experimental social program in its infancy. Together with a diverse team of young men and women--including a Burmese immigrant, a white prep-school graduate, a foster child, an ex-convict, and a black middle-class college student--Goldsmith helped renovate a building for the homeless, tutored school children, reclaimed a community garden from drug dealers, and organized a community street-cleaning day. The year Included backbreaking but gratifying work, the sense of family that comes from collaborative labor, and the potential strength of diversity. 'A City Year' is both the story of an uphill battle in urban America and an uplifting recipe for social change. As the AmeriCorps national service program dangles in the political wind on Capitol Hill, this book offers a true glimpse of what a "season of service" really means. It is a fascinating account for sociologists and all those with an interest in community service and youth.

The School

Tweive

In the course of nine months, each City Year team is to complete a number of short-term service projects, like our work at the Virginia-Monadnock Garden and at Taunton State Hospital, and two longer service projects, one in the spring and one in the fall. These longer projects are known as "flagship" projects and they generally involve "human service" (working with people) as opposed to "physical service" (labor). Each team expects the flagship will be their most challenging project, an opportunity to meet a real human need and to expand one's understanding of the world and of oneself.

The staff tries to build up anticipation for flagship projects. "How can I tell Alan that you're ready for a flagship, when attendance is less than 80 percent?" Tony chides. "Look at your shirt! Would you come in to work that dirty if this was the flagship?"

Tony also tantalizes the team by declining to give us any information about possible project assignments. Everyone knows he has been meeting with the head of project development, Lisa, to discuss plans, but he gives no hint of what is under consideration.

Finally, one day in late October, Tony announces that a decision has been made. We will be assigned to work in the Blackstone School, a public elementary school in Boston's South End.

His announcement causes an excited murmur on the team, as well as a few groans. Some welcome the prospect of working with children in a school. But there are others on the team for whom a school is the last place they want to work.

We have two days of orientation and training to prepare for the Blackstone School project. We spend much of the time in seminars provided by the staff of Boston Partners in Education, Inc., a nonprofit organization that has oversight over all volunteer efforts in the Boston public schools.

First we meet with a longtime school volunteer, who tells us about her stultifying experiences attending the Boston public schools as a

108 A City Year

child in the 1950s; several on the team respond by relating their own school experiences. Amy remembers playing on the slides at her school; Charles remembers sneaking out the back door during class.

We also have a session with an education specialist who hosts a local television show about education and parenting. She is energetic and engaging, and in a couple of hours she covers a lot of territory, discussing issues such as low self-esteem among urban minority children, different learning styles, and the reasons children misbehave, and offering advice about how to deal with certain kinds of misbehavior. It is a fascinating session, and some on the team take careful notes, though it is really too much to absorb in such a short period of time.

Finally, a former school administrator gives us some background information about the Boston public schools. In particular, he describes the changes that have occurred since 1974, when an attempt to integrate the schools through forced busing resulted in massive white flight to the suburbs and a sharp increase in Catholic school attendance, and reduced the public school student population by more than a third.

"Today we have a school system that is seventy-seven-percent minority in a city that is seventy-five-percent nonminority," he says. He goes on to tell us that more than half the students are from low-income families, a fifth require remedial, or "special," education, and 15 percent come from homes where English is not the first language. He describes the political instability in the system, which has seen ten different superintendents in the sixteen years since 1974, and where public trust in the elected school committee is at an all-time low.

The Blackstone School has 900 students, making it the system's second-largest elementary school. It draws its students from neighborhoods with large black and Hispanic populations. The student body at the school is 47 percent Hispanic, 40 percent black, 10 percent white, and 3 percent Asian.

Standardized tests show Blackstone students achieving in the lowest quarter of their age group in the city, we are told. Two years earlier, 20 percent of Blackstone fifth-graders failed to score at or above the third-grade level on reading tests, the cutoff for advancing to the sixth grade. He warns us to beware of thinking that test scores are the only indicators of a successful school. But the school, he says, is up against enormous odds.

"There are tremendous needs out there. And so the schools are asked to do more and more. They have become the social service providers of last resort."

At the end of the orientation we meet back at headquarters with Peri, City Year's education director, for a review.

"What did you learn this morning?" Peri asks brightly. She is sitting up high on the back of a chair; the rest of us are gathered around a large table made from two doors balanced on wooden sawhorses.

"I learned that there are no swing sets in the schools here," says Amy. "No jungle gyms."

Charles scoffs. He is leaning languidly across the table, resting his head on one hand. "Tell me something I don't already know. Maybe they learned something," he says, dismissing the rest of us with a sweeping gesture. "I didn't learn nothing. Nothing." He straightens his arm and lets his head fall to the table with a thud.

"You didn't learn anything?" Peri repeats.

"Kids," he mumbles, his face pressed against the table. "I love kids. Got one of my own."

There is a silence.

"Okay," says Peri, getting up and moving to the blackboard. "Let's talk about the project. What are the communities you will be interacting with to make the project happen?"

"Teachers," says Jackie.

Peri writes the word on the board and underlines it. "Who else?"

"Parents," says Amy.

"I don't think we'll be meeting too many parents," says Richie with a note of disdain.

Peri ignores the comment. "Okay, what do we know about teachers? Or what do we think we know?"

"Not diverse," says Richie.

"Don't teach," says Earl. "Just concerned about money."

"Poorly paid," says Alison.

"Overpaid," says Charles. "Racist." He begins spitting out words like projectiles. "Selfish. Mean. Uncaring."

Peri cuts in. "I want you to think more broadly now."

"How can you just cut people off like that?" asks Richie, frowning.

"Yeah," says Charles. "You going to apologize?"

"I'm sorry if you felt cut off, Charles. Now let's go forward. Teachers."

"They're nosy," says Earl.

"What kind of teachers did you guys have, anyway?" asks Amy, her voice rising.

"Inner-city teachers," says Richie.

"I liked my teachers," Amy says. "You guys are making me feel like a teacher's pet."

Charles is now resting his entire torso on the table. In one hand he has an apple and in the other a small piece of cardboard that he has folded into a point. He stabs the apple with the cardboard. Then he does it again, and again, and again. From where she is standing, Peri cannot see what he is doing. But Amy and Jackie frown in consternation as they watch him.

The room is getting hot.

"Okay, let's find out what we know about parents," Peri says, pushing on valiantly.

"Irresponsible," says Jackie. "They make the schools do the things they should be doing."

Charles jumps to his feet. "Don't say nothing bad about parents." Suddenly everybody is talking, struggling to be heard. Charles backs toward the door.

Peri puts on her most soothing voice. "On this project, there will be strong feelings, because each of the issues that will come up has to do with the entire way we grew up."

"Charles, this is for you," says Amy. "None of us knows what it's like to have a kid. We're talking about experience of our own parents. Our experiences with our parents may be very different from the way you are to your son."

"I don't know how people here can talk about something they don't know nothing about," Charles mutters, sitting back down.

"What you are to this group, Charles, is a resource," says Peri. "Your experience can—"

Charles cuts her off. "I don't want to be a resource. I ain't sayin' nothing more."

There is a dead moment. "Maybe we need to take a break," says David.

Peri looks at Tony, who nods. "Okay," she says. "Ten minutes."

"Charlie's mad at me, I know," says Jackie, when we are standing outside the room. "But it's true! A lot of young parents are irresponsible. My sister's a kindergarten teacher, and sometimes she has to bring home children who are neglected."

We reconvene, and after some initial squabbling, things seem to settle down.

"What are some of the things that could go wrong with this project?" Peri asks, after a while. The question provokes a burst of interest.

"We could hit somebody," Richie says. "Or we could get hit. Those kids are gonna be little hoodlums."

"The kids might not like us," says Alison.

"Sexual abuse," says Charles. The whole team begins shouting things at once. "Teacher resentment." "Our teaching could be in vain." "We could teach something wrong." "Kids could manipulate us." "Not enough to do." "Burnout." "Disrespect."

"What would constitute success?" asks Peri.

"Praise," says Amy. "Or the program continues."

"We could make a difference to someone," says Brendan.

"Kids learn something," says Jackie. "Or we learn something."

"It's not like we're going to get a medal," says Richie. "But if we walk through there after we're done, and they remember us, that'll be cool."

The anxiety the team feels over this project is almost overwhelming. Five team members have dropped out of school themselves, and some have strong memories of school as a place where they felt unsuccessful and inadequate. This project could be an opportunity to reconnect with learning, to teach young children something new and have a school experience they can be proud of. But even for those who were successful in school, the idea of teaching is scary. To be caught by schoolchildren in an embarrassing error—to discover that one has confused a trusting and vulnerable child, or has given him incorrect information—how will that feel?

Thirteen

The Blackstone School, a two-story, modern brick structure, occupies most of a city block. When we arrive, it is encircled by yellow school buses—sixty-three in all. They look exactly like the buses of my childhood. Massed on the pavement outside the entrance is a crowd of perhaps a hundred small children. They part for us as we head for the door, and suddenly I feel very tall. Our uniforms make us doubly conspicuous.

A little boy looks up at us and points. "City Year!" he shrieks happily. Others begin to nudge and smile and point. "The City Years! They came back!"

We will benefit, it seems, from the goodwill left by City Year teams who have worked in the school before us. Our uniforms, which have begun to seem tiresome, now make us important.

We are met inside the school by Principal Bill Colom, a small man with a gentle manner. He leads us to an empty classroom and offers us encouragement, and a warning.

"You must demand respect, right from the start," he says. "It will be harder to gain later if you do not demand it at the beginning. Be consistent. If you say something, mean it. If you make a mistake, own up to it. And most of all, learn to say no. It will be hard, because the children are so cute. But it is very important."

"These kids are going to look up to you," adds Casel Walker, the vice principal. "Pretty soon they're going to look like you. They will talk like you. And you have to remember that decisions you make will affect all the children."

Each person will be assigned as a teacher's aide to a specific class. Some will stay with that class for much of the day, and others will leave the classroom for special assignments, such as helping to supervise in the gym, library, computer room, or swimming pool. We will also help out in the cafeteria at lunch, and on the playground. Before school starts, at nine-thirty, we will perform "bus duty," escorting children from the buses to class. The school day is over at three-thirty, which leaves us time to meet as a team at the end of each day.

Tony has provided the school with information about each team member, as well as the ages and subjects each would prefer to teach. Vice Principal Walker used that information to make class assignments. She now leads us through the school, introducing each team member to his assigned teacher and class, and leaving him or her there as the rest of us move on. "Say good morning to our new helper, Jacquelyn Jones," says the teacher in Jackie's class of kindergarteners. "Good morning, Miss Jacquelyn!" the children call out, looking up from their glue and construction paper with curiosity. Amy's class breaks into spontaneous applause when she enters the room.

An hour and a half later, I am in the cafeteria as team members begin to arrive with their classes. They each have to lead their class to the lunch counter, then to the class's assigned table, following the directions of the elderly "lunch ladies"—part-time workers who control the cafeteria with fear and bellowing. The corps members are to remain with the class throughout lunch.

Earl stands a little away from his group with his hands in his pockets. His class appears to be all boys, many of them quite tall. They are unruly and wild. Earl doesn't appear to interact with them yet at all. He calls me over.

"See that kid?" He points to a tall boy who has the three-leaf Adidas symbol razor-carved into the hair on the back of his head.

"He's a hood. I know, because he's just like I was. It's like looking in a mirror." Earl smirks.

Jackie's tiny kindergarteners are swarming around her legs. "No climbing on Miss Jacquelyn!" she says, in a proper teacher voice. She smiles wearily. "I'm alone with these little devils! My teacher's disappeared, they don't have their coats for recess, and I'm supposed to be on lunch now but I left my money in the classroom and it's locked! Help!"

Brendan stops to talk with me on his way into the cafeteria. His eyes are bright with pleasure. "My teacher is really cool. He's not really strict, but the kids respect him. And they like him. There's one kid in the class who's supposedly"—he pauses, searching for the word— "a little loose upstairs. But he's really smart! It's just that nobody's ever paid any attention to him." He walks away with a swagger.

Richie comes in followed by a pack of girls. "Oh, my God," he whispers to me. "One girl was climbing all over me! They asked me if I was one of the New Kids on the Block." Richie grins proudly.

June looks harried. "I want to work with younger kids. These fourth-graders are almost as tall as me." Indeed, a few look taller. "They're too hard," she says, drawing out the word. "I want a different class."

Tracy arrive...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• ProIogue
• Introduction
• A City Year The Team
• City Year: The Idea and the Prosram
• The Garden
• The Greenhouse
• The School
• Transition
• Building
• Cleanup
• Ending
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments