On Turning 30

"All models are wrong, but some are useful," was the famous bromide of George E.P. Box that my statistics professor put up on a slide.

Turning 30 is just a date.  Just another birthday.  I know that.

And yet, this particular round number has been a useful model to think back on where I've been, and think forward to where I'm headed.  Maybe turning 30 is just a psychological juncture, but it's a juncture nonetheless.

First of all, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Perhaps because my itinerary for the big three-oh didn't give me a chance to think much: awake at 2:50, 6:00 flight from Chicago, 10:00 interview in Boston's Chinatown for an hour-and-a-half, 20-minute lunch, 2:00 interview near Government Center for another two-and-a-half-hours, 30-minute call about a job, 5 minutes sprinting through the rain.  Home by 6.  You could have stuck a fork in me.

It was finally at the bar that it sunk in.

It hasn't been as hard as I might have thought because I don't feel a day over 25.  All the years people have been telling me I look young.  When I was a sophomore in college I was mistaken for a sophomore in high school by the town librarian.  That's been the pattern ever since.  What once felt like an albatross--being baby-faced--now feels like a badge of honor.  There are plenty of folks who look 40 at 30; if I come off as younger, then either I've got lucky genes, or else the exercise and good eating are paying off.

Turning 30 has made me think about 20, and all the things that have changed since then.

When I turned 20, I was drifting through college, unsure where I was headed, with few buoys of support.  I hadn't yet made a truly close, enduring college friend.

I thought I was done studying Spanish--only to be headed to Chile 13 months later for a life-changing year.

I had never biked more than 10 miles--several years later I would huff and puff my way to my first metric century.

Above all, It's striking how little I knew, relatively.  How to write, how to write poetry, how to write pragmatically for a job, how to write about numbers.  My yoga instructor talks about how he'd trade his late-thirties body for his twenty-year-old body any day--but not the mind.  I couldn't agree more.

At the same time, I'm struck by how the core things that make me happy have fundamentally not changed.  Losing myself in an hour of pickup basketball, writing in any form, sitting outside in the sun on a summer day, breaking bread or sharing a beer with a close friend.  Those things sustained me at 20, and they sustain me all the same today.  I only hope they can keep on sustaining me over the next 10 years.

The Importance of FACE Time

Life is as the sea, art a ship in which man conquers life's crushing formlessness, reducing it to a course, a series of swells, tides and wind currents inscribed on a chart.

—Ralph Ellison, “Richard Wright’s Blues”

I’ve discovered a few things this summer, and high up on that list, I have discovered the power of the “one-on-one.” 

The one-on-one is a key sequence from the organizer’s playbook.  Though my own organizing is limited to two years of student activism in college, I’ve snatched the idea for my work on family and community engagement this summer—and boy has it paid off.

A fact sheet from Organizing for America’s Virgina branch revealed the power of meeting people in person, individually.  OFA tracked the outcomes of various forms of reaching out to potential volunteers over a four-month period in the winter of 2010.  They found that only 3% of people talked to on the phone became leaders in the organization, and 6% of volunteers at events.  Folks entreatied through one-on-ones, meanwhile, were converted to leadership roles fully 23% of the time.

***

As I took stock of my summer-long work supporting family and community engagement (FACE) at the Wallace Elementary School in Chicago, I knew that I had something to offer.  I also knew I had to hit the ground listening. 

Part of my mandate to listen was because I am the ultimate outsider to the work: a white, middle-class male not from Chicago, not living in the neighborhood, and not recently a schoolteacher, working with a heavily African American K-8 school on the Far South Side.

But equally a part of my mandate to listen was that FACE work inherently has to be democratic.  Though surely there are many schools that give lip-service to family engagement, for a half-dozen reasons, I don’t think you can meaningfully “engage” families if you don’t listen to their perspectives—and put those perspectives at the center of your work. 

As I developed my summer work-plan, a three-stage process came into formation: Assessing, Assisting, and Achieving.  The first stage: assess the needs, capacities, and perspectives of teachers, school leaders, families, and community members with respect to FACE.  The second stage: capitalizing on what I’d learned in the first stage, assist the various parties in developing engagement strategies—contributing my knowledge and experience with engagement.  The third stage: from the end of my placement forward, it would be up to the school, families, and community to achieve their vision for engagement. 

The currency of the assessing stage would take several forms—attending community meetings, holding focus groups—but above all else, I plunged into one-on-ones. 

***

To carry them out, I’ve broken bread at local diners, met up for coffee at Starbucks, cleared a space in the corner of a library under renovation.  Through the process of more than a dozen such conversations, mainly with teachers but now branching into parents and community members, I’ve honed my techniques into what seems to be a workable set-up.

Before we even broach engagement, we get to know each other—at least on some level.  I’ve learned that a key ingredient of the one-on-one is telling and hearing each other’s stories. 

And it pays to go first, to tell my own story before I put my interlocutor on the hot seat.  I talk about where I grew up.  I put racial issues on the table: I talk about my choice to major in ethnic studies in college, the awareness and passion for social justice I gained from that.  I touch on my experience as a high-school teacher, then an adult ESL teacher, and how that led to an interest in family literacy and parents engaging with schools.  And I express a desire to work together with whoever sits across from me on community engagement.  By going first—and I’ve tried it both ways—I can show my interest in going deep, in being candid.

Then I listen.

One teacher told me about the intentional multiracial housing community she lived in in college.  Another about the ministry she leads.  Another about attending the Wallace back in the day, when it attracted students from across the city.  About the dozen pathways into education they’ve taken. 

Another talked about his high-school days at a strict Catholic school, where they vowed to turn boys into men.  Another about how her very parents reflected both visible involvement (her father served on the Local School Council) and subtle but critical engagement (her mother pushed her learning at home). 

I’ve seen faces open up, start to glow.  Not just about their experiences—also and ultimately, their vision for community engagement.

I usually don’t open my notebook until their personal story is over.  Then I dive into questions about community engagement, and start writing.  It’s striking how much information can be conveyed in merely an hour.  Even my limited stenography, when I retype it into Word later, can run for a dense page-and-a-half, full of insights I might have forgotten if I hadn’t been writing as I listened.

As we talk, I’m jotting notes about the person’s values, interests, and resources.  I’m identifying possible leverage points—attempting to chart Ellison’s sea: I plunge deeper when a topic seems to strike a chord, when the other person really cares about positive phone calls or the nuts-and-bolts of preparing for a parent-teacher conference.  I pivot off a topic when it’s exhausted itself. 

Finally: the commitment.

As the conversation winds to a close, I make explicit two to three talents in family engagement that I see in that person.  And I suggest a small way in which they might be able to contribute to FACE strategies.  In some cases, I’ve asked for a commitment on the spot: Would you be willing to teach newer teachers in how to make positive relationships with families in the first weeks of school?

Such commitments get funneled into an action plan, the template for next steps.

***

On their face, the one-on-ones I've put at the center of my work this summer may appear inefficient.  They are, however, purposeful--and purposefully limited, usually an hour, no more than 90 minutes.  And I have explored focus groups as a way to meet with more than one person at a time.

Beyond that, though, the value of the one-on-ones is that they allow me to make a potentially deep connection with the very individuals who will be responsible for carrying out—or not carrying out—community engagement long after my work is done.  They allow an individual’s perspectives, vision, and talents in the area of FACE to surface in ways that they might not in even very small focus groups.  As I’ve come to believe, it’s school leaders, teachers, and families who will ultimately have to do the work: if they are energized about community engagement, if they are the ones to build the strategies, they’ll own them. 

And the hope is—they’ll implement them.  One-on-ones are only the first step in a pathway that requires a lot of hard work.  But they make a very good first step indeed. 

Accomplished

Completed: The 30-30 Challenge on the 365 poetry blog.  Actually, 31-31: a poem a day throughout July.


Applied: To six jobs.


Set up: Two interviews.


Played: Tennis, for the first time in 8 months.  Sprains (on two forehand fingers, in my case) take a loooong time to heal.


Visited: Cincinnati (informational interview); Galena, Illinois (work retreat).

And all this in the last week!

We Don't Want Nobody that Nobody Sent

Just back from a memorial party held by one of our Far South Side community leaders to commemorate the 16th anniversary of her father's passing.  During a meeting Thursday to touch base about turnaround-school community engagement efforts, Jane invited a few of us from the Network office.  With a look that said, If you don't come, this community will not be engaging with you.

"You free five o'clock Saturday?"

"Absolutely."

***

As a white guy not from Chicago and not from an urban school system, working on community-engagement with an entirely African American turnaround school on the Far South Side ... well, my work is cut out for me.

As it should be.

I've been in this sort of situation before, and my approach to crossing borders is to cross them listening.  While I have my own knowledge and experience with community engagement, it's not my job to write a handbook in 10 weeks, pass it to the school and parents, and pat myself on the back.  Rather, I've tried to be democratic, inclusive, empowering: to take the ideas that the school and community have, and bring together the strands into a coherent whole.

After all, my thinking goes, community engagement will be an ongoing process throughout the school's five-year turnaround (and beyond).  Long after I am gone, parents, teachers, and community members will be holding the reins.  If they've had a hand in building community-engagement strategies, they'll be more likely to own them, and to implement them.

What's my approach been, concretely?

I've used one-on-one meetings--chit-chat over coffee, usually--to get to know the experiences and visions of teachers at Wallace Elementary, visions that can be tapped as the community-engagement work gets underway.  I've talked to all three leadership members of the staff--some of them more than once--as well as nine other staff members.  I've led off meetings with a few words about my background, how I became aware of my race and privilege, and the teaching and counseling that first got me interested in school-family partnerships.  I've listened to the stories of teachers, elicited their thoughts on engagement, and talked about the talents they bring to the process.

Feedback's been positive.  But it's been a harder go to connect to parents or community members.  Harder to get access, to get calls returned.  Harder to know who to contact.

I did, however, finally connected to two community members this week: Jane.  Community broker par excellence, parent to children who passed through Wallace, member of countless councils and boards.  Our meeting revealed one more thing that makes community connections harder than teacher connections: a reservoir of skepticism that may run very deep.

Wallace's teachers are all new, and the ones I've met with unvaryingly eager.  But as I quickly learned from Jane's questions, she's one of probably many community member who's seen attempts to change schools.  Seen people from the outside try to impose a vision.  Seen white people who know what's right.  Seen students extract an experience that becomes the basis for their thesis at a far-off university.

On Thursday, Jane voiced that skepticism to me; but also an optimism, and an invitation to her home tonight.

***

It was a rollicking good time: Jane's sisters and brothers and children and grandchildren, tin foil platters of rib tips and pasta primavera as far as the eye could see, and (I didn't quite expect ever to say this) a stirring a cappella rendition of Barry Manilow's "One Voice," sung by a middle-aged gentleman with a truly impressive range.


I stuck close to my supervisor--who knows Jane well--until I had a handle on the room's genealogy, ventured out to mix a little, had very much very good food.  As darkness came and conversation moved inside, it took a turn I'm becoming increasingly familiar with: clusters of folks separating off to discuss a new charter school opening, developments of a parent council, how a candidate in an old race approached the community.  Talk of redistricting, and how it will affect upcoming elections.

There's politics everywhere in this city.  It runs very local, it's very tied to schools.  Having never worked in another large urban district, perhaps this is par for the course.  But nevertheless, it's striking.  One moment I'd shaken the hand of a tall fellow by the sink--next he was telling me he's running for the board of a local, newly-opening charter school.

Perhaps the most important moment for my work came when Jane used her booming voice to command the stage with a few words.  After she thanked the crowd, she moved on to the three Network staff who were there.  She called me out--talking about how she was skeptical when she first saw me, but was coming around because now she witnessed passion and commitment.  She vowed to put some meat on my bones.

I felt good for a moment; but the listening, the awareness, the work, must go on.

Welcome to the Big Time, Kid

I know a little bit about Chicago politics.  I've read about the pork and patronage.  Followed the Blagoyevich Senate-seat selling scandal.  The wards, the "mini-mayor" aldermen, the machine, the voter-turnout traded for jobs.  

When it comes to the school system, I've been slowly absorbing the lingo associated with the web of roles, rulers, and responsibilities in and around CPS.  At the local level, perhaps the most unique manifestation of politics and schools are the "LSCs," or Local School Councils.  Created during 1980s decentralization, with one for each of the 600-plus schools, they have survived recentralization--and maintain the power to hire and fire principals.  

In addition to the LSCs, the system's alphabet-soup includes CACs (Community Action Councils) and PACs (Parent Advisory Councils).  Powerful?  Evidently, yes.  Why?  I'm not sure yet.  

In the case of the south-side turnaround elementary school I'm working with on community-engagement, leaders from the LSC and CAC supported the turnaround.

Oh, and did I mention there's a PTA?  The PTA did not support the turnaround.

It's one thing to conceptually know the politics.  It's another to see it with all its brass-knuckles gleaming--as I did Thursday night during a community meet-and-greet for the school.

The meeting featured an invigorating opening speech by Principal Brennan, who recounted the teachers that first sparked her love of science, laid out her turnaround vision, and was generally a beacon of energy and optimism.  

It was an important speech.  But the real drama seemed to lie elsewhere.

Two community members were invited to speak.  One the head of the LSC, the other the head of the CAC. 

Community speaker #1 addresses the assembled parents: "You don't have to like me, and I don't have to like you.  Because it's about the kids."

Okay, glad we got that out of the way.

Now she addresses the principal: "Principal Brennan, people have been asking me, What do I think of you?"

An opportunity for a show of unity in the face of enormous challenges?

"And to be honest, Principal Brennan, I don't have an opinion about you.  Come back in December and ask me, and I will then."

How do you like them apples?  

Community speaker #2 was a little longer on the forward-looking and esprit-de-corps ...

... until I was introduced to her after the meeting.  As a non-Chicagoan white male in a suit, it often takes a little explaining to convey why I care about community-engagement and may have something to offer.  

Fair enough.  As it should be.

Well, let's just say: speaker #2 was and remains skeptical of my capacities in that regard, which she did not hesitate to directly tell me.  My status as an outsider, my choice of coffeeshop location, my taking of the bus ...     

I needed a glass of wine and a good 30 minutes of yoga after the meeting.  The school politics, the parent politics, the turnaround politics, the politics of race, of accountability, of community engagement.  This city breathes politics.  I've got a lot to learn.  

My Big Five

Everybody gets to the point, I guess, where the job search becomes serious.  I spent months and months exploring jobs, calling up folks for informational interviews, and mulling.  Lots of mulling.  Now I need  a job in the next two months.  I've applied for things, but unfortunately HR offices don't calibrate their hiring processes to the end of my grad-school program!

Folks at Education Pioneers have nudged me to reach out transparently to people I know, with a single message: I'm on the job market.

I'm even getting sort-of headhunted.  By a pretty cool nonprofit for an intriguing job, but I will admit it's a bit ... weird.

A couple years ago, I was asked what are the five most important things I'd need in a job.  I made a list back then.  I've tweaked it since, but it hasn't changed much:

Mission: I've got to work for a place I can connect to.  For the most part, I always have--a blessing, but also a need.

Grassroots Connection: I struggled teaching high-schoolers, but loved teaching adults.  I loved being a student activist in college.  I love talking to people.  I don't know if I have to be on the front-most of the front-lines, but I feel a deep need to be close, at least.

Strategy: Okay, this one can be hard to square with the preceding one.  I like the opportunity to think strategically, make plans, deal with "big ideas" (even if they only seem big to me).  Some mix of grassroots and strategy would put me over the moon.

Sharp Colleagues: I want to work with people who push me.  "Push" can mean a lot of things--push me intellectually, emotionally, experientially.  But at the end of the day I want to be challenged not just by my supervisor, but my peers, too.

Support, Growth, Development: Though I am very self-motivated, I struggle when I feel "out in left field," with lack of clarity or lack of support.  I thrive when I can bounce an idea off someone.  When I taught adult ESOL, that person was not just my on-site supervisor, but also a mentor I connected with almost exclusively via email.  In other words, I'm flexible as to where I get the support, but I know I need it.

Those are my big five.  I'm trying to keep them in mind as I search for jobs: considering lots of options, trying to stay true to myself.

Engaging a Turnaround School: Dispatch #1

I've got my workplan, I've got my action steps.  Today the rubber met the road: I conducted my first "one-on-one" with a staff member of the turnaround elementary school in Chicago--let's call it Edwards Elementary--I'm working with this summer.  The topic is community engagement.

I've made the case to myself--and am trying to make it to my office team--that the best thing I can do is build and support relationships about community engagement, relationships that can far outlast my brief tenure as a summer consultant.  As a professor of mine said last semester, "People are more likely to support something they helped to build."  I'm trying to help them to build it.


I escaped from the 103-degree heat into a Starbucks on the far south side of the city to meet with the Edwards's newest clerk, Eileen.  I'd first connected with her at a school meet-and-greet the week before.  I asked her to tell me a bit about herself, and I learned that she grew up in the neighborhood of the school, still lives there, and went to the school herself some 15, 18 years ago.  That was all news to me.

Part of her story, then, was this: "I want Edwards to be the place it was, the place people came to for school from all over the city.  I want it to be the place, again."

Another part was the views on parent engagement she's developed in her previous job as the clerk at another turnaround school on the (somewhat less far) south side.  She was eager to open up about her experiences, and had some definite feelings about what works and doesn't work when it comes to connecting with families.  

If she could recommend only one or two key things to teachers at Edwards, what would they be?  Her eyes lit up: You've got to connect, she said, one way or another.  Email, text, phone calls.

At your old school, I asked her, what did staff do to reach out to families who didn't have a working phone or email?  Her face lit up: Oh--we'd get the security guard who'd lived in the neighborhood for 50 years, and he'd either find someone who could get to them, or he'd go knock on their door.

Just the first of many one-on-ones.  Should be an interesting summer.