TFA: Final thoughts.

Every day, after all of us had returned back to the church from school, our group would sit around and share stories and thoughts that we accumulated throughout the day at our respective schools.  We always had so many things to share, that this informal ‘debriefing’ process would naturally occur in most of our conversations whether they were while we were sitting around the church relaxing, walking somewhere while sight-seeing, or while we all shared a meal in Chicagoan restaurant.  Mia and Erin, who were volunteering at a pre-k school, always had funny “kids say the darndest things”-type stories.  Beth and Alex, who were volunteering in a performance arts high-school class, where kids would read their personal poetry, often shared with us stories of heart-wrenching tragedy detailed in their student’s poems.  Not only would we share these stories and experiences with one another, but we would often talk about how these experiences made us feel.  One such conversation formed and took place as we walked along the banks of Lake Michigan profiting from Chicago’s beautiful downtown, night-time skyline.  We noted that what we were seeing looked like the picture perfect postcard; and this observation sparked a conversation that took us all the way back to our second week of class—to the Ivan Illich piece we read.  As tourists, we experienced Chicago as a place with great food, great sights, and great fun; but as volunteers, we experienced Chicago as a place with drugs, violence, poverty, and despair—things that have been forgotten and omitted in Chicago’s representation on the picture perfect postcard.  This juxtaposition we faced, as tourist/volunteer, made us question ourselves and our motives.   What were we actually doing here in Chicago?  Clearly, all of us came with the good intention of ‘helping’ those we were volunteering for, but at the end of the day, we remain unaffected by the daunting reality of Chicago’s inner-city, and the effect it has on its public education system.  How did our presence actually impact these kids?  Sure, from our point of view, it’s easy to think that we came and helped them with their schoolwork for a week and gained a better understanding and awareness for the inequity in public education.  But what about from our students’ point of view?  Were we just another group of white people, coming to their neighborhoods, “righteously” and “nobly” exercising our privilege before scurrying back to our worry-free lives after a single week?  What impact did our presence have on their psyche?  Was it really as positive as we would like to tell ourselves? 

Our conversation, needless to say, was pretty depressing…but it made us reflect honestly about our experience.  The culmination of our ‘debate’, in relation to Ivan Illich and whether or not our presence and “help” in Chicago’s public school system was justified, was contingent on what we would do after returning home.  Would we be “slacktivists” or would we take what we saw, learn from it, and do something about it?  Would we come home and say, “Yeah, the inequity in public education sucks.  That’s too bad.  Anyway, so how bout them Jayhawks?” or would we come home and say, “Yeah the inequity in public education sucks.  How else can I help?  What else can I do?  How do we fix this?”