Since 2007, the public schools of New Orleans (NOLA) have benefited from university volunteers engaged in service-learning experiences. Teacher candidates,and faculty from NLU work with NOLA teachers to help clean and set-up classrooms, develop curriculum and libraries, and prepare materials for children beginning the new school year. Service-learning experiences transform pre-service teachers into civically engaged educators and active community leaders.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Devastating Impact of Hurricaine Katrina on the Lower 9th Ward
Hurricane Katrina had a devastating impact on the already impoverished Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. The hurricane decimated the neighborhood by destroying a large number of homes and businesses. While, driving through the area with our tour guide Tony, a local taxi driver, He described the devastation that Hurricane Katrina had on New Orleans. He pointed to building after building describing what was there and then said "GONE". "This was a McDonalds, GONE. That was a KFC, GONE. There was even a Family Dollar there, GONE and so on."
I was shocked at the number of empty lots and vacant businesses that we passed by and even more shocked at the primitive infrastructure like street signs made from plastic scraps with street names often hand written or spray painted on poles and spay painted house numbers.
I have done a lot of photography work in some of Chicago's most impoverished areas like Englewood and Lawndale but none have even compared to what I saw in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans. This was because the area had suffered a natural disaster which was unlike anything that ever happened in Chicago.
There were only a few good things in the area in therms of improvements. A newer flood wall along the gulf which was taller in height and thicker in depth than the old one was erected following the hurricane. Houses are now being elevated by reinforced stilts to allow flood waters to run under the house without sweeping it away during a hurricane. Also actor Brad Pitt donated a large amount of time and money to build new state of the art affordable homes for residents of the Lower 9th Ward.
These improvements have helped to make life better for residents of the Lower 9th Ward, but there still is along way to go. It's shocking how popular upper class areas like the French Quarter were quickly evacuated and well preserved and the impoverished Lower 9th Ward was blatantly neglected by the system during the hurricane as well as the aftermath and still is today. I hope to do more work in the Lower 9th Ward next year!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
A Few Photos :)
Monday, August 22, 2011
My Home Away From Home
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
heat, happiness & hope in NOLA
New Orleans can be gritty and intense, but oh so much good food and music!Yea for snow balls and sazeracs!! The Katrina Musuem is new - so worth attending...gives a pretty clear picture of what took place and why it is so important to continue to help the city, the people, the culture to thrive, in any small way one can.
A trip like this, hopefully makes one look at one's self, step outside one's comfort zone and maybe come away richer in ways you could not imagine...can't wait to go again! Thank you to Karen, whose tireless work makes it a great experience for each of us.
My Trip to New Orleans and What I Learned
What did you expect from this experience?
I expected to help rebuild the school and learn about the struggles that children in New Orleans face in getting a good education. I thought New Orleans would be a very special city to enjoy and see.
What did you learn about yourself - based on what you did at the school?
I learned that I am a very helpful guy. I got to do all kinds of jobs at the school. I did some painting of the classroom walls. I also got special jobs from Kate, Jessica, and Julie who work at the school. These jobs included going to the Cultural Center and cleaning out Julie’s old office, putting boxes of school materials in the classroom and looking for some of Julie’s materials that were scattered around the school. When I was with our group I mostly did leveling of books in the classrooms.
The neighborhood of the school that I worked at was in a poor area. I feel lucky to live in a nice neighborhood and to have gone to nice schools that were very clean and had lots of school materials.
How have you changed from your experience in this service learning experience?
I was so proud to contribute to helping rebuild a school. I enjoyed being in one of the coolest cities I have ever been to. I enjoyed the culture, food, people and the French Quarter. I liked the group mates I was with and the time we spent together. Our group accomplished a lot and I am very proud contributing to the group.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Sweet Home Chicago!!
Day#7 in New Orleans.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Day #6 in New Orleans.
It made me think of schools in Korea 'cause we have same kind of school system. After the work all the people went to Cafe' Reconsile and I had a cat fish Po Boy and a whole desert for myself. After heavy lunch Sarah, Margery, Kate, Ryan, L.K. and I took Katrina tour with Tony. We saw some of the damadge that Katrina caused. We saw through picture how Bred Pitt helps the victims and was Fats Domino's old studio. After the tour I felt so hot so, I jumped into the pool with street cloth on. Karen, Judith, Eunice, Tyler, Jennifer, Kate and I went to a very nice Mexican place called Superior Grill for dinner and it was very good. I learned that I'm lucky that Chicago doesn't have any Hurricane and felt very sorry for the victim.
August 4th (Day#5)
Woke up, had a blue berry muffin and a cup of OJ.
Frank, Jennifer, Lauren H, Ryan and I took earier bus which we were dropped right in front of school. I put B, C, and AA level of book in the box. For lunch I went to Brothers and had 4 oieces of chicken and a energy drink called Munster. After the work Kate Zilla recommend me to try snow ball. It was very similar to snow cone. I had Extra large size of Root Beer Snow ball. Oh no! While getting it there was a bus!! Kate and I had to run marathon to catch the bus!! While everyone else walked Judith, Eunice and I decided to take street car back to our hotel. Karen, Judith, Phylis, Kate and I decided to go to Ryan's Pub. I had a bottle of Millar Genuine Draft and a glass of Guiness. After I got back to our lovely hotel I decided to have a roomie night with Jennifer. I bought a foot long roasted beef subway for dinner, bought a New Orleans t-shirts, a Loise Armstrong CD and a package of beeds. On the way back, I decided to be a nice daughter to my parents and decided to get a present for my loving parents. I was thinking and thinking and remembered when all of us wnet to Karen's house for Orientation meeting drinking Cafe' Du Monde's coffee which was really good so, I decided to buy a can of it and ordered 7 orders of beneyae and ate it all. On the way back to hotel, I stopped by Walgreens and got Powerade and a can of starbuck's coffee. After the Walgreens Jennifer and I found a huge Daiquiris shop so, I bought 24oz of Pina Colada and Jennifer bought 24 oz of Virgin Margarita and we drank all. It was tasty ,but I felt a little tipsy. I learned it's ok to drink alcohol ,but know my limit.
Books.. Ferries.. and Marriage Proposals
As the plane was descending, I got butterflies in my stomach. I MADE IT!!!! I practically ran off the plane and to the airport shuttle to get to Bienville House. I arrived "home" and Mr. Lucious smiled his gentle smile and said, "I remember you, welcome back!" I smiled back and greeted him with similar words of kindness. Ms. Cynthia was waiting behind the front desk. "Hello Ms. Erica. Ms. Karen and the group have been waiting for you. They should be back soon." She handed me my key, and I was on my way to drop off my stuff and explore the city while I waited for the gang to return from working in the schools.
I went to the Gumbo Shop for their famous seafood gumbo and catfish po'boy sandwich. I wandered through the spectacular cathedral. I roamed through the Katrina and Mardi Gras exhibit, and went to the Cabildo Louisiana State Museum. I sucked in as much information as possible and was humbled by the history the city has to offer. Everyone I encountered was happy and stressfree. I was quickly remembering why I love NOLA. It is Southern Hospitality at it's best. I walked around a bit more until I got a text from Ms. Angela that everyone was finally heading back "home". I walked my way over and was welcomed with hugs and kisses. I heard all about the fantastic work they had been doing at Harriet Tubman Elementary and was inspired to get to work the next morning.
We headed to Harriet Tubman early on Thursday to get as much done as possible. We wanted to make sure we could get this room with thousands of books organized and all books categorized according to their Fountas and Pinnell reading levels. I was put to work eye-balling the books that we could not find a reading level for, and analyzing the reading difficulty level of too many books to count. I was brought back to my childhood with some great classic books, and also got a chance to read/skim through some books I had never seen before. It made me realized that what we were doing at Harriet Tubman was so very important, and I could not wait for students to have access to all the great book options available. We had one more day buried in books and made amazing progress. I just wish I had been their earlier in the week to get the full experience of accomplishment.
This trip is something we plan for and wait for in anticipation every year, and I am so very humbled by the work we do. I am forever thankful to all that made it possible for me. The rest of the time in NOLA was spent eating yummy food (Cafe du Monde, Deanie's, Cafe Reconcile, and Commander's Palace) and being with old and new friends. Our Friday ended with a surprise visit from my boyfriend who drove 15 hours to propose to me in front of Jackson Square; an EPIC moment. It was an amazing trip; alright. So, as my NOLA family was returning to Chicago, I spent one more day with my fiance and got a chance to listen to some great music at the Sachmo Festival. NOLA 2011 is definitely one I will always remember, and hold dear to my heart. I will see everyone soon, and I cannot wait for next year.
Day #4 in New Orleans.
My Day #3 in New Orleans.
It was very good meal and I worked hard and I experienced real party.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
plane ride home
It’s in the waiting, the interminable waiting… that’s where you can sometimes learn ‘between the lines’, on the way to this and that.
You learn that in some neighborhoods, public buses usually only come once every hour or so, and if you miss it you are late for work – really late, with no other apparent options.
You find that people who are long accustomed to waiting for a bus on some hot and crowded street corner often seem easy with each other, greeting and speaking together… perhaps an unexpected gift of the waiting and slowness, this way of finding the deeper shade of common ground.
You discover that on a fiercely hot summer day the cool taste of a handmade Snow Ball (a mound of ice and corn syrup and fruitiness that takes so long to make that you have to run to catch the bus while precariously balancing it in your hand) is sooo sweet and delicious… and that it makes the waiting well worth it.
You realize that a nondescript Qwik Stop with a too-narrow overhanging roof can become a place of refuge for singing in the afternoon rain together, song after heartily sung song, to pass the time until the long awaited and seemingly random bus comes by.
You come to understand that the long space between getting off of a ferry and onto an overdue bus can be made shorter by discovering the generosity of spirit and simple hospitality that turn out to be present
in an otherwise closed bar, a bar where at 9 a.m. in response to our persistent knock, the door swings open and the owner grants your simple request for some much needed ice to keep some hand-carried lunches we are bringing to work barely cool until the bus comes.
When you really look, you see that when a person falls down at some broken curb across the street from where you and others are waiting for yet another bus in the sweltering hotness of shadeless summer heat, others can be slow to help that person up… and that, as the fallen one finally rises with the help of kind strangers, when a certain pants stain and crookedness of walk become obvious, so too do her neighbor’s words sink in… that the pants and the walk and her fall more than suggest one too many drinks, and being hit by cars once too often when she sometimes veers into the busy street.
In the end, you recognize that you have the choice of knocking persistently, asking for favors, savoring Snow Balls, and singing in the rain with new friends, and that this place and time and circumstance are only temporary, the waiting perhaps made more bearable and easily tolerated just because you know you can leave soon and go back to your more comfortable home and life. It dawns on you that this has been a blessed time and most welcomed experience shared with a wonderful and spirited team… and yet there is this little voice telling you that those people who live in this neighborhood don’t always have a choice of whether or not to wait or to leave. Knowing that, you understand that you can’t really go back to the way things were before this trip.
kate zilla
aug. 6, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
First Trip and Hopefully Not the Last
After the orientation meeting, I was starting to get excited again. A week later I was at the airport waiting to board the plane. Plane was delayed 45 minutes on the tarmac and I was getting anxious to get to New Orleans. Finally we arrived in New Orleans, everyone was excited to get to the French Quarter to start explore (especially Robert). After a group lunch (thank you Ken), we broke up into smaller groups to explore the Quarter and to do some window shopping to look for the perfect souvenirs.
Monday morning the group was excited to get to work at Harriet Tubman Charter School. The school looked very impressive from the outside. However, inside was a totally different picture. We were told in a brief meeting that third and fourth graders were reporting in a week for summer school. The halls and some of the classrooms were packed with furniture and classroom materials. We were all thinking that there is no way the school was going to be ready. They needed our group to break into 3 smaller groups to tackle painting cafeteria pillars, painting a classroom and sorting books by reading level. Pillar painting went quickly, so we move to the classroom to help. Staples needed to be removed and then the painting could begin. While working in the classroom, we meet a young gentleman, who was working on the lights, who said that the classroom was his kindergarten classroom and was happy to see the school being taken care of.
The rest of the week was spent working on odds and end painting jobs, setting up classrooms for class, and don’t forget the never-ending books. With the help of two or three other groups of volunteers, the school looked ready for some students and well on its way to open for all students to report at the end of August.
After some hesitation at the beginning, I truly had a great time. The group, from the first week, made me feel young, but not young enough to ride the bull. Thanks for a great week and hopefully I will return next year.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Nola: Adventures In New Orleans Part 2
Thursday, August 4, 2011
PACE Pride in NOLA
We at PACE have a philosophy that life should be "a balance of work and play", and the PACE students who have journeyed this week to NOLA have demonstrated exactly that.
As their instructor and friend, I am brimming with pride to watch them trek through the thick New Orleans heat every day by bus, street car, and ferry to Harriet Tubman Elementary, put in a full day of diligent work either painting, moving furniture, or sorting books, then be fully open and welcome to all of the social experiences offered to us in the evenings. I am excited to see them interacting with all of the others on the trip, collaborating on projects, exploring the city, and building new friendships! This is surely an experience they (and myself!) will always remember.
For several years now, PACE students have been involved in many different kinds of service learning projects, however none of them the size or scale of this trip. We have walked and raised money for Epilepsy, Autism, Leukemia and Lymphoma, Breast Cancer, stuffed teddy bears for children in crisis, and made greeting cards for seniors- just to name a few.
This trip enables you to completely immerse yourself in the project and task at hand- including meaning and learning about the people you are servicing, rather than just sending a check or taking a walk. It is my hope and wish that PACE is able to continue to participate in future service learning trips!
Nola: Adventures In New Orleans
The first person we met was Tony the driver. He is very cool and down to earth. After we all got off the plane we went to lunch at a very nice local place called The Gumbo Shop, where I had the Delishious Blackend catfish sandwich. Monday First day of work, I had the prevlige help paint of of the classrooms, which was really fun, I didnt even care that I got paint on my leg or anything. Tuesday at the school I sorted library books in a class room downstairs. Yesterday & today I sorted and stickered book again which is cool becuase we found a lot of older books that are really interesting. I was thinking about walking to burbon street with Ms K and some other people. Over all I love helping out with people and Im having a blast!! TIl 2morrow comes cya l8ers!!!
First Time in New Orleans
Aug 4th
Day 2 (Monday)
August 2
Day 1 (July 31st)
After we arrived in Louise Armstrong Air Port we met up with a fine taxi driver named Tony just like Tony the tiger on my favorite celea which is Kellog's Frostrated Flake. All of us went to a fine restaurant called Gumbo Shop for lunch. I had Sea Food Gumbo and it was mighty delicious. I even tried my very first Bloody Mary. The waiter at Gumbo Shop was so friendly and told us to please come back. After the lunch we went to Katrina museum and saw how Katrina happened, and heard survivors story through audio and video equipment. Even though New Orleans was hit hard by Katrina it is rebuilding it self so people should come and visit. It reminds me that we should not conplain about what we don't have. We should thank God aobut what we do have and lend the helping hand it it's possible.
august 1st
Why did I decided to Join The NOLA schools Project
I get SSI from government so, I didn't know that my parents can afford to pay for this trip ,but my mom paid it right away and boy I'm so glad to come to New Orleans with Awsome People.
All I knew about New Orleans was Jazz, Louis Armstrong and Huricane Katrina.
Since the day I arrived at Louis Armstrong International Air port I learned so much about it.
I've never been to any kind of trips except going to South Korea for family vacation.
Since I came I learned so much about New Orleans and I want to share it with all of you.
new orleans july 30th
Every trip is individual
Our team members work hard with purpose and good humor. Each task we are given is met with "OK let's go get it done." There is a feeling of camaraderie as we set about our work.
This week we are leveling books. The room we first entered looked like a rubble of discarded boxes and loose books. Our team got down, and today, 3 days later, the room actually looks like a workable class room and the books are ready for teachers to choose books for their classes and for some to be placed in the library.
Judith and I spent the day yesterday helping the front office organize the student's files by making labels for almost 500 folders.
Today, I spent some time observing the principal teach an orientation class. It is impressive to see the way the children respond to her. Everything she had to say was positive, the boys and girls can do everything they are asked. They are rewarded for their attention. It's a good start to the new term.
Now, I must get to work.
Day Four -
This is my second gig with the NOLA partnership; I missed last year. But I really missed last year. This experience is good for one's soul. We come to New Orleans to help rebuild a city one school at a time, but I think we really rebuild our spirits. I do. The city is magical and the work we do is so very appreciated one can't help but be enchanted. At the end of the day, at the end of the week, we know and feel, that we made a difference.
Our group of volunteers is small, diverse, strong and focussed. We work in groups of people we just met, with whom we never would have met otherwise. We form friendships with the people we meet on the streetcar.
Chicago’s Finest
This is my second year working with this wonderful endeavor. I was excited when I received the email from Karen to be a part of this experience once again. As we boarded the plane leaving Chicago group 2 were all excited to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Upon arrival we did our tradition of eating lunch at The Gumbo Shop while Karen filled us in on what was to be expected of us once we started our work day at Harriet Tubman School. We couldn't wait to get started. This year we all were fortunate enough to take part in the hurricane Katrina exhibit which opened this year. Karen had informed us over lunch that the exhibit was must see. As we walked throughout each area our mouths dropped, eyes filled with tears, hearts sank and then rejoiced as we further uncovered and understood what Katrina really did not only to the city but to the people who inhabited it. The key word for New Orleans and it's people..RESILIENCE! Viewing this as the start of our trip is definitely a way to open or eyes and solidify the true meaning of why we're here.
As we started our first day we entered a world unknown at Harriet Tubman and a room filled with books piled high to the ceiling and wall to wall. Our group was determined to tackle this mountain head on. With each box of books we cracked opened and leveled we all marveled and reminisced about our own childhood and how much the students would enjoy reading these books just as much as we did. Half of our group began painting classrooms and transforming them into welcoming rooms for the anticipating teachers and students. By the end of our first day we were exhausted but accomplished.
As the heat and sun greeted us on day 2 our team was ready to hit our little dungeon and sort books. Our mountain had now turned into a valley of books and we were making wonderful progress. Teams were hard at work and making progress all over the school. Several teachers marveled at the progress our team had made just on day 2 and one of them Mr. Briggs dubbed our group "Chicago's Finest" and that was us!
As Chicago's Finest arrived on day 3 we finally began to see our progress and the floor of our book room. Organized books were all over the place under their respective letter level and finally our beloved and needed dots had arrived! Yay! Hallways had been painted, classrooms filled with desks and our books stacks were down to low double digits. Team 2 rocks!
As our team massages sore muscles, aching backs, swollen feet and washes away paint the smiles still radiate from our faces. Our hard work, dedication, commitment and selfless acts are truly making a difference and this school is coming alive. I am amazed how our little family is once again transforming each school we visit.
Shantell
2nd Year Alumni
Day Four: An Early Start
A small faction of us decided to hop the early bus to Algiers this morning to get a great jump start on our day at Harriet Tubman Elementary School. When we arrived, we were absolutely THRILLED to see ACTUAL CHILDREN lining up for their full day of scholarly knowledge. Red and Blue polo shirts designate their grade, with well pressed black slacks and shoes. There was a readiness in their eyes, which makes every move we make here worth it times one thousand.
When we arrived in the "Book Room" (as it's been lovingly dubbed this week) on Monday, it was an absolute disaster area.... The boxes full of books were not even close to being organized, and piled high almost to the ceiling, arbitrarily placed all around the room. Today, we have come so far as to have an alphabet all along the walls, A-Z with labelled boxes full to the top with the books that belong there, two full size tables stacked high with reference books we've found in our organizing efforts. The change has been remarkable. At one point one of the teachers from upstairs came down to say hello, and his first words, when he crossed the threshold will stick with me forever.
"This is an enormous beehive of accomplishment happening in front of me right now, and I love it!!"
I have taken a moment every once and awhile while I'm here to just observe what we've accomplished so far. It's amazing! Every day when we head towards "home," we are sweating, exhausted and fulfilled. I think that if you work a full day down here and you're not utterly exhausted and complete, there must be something wrong with you! By the time we're headed back "home" to Bienville House, we are relying solely on our feeling of accomplishment and knowing that if we get there soon enough, there is a cold glass of lemonade and a smile from Ms. Brittani, Ms. Cynthia or Ms. Beverly waiting for us in the lobby of our house.
Our work is very tedious. VERY tedious. But it's the patience we are exercising this week that will benefit every single child in this school. One thing we must remember while we do the work we do is we are not doing this work for US. "This is not about YOU." - Persay... This work is about the children. This work is about their future. The school needs us to do what we're doing, so we must give it our all. And so we do :)
Tonight, provided we can scrounge up some energy after our 4th day of work, we plan to ride the Green Street Car Line to the very end, through the garden district, and turn around and come back :) Just because it's beautiful, breathtaking, and because we CAN!
There is only a small amount of books waiting to be sorted at this point. The end of leveling is in sight!!! We finally received the sticker dots yesterday, and so that is what will encompass the end of our day today, and our entire day tomorrow. This library will be COMPLETE!!! I promise you!!!
<3 Angela and Mama Nina
- 4 Year Alumni -
We do.
Somewhere between our sore backs and thighs hitting the bus seat and our departure onto General Meyer Avenue in Algiers, New Orleans changes. Buildings are less statuesque, in need of paint and TLC. Grass grows knee high. Garbage cans overflow. But here, in the less "beautiful" areas, is where true magic is happening.
We all clamber up the steps to Harriet Ross Tubman Charter school, recieve our smiley-adorned visitors pass, and with our minds set to a day of work, we begin. Since our arrival here on Monday, we have teetered on ladders to paint classrooms, cramped our backs and knees into little chairs to sort dusty, forgotten books, and made mad dashes down the street in the sweltering heat on our lunch breaks to Brothers for some cold pop or sinfully greasy fried something-or-others. We have had kind, generous people point us in the direction of the right bus, or the better route, or the best overhang to stand and sing under while the sky pours down on us. We have sweat a whole lot, and had that sweat mix with dust and paint and rain to form a special slurry that coats our arms and knees and eyebrows. But we have worked hard, and accomplished much. We sauntered into our home base in the basement and stood over our kingdom of neatly stacked books and felt fulfilled. That feeling sustains us, the sensation of having "done good" for the world, for an area of our country that has so much to offer both in its physical beauty and the beauty of its people.
Every morning starts the same, but every day when we leave, we move this school a little closer to something amazing. We do a little more to help the future of NOLA lift itself up, to set an example to the world that you can survive the absolute worst and become stronger and better for having done so. Our work here is beautifucation and is emancipation and is absoultely essential. So we roll up our sleeves, and we do. We do what we can, what we must, what is asked of us, what we should.
I am proud of our group, from all walks-- teachers, students, lovers of beautiful buildings and people. We have done so much for a city with a heart that almost stopped beating once, but lived. This city has its scrapes and bruises, its painted mascara coated eye and a bandage on its cheek, but it lives, and breathes, and our work breathes back into it.
And because no more words of mine can do justice, I will let poet Peter Cooley say them for me:
Because the spirit, too, knows loneliness,
disasters happens in the universe
and someone like myself, the smallest of men,
Finds grace, a nimbus on the wall at noon.
(From "Third Heaven", a poem by NOLA resident Peter Cooley)
Back to work, we have much to do.
-Marjorie
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
In NO and working
Hi all:
I second what Ms. K said. Tasks that have been assigned at the Harriet Tubman Charter School (hereinafter "HTCS") have included painting, assigning levels to books that will be in the library, sorting said books, and labeling and organizing file folders. Due to a bout of gout, I've pretty much sat on my toochus each day, leveling books. Today, Wed., 8/3/2011, I did something different -- labeled and sorted student files. Ooooo. Ahhhhh.
It is really amazing how much work needs to be done to prepare HTCS for the coming academic year. Rooms were in disarray, boxes of books filled up many rooms. In the time we have here, we will probably be able to only organize one room of books. Nevertheless, by the time we get done, all of the books should be appropriately assigned to a reading level, and organized for ease of access by the students and teachers. Nothing in my NLU education even remotely hinted that this was something that had to be done. Certainly, as a former attorney, this never even came up on my radar.
During our time at HTCS, we met another group of volunteers who did a lot of cleaning and painting. Our group also contributed to the cleaning and painting. However, this is another job that one would not normally attribute to teachers. The NLU group worked very hard during the day, but also hada lot of fun. Many trips down memory lane are taken when somebody would wave a book, squeal and say, "Awwww, I remember this ...."
After work, many of us took in the culture and got to know each other better. Unfortunately, I've had to do homework that is due the day I get back so. I hope I'll be able to get the homework done before I leave, so that I can also take advantage of the world-famous New Orleans hospitality.
This trip has been an eye-opening experience into the kind of work teachers will need to do before rolling in a new academic year, the resilience of the New Orleans people, and the amount of work that a group of dedicated volunteers can do in a week.
Frank
Task Masters
"Goosebumps!" "What are we doing with the Lemony Snickets series again?" "Awww, I remember this book!" "What is this shower curtain doing here?" "Pizza's here!" And they all scurry upstairs.
When we arrived on Monday this room was filled nearly to the ceiling with piles and boxes of disorganized books for the school's library which were haphazardly stored here when the school was taken over by a new charter last spring. Each individual book has to be looked up online to find it's grade level and sorted as such, then color-coded, and eventually (we haven't gotten there yet!) put into their library upstairs. It is a very slow process as not every book has been cataloged online. So it is a matter of searching several sites to find the grade level; many times it may not be found and the veteran teachers will "eye-ball" the grade level and make a judgement call.
Now it is Wednesday and the room is about 75% sorted. We have even managed to get some painting in where we have been asked- a classroom on Monday and today a couple of stairwells.
I am absolutely in awe of the people I am working with, veterans and greenhorns to this experience alike. They are what I like to call "task masters" (some of my favorite kinds of people!). They are given a job to do- and they don't complain, they don't ask why, they don't hesitate, they just do. It is people like this who make things happen and make change happen. I feel very fortunate to have met them all, and be working by their sides.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Shaking in Anticipation
I am still in Chicago, waiting to catch up with everyone in NOLA and see what progress you have had without me. I leave tomorrow morning and will be there in time for lunch. I can't wait to work in the schools and make a difference in the world of teachers and students. Keep up the good work and see you all soon.
Erica
Service Learning Experience
New Orleans is a very unique city. The place where we lived for seven days, "Bienville House", is located in the heart of French Quarters. We walked around French Quarters a lot and most people felt like they were walking on some movie sets, as it has narrow streets with aritstic buildings from time of French and Spanish invasion. We did tour the ninth ward and other areas that were badly affected by Hurricane Katrina. There is wide spread disparty that seemed obvious in New orleans - people are either rich or poor. Middle class seems to have migrated out of New Orleans after Katrina.
Our assigment was to help the school Harriet Tubman, reorganize to start in August. This school was an interesting site. It looked huge and beautiful from outside. But inside was a different story. Everything was rotten, messy and just dumped around in the classrooms. Teams of Voulnteers like us from diffrent areas, spent numerous hours together to help paint, regorganize and set up the classrooms in the school.
My experience with the locals of New orleans, the community in general and my newly formed friends was amazing. The highlight of our Trip was the Zoline family. Robert and Jeff Zoline were very bright and easy kids to hang out with. While Jeff was our offical guide and photographer, Robert was the entertainer and a friend, who made everyone's day with his questions. The best of all was their Dad, Ken Zoline, who everyone nicknamed as Pappa bear because he was everywhere looking out and protecting us all. I would never forget this experience as I heard so many stories from the local's as how their life has changed after Katrina. I even met up with a friends mom who lives in New orleans and never knew she drove 21 hours with all the traffic alone to reach Houston when they had to evacuate New Orleans. . It was wonderful experience. Thank you to all who were a part of my experience.