Civic Engagement Redux

So I have been thinking,

Second chances don’t come around very often, so when they do it is necessary to take advantage of the situation. This is a second chance at articulating my thoughts on the subject of civic engagement and I hope by the end of this blog, my perception of civic engagement is clear not only to whoever might be reading this, but to me.

One of the reasons I elected to become part of the Paideia program was for the civic engagement aspect of it. I am not really into extracurricular activities, though I have become more active on campus this semester, so I liked the idea of helping the community through some sort of class project. I also thought that the civic engagement project would push me through the door of being actively engaged not only on campus, but also in the Georgetown community.

For our group meeting on November 4, 2008, we were assigned to read a transcript of a speech given by Ivan Illich. A large part of this speech is no longer relevant, as the speech was given in 1968, but when he says that volunteers in Mexico can only offer Mexicans their “middle-class ‘American Way of Life,’ since that is really the only life [they] know,” I would have to say that thinks this is still relevant. How ridiculous is it that someone who was born to a Sephardic-Jewish mother and a Croatian father would clump an entire segment of the American population into one group, effectively homogenizing them as closed-off, self-righteous individuals who had no connection to the world outside the United States (Wikipedia)? Of course, I acknowledge that many of the volunteers that Illich came into contact with did indeed fit into the self-righteous stereotype he had observed so many times. But like so many stereotypes, does the person fit into the group if they are similar to the others in just one aspect? So if the volunteer was a white, middle-class student, they were automatically clumped with the others, unable to change his perception of the American volunteer.

I am in extreme disagreement with anyone who says that people volunteer only for self-righteous reasons. I don’t believe that there exists in this world a truly selfless volunteer, but I don’t think that getting a good feeling from donating one’s time to a good cause shows self-righteousness. There is a spectrum, and on one end of that spectrum lies truly selfless volunteerism and on the other end lies completely self-righteous volunteerism, somewhere in the middle of the two is where I believe the majority of volunteering occurs.

As I expressed in our class meeting, I feel that we should interact with people and I feel strongly that the topic of our Cohort necessitates more than one opportunity for interaction. If we are truly to “Understand Human Behavior,” then we must meet with people, be they children or others, and interact with them more than once so that there is a chance for relationships to be formed. My hope is that we choose the children project, with a focus on underprivileged children if possible. Children in schools and communities that are more affluent are usually offered more opportunities for after-school activities that stimulate their minds and bodies, rather than just sending them home. I feel that we can have a large impact not just on the lives on these children, but hopefully on the way they choose to go about their lives in the future. I like the idea of a sports/arts/activities program possibly in a Boys and Girls Club. I think this offers all of us, regardless of specialty or area or expertise, a way to utilize our liberal arts education and show ourselves that we are probably a little bit better at certain things than we might think we are. I also think that these children will be teaching all of us more about ourselves through the course of this program than we could ever hope to teach them. After hearing Dr. G and Suzy talk about the merits of one group or two groups in class and hearing everyone express their opinions, I have been swayed to the one group side because I just don’t think that splitting the group would do much for the dynamic and it doesn’t really create that sense of unity that we were aiming to find with this project.

This is our opportunity to make a difference in the world, to show that we aren’t pompous, self-righteous college students who would rather just get our civic engagement project done in one Saturday without having to have much contact with any real people. Let’s choose to at least attempt to change something in someone’s life for the better, because if one person’s life is better because of what we do, that is good enough for me. Science and research statistics would argue that our project was not effective, but they also don’t consider the human element. That one person could change the lives of many other people in a positive manner (not to assume our project would affect such a change). I feel that we can make the most difference working with kids and I hope that I have articulated my point well enough that you might consider the merits of my argument.

Brady