Adriana + Lejla + Adenrele

Dear Diary,

Although we travel to Muchin prep everyday and follow a similar schedule, today was one of the first times we felt a difference. A sense of reciprocity is a crucial aspect to how I participate in service experiences. I also value meaningful and direct relationships to the communities we are serving. Today after tutoring at Muchin, we traveled to East Village Youth Prep, a college and career readiness program for high school students. Today Chelsea and I worked with an adorable tenth grader, Areli and helped her write a paper on gentrification in Chicago's neighborhoods. This was the tangible relationship I was hoping to gain as opposed to working with so many students at Muchin, where I never learn their stories. Areli told us why she was interested in discussing gentrification and it was so exciting to see a young mind conducively working to combat social issues. My Alternative Break experience has been a very great experience. I have learned a lot from volunteering at Muchin Prep, and East Village Youth Prep. I hope that with the knowledge I gained from my experience I can use to continue fighting towards solving a lot of social issues that pertain towards education.  With that being said, Dominique also received her acceptance letter for Teach For America -- another great way to see how young people are actively serving the communities they care for. 

It isn't news to say that we continued to explore Chicago and discover the beauty of the city. We went to what looked like an arena in the hunger games, but it was actually a mall/food court. It is undoubtedly interesting to see the difference in architecture than what we are  used to.

Sincerely, 

Adriana + Lejla + Adenrele 

Darrell & Jess

Dear Diary,

This trip has been very moving for me. This week I was able to meet with one of Muchin's school counselor, Mr. Allen. I personally plan to be a high school counselor in the future so I had a lot of questions for Mr. Allen. Not only did Mr. Allen give me advice about career options, he also was able to provide me with more information about Muchin. Muchin is a great school because the counselors there spend an enormous amount of time helping students figure out their financial needs when applying to college. My high school definitely did not. Another reason why Muchin is a great school is because of the clubs they offer. This week I was able to attend a poetry club where I was able to create a poem; here's a few lines "Poems are crazy, stupid, and lovely. On the brightest of days, they are like butterflies..A sign of joy and serenity."

My experience this week has offered me a completely new perspective on the education system in this country and has led me to strongly question how much of an emphasis we put on quantifying knowledge. At Muchin, knowledge is quantified as soon as a student walks into the building when they enter their morning advisory and are met by their GPA displayed openly on the screen for the entire class to see. Knowledge is quantified by the echoes of teacher's frantically discussing how they are going to get their students to that highly sought after "23" on their ACTs.  Knowledge is quantified when a student cannot respond correctly to a question on the spot in 30 seconds in front of all their peers. This constant craze to assess and grade through a calculated, pragmatic system is certainly magnified by the Charter school approach, but, this week I realized it was not absent from my own high school experience. In my high school, similar talk revolved around grade point averages, SAT scores, service hours -- numbers to quantify and consolidate student worth into a comparable, standardized value. This week,  I have reflected on this practice and concluded that it is such a terrible approach to molding students into successful adults and workers as students are quite literally turned into automatons and robbed of their individuality. What's more disconcerting is that this obsession over standardized test scores only bolsters the ever-expanding Educational-Industrial complex, making students mere cogs in a greedy, capitalistic machine.  After this week, I have been convinced more than ever that education in this country warrants serious rethinking and reform.

**drop mic
Darrell & Jess

School Settings!

Our First Day at Muchin Prep and East Village Youth Program! :) 
By: Monique Martinez and Dominique Moss

Seeing the differences in how a Chapter School and the Public School system function was an eye opening experience. Some highs and lows of our experience at Muchin were...

High: The school gives so much support to its students during the college application process, support that many of us would have loved to have when in High School. Taking part in advisory was also a big high for all of us. Having the opportunity to talk to students about our experience and have them ask so many insightful questions was amazing.
Low: We observed that some of the school's rules and teaching practices were overly strict and could potentially turn students off to learning, also some of us didn't get enough time inside a classroom, but we have 4 more days so we're hoping for the opportunity!

Some of our highs and lows at East Village Youth Prep

High: We got a chance to interact with the students, which was a nice addition to the day. We focused on social action and helped the students solidify their plans for decreasing gun violence. It was also nice to have the students ask us questions about college lifestyle.
Low: While it was fun interacting with the students, it was a bit awkward as it was our first time meeting them. The students in discussion were also much younger and were not as interested in hearing about college as it seemed less relevant to them.

Overall, it was long yet great day. We are looking forward to another day tomorrow!

Day 1

Our first day exploring Chicago was great! We started our day with brunch and headed out to the museum of African American history. The most interesting part was the exhibit located at the bottom of the museum. It was a timeline of events dating from slavery to President Obama’s election to presidency. It was a very eye-opening and informative exhibit, that made us reflect on issues with a new perspective. One display that stood out was the diagram of a slave ship that showed how tightly packed all of the slaves was. There was no moving room or free space for the slaves. This really depicted how awful the living conditions were (unsanitary, which obviously means diseases). Another cool part of the museum was a giant sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s head. Engraved in the sculpture were images of people and encouraging words. This was a great way to honor Dr. King, and it was definitely appealing to eye. Next on our list was to visit Muchin Prep in Downtown Chicago and have an idea of what to expect for the week. We also took a brief tour of the school. It was interesting to see a school like Muchin, it was very modern and had many available resources for students. It was also cool to see faculty encouraging its students by posting college logos around the school for them to keep a constant goal in mind. The school also has many strict disciplinary rules and it’ll be interesting to see how students will respond to them this week. These students have so much support from faculty and we’re super excited to begin our week with them! After dinner we reflected on our day by telling the difference between different connotations of words. For example, “sacrificing my break” vs. “using my break to…”. We concluded that word choice is super important when communicating with our community partners and other people in general. Today was not only a fun day, but also thought-provoking. We’re excited for the week to start!!

Luther King Jr’s Sculpture

-Makayla & Theodora