Advocacy Starts with the Individual!

What do you still want or need to know about your community partner’s:

1) Programming

• Services that are provided by NGS outside of tutoring include:
• Medical and Health Support
• Next Generation Scholars helps families find the medical and health support that they need.
• Food Parcel Program
• The Food Parcel Program provides 15 families food parcels every week for a total of 525 food parcels a year.
• Hot Meal Program
• During the academic year, the Hot Meal Program guarantees that the students have access to a hot meal and healthy snacks daily. This year, NGS will serve 6,236 meals and snacks to all of the students.
• Summer Academy Lunches
• During the Summer Academy program, NGS provides lunch to all of the students.
• The Free Store — offers students and their families clothing and baby necessities that they need throughout the year. Donated clothing is collected from local community partners, organized by gender, size, and season and made available to anyone in the program at no cost.
• Gift of Sight Program- provides free prescription glasses to students who need them.
• Housing Resources program — provides support to families to apply for low-income and subsidized housing.
• Legal Assistance for Immigration — provides legal aid regarding immigration and citizenship status.

https://www.nextgenerationscholars.org/wraparound-social-services.html

2) Students

Question: What schools do they come from? Demographic of students:

• Many of the NGS students are aspiring first-generation college students that “come primarily from Mexico, and South America…”

Question: Do you still keep in touch with former NGS students? How so?

• NGS is like a huge family, and the faculty does keep in touch with its former students.
• Some students may want to come back to the NGS community later on, and give back to the community
• Ex: a former NGS student asked the cofounder to officiate her wedding

Question: What is the most inspiring student story you have heard?

• Sterling — A student that was preparing to take his AP Physics exam
• He wanted to go into engineering direction
• His teacher strongly believed that Sterling would not go any further than “service work.”
• Although there is clearly nothing wrong with doing service work in my opinion, the teacher was very condescending towards the student.
• This story was upsetting to hear
• Teachers are major influencers not only within the context of student’s education but in their personal lives as well
• I can only imagine how the teacher’s condescending attitude impacted Sterling at the time, and I am so proud of what he accomplished! (with the help of NGS)
• Major achievement: Sterling got accepted to his top college, Wesleyan, and he got a full-ride scholarship!

Parents

• Personally, I think that NGS does a great job of including parents in their child’s education.
• I have seen many parents come in and meet with teachers and faculty members
• I have seen teachers texting student’s parents
• This tells me that their communication is strong and that they have established a sense of trust and cohesiveness with each other. By this, I mean that they are coming together to help achieve common goals that are centered around the NGS student and their futures.

3) Your role

• I think that our role impacts the students not only academically, but in other aspects of their lives as well.
• We are not only their tutors, but we are also their friends and peers!
• I think that sometimes when we use the word “tutor,” there’s this assumption that we know more than the student, which is one aspect that may be true.
• We are there to tutor them because we know the content of a certain subject well, however, we have to realize that if we exhaust our positionality, we may create the framework for superiority and inferiority.
• Superior position- the tutor/teacher
• Inferior position- the NGS student
• It’s crucial that we do not use this framework because it is not beneficial to either group.
• It’s really nice to see that this framework is not being used at NGS :)
• We are there to empower the students, be there to listen, and to support them academically and personally.
• Although I enjoyed spending lots of time with the one individual student that I was assigned to, I wish that I had more time to talk with other students and get to know them as well.

4) View on the structural injustices that impact the community members they serve

• “When NGS first began serving low-income youth, they quickly realized that educational achievement did not depend solely on what took place in the classroom.”
• They knew that larger structural issues had to be addressed in the community.

Some of these issues include:

• lack of jobs
• food insecurity
• flawed immigration policies
• lack of health care
• unstable housing

Next Generation Scholars addresses these issues through wraparound social services provided to all program participants, and these services are listed above.

• This made me think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which is a theory that prioritizes human requirements.
• The faculty members/teachers at NGS aim to complete the first couple levels, which include basic physiological needs, and safety/security.
• Once those needs are met, then NGS starts to work on the third level, which has to do with love and belonging.
• NGS’s warm and home-like environment helps to create a welcoming and nurturing space for the students.
• Following these levels is the self-esteem and self-development section, and then self-actualization.
• I think that the upper levels of the hierarchy are inter-related with critical consciousness because they involve deeper reflection of self, and interconnectedness with others and with the world.

https://www.nextgenerationscholars.org/wraparound-social-services.html

5) View of education — is it about more than getting a job?

• Yes!
• I think that NGS’s view of education is much more than just getting a job.
• I think that Shawn’s story ties into this very well because he explained the previous career aspirations that he had, and how he gave all those things up because he was so drawn to NGS.
• His “north star” was teaching the students critical consciousness, and addressing the structural issues that have created a need for NGS in the first place.
• I think that NGS has a transformative mindset when it comes to education
• There’s a strong focus on cultivating critical consciousness
• NGS challenges students to “think outside of the box,” to dream big, and feel supported in doing so.
• They are challenged to go against the status quo, break barriers, and to stand up for things that are unjust and unfair.
• They are challenged to create change within the community.

Question: How does NGS promote/include critical consciousness into the programs?

• Critical consciousness = being critically aware
• Shawn uses “context clues”
• His focus is on: “giving students the necessary tools to understand larger structures, challenge them and work to transform them.
• In essence, this is critical consciousness in action.
• One very important point that he made was the idea of “conditioning students” in two ways
• One way that is text/grade focused
• And the other way that is community engagement-focused
• It’s important to have both components, because they are interrelated, and provide context for the other.
• This makes learning more powerful because we are not only learning how to do things, but we are putting our thoughts into direct action.
• In order to be a true service learner, we need to be engaged in the community.
• Integration of “educational and equity”
• This has to do with how life affects education and how education affects life
• Focus on intersectionality
• The interconnected nature of social categorizations
• Embrace differences
• Be empowered by our differences
• Education as a system of conforming but also a practice of freedom!
• On one hand, education is a system that conforms people to the status quo
• Molds us to certain conditions
• However, it is also a practice of freedom!
• We are supposed to think for ourselves
• Think individually
• We must develop the courage to practice this!

So what? Impacts and implications of the current crisis on all of the above. Relationship to class themes.

The current crisis has definitely impacted the NGS community in many ways. It’s initial closure cut off connection with all the academic and social services and left the NGS members feeling fearful and uncertain about the future. However, after hearing Shawn speak, now I am a little bit more at ease knowing that NGS is still keeping in contact with their students, despite the social distancing orders. It was really nice to hear his optimistic perspective, but he also mentioned some of the challenges that NGS families are facing such as:

• Limited access to academic and social services
• No access to food
• Not knowing where their next meal will come from
• Not working
• Unable to pay for bills/expenses
• Unable to follow social distancing orders due to work purposes
• Unable to keep elderly relatives “safe” by staying a safe distance away from them

It was very hard and sad to hear about all of the challenges that students and their families are going through, but unfortunately, it is the reality, and we have to make ourselves aware of what’s actually going on and do our best to support each other during this unpredictable time.

• It is important for us to provide support from a distance
• Make ourselves available
• Ask questions like, “How can we help… What can we do?”
• Be kind during this time
• Validate others feelings
• Empower each other
• Keep each other sane

Now What? What is their call to action? What does advocacy and change look like to them? What steps are necessary?

What is their call to action?

Right now, one of the most important things to do is make sure that the NGS members have their basic physiological needs met.

• This includes basic needs such as food, water, and clothing.
• The next priority is to make sure that everyone feels/ is safe and secure in their homes or wherever they can find shelter during this time.
• The next focus is on providing emotional, academic, and financial support.
• This is being done by restarting the academic program, mirroring classes, and tutoring using Zoom, Google Hangouts, and other online services.
• This provides academic and emotional support
• The donations that have been given to NGS are being dispersed to families that are in the most need.
• Another focus is reprogramming the summer program, which will most likely be through zoom.
• Other actions that will happen:
• Expanding 6th-grade class to 18 (instead of 8)
• Extra support for rising seniors
• Try to keep everything as “normal” as possible, in order to minimize stress.

What does advocacy and change look like to them?

• Shawn thinks that the primary aspect of self-advocacy is self-motivation. You have to be motivated to make systemic change, not just change for yourself.
• The other part of advocacy is that you have to be willing to lean into exposure. You have to be empathetic, sympathetic, and action-oriented.
• NGS’s advocacy is specific to an education format.
• They use the classroom, teaching methods, and the curriculum as ways to expose the students to social change, certain activism, and activism pieces in the world.
• NGS tries to align their student’s thinking and experiences to advocacy in the world- within their community and externally.
• Building skill sets is a component of this process.

Question: What changes look like in the world?

• “It’s a collective thing”
• The idea is that Student A is not going to have all the same takeaways as student Z.
• Their unique lived experiences are going to inform how they take what they have learned and activate change within their community.
• Local
• National
• Global
• All students approach change from an individualistic standpoint, and all those individual perspectives and actions summate to global change.
• “Building awareness cascade”
• Advocacy is both an individual thing and a community thing
• However, it is rooted in the individual.

Question: What is the organization doing in terms of advocacy?

• “The education piece”
• NGS makes sure that the students are able to take their own stories, identify what is needed, and then expose them to different examples — whether that is through literature or current events- of certain points of advocacy that are needed.
• This exposure plays a big role in cultivating critical consciousness and awareness, which is what can eventually lead to active change.
• “Social Justice Factory”
• NGS is training students to be able to recognize differences, understand their place, and disrupt those barriers.

What steps are necessary?

Question: Steps of getting to a place of advocacy to create change?

• Starts with the individual (who is this individual)
• Then exposing them to experiences that are different than their own
• Then exposing them to how those experiences play out, and all of their intersections
• Then challenge the students to recognize difference and disrupt/support it
• Support the people who are experiencing the pitfalls of that difference
• This is a systematic approach, but it’s filtered through conversations, relationship building, and examples.
• Shawn talked about how he carries himself → brings his best self to work every day.
• This is important because he wants the students at NGS to feel like “if they can see me, they can be me.”
• They understand that he is an advocate for the organization, in relation to education.
• This is how he chooses to be a model advocate for the kids.

A very interesting approach that he highlighted during the interview:

• “Think about an aspect of your identity that is pushed all the way to the margins of society… Now, how can you get away from those margins?”
• What resources would you need to get away from those margins?
• I think that NGS works off of this mindset, and tries to make resources available, especially to those closest to the margins.