First week of City Year!!

This past week was our first week of training. We'll be training for a month, hopefully to be fully integrated into the school by October. It's been really great so far, which I partially attribute to having a really fun group. We were divided into teams of around 10 people. It's similar to the way we'll be divided when we get into the schools. I ended up in the same group as my roommate, Ami, and we got pretty tight with our group. Next week we're reassigned to different groups to see how we interact with different people. It will be interesting to be with a different team but I like the emphasis they are putting on forming effective group dynamics. Other than that, there's been a lot of team building exercises and general training about the areas we'll be working in. For instance, we learned about Hunt's Point in the Bronx where four teams will be serving. Only 24% of middle school students meet city and state standards for math and only 26% meet the standards for reading. 84% of the students in the school district get free lunches. Although this is probably one of the worst neighborhoods that City Year is involved in, it's likely not much worse than Long Island City.

Overall, City Year has done a really good job at inspiring me. Some of the things that I initially thought were childish make perfect sense to me now. They use simple tools like one person raises their hand when the group is talking and slowly the rest of the group will raise theirs and stop talking. When I first saw it, it reminded me of summer camp in middle school. But with almost 400 people in one room, simple things like that help focus the group. The uniform was another thing that I was hesitant about. Then, they talked about how the kids, teachers, and community recognize the uniform and automatically assume positive things about City Year members. I think it will be a great feeling to walk into school the first day and have kids get excited to see me there, just based on the reputation of the organization.

Since I haven't taken any pictures in orientation, I'll post a few quotes instead. =)

"This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease." - Robert Kennedy

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianne Williamson

Also, I'll post a few links to the youtube videos from City Year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiVKDXLlh9w&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1s1KJJ3Ir8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6baLf10vstQ&feature=channel