So Saturday Morning, the 7:30AM rings, and I hop out of bed. A quick stretch, teeth brushing, and face wash. I jump into the clothes I laid out, grab the bag I packed last night, and get on the bike into the morning chill.
10+ miles later I’m greeted by security at Harlem at Capital Prep. Around 8 or so of my fellow volunteers arrive through the next half hour. We chat, and it’s very clear to the veterans that the event has gone wrong. There are no kids!
The event has been cancelled due to some missed communications. It’s a mad house! We’re making small talk, exchanging work offices and roles, just high-level stuff going on. Meanwhile Scott Davidson makes a few calls. Turns out it was New York Cares day, so New York Cares was doing dozens of events around the city. He dishes out a few options for the Bronx and Manhattan, and a few of us follow him to PS 161, because it was only 20 blocks away.
I had a real moment with Jason in Subsidiaries where we felt the tug of laziness [I had 10 miles to get home!] against the call to action for another event.
Jason, with no fault, decided to go home.
I on the other hand, soldiered on. I had already committed the afternoon to working. Plus, I still had my bike with me so the other place was easy to get to. I might as well put forth my best effort.
So we arrive at PS 161, and it is a beautiful school. The walls are covered in murals and a diverse cast of leaders and visionaries with quotes, all hand painted.
We’re greeted by Peter, a Colorado transplant, who bikes, surfs, was a fashion photographer for 16 years and is now a teacher. Really excellent guy. His enthusiasm and intensity for the school was apparent from the get go.
We broke up into groups for gardening, painting, and mural work. I started with painting some of the walls in the basement. Katie, a young girl, had joined her guardian at the event. We played a little tag with the painter’s tape and generally had fun. She was a sweet child and I just always have fun playing with kids. They have a good mentality for joy.
I painted two of the columns with two or three coats each. I took a break to wander around the school and poke my head into the classrooms and cafeteria and such. It was a really nice public school. Lots of colors and displays on the work the kids had done.
I really didn’t understand any of the Common Core standards that would accompany many of the displayed assignments. They had weird language and unclear standards. I can see why it’s such a polarizing issue for the teachers. I would not want to teach to the Common Core.
The language on the writing samples I read was also very attuned to the younger generation. [Makes sense as they are the students.] I felt a bit of twang of loss, as the English language I hold so dearly as a writer and poet was changing. In some sense, it’s was simplifying, but in another it’s more evolution.
I do want a broad vocabulary to be the norm, but I’m also sure that with longer education, more books, and, broader experiences, vocabulary will continue to flourish. Or so I hope.
I bumped into another volunteer, Darline. She was Haitian, an education administrator, and would celebrate her 31st birthday next week. We discussed life goals and future plans. She had a mentor that retired before 30 using passive income, something I was very interested in. She was looking forward to getting her finances in order, traveling broadly, and finding a new career path that would help her continue to mentor and interact with younger people and build them into successful and fulfilled adults. Darline was a great inspiration and had a great restaurant suggestion, which I will take her up on.
I finished the last two hours with helping paint a mural of Julia Alvarez, a Dominican-American poet. Her quote:
Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.
It turned out pretty good. We used some blending techniques on the acrylic paint to blur the hard color lines. I did a lot of tracing the lines to clarify the picture. I also used some strategic smudges to shadow and shape her face which had gotten a little fuzzy with the paint.
My group was fun, I liked interacting with them. Eric, one of the teachers at the school, is a Democratic socialist and we had a good discussion on books, code switching, and the merits/drawbacks of capitalism. It had been a while since I had such a good debate on politics so I was rusty but I missed having those types of discussions. He offered to invite me to some of their meetings and I’m down to be a diverse voice in that space. Might help the political ambitions too.
We packed up around 2pm. A few pies of pizza, some goodbyes, and a little cleaning to finish the day. It had warmed up considerably, so I had a leisurely bike ride home, except for the Brooklyn Bridge which was a shit show. I actually bumped a guy and got knocked off my seat for it. It was a drain to bell and yell at people out of the lane. I wish they were more respectful. It’s dangerous and inconvenient to all bikers.
That’s off topic. Generally, I had a good time doing art-ish. I liked flexing a bit of a different skill. I’m very, very proud of my commitment to doing some good, especially when the first event was cancelled and I could have just gone home. And I’m really glad I got two fairly long rides in, because it had been a while since I had been on the bike.
All around and excellent way to spend 5 or so hours.
Underground Railroad by Whitehead
Grandchamps in Bushwick