This evening I was driving to get my hair cut and I got into a car accident. I'll start out by saying that I'm fine and my car is reasonably fine. I was driving down a busy street when a police car came with its sirens on. We all moved over to get out of the way. After it was past, me and several other cars were ready to merge back over out of the parking lane. Right as I was about to merge, a car behind me decides to go first and shoot past me. I swerved back over right at the same time as the car in front of me decides to brake. So I basically hit that car's bumper. His car was fine -- no damage at all. My car's front grille and surround have been cracked (see photo). It's not visible from a distance -- when you get up to it you can see the cracks, but it's not any major damage. However, I am still really upset with myself and the situation. It's kind of the last thing that I needed on top of all the stress I'm going through with the end of the school year coming, finishing up all my internship interviews, getting ready to register for classes, having my classroom teacher going on maternity...
Tomorrow I'm going to call a couple of body shops so that I can get an estimate. My insurance deductible is $1000 because of my ridiculously high premium, and I can't really afford for my premiums to go up any higher than they already are. So if the damage is under $1000 I'm just going to pay it out of pocket and not involve the insurance at all. I was looking online at Yaris grilles, and it seems like the part shouldn't be more than a couple hundred. Who knows how much the body shop will charge for labor, etc. Everyone keep your fingers crossed for me! The other thing I was thinking was, if I don't have to involve the insurance, I might just wait to get it repaired until I have a bit more money coming in. Any thoughts?
This past Tuesday afternoon I had my interview at the Plymouth Youth Center School (PYC) in North Minneapolis. It was a quick interview, only about 15 minutes, as they seemed to be working in a pretty hectic and quick-paced environment. PYC, as I mentioned before, is an alternative high school for students that haven't been doing well in the regular high school environment for one reason or another, or that might have been expelled from their previous high schools. It is a tough group of kids to work with, as they are facing a variety of challenges. The school has a team of 3 full-time social workers, which is pretty amazing. They are part of the health & wellness team, which includes an on-site clinic. Their philosophy is to use a holistic approach with the students, which includes everything from mind/body wellness education to taking them on field trips and to do volunteer work.
The main deterrent for me from PYC is also the one thing that draws me to it, which is the age of the students. I haven't had very much experience working with high schoolers. One the one hand, I just feel that I naturally work better with younger kids and I should work on enhancing my strengths. On the other hand, I feel like it would be a really good idea to widen my level of experience. I just don't know.
Wednesday morning I had an interview at Park View Montessori (K-6 school) in Minneapolis's Bryn Mawr neighborhood, which is on the south side, directly west of Downtown. It is a cute neighborhood, with all three schools connected to one another: Park View, Bryn Mawr Elementary and Anwatin Junior High. The social worker at Park View, Joey, was really great. She seemed very enthused about my experience working in schools and with kids. It sounds like I'd have a lot of options as to what I'd get to do there. Her current two interns facilitate their own groups. I could also learn about the assessment process and I would get my own small caseload of kids. They also do home visits, which would be a pretty neat experience. Although the school is not in North Minneapolis, they get a lot of students bused over from there. For those not familiar with the Twin Cities, North Minneapolis is considered to be the roughest place to live. There is a lot of crime, drugs, gang violence, etc. Many of the students coming from there live in alternative family situations or shelters, many of their families do not have reliable vehicles or phone numbers. For this reason, it's hard to get parents to show up at the school because it is too difficult for them to get there or because it isn't possible to even get a hold of them by phone. Which is where home visits come in, and Joey said that a good deal of the families are very receptive to this.
In conclusion, I am still leaning towards Wellstone as my first choice with Park View as possibly number two. I still have one more interview, this upcoming Tuesday, at Ramsey Magnet in Minneapolis. I'll keep you all posted!
One of the things that I love about this neighborhood is that there is a Unitarian church only three blocks from my house! Unity Church-Unitarian is a large congregation of about 1,000 adults and 450 children and youth, with a church history dating back over 130 years. The ministers there are a husband and wife team, Janne and Rob Eller-Isaacs.
Despite being so close by, it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I finally went to a service. Every weekend I thought about it, but was apprehensive about going by myself. So finally, on Easter Sunday, I decided to suck it up and go. And I'm glad that I did. There are three services on Sunday, 9AM, 11AM and 4:30PM. I went to the 4:30 service, which was very intimate because I guess most of the congregation had gone in the morning. It was much like the Unitarian services that I have gone to in the past. The interior of the sanctuary is very minimalist -- obviously no crosses or idols or anything. It was quite a lovely service, with the Director of Religious Education telling a story that created a resurrection metaphor from the story of the butterfly. She had a toy butterfly, caterpillar and chrysalis that oozed goopy gooey stuff. It was great.
So this past weekend I decided to attend the first in a series of three classes that serve as a pathway to membership into the church. The first class was just a brief survey on UUism, about an hour and a half long. There were about 17 of us in attendance, and it was a great primer on the religion. The leader of the class, Justin, the Director of Congregational Development, did a great job breaking the religion down so that we could begin to explain to friends and family that age-old question of exactly what it is that Unitarians believe. So I'm going to share some of what was said, just so that you all can have some more information about the faith community that I have slowly been integrating myself into over the past couple years.
* The mission of Unity Church-Unitarian is to engage people in a free and inclusive religious community that encourages lives of integrity, service and joy.
* UUism is not a creedal religion, meaning we have no strict set of beliefs that we follow. Rather it is a convenantal, in that we make a promise and a sacred commitment to live out the church's mission.
* Rather than believing in original sin (that we are born into sin, that there is something fundamentally broken about us), we believe in original blessing, that we are called to love and connect to that which is greater than us (God, the Earth, Humankind, the great Mystery, whatever...)
* The Universalist part of the religion refers to the belief that no one is left behind, that all are saved.
* The concept of salvation in UUism has nothing to do with accepting Jesus or God, but rather with a lifelong process of moving towards wholeness, living with integrity, etc. Again, we believe that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with us or broken.
* There is no real belief in Heaven or Hell. We choose to focus on This World, with the idea that this life is a blessing and a miracle. We believe that we are called to create the Kingdom of Heaven right here on Earth, rather than focus on some abstract Heaven/Hell.
* The Unitarian part of UUism refers to the "unity" of God. The religion evolved out of Christianity, and in its beginnings it was based on a rejection of the "trinity" and a belief that Jesus was completely human and not equal to God. Today we view the "unity" concept more in terms of there being only one Truth or one God that is manifested in many ways and can be found through many different paths. (My favorite metaphor comes from Unitarian minister Forrest Church who describes it as "one light shining through many windows")
* We believe that many religious paths are valid, that our experience of the Divine happens through our own individual experiences and that we should accept and encourage one another's spiritual growth and search for truth and meaning.
* As a result of the previous point, some UUists adopt more Judeo-Christian leanings, others follow some Eastern philosophies, and others believe in pagan philosophies, strictly humanist philosophies, Islamic beliefs, etc. Some UUists are agnostic, others are atheistic, choosing to celebrate Life and Humanity as opposed to the Divine.
* Because we believe in the validity of many faith traditions, we find inspiration in a variety of holy texts as well as non-holy books. The Bible is not considered the "word of God", but rather one important story among many, many others.
* Many famous men and women followed Unitarianism or Universalism (the two churches merged in 1961), such as Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony (a Unitarian and Quaker), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dorothea Dix, Adlai Stevenson, e.e. cummings, Clara Barton and Jane Addams.
* The Unitarian Church was the first mainstream church to approve same-sex marriage ceremonies, in 1984. However, UU ministers had been performing ceremonies since the 1960s. The UUists have always been among the first to step up in social reforms, being some of the first outspoken abolitionists, suffragists, etc.
* The symbol of the Unitarian Church is the flaming chalice. The symbol has its origins in a logo designed by an Austrian refugee for the Unitarian Service Committee during WWII. It became an underground symbol used throughout Europe to give assistance to Unitarians, Jews and others escaping Nazi persecution. It's symbolism varies for many -- some see it as a light in the darkness, others as a symbol of religious freedom. Most congregations have a chalice, which is lit at the beginning of each service, to create a scared space.
THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCATION COVENANT TO AFFIRM AND PROMOTE:
- We affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. - Justice, equity and compassion in human relations - Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth - A free and responsible search for truth and meaning - The right of conscience and the democratic process within congregations and in society at large. - The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. - Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part. - Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and openness to the forces, which create and uphold life. - Words and deeds of prophetic women and men, which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love. - Wisdom from the world's religions, which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life. - Jewish and Christian teachings, which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. - Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit. - Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and enobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision.
Anyway, that was a little primer for those of you who might have wondered what UUism is all about. I'm definitely not trying to evangelize or anything! I just thought it would be nice to share since there is often a lot of confusion in regards to exactly what UUism is.
Love to you all!
(Video "Voices of a Liberal Faith" from the Unitarian Universalist Association)
This morning at 7:30 I had the interview with the Learning for Leadership Charter School (LLCS) in Northeast Minneapolis. It went well. The school is small -- only about 150 students for grades K-11. It is project-based learning, so there is a lot of art and exhibit-type stuff everywhere, very much like Museum Magnet, where I am working now.
The social worker there, Shelly, is only in her first year at LLCS. She has a business with another person, which contracts out social work services to charter schools, that often can't afford full-time social workers. So she is only at LLCS two days out of the week, while the other half of the week she is at two other schools. I liked her a lot, she seemed very open to me creating the type of field experience that I want. Apparently the school is very open to trying new techniques and being creative. They focus a lot on restorative justice and doing peacemaking circles, etc. The drawbacks to the position are that it is her first time working as a field instructor, so she hasn't really had a lot of experience with interns before. There could be benefits to this as well, I'm sure. Another drawback is the location -- it's a 25 minute drive under good traffic conditions, meaning in the winter it could equal some long travel times. But I suppose I've been spoiled living so close to my current job.
After work I had a second interview, this one at Wellstone Elementary in downtown St. Paul. The location is much better -- an easy 10 minute drive from my apartment. I was excited about this interview because Julianne, the social worker, seemed really great when I spoke to her on the phone. I had also heard excellent things about the principal at Wellstone. It ended up being an awesome interview, and I left feeling really excited. Wellstone is a magnet school, but its magnet is basic skills, so there isn't really a special type of draw, such as the science & technology at Museum. However, Julianne told me that they have been trying to work towards making it a social justice magnet school, which would sort of work perfectly with it being the Paul & Sheila Wellstone School.
The school serves a very diverse group of kids, with many ELL (English Language Learner) students -- especially because there was a small Language Academy within the building that last year was shut down because they weren't meeting their annual yearly progress. So Wellstone ended up absorbing all of the bilingual (I think mostly Spanish-speaking) students from there. Before that, they had been working towards creating a bilingual classroom for each grade at the rate of about 1-2 a year, but after the Language School closed that went out the window and they had to immediately adopt bilingual classrooms on all grade levels. Other major populations the school serves are Somali, Kenyan, Ethiopian, etc.
What I really liked was that Julianne was just extremely open about letting me make this into the experience that I want, similar to Shelly in the morning. She said that she could train me on doing assessments and IEPs (Individualized Education Programs -- for special ed services), facilitating my own groups, doing advocacy and public policy type stuff or whatever else I might want to do. She seems to have really taken a lot of initiative and created some really awesome programming at the school. She told me that about 50% of her time is spent doing direct practice, which in a culture of over-worked social workers with mounds of paperwork, that is a truly wonderful thing.
Tomorrow I have an interview in the afternoon at the Plymouth Christian Youth Center School. I will write in on how it goes! I can already tell that this is going to end up being a tough decision...
So today I went to have my first interview at the Learning for Leadership Charter School, which is located in Northeast Minneapolis. The interview was at 7:30 this morning, and since it was about a 25 minute drive from my house I had to leave around 6:45. Where I work now, at Museum Magnet, the school day starts at 9:10, I usually get there around 8:30, and since it is a three minute drive from where I live, I roll out of bed around 8:00. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper getting up at 6:00 this morning. However, I was driving along on the freeway when I discover that the exit I'm supposed to take is CLOSED. Panicking, I called Mira, who thankfully was able to reroute me. THIS is why I need a GPS. Thank heavens for roommates that are Minneapolis natives.
I was right on time for the interview. However, the social worker that I was meeting with was not. In fact, the school was pretty much empty. I waited around for about 15 minutes, slipped a note under her office door and headed on my merry way back to St. Paul. Except that I was not so merry after getting up early and driving 25 minutes only to have to turn around and drive right back.
As it turns out, there was some miscommunication. I wrote down in my planner that we were meeting this Monday, while she had written next Monday. Who knows which one of us was right (me, obviously), but it doesn't really matter. We rescheduled for next Monday, when I get to go through the entire thing all over again.
In other news, I got an e-mail from the Minneapolis Public Schools representative from the Field Fair, telling me which schools she had matched me with for interviewing. So the two new sites added to the list of places that I will be considering:
(1) Park View Montessori is obviously a Montessori school, that is part of the MPS system. It is located in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood. It is composed of about 75% African American students and 20% Caucasian.
(2) Ramsey Fine Arts Elementary is a K-8 fine arts magnet school in South Minneapolis. The school is about 1/3 White, 1/3 Black and 1/3 Latino.
Also, have my interview set up at Wellstone for next Monday after school. Doesn't look like too much will be happening this week.
On Friday I "interviewed" for a week-long summer position as a volunteer counselor at a youth camp called Camp Sunrise. It is a partner site of Multicultural Communities in Action (the AmeriCorps program that I am in), so that means that the time that I work there will count as AmeriCorps hours. I say "interviewed" because there wasn't really a selection process, it was more of an informational meeting and a way for the Camp Director to get to know me a bit.
Camp Sunrise is a part of YouthCARE Minnesota and according to their website is a "year round youth development program focused on bringing together youth and adults from diverse backgrounds to live and work in an outdoor multicultural environment." The camp was developed in 1974 by Xcel Energy and the Minneapolis and St. Paul Summer Youth Employment Programs. The camp is located about 60 miles north of the Twin Cities, on the St. Croix River. Annually the program serves 300-350 youth aged 13-18. 90% are youth of color.
Week-long sessions run throughout the summer and each session includes teambuilding activities, intercultural activities, service projects and a 3-day canoe trip down the St. Croix. Volunteer counselors serve alongside a full-time Adult Counselor and a Junior Counselor (typically a former camper).
I will be going August 1st-7th and am looking forward to it!!
This past Tuesday I attended the Field Fair and Orientation at the U of M's School of Social Work (SSW). The SSW is on the U's St. Paul Campus, along with the rest of the College of Education and Human Development. There's also a lot of agricultural stuff over there. It's rather isolated, right by the Minnesota State Fair grounds. It's a big change from the UW Campus.
The orientation consisted of a three-hour-long introduction to field placement, including a student panel and a field instructor panel. It wasn't particularly useful, but it was a nice way to meet a few fellow MSW students. Unfortunately many of the people that I met at the orientation will not actually be taking classes alongside me. The MSW degree is a 2-year program, consisting of a "foundational year" and then the second year which focuses more on specialization. Advanced standing students, such as myself, get to skip over the foundational year because it basically covers the same fundamentals that we learned when obtaining our BSWs. So when we take classes we are mixed in with other advanced standing students and other 2nd year students. Many of those beginning the program are in the full program.
Mira has told me that she thinks it must be hard to enter the program as an advanced standing student because the 2nd years have already been together for a year and all know each other, and have formed friendship groups, etc. For this reason, I tried to seek out some of the other advanced standing students during orientation. As luck would have it, I was sitting next to one. She was a friendly girl named Laura who had graduated in 2008 from the University of St. Thomas. Throughout the morning and afternoon I met a couple of others, so hopefully there will be a few friendly faces come fall.
The Field Fair was from 3-5:00, and is sort of like a job fair. Various agencies that take MSW interns set up booths and you can stop and talk with them, get information, set up interviews, etc. The way that placement works is you interview with as many agencies as you want (5-6 is the recommended number) and then rank order the ones that you liked. So if you interview somewhere and don't think it would be a good fit, you wouldn't even put it on the list because then you might end up getting placed there. After you turn in your ranking, the SSW gets lists from the agencies that rank orders the students that they interviewed. Comparing all the lists, the SSW attempts to make placements. Typically 70-80% of students get their first or second choice. There is also a very small portion that they are unable to place, so there is a second round of interviews in June for those students, as well as anyone admitted late to the school, etc.
The Field Fair was extremely chaotic and crowded. Three different colleges work cooperatively in this whole interview/placement process, in order to keep things fair and controlled. So the University of Minnesota, St. Thomas/St. Kate's and Augsburg College students all participate. The interviewing process begins on April 8th and runs for one month. Our placement preference forms are due on May 11th.
I was pretty efficient at the fair, as I did my homework ahead of time. The SSW's website has a list of all available agencies as well as a nearly 400 page web document that contains agency descriptions, describing the role of a social work intern, the agency's mission statement, etc. Knowing that I most likely want to do my placement at a school, I focused on those particular agencies and made a list of about 6-7. Luckily all but one of them was represented at the Field Fair, and I was able to set up interviews on-the-spot with three of them. These are all of the sites:
(1) W.I.S.E. Charter School/Learning for Leadership: W.I.S.E. (Carter G. Woodson School for Academic Excellence) is a K-7 school in North Minneapolis that uses the principles of Nguzo Saba, which are the seven African principles of Kwanzaa: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. Its population is almost 100% African American.
The Learning for Leadership Charter School is a K-12 school in Northeast Minneapolis that features project-based learning and field trips. It is about 60% African American, 25% White and 8% Latino.
I am interviewing with the social worker that works at both the schools, so I would get to select which one I am more interested in.
(2) Plymouth Christian Youth Center School is a contract alternative high school with the Minneapolis Public Schools. It is arts & technology focused, and the demographics are mainly African American and Asian, with some Latino and "other" mixed in. It is not actually a Christian school, the name dates back many years to when the majority of funding apparently came from the Protestant Church.
(3) Wellstone Elementary School is part of the St. Paul Public Schools and is located right in downtown St. Paul. It is a K-6 magnet school. It was also named after Sheila and Senator Paul Wellstone.
(4) Murray Jr. High School is a 7th and 8th grade math and science magnet school in St. Paul, located near the University's St. Paul campus.
(5) Minneapolis Public Schools -- had to fill out an information sheet on my areas of interest and the intern manager will be matching me with places to interview at based on that. So I am still waiting to see on that one!
My first interview is this coming Monday, April 13th at the Learning for Leadership School. I will post about how that goes!
On the right under the "check this site out" I have provided links to various organizations that I am involved with here in the Twin Cities, as well as ones that are of interest to me. The list directly below is a list of some blogs that I read on somewhat of a regular basis, which includes only one of my guilty pleasures (the gossip blog Dlisted, which is hilarious).
I have been avoiding this for a while, but the time finally seems right. My life is getting to be so hectic, with new things constantly happening, and it is just impossible for me to keep in touch with everyone as much as I would like. So this blog will be a way for you all to keep abreast of my life here in the Twin Cities. You can follow along as I complete my year with AmeriCorps and delve into life as a grad student. It seemed to work pretty well while I was in Portugal for the year, so we're going to try this and see how it works. I can't promise anything in terms of the frequency of my updates, but I will try my hardest!
ee the cracks, but it's not any major damage. However, I am still really upset with myself and the situation. It's kind of the last thing that I needed on top of all the stress I'm going through with the end of the school year coming, finishing up all my internship interviews, getting ready to register for classes, having my classroom teacher going on maternity...
1960s. The UUists have always been among the first to step up in social reforms, being some of the first outspoken abolitionists, suffragists, etc.