Civic Participation and Community Action Sourcebook

Section One

Lessons Learned:
Realities of a Community Project

by Amy R. Trawick

Martha waited until our class discussion had died down and then asked, rather amazed, “You mean we’re really going to do something about this?” We were talking about homelessness in our community. We were talking about big problems. We had been talking about them for days.

I remember being dumbfounded by my student’s question. I thought it was clear to everyone why we had been looking at our town under a microscope for what amounted to several weeks. I had told the students we would be participating in a national study to figure out what we would need to work on (skills, knowledge) in order to be active in our communities. And yet, Martha was asking if we were really going to do something about the homelessness problem in Pulaski, Virginia, as if she couldn’t imagine that she or we could possibly do anything, but she was vastly intrigued that we might. In retrospect, I am now able to make sense of Martha’s response and other issues that developed for me as part of my class’s participation in this community project last spring.

Communication Is Key
One of the many pitfalls I stumbled into during the community project process was assuming that, at any given time, everyone in the class was at the same place – that each member understood where I and everyone else was coming from. For example, when talking about the problem of homelessness in the community, it turned out that not everyone was thinking about it in the same way. After much discussion and research, we discovered that the real concern for many of the students was, in fact, inadequate low-income housing. Very few people in our community actually live on the streets, but a disturbingly large number of our class’s families and friends live in overcrowded, substandard housing. Some members of the class had meant that all along, while others had thought we were talking about people living under bridges.

For us, we had to “dialogue” at length to get to the real issue. It was only after we had discussed, written, drawn pictures, researched, and talked some more that we finally identified our issue of inadequate housing. Looking back, I realize that offering as many opportunities to communicate as possible, in as many different modes as possible, was vital in helping the class focus on a target issue.

It occurs to me now that Martha had no schema, no prior knowledge of how a group went about taking action in the community. As a teacher, I could come up with a zillion issues to address and a zillion and one ways to address them. But it was only by immersing Martha in these many classroom conversations, and in the process of taking action, that she was able to understand what taking action could mean.

Be Patient with Yourself
In Making Meaning, Making Change, Elsa Auerbach suggests that involving students meaningfully in participatory curriculum development is a “slow, gradual process which involves moving back and forth between old and new ways of doing things.” Since a community project is heavily participatory and, usually, a new way of “schooling” for both teachers and students, Auerbach’s advice is appropriate.

While this project forced me out of my comfort zone, I found it necessary at times to give myself permission to fall back into old ways of doing things. Although I felt guilty moving back and forth like this, it’s what kept me afloat throughout. Similarly, students seemed to thrive on community project activities for periods of time but were easily overwhelmed by the process and were seduced by the familiarity of their textbooks.

My journal entries record other frustrations I had with my role as facilitator. Philosophically, I believe in the importance of modeling a democratic environment in my classroom, yet I found myself giving in to the temptation to make decisions for the class in order to get things rolling. Part of my difficulty was that I didn’t feel I had time to do everything democratically. But another part of my concern was the real time constraints imposed on me by the students. Some were close to taking the GED tests and wanted a significant portion of the class sessions focused on pure academics. This balancing of “school stuff” with “community stuff” haunted me throughout the project, and although I could see a way through at times, I never seemed to be able to connect the two well.

In hindsight, I think I did okay. But first I had to stop bemoaning the fact that I did not know how to do everything I wanted to do. I had to give myself permission to be a learner too.

Think Realistically
At one point, the class was enthusiastic about the idea of creating a shelter for the homeless. A major problem was that a shelter was not a solution to the problem the class had identified – inadequate housing. It was big and tangible, however, and it was something that would make us feel like we had really made a difference.

Our discussion of the shelter brought up two important points for me. The first was the inability of many in the class to foresee consequences and long-term needs. Who would actually staff the shelter every night? What would happen when students’ individual goals were met and they left the class, or when their initial enthusiasm waned? Who would take over running the shelter? According to the students, the answer to many of the questions was . . . me, the teacher. Which brings me to my second point: I, as the teacher – but also as a mother, wife, church member, and individual – had to set boundaries for what I could realistically commit to. I told the class that I was willing to be part of the group but that I was not willing to take on the majority of the work for what could be years. I encouraged the class to keep their other life roles in mind and to think realistically about what they were willing to commit to.

After refocusing on the problem they had identified and considering the amount of time and energy they could realistically offer, the students ultimately decided to write class letters to decision-makers at various levels of government to address their concern about the lack of low-income housing in our community. This action component, though important and meaningful for the class was, for me, rather anticlimactic. What I found most profound were the group dynamics, the negotiation – in essence, the true community within a classroom – that developed as we worked on our project. I came away with a new appreciation for how providing opportunities like this in the classroom can enhance the quality of learning and, consequently, the quality of living for students in our programs.

Amy Trawick is Assistant Coordinator of the Office of Adult Education at the New River Community College in Dublin, VA and was an EFF Inquiry teacher in 1998. This article is reprinted with permission from The Change Agent, Issue 6, February 1998 and the author.

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