Invest in hope ~ Invest in OUR children

    

Do you have children? That’s a silly question… of course you do. We all do! I know we’ve all heard the expression that it takes a village to raise a child. It’s true. We all play a role in society, and the extent of how that role can affect others, for the better, is up to us. If you’ve ever felt weighted with the issues of society today and wondered what, if anything, you can do to help create change, I implore you… spend time with OUR children. It is not only one of the greatest investments one can ever be privileged to make, it will not only make a difference in the life of a child, it will not only improve the quality and connectedness of our community, but it will potentially fill your heart with hope. So, if nothing else… be selfish; do it for you. You deserve to be full and inspired by a child’s greatness. 

“Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”   ~ John F. Kennedy

I often joke with kids that they have the best job in the world… to be a kid! While I still believe this to be true (especially for little ones), I don’t want to ignore the fact that growing up today is hard. The challenges and pressures that today’s children deal with are concerning. Aside from the emotional and physical changes that come with growing up, they are presented with social and educational challenges, the excessive need to compete with others and, often, there is also a layer of family and economic issues that they may be exposed to. Navigating these times can be confusing and difficult.

Although there is no wrong place to spend more time with our children, one of the most important places to get involved in a child’s life is at school. There are conflicting reports out there – some that argue that academics is the strongest indicator of future success and others that argue that school engagement and connectivity is the strongest indicator of success. Regardless as to which is true, studies from the University of Michigan have shown that children spend more time at school today than other generation before them (Swanbrow).  During that time, it is essential that they are getting the proper support that they are in need of. I am under no impression that educating a child is an easy task. In fact, I believe that it takes extremely special people to decide to dedicate their lives to educating children - especially given the demands that come with it. In the recent years, schools have experienced significant budget cuts, increased classroom sizes, a larger population of children who have various special needs, and more. There simply isn’t always enough staff to provide the quality of care that each individual child is deserving of – despite the staff’s best efforts to do so. This is where we come in.

I’ve recently had the pleasure of partnering with Mountain View Middle School in Beaverton as part of the community based learning project for my capstone course. My focus was/is to provide support to children who have social and academic challenges, as well as to be a support person for the staff as needed. In the short time I spent working with the children throughout this term, I found them to be intelligent, energetic, inquisitive, and enthusiastic about having a little bit of extra help.  Even though there are some children who may struggle a bit in particular areas, when given the appropriate individual time and attention, something that a single teacher can’t always provide when directing an entire classroom of students, the potential the students have revealed is undeniable.

It’s no secret that parental involvement in a child’s education has proven to result in the child having more success in academics, better social involvement, higher rates of graduating high school, and even higher aspirations to attend college. But, the fact of the matter is that many parents aren’t able to be involved in volunteering at their children’s school for various reasons. There are parents with demanding work schedules, families that have additional children at home that require caring for, and some who have language barriers that may prevent them from school volunteerism. And, while we hope that parents continue to provide extra support at home, their absence at the school shouldn’t mean that a child in need simply goes without. Extra support and mentorship can, and should, be provided by any willing participant who can spare the time to work with these children. Our children need us to go the extra mile for them. Some need personal mentorship and others need extra academic support or tutoring. Whether volunteers are students’ grandparents or other family members, local college students, or any other members of the community, by committing this time to our children, we are assuring them that they are worthy and valued. We are showing them that we care, that they matter, and that we want them to succeed.

 Just as we are all responsible for creating positive environments in our communities, we are also responsible for the positive upbringing of the children in our communities - not because they are my children or because they are your children, but because they are all of our children. We owe it to them, and to each other, to help them to learn and grow to be the best people they can possibly be. By working with them, you’ll see (just as I have) that a little bit of time goes a long way. It’s imperative that we empower our youth to create a strong, bright future for themselves by giving our time in order to help them succeed. This is not something that we are responsible for doing as parents of our own children; this is something that we should feel a responsibility to do for all children. We are all a part of this village. Invest in hope. Invest in our future. Invest in our children.

 "To ignore your personal duty to a child you invited or thrust into this world is entirely unacceptable; but to feed or care for only your child while a mob of wayward kids knocks hungrily on the door is also indefensible. The moral challenge lies in both ones personal duty and community responsibility."  ~William Ayers

References:

Ayers, William. A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court. Boston: Beacon, 1997. Print.

Swanbrow, Diane. "U.S. Children and Teens Spend More Time on Academics." U.S. Children and Teens      Spend More Time on Academics. The Regents of the University of Michigan, 2004. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

~Teri Smith, March 2014

Changing hearts through sports

High school student athletes seem to have a negative stigma behind them.  They are thought to be bullies, uninterested in their education, and vain.  But there’s a side to them that most people refuse to believe and learn about.  They all came from a specific background and upbringing that carried them into athletics.  When looking at these athletes as a whole, there is something special that drives them and it is apparent in the way they carry themselves.

I had the nerve-wracking pleasure to work with high school athletes from the surrounding Portland area for the past 10 weeks.  While I was a high school athlete myself, I still had negative connotations for the typical “jock.”  Maybe it was because I’m a female and the term “jock” typically applies to boys, or maybe it is because I attended a private, Christian high school and the behaviors that “jocks” may display at public high schools were not tolerated at my high school.  Either way, when I began this assignment, I was nervous to see how these high school athletes would take to me. 

 My project I had chosen included stretching and proper weight-lifting form sessions every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from noon to 1:00pm in the physical therapy clinic I work in full time.  During this unpaid lunch hour, the student athletes from high schools such as: Centennial, Reynolds, Gresham, Barlow, and Parkrose were able to come to the clinic and attend various sessions about the most effective way to stretch and safe and proper weight-lifting form and techniques.  I decided to focus on these things because most coaches focus on the plays of the game and fail to instruct their athletes on how to stay physically healthy.  

As time went on, I was able to dig deeper into these student athletes’ lives and hearts, and figure out their true beings and potentials.  It is an amazing experience, once you break through the barrier of a tough athlete, and find out their emotional strengths and weaknesses, their background and family life, and how they want to carry their talents on after high school.  I never thought I would become so connected with these students on an emotional level after these 10 weeks were over.  My mindset coming into this assignment was to teach the basic concepts and physical health and to help them stretch and lift more effectively.  Once we were able to become comfortable with each other, I had these athletes from competing schools finding common ground and becoming friends. 

These athletes proved to me that they are so much more than their sport.  They aren’t bullies: they made friends with each other and talked about their involvements in other extra-curricular activities at school in which they were able to grow their base of differing personalities and friends.  They are very interested in their education: these athletes have a great understanding that the chances of them playing at a paid, professional level of their sport is incredibly rare, and they have solid plans to attend college and gain a high education to become successful in their adult lives.  They are not vain: as they began to open up and talk about their insecurities, weaknesses, and faults, they began to shine as their loving, caring, selfless personalities became apparent.  

These last 10 weeks, I have learned more about myself and my potential from these student athletes than I would have just by sitting in a classroom learning from lecture.  This hands-on course has led me to the true potential that our Portland high school athletes have to make the future bright and successful.

~ Kaitlyn Lane, March 2014

Print Poor Environments and Public Libraries

“The past two decades of research powerfully connect access to print with higher reading scores and, conversely, lack of access with lower scores” (Trelease, 107). 

Think back to when you were a child. Did your parents read you bedtime stories? Were there bookshelves full of interesting titles around the home? Did you ever see an adult in your life reading for relaxation? The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease discusses the role of print reading material in the home and school. In his research, he discovered that low income children are hit by a double print gap – in the home and in the school. Schools are supposed to make up for home deficits, but a study by Nell Duke, featured in the text by Trelease, discovered that urban students have out of date school libraries, less time in class to read, and restricted access to the library.
Reading is important. No one will argue that. Why is it then that 14 percent of the American population cannot read? In fact, 21 percent of the adult population cannot read above a fifth grade level. Even more, 19 percent of high school graduates are illiterate. The most startling statistic from this study? 63 percent of prison inmates cannot read. There is clearly something wrong here. All data I have mentioned was retrieved from the US Department of Education and National Institute of Literacy study conducted on April 28, 2013. That is less than one year ago. 

Reading and proper literacy has been made a privilege in our society. In the study by Nell Duke mentioned early, he found that in the twenty urban first-grade classrooms he visited, teachers read from a less complex text, and the books-per-pupil ratio was half of what it was in the “advanced” classrooms. By treating low-income students differently than others, the public school system is creating two classes of people that graduate. The fact that over half of the prison population cannot read at an age appropriate and comprehensive level is as much the fault of the

schools than anything or anyone else. What can be done to combat this inequality in our education system? 

For my capstone project, I volunteered with the Scappoose Public Library, located in Scappoose, Oregon. The public library is one way to combat the social injustice of access to books. Anyone who lives in the library district can be a library card holder and check out all the books they want. The library is a public institution that creates the availability of books for everyone, no matter their age or reading level. Trelease wrote that the mere presence of books in the home is enough to encourage reading (110). If the schools are lacking in providing reading time, than it falls back to a job in the home. Even with busy working parents, a trip to the library every couple of weeks can be enough to have a stack of books to occupy children’s imaginations. 

My community based learning at the library focused on the Wednesday morning story time program for children ages 0-5. This is an excellent service provided by most public libraries that creates a community of reading among young children and parents. It is a way to attract families with children to the library and begin using it at a young age. Each week had a theme, such as cows or numbers, and we read a few books and did a craft. The fight for ending illiteracy begins with access to books. Public libraries provide free and easy access for all people.
Throughout this course I was connected with other people fighting for various social justice causes. I learned through our readings that it takes people like me to stand up and make a change. Public libraries are often the first on the chopping block when communities prioritize funding needs. It takes just a handful of people to spread the importance of libraries and their programs and the connection to increasing literacy to keep these services open and available. I know that I plan to be a lifetime advocate for public libraries. 

“We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world" (Loeb 71). 

References:
Loeb, Paul Rogat
2004 The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear. Basic Books, New York.
Trelease, Jim
2013 The Read-Aloud Handbook. Seventh Edition. Penguin Books, New York.
Illiteracy Rates. Statistics Brain. Accessed March 15, 2014 at http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/. 

~Emily Rocha, March 2014

Growing Faith

When I first heard David U’s story, I was emotionally disarmed.  David, a church leader in Ethiopia, was attacked by a group of men brandishing guns and machetes one fateful morning in his home community.  Miraculously, David survived this violent attack and lives on to share his awe inspiring testimony of his love for Jesus Christ and the power of faith.  Although the dangers David faces are numerous and close-to-home, he continues to fight for his beliefs and to not be intimidated by those who choose to persecute him.  As David so courageously asserts, “The Lord has given me another chance to serve Him. The bullets didn’t get me. I have seen the darkest night, bullets flying past me. There were more than 30 attackers. It is by the prayers and support of other believers we survived so far. I can only say God wants me to continue His work here. I have some unfinished business here.”  In my work with Open Doors, a charity group who helps persecuted Christians around the world, I have heard a number of other, similarly inspiring testimonies of Christians who face horrific persecution in religiously suppressed countries.  These brave people often live in environments of dire poverty with dangerously rampant crime rates and a complete lack of religious freedom.  In spite of the hellacious conditions they have to endure, these people clutch firmly onto their faith and rise above the darkness that surrounds them.  What they all have in common is not just faith; that is an essential component of their plight, but what they also share is something of equal importance: Hope.  In the words of Orison Swett Marden, “There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.”

When I first started looking into which course I wanted to take for my Senior Capstone at PSU, I was unsure exactly what I wanted to do.  I found myself drawn into a long episode of self-questioning: What am I passionate about?  What kind of project can I do that best utilizes the skills that I have acquired in my college career?   What Capstone can I take that can realistically be completed in a term?  Finally and perhaps, most importantly: Is there a project I can do that has relevance to my Christian faith?  All of these questions were dancing through my mind when I began sifting through the list of available Capstone courses that appeared on the fall term schedule of classes for PSU.  As I was scanning through the list, one course title jumped right off the page at me; it was called Mobilizing Hope.  I was a bit surprised to see a course with that kind of name because I really wasn’t expecting to find anything faith-related in the schedule of classes at a school like PSU (with all due respect).  But the word hope always makes me think of faith and the power of belief; not just because the name of the church I attend is called Hope Community Church, although I consider that to be a rather happy coincidence.  When I looked further into the details of the course, I was very pleased to see that it was a perfect fit for me and for my goal of basing my Capstone project around both utilizing and growing in my faith.  It was with all of these things in mind that I chose to participate in a letter writing campaign with the Christian charity group Open Doors.

When I first began my project I was a little unsure where to start.  I had been given a list of people to write letters to by Open Doors, but I knew that I would need to do a lot of research before delving into my letter writing.  I really didn’t want to commit the blunder of commenting on situations in places in the world that are very foreign to me without fully understanding the social, political and spiritual climates of the countries where my letters would ultimately be sent.  So, off I went, researching places like Ethiopia and Kenya, trying to understand what it is like to live in those parts of the world and what words of encouragement could I offer to the people living there.  When the time came to start drafting my letters, I found it to be less intimidating than I had initially thought.  Although I struggled at first to find the right words, I quickly discovered that all I really needed to do was speak from the heart.  From then on, the words came much quicker and I feel that I was able to express my words of encouragement in the right way.  The message I was relaying was simple, but nonetheless important: To keep trusting God no matter what life throws at you.  What I discovered in the process of writing these letters was that the things I wrote didn’t just have the effect of helping the intended audience, they also had a profound effect on me at a time in my life when I have faced a number of personal crisis’s and have had my faith tested. 

A major lesson taught in Mobilizing Hope was that there is a great benefit and value in dealing with those that live in the margins.  Through the essays and articles that I bared witness to throughout this term as well as in my experiences with Open Doors, I have seen how true this is.  The benefits are numerous, but for me personally, the most profound realization I came to after engaging with those in the margins is how truly lucky I am to have the luxuries and freedoms that I am afforded in my life and also, with the right kind of mindset, I have the power to make the world a better place, even if just in a small way.  In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “There remains an experience of incomparable value.  We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled—in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.” 

I went into the process of choosing a Senior Capstone with only the slight hope of finding something that would relate to my faith, let alone enhance it.  In the end, I found something that caused my faith to be challenged and grow on a number of levels and gave me a much fuller understanding of the impact that faith, hope and the fight for social justice have on the world.  I learned that these three things are closely intertwined and really can’t exist without each other.  Therefore, I now understand that I have a great responsibility and opportunity to help make the world a better place through my faith and newly enlightened philosophy that hope is the driving force to all positive change in this world.  It is a light that God shines down into our darkness that gives us the strength to fight for what matters; for what is true, for what is good, for what is fair and for what is right.    

--Daniel Pribyl

Chicken Project!

Hope is...

Please watch this wonderful video, by Chris Chesbro of our Mobilizing Hope Capstone. Powerful!

Three Keys to Social Activism

HOPE. Hope is undoubtedly where it all begins. It is most certainly our motivator. Hope recognizes the truth in a worthy cause, eats away at the human heart, and forces those bold enough to hope to do something about it. Thus, hope is out starting point in social activism. If we have nothing to strive towards, nothing to gain, if we see nothing in need of change or reconciliation we simply will remain idol enablers of injustice ignorant of a suffering world before us.

            False Hope. While hope is the heartbeat to activism, and perhaps even life as a whole, there exists an even greater enemy to mankind than a hopeless heart and that would be false hope. I have come to find in life that there are two kinds of people: the hopeful and the despairing. Of those who hope I have further noticed their hope comes from one of three things: hope in man, hope in self, or hope in God. Hope in man gives power over to humans we often deem more capable than ourselves to do what we believe as right. Sometimes this can work. However, we are often left disappointed because no one can live up to our idolized expectations. Furthermore, hope in others diminishes both our cause and our self as it neglects to join with others revealing both our laziness and lack of passion. Secondly, hope in self states that if I work hard enough I can achieve anything. This method is dangerous as it both leaves much of the cause up to chance and endangers the self of becoming burnt out and beaten down. In addition, it also tempts man, when success is granted, into becoming prideful in the victories of what he sees as his own doing and leads him to despair when his efforts are being stifled. Ultimately, both types of hope can often lead a once hopeful man into becoming a man of despair.

            Hope in God. It is, then, that the only hope surpassing all others, the only true hope for a despairing humanity is hope in God. This idea is articulated by the great theologian Jürgen Moltmann: “Without faith’s knowledge of Christ, hope becomes a utopia and remains hanging in the air... it is that hope in Christ gives hope its assurance.” This Christian hope is often seen as irrelevant to our modern world. However, it is that this hope in Christ is actually the only hope that both determines and unites all moral and just causes. It determines them because it is this God who himself is the very definition of justice and righteousness. It unites because he is a God present and active in all things good in this world, therefore, they all relate back to him. This Christian hope is all surpassing because, first and foremost, it recognizes the victory is already won. Christ on the cross conquered the demanded payment for the sins of all humanity and saved the world from a devastating life separated from God. Secondly, this victory relates to today's issues not only because humanity continues to need the payment of Jesus’ blood, but also because it reveals to a despairing humanity that God is still present and active in the world. The kingdom of God is forcefully advancing-- the second component of Christian hope. That an all powerful, all loving, all merciful, just and omnipotent God is still involved in a world of pain, despair, murder, oppression, immorality and injustice is certainly reason for hope. This hope is based on followers of Christ joining with God in the mission of reconciling the world to himself in order to reestablish his intended order on earth. However, because he is loving he has never forced man into relationship with himself, but rather has granted man the liberty to choose. This means man is able to choose evil, and unfortunately, to inflict that evil upon others. Here is where the third and equally powerful aspect of hope comes in: the hope of future glory. This future glory means that one day Christ will reappear to mankind on earth and “wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4). Everything will be restored, all justice will be established and enforced, and God will forever by fully present with his people. This future glory will be so great that Paul boldly declares, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:8). It is that great, impenetrable hope that endures through all things and all circumstance. And so it is that we can summarize by saying not only is the centrality of social activism hope, but center to hope is Christ.

            RELATIONSHIP. DAILY LIFE. With hope now defined we move on to the means by which we establish justice and peace in our world. Contrary to what many may think it is not necessarily done by protests, rallies or fancy speeches to the masses, though those certainly have their effect. The single most effective way in which we change the world is by changing the world around us.  This is done through our often mundane daily lives and already established relationships to other people. As is wisely stated by Thich Nhat Hanh, “Our daily lives have the most to do with the situation of the world. If we can change our daily lives, we can change our governments, and we can change the world.” This is because our daily lives are what “win the respect of outsiders” (1 Thes. 4:12). This exaltation of the daily life does not diminish the power in the great works, but rather reckons upon the even more powerful effects of a mundane life lived out nobly. Allowing love to seep through our relationships to those unworthy of it, our willingness to consistently work hard under any circumstance or any person, our desire to serve others asking nothing in return all speak louder than any words can and eliminate the possibility of accusations of hypocrisy when we finally open our mouths to speak. The truth is, with true hope and a worthy cause on our hearts, we should be compelled to speak. However, we should speak first by the consistencies of our daily lives, letting the words come later to prove us true, our hope pure and our cause noble.

            RECONCILIATION. The third and final component of social justice is reconciliation. It is, essentially, what hope seeks in the grander sense and what relationships should strive for. My community partner this term has been Colossae Church in Tigard, OR. This church seeks to be active in the community often by providing for basic needs in the schools throughout the district, primarily the high school. The mission statement, the hope behind this church’s movement is “to see the church join in God’s mission of reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus.” Not only does there exist a desire to see man reconciled to God, but from that stems a desire to also see man reconciled to man and man reconciled to truth. Reconciliation does not discriminate. It strives to see men reckon upon truth, even the oppressor. It seeks to see man reconcile to man even when forgiveness seems impossible. Reconciliation recognizes all humanity as purely, wholly, equally human, strips man of individual pride, need for revenge, and removes personal vendetta or vanity. The desire for reconciliation as a goal in social activism removes self form the equation and declares the cause worthy in and of itself. It doesn’t seek to see others brought to their deserved justice, but rather saves them from it altogether as they join the side of truth.

~Michaela Loewer