Monthly Archives: June 2012

For those in Eugene (and perhaps those elsewhere), we wanted to give you a heads up that Bijou Cinemas on 13th Street is screening the award-winning documentary Music From the Big House, starting on June 15. 

“From acclaimed director Bruce McDonald, and Oscar nominated producer team, comes a rare and exclusive musical journey. Rita Chiarelli, an award-winning recording artist, has decided to take a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the blues-Louisiana State Maximum Security Penitentiary a.k.a Angola Prison. She never imagined that her love of the blues would lead her to play with inmates serving life sentences for murder, rape and armed robbery.”

Watch the trailer here:

Showtime info here:

http://bijou-cinemas.com/bijou/2012/02/music-from-the-big-house/

And thanks to I-O alumnus Jordan for the tip!

The prompt was think of a time you were truly happy.  My wagon wheel partner, Matthew [not his real name], couldn’t think of a single one.  “My mom kicked me out of the house and didn’t care about me at all, she just did drugs,”  he said, his eyes flitting hollowly between mine and the carpet.  “What about a time with friends?” I tried. “They all betrayed me,” Matthew said.

Oh man.  Did I feel anything remotely like that at 13?

I have been involved with our Serbu Program Book Club project since it began about two years ago.  Today, as I sat through a final book club graduation ceremony before I go through my own robes/cords/mispronounced names college graduation ceremony next week, I realized that in these two years I have seen seven different book clubs gather in that austere classroom in the John Serbu Juvenile Justice Center.  I’ve seen seven sets of UO students earnestly applying seven different approaches to pedagogy and curriculum for such a unique group.  Seventy times I have rolled up to that facility, usually a little bit late and sweating from my bike ride, listened to the beep-click of the doors leading to the Serbu “pod,” gathered and arranged plastic chairs (cognizant of the few red and blue ones that could sometimes bring out gang-referencing hoots and taunts).  But that’s where the routine ends.  Things have changed tremendously since the beginning of this project.

Katie D. had the idea, and she roped me in right away.  “We’re going to do something like Inside-Out in the juvenile justice center,” she told me.  She remembered something I had almost forgotten, that two years previously in our Inside-Out class together at the Oregon State Penitentiary I had spoken out about wanting to work with youth to help them avoid contact with the prison system in the first place.  I eagerly signed on to the book club project.  I’d been working summers at a camp for kids whose families were experiencing the strain of military deployment, and I figured my various camp counselor (little tip: my resume refers to residential youth development) skills would instantly create some kind of award winning transformative program and these youths would all walk off with Rhodes scholarships and I could give TED talks about it or something.

The reality was more challenging than that.  Or perhaps just slower.

The first few iterations of the book club were stressful.  It turned out we had a lot of preconceived notions–imagine that!–and it took time to iron those out.  The biggest one was a misunderstanding of the institutional context within which we were developing this project.  The Phoenix program is a residential drug and alcohol addiction treatment program for youth in Lane County.  This was explained to us right away, of course.  But coming from the big intimidating monolith of the Oregon State Penitentiary, a capital-I Institution, where punishment is industrialized and impersonal and rehabilitation is not available in any overt, identifiable, general sense, I thought that our book club was essentially a light shining onto these youths through the hard iron bars of incarceration, an unusual gasp of freedom.  The relative shock of seeing children locked into small, barren, white-painted cells with bright lights cemented this impression for me.  It took time for me to realize and observe the profound and efficient commitment within the program to holistically addressing the emotional challenges facing the youth, and helping them start on the lifetime journey of sobriety.  It had to sink in for me over months and months of our weekly sessions that they go to school in the program, they get time off on weekends and get to go home, they have a whole staff genuinely attentive and committed to their treatment.

In short, Phoenix was not OSP.  Those first few months, we would slave over the plans for our sessions, the four of us outside students who had signed on to establish this project.  When we would get inside, the plans would sometimes work OK, sometimes flop.  At times we couldn’t tell what went wrong, or it was just energy in the group that we couldn’t get under control.  Other times we learned lessons.  Oh, we decided to select comic books for the group because we assumed they don’t like to read regular books, but this kid has been re-reading the Harry Potter series for fun and can quote it verbatim or perhaps we’ve been assuming that the youth feel constrained by their circumstance and are yearning for opportunities to make their own choices, but when we ask them for help designing the group it falls flat, perhaps because they have a relatively high amount of control over their lives that we hadn’t expected.  Overall we strained against the seeming necessity for us to take a teaching role and the core value of Inside-Out to have inside and outside interact as equals.

This was a long process of learning, and my “residential youth development” skills only half-applied.  I had basic facilitation abilities and I could run a terrific icebreaker, but I was pretty stumped when it came to designing curriculum based on books.  We started with the comic Why: The Last Man (confiscated-our bad) moved to Ultimate Spider Man (not much to talk about), and then to The Essential Calvin and Hobbs (had some great moments).

Our outside group grew bit by bit, from four the first term to about six for a few terms to about eight… still, we were significantly outnumbered by the youth.  And I was spending so much time each session thinking about the curriculum, the technical elements of my facilitation, the clock ticking down on our short time slot that I wasn’t getting to know these people.  I wasn’t making myself available for the encounter that should form the heart of Inside-Out, between bona-fide human beings across a gulf of experience.

So when outside student Alex P. stepped up and wanted to help lead these sessions, I jumped at the chance, subconsciously perhaps, to share the planning and leading and try to give myself more space to connect with the youth.  Alex and I toyed with different curriculum designs, trying first a week-by-week topical approach that didn’t really work and ended up being even more stressful than the comic books had been. Then Alex discovered a play version of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Harper Lee’s story was what we had been looking for.  It dealt deftly with subjects that had obvious relevance to our setting in the Phoenix program, including growing up, justice, privilege, and, of course, racism.  We had some powerful discussions about whether we would use the N-word as written when we read the play, and for the first time it seemed that both the UO students and the youth were speaking from the heart, as equals, and listening to each other with the kind of care and deference that we’d attempted to foster.  The play format gave us a way to all engage with the text together.

The group finally had the momentum and energy that it needed to sustain itself.  The reader will not be surprised to learn that we turned right around and used To Kill a Mockingbird again the following term.

As the sessions got easier to run, the UO students were able to relax a bit more and interactions between outside and inside students grew sillier, warmer, and deeper.  And that revealed, all of a sudden, the key to the success of the whole project.  It didn’t really matter what we read, or even what we discussed.  It became clear that the great potential of the book club was to introduce these groups to each other and let them form bonds of friendship, giving the youth a connection to their own possible future in college and the UO students an opportunity to reflect on their past and their community.  It feels obvious to write this now, considering that such bonds of friendship and understanding are the ubiquitous takeaways from I-O classes, but we had become so caught up in designing our sessions, choosing our books, setting up activities, and all the other logistical concerns that we had in some ways neglected that goal.  The rediscovery of that connection was powerful, and has born fruit ever since.

It was tremendously moving for me to watch Alex take the reins.   I looked on as he tested out and then mastered ways to address the whole group that could instill safety, confidence, and a sense of higher purpose in all of the participants.  I was able to step back more and more from my former leadership position, which was extremely beneficial for me;  I’m used to running the show in most areas of my life, and I am most comfortable while doing so.  To let go and watch Alex succeed was gratifying and healthy.

Last term Alex had the idea to have the group work toward a meeting with the mayor of Eugene during the final session, and so we formed small groups focused on specific societal issues that the youth were interested in, such as homelessness, drug addiction, or in the case of my group, gangs.  The two inside students in my group had been involved in gangs in other states before moving to Oregon, but even though they had chosen this group as their focus, our discussions were going nowhere.  As the sessions counted down to the final one with the mayor, I was nervous about what we would present.  Our discussions seemed silly, teasing, but with flashes of seriousness as the youth would recount their experiences.  But those receded as quickly as they arose, and when it came time to present to the mayor we had the barest outlines of a plan for more organized sports opportunities in the community.  Let’s just get through this, I thought, reverting to an outdated mode of thinking about book club.

But things had truly changed, and when our two guys spoke about their experiences with gangs and about our plan, they did so movingly, powerfully, and efficiently.  I was floored.  They had a great exchange with the mayor about their ideas, as did each other group.  The poise, courage, and verve of all of the youth that day was a world away from the restless and disengaged group that we had first met two years ago, and I think our willingness, as outside students, to let our guard down and allow ourselves to be silly with the youth, to connect with them and allow them to get to know us, made it possible for us to see them at their best.

This term, the last for both me and Alex, the two of us have stepped back almost entirely and asked other UO students from the group to plan the sessions.  It has been awesome.  And I want to return to Matthew, the guy who couldn’t remember a single happy moment in his life.  It was probably eight weeks ago that I had that interaction with him, when he was newly admitted to the Phoenix program.

Last week, I found myself in another small group with Matthew.  We were to discuss poems we had written in a quiet writing session.  I’d written an over-wrought yarn about my grandfather’s time in WWII.  Matthew had written just a few words.  In Greek.  “This isn’t a poem.  I just wrote some Greek words.”  I asked him if his family was Greek and he said yes, and that he was learning Greek but wasn’t able to work on it in Phoenix.  Since poetry wasn’t his thing, I asked him if he was into other creative things.  “He’s crafty,” the other inside student in our group piped up.  Matthew’s face brightened, and out poured a long explanation of the many things he makes with paper.  A tow truck.  Cars.  A waste basket for his room at Phoenix.  A tank.

I told him I knew how to make paper tanks too, with Origami; that, in fact, tanks are the only things I can make with Origami.  So I made one and gave it to him.  He was fascinated by it.

Today, after our graduation session, our traditional donut-eating, as we were preparing to leave, Matthew called me over to look in his room.  There, on the stone slab that serves as his bed, were many, many perfect copies of my Origami tank.

“I made 23!” he said, with a big grin.  He seemed happy.

- Ted

U of O

I haven’t written poetry since high school. With the exception of a poem I recently wrote for Spanish 301 entitled “My Garden”, the last time I remember writing poetry of any kind was at least a year ago. The last time I wrote a lot of poetry was in high school. Feeling out of practice, I was a little nervous for last Wednesday’s book club.

Resourceful book club members conspired to bring a slam poet from Portland to the book club for the morning, to share a little of his work with us and to guide us as we attempted to write our very own slam poetry.

I love slam poetry and I watch youtube poetry videos a little obsessively, but as much as I love the cadence, the clever word play, and the performance, the thought of writing poetry to be performed intimidates me. Nonetheless, everyone was excited for this day. Our guest, a very talented Portland poet, did not disappoint and after hearing form him about how he goes about writing poems, he gave us a few prompts and sent us on our way. We wrote individually for 15 minutes and then shared and work-shopped our poems in small groups. Although I am usually very comfortable sharing my writing, poetry somehow feels different and I was a little nervous, particularly because it was a hastily written and unfinished piece.

My group, and I think this is representative of the groups in general, was incredibly supportive—they listened carefully, gave helpful, kind feedback, and everyone had an opportunity to share in what, to me, quickly became a comfortable environment.

As we move into our last week of book club, I am thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of the past term. I think that the slam poetry session represents one of the greatest triumphs of the past few months. Although no single theme has guided the term, one of the most notable differences is the sense of camaraderie among the UO and Serbu students. Wednesday’s slam poetry session affirmed that I am part of a supportive community that can make potentially scary things, like sharing poetry, seem okay.

- Phoebe

Outside Alumnus

U of O

I recently attended a volunteer meeting that will enable me, once procedural hurdles are dealt with, to pass through the security check at the front desk without stopping. Just a flash of the badge. Almost every member of the Book Club either already has a badge or is somewhere in the process of getting one. This indicates a substantial level of trust bestowed upon us by the Serbu center and the Phoenix program in particular. I find this level of trust amazing, especially in light of the evolving nature of the Book Club’s structure.

We do not read books in Book Club, and we have not since I began participating in January of this year. As I understand it, the original structure of the program was to have university and Serbu youth read sections of books, graphic novels, or comics, and discuss what they read each week. For various reasons, this was not the ideal system. Moving away from that, the Book Club opted to read a play version of To Kill a Mockingbird. In each session, the group would read a portion of the play, then engage in discussion about the issues raised that week. This worked reasonably well, and it was only when the leaders of the program were faced with the possibility of reading the play of To Kill a Mockingbird three terms in a row that a new format was devised. This one incorporated some poetry, a couple carefully chosen youtube videos, and a lot of discussion.

This is when I began to participate, at the beginning of winter term. The project for the term was to build an abstract model of an ideal society. To achieve this goal, we were to focus on topics such as leadership, cooperation, and decision making. Our structure was frequently modified to incorporate what the youth were so obviously passionate about. For our final projects, we worked in five groups with two or three each of youth and university students. Each group had a topic that they were particularly interested in, ones that were chosen by the youth. They were two groups of youth homelessness, and one each of bully prevention, education improvement, and preventing gang proliferation. At our graduating ceremony, the youth led presentations to Mayor Kitty Piercy.

At the beginning of this term, we were confronted with a question: how do we follow the success of last term? Alex and Ted, who had led the program the previous term, had two things to say. First, they said winter term had been the best for Book Club. Second, they told us that they wanted to leadership be shared by every ‘outside’ member of Book Club. We were all equal leaders, we each had equal opportunity and obligation. In line with this democratization (for lack of a better term) of the planning process, we incorporated the youth’s interests more directly than before. We spent a session electing topics (both by university and youth students), and voting on them. Ultimately, university students pick the topics and design the weeks meeting, but this gave the Serbu youth greater voice in what we were all doing. The topics were as follows:

Child Abuse, Existentialism, Drug Abuse, Teen Pregnancy, Prejudice/Racism, Education, Alcoholism, Economy, Teen Mortality, Divided Self, Illness/Healthcare, Pollution, Development v. Conservation, Post-colonialism, Gangs, Drug Retail, Media and Body Image/Sexuality, Media and Music, and finally Slam Poetry.

The university students cut out a handful of topics that we did not feel comfortable leading a discussion on, put the rest up to a vote, and came up with this top ten:

Media and Body Image, Slam Poetry, Prejudice/Racism, Music and Media, Constructive Expressions, Existentialism, Illness/Healthcare, Education, Drug Abuse, and Divided Self

Each week, we have a discussion about one of these topics. We came up with these as a group and we voted for them as a group. More and more, the youth are determining the direction of Book Club though their positive actions. I find it amazing that Book Club has the trust of the Serbu Center, and the program is increasingly being directed by the youth, those young persons incarcerated because of criminal behavior, and in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse. This is a tenuous relationship, constantly in limbo and moderated by university students, but I see it as one of the most interesting aspects of this program. Talk about what we may, the real discussion is about how the youth are striving to form their own ideal society, how they are experiencing, through Book Club, what it means to be trustworthy and, hopefully, recognizing the responsibility it entails. I hope that is true for the youth, because gaining the trust of these youth has been the greatest lesson for me.

Jordan W
UO Book Club Member