For my off-campus event, Brady, Cait and I went to play Bingo at Creekside Charity Bingo in Round Rock. Our original plan was to go play in Sun City, hoping for a specifically older demographic. However, I think this experience proved to be just as much of a personal stretch, if not more. While playing Bingo in Sun City would have placed me among many elderly people—something relatively out of my comfort zone—they would have been very similar to me in most other ways (white, upper/middle class, etc.). Creekside definitely provided a more foreign environment.

Upon entering, I felt lost, embarrassed, and honestly a little nervous. It was like walking into the cafeteria with no friends and looking for a place to sit (except that Brady and Cait were there to alleviate some of the discomfort). I immediately felt judged. More than likely, I’m just being arrogant in thinking that anyone would care enough or bother to judge me. However, I got the familiar sensation that these people were pigeon holing me as a spoiled, ignorant, white girl. While I’ve gotten somewhat used to that feeling—upper/middle-class was definitely the minority in my high school, as was being white—it was still pretty unsettling.

Despite this, when we sat down and started fumbling through the sheets of Bingo cards and colored “dabbers,” the woman sitting next to us immediately began explaining what to do. She almost completely stopped paying attention to her card—something that was NOT done in this hall—and showed us where to mark and told us the wild numbers and even came over and helped us dab so we could catch up! We finally got the hang of it, but the woman continued to tell us little helpful bits throughout the night.

This interaction was more than I could have hoped for from this experience. I am so glad that I chose to do something like this instead of attending a meeting or other event that wouldn’t have involved contact with other people. I think this experience was so appropriate to our topic, Understanding Human Behavior. It was very entertaining to watch people throughout the night, so many different types of people were there. I kept wondering what it was that brought each person there. Several older women were there with what looked like groups of friends who attended regularly. There was a group that looked like an elderly woman and her two grown-up kids. From the middle-aged man who had a pizza and a whole stack of cards for the night to the pair of chatty older ladies with their totes specifically made for Bingo—I kid you not, they had pockets along the outside for all of their dabbers—they were all in the same room just trying to relax or get away or get a little competition. The woman who helped us was cracking me up with her husband, who clearly did not have the interest in Bingo that she did; he kept pushing his card over to her and she would tell him no that he needed to play it. Another lady at our table just laughed at us every time we started arguing, but not in what I felt was a cruel or judgmental way. It was more like the way someone would laugh at little kids playing…I think we amused her.

Everyone was so welcoming, which was not the impression I got upon entering. I ended up having a really good time. When we left, we gave our dabbers to the woman who helped us the whole night. I wouldn’t even mind going again, I think we should make it a Paideia activity, the place was overflowing with wonderful human behavior to be analyzed.

Civic Engagement 2

I think we made some progress during our meeting; we actually somewhat narrowed down our ideas a lot more quickly than I was expecting. I really like the concept of doing something with children and elderly people. I think the contrast and varying experiences we will have through those two outlets will lend itself very well to our specific topic. While I am much more partial to a whole group project, I think that this could allow enough interaction within the group to be effective. I am concerned about the number of people who seemed opposed to the idea of working with elderly people. Though I have some experience with this type of interaction and am comfortable with it, I completely understand others’ unease. I think that it’s reasonable to expect to have to stretch ourselves a bit, but if the project becomes something that some of the members dread then I think it kind of defeats the purpose.

Honestly, though I like the idea of the split project, I really would prefer to do something as a group. Like I said during our meeting, I think the more think we spread ourselves the less effective we’ll be. For instance, if we start our civic engagement project as one group, and then as we get more involved in it we realize there are one or two ways within this one project that we can split, we’ll have that option. On the other hand, if we have only 5 or 6 people working on a project and we think of two specific ways we want to go within that project, it would be a lot less likely to work out. That sounds pretty confusing, I hope I explained that well enough.

As far as our actual ideas for the project, I really, really like the concept of a sports program for kids. There is myriad research that shows how beneficial physical activity is for children. (As a matter of fact, I’m doing a research project loosely based on that concept!!) Not only does it improve self-confidence, but it even affects things such as on-task behavior, academic achievement, and involvement in other extra-curriculars. Some people expressed concern in the meeting that they don’t have any expertise in any sports, but I don’t think we necessarily need to teach “sports” as much as just a combination of physical activity, competition, etc. We can all play nuecum!!

As most of you are, I’m also a bit hesitant to commit to something on a weekly basis. While I’m not sure what else we should do instead, I think we would be better off aiming for something less demanding so that we aren’t burned out after a semester. I’m not sure who brought it up, but I liked the idea of forming groups of 3-4 and just making sure one of the groups was at the site once a week. (I forgot to mention, this is all assuming that we work through an already-established program, which I think is going to be our best bet.) If we have 3 groups then we’ll each be going to the site once every three weeks, which I think is more than reasonable. In addition to this, I think we could do a Saturday event once or twice a semester. This could be the “fundraising” aspect of the project, if we wanted to attempt that.

On-Campus Event, for real this time

I went to the brown bag luncheon about foreign policies in the 2008 campaign. I felt that this was an appropriate event considering the goal of Paideia to “force” us to become more socially/politically/internationally aware of our world. I know it wouldn't really be a stretch for most people, but I'm not quite as politically involved or aware as I should be. Regarding that, this was a pretty interesting event for me. I wish they could have talked a little more about each candidate’s views on foreign policy, just because I'm not very familiar with them. However, I'm sure I was one of the only ones in attendance who needed a review session.

An aspect of the program that I found borderline irritating was the seeming preference of the speakers for Obama. Although it’s something that I’ve come to expect from Southwestern, and I’m aware that everyone has their own political interests, I think that events such as this one should remain completely objective. While I am by no means a die-hard Republican, nor am I anti-Obama, I would still like to listen to a lecture about the potential presidents with both sides equally presented. This wasn’t, however, and overwhelming issue and I believe that overall I benefited from the experience.

One thing I was particularly interested in was the emphasis the speakers put on Pakistan and the danger it poses. Their argument was that, since Pakistan has developed nuclear bombs their potential threat to us and other countries has drastically increased. I really hadn't considered this as an issue and I'm glad they brought it up.

A question was asked about the opinions/preferences of foreign countries as far as our next leader and how the speakers thought the election of either of the candidates would affect that opinion. Again, I am not as politically knowledgeable as I should be, but this question really got me thinking about America’s role in the world, which led to my thinking about my own role in the world, which is a thought I believe Paideia is supposed to stimulate, often. Though I came to no mind-blowing conclusion, I did decide that one of my roles in the world is to be an informed citizen; one with opinions about what’s happening around me, as well as a desire to do what I can to affect those things about which I have opinions. (That has to be a run-on sentence)

In general, my knowledge about the political situation has really improved since I started Paideia, which is definitely something that needed to happen. Between our discussions and reading Newsweek I feel much more informed about the goings-on of the world and the US. However, I still have much more room to improve, and I think that the various aspects of Paideia, as well as the ways in which I can expand on those aspects, will help achieve that goal.

For me, civic engagement is participating in or creating some activity that benefits someone not directly connected to you. I feel like this is different than doing something that helps a person or group close to you. I really don't think there's a strict limit to what counts as civic engagement, and while I don't think it's synonymous with community service I don't see a huge difference.
As far as our own cohort is concerned, I feel like we have a good amount of resources and commitment and that we should be able to do something fairly significant. We're all pretty dedicated people and if we can find something that we all want to commit to, I don't see any reason why we couldn't do something really great. Personally, I'd like to do something with a tangible result, but that's just me being selfish and wanting to physically see the results of our hard work.
I've always had a passion for working with kids. I've purposefully surrounded myself with kids as often as possible for most of my life. In addition to my personal interest, though, I think doing something that benefits children is always a good bet because they still have so much time to change their paths, if they even need to be changed. Another area that interests me for civic engagement is low-income families and neighborhoods. The cyclical nature of this issue makes it such an obvious possibility for me because making one simple difference in a life can completely change the cycle.
One of the main challenges a foresee is coming with a goal that we can all agree on. I think it's become obvious that we're a very opinionated group and I know that will each have our own ideas that we're passionate about. Also, one thing that happens to me pretty often is setting an unrealistic goal. I'm not sure if this will present a problem as a group but I know that I've often encountered it. While I think that we're capable of coming up with something really meaningful, I don't want us to aim for something and then realize that we just don't have the time/money/resources a year into the project.
Overall I'm excited about starting to brainstorm, I'm pretty interested in hearing everyone's ideas.