Volunteering: Part 1

This is the first of two posts on the outreach I've been doing. I replaced the name of the elementary school I was at with an X because I didn't feel right naming it.

The volunteer coordinator laughed when I put my name next to X elementary school. I gave him a questioning look and he brushed it off with a shrug and a “nevermind”. I was signing up to be a volunteer for Girls Inc, a nationwide organization providing after school and summer programs for young women and girls. I would be helping out every other Tuesday with the S.M.A.R.T (Science Math And Relevant Technology) program for third and fourth grade girls. After my first day at X as a Girls Inc. volunteer, I understood the origin of that laugh.

I spent a considerable amount of time over the past 10 years working on women in science programs at the undergraduate and graduate level. Most recently I was a coordinator of the Society For Women In the Physical Sciences (SWPS), a fantastic Berkeley student run program which provides support and mentoring for women in the physical sciences at Berkeley. Towards the end of my SWPS tenure I began shifting my focus towards younger students because, as I mentioned previously, girls loose interest in the physical sciences before they even get to college. So, when I received an email requesting volunteers for Girls Inc, I couldn’t wait to get started. I envisioned myself surrounded by eager young girls, doing experiments with them and gently guiding them on the path to becoming scientists. Unfortunately reality intervened.

Located just south of the Coliseum in Oakland, X is a world apart from my nice, clean North Berkeley filled with the ‘hippeois’, my parents' favorite term for the combination hippy-bourgeois which can afford to live there. The school is surrounded by a 8 foot tall metal gate which separates the depressed buildings from the rough neighborhood around it. I never felt unsafe but the poverty was obvious. The group I worked with consisted of 16 girls, about half of whom were black, the other half of whom were hispanic. None of the hispanic girls spoke English as a first language, although they all spoke it very well and only used Spanish when talking to each other during free time. The only other white people I saw were teachers. Those differences in skin tone further emphasized the separateness of this place from what I was used to. Minorities in science are hard to find; they make women look numerous. The normal school day ended at 2:30 for the girls, but they went straight from the classroom to a supervised homework class, then at 4:00 they went to SMART and stayed until 5:30. SMART run by Jackie, a young black woman employed by Girls Inc, and held in a windowless classroom where they were not allowed to touch any of the classroom equipment. Jackie taught at X and another Oakland school four days a week. At the other school she taught in an art room where the girls were free to make a mess and use audio visual equipment. At X all she recieved were coloring pencils.

The girls loved Jackie. She was a firm disciplinarian but they respected her most likely because she listened to them. Most weeks SMART started on Mondays but a few weeks during the year they didn’t start until Tuesdays so I was able to listen to “check in”, time set aside for the girls to tell Jackie about their weekends. Mostly they told of sleepovers and bbqs with their extended family but occasionally we would hear about grandparents in the hospital or other more serious events. Each girl would light up when it was her turn and I could see how much they enjoyed sharing with us adults.

Most of the daily activities were in some way related to science although sometimes the association was loose. When I began they were learning about the solar system and Jackie asked them to imagine and draw their own planets. The planets ranged from rather Earth-like to cookie and candy filled lands with milk fed water parks. They then joined in groups of four and created a board game set in their solar system. Another time they watched a DVD about women scientists. All sixteen crowded around Jackie’s personal laptop and watched a biologist, engineer and astronaut talk about what their jobs. The astronaut, a black woman, was by far the most exciting. The video showed her floating weightless at the space station which elicited cries of “oh cool!”. Then one of them asked, “Is this a movie? Is she real?”. The point of the video was to show them what they could achieve but they didn’t believe that it was anything other than fiction. When we assured them that she was quite real they looked interested but skeptical.

I wasn’t turning anyone into scientists at school X but I realized that early on and it didn’t disappoint me. It wasn’t that they weren’t capable of being scientists, they were as creative and smart as any other elementary school kids. The problem was that the odds of learning anything at this school were stacked against them and those immediate problems were more relevant. The times I felt most useful was when I helped them with their homework or the days we helped them practice for their spelling bee. Much of the homework was opaque and pointless. I couldn’t understand the questions so I don’t know how they were supposed to divine the answers! The teachers, although I had limited contact, did not seem particularly invested in the girls' development.

I could go on and on about the experiences I had at X. These girls were handicapped by inadequate infrastructure and too many bitter or unmotivated teachers, but they were full of energy and loved SMART. At the end of the school year they had a little party for me and each made me good-bye cards. I was touched by their sincerity and sad to stop my bimonthly visits. I’ll probably be returning in the fall.

I don’t want to leave the impression that all inner city schools are as neglected as X. SMART was not my only experience with the Oakland public schools this year. I had a delightful time with some great teachers and students at their “Dinner with a Scientist” program, which I’ll blog about soon.