Service Learning Activism Log: Three

Rachel Miles

Prof. Meredith Tweed

WST 4021

17 November 2011

Service Learning Activism Log: Three

Action:

Involvement this week was very limited. Because our meeting was with the big sisters (our last one of the semester, sadly), we did not have the opportunity to collect tweets from the girls. We did, however, have another fundraiser for YWLP on Wednesday night, this time at Chik-Fil-A. I was unable to attend because of my work schedule, but I heard from people who did go that it went well. More specific to our project, we still have only one submission for the ’zine. We reminded the girls about it again at the fundraiser and plan to once more at Saturday’s picnic alumni event. Chances are, though, that we will have to extend the ’zine into a two-semester project with contributions from girls in both terms, unfortunately meaning that we will not have a final product to give to the girls at our last meeting.

Reflection:

Again, I have spent most of this week focusing on the lack of response from the girls to the ’zine and am still questioning whether our decision for the girls to have them work on a ’zine was the best call. Throughout the semester, we have promoted both the ’zine and the tweets as ways for the girls to get their voices out, express themselves, and otherwise be heard. This misses an obvious question: what if the girls do not want to be heard? Or, alternatively, what if they do not want to be heard in this way? I recognize—and, from what they have shared with us, the girls do, too—the importance of encouraging girls to speak out about their ideas and experiences. There is a line, though, between encouraging and forcing, asking and invading, crossing into territory of “eliciting young women’s voices” in a way that Harris suggests “constitutes a kind of surveillance” (11). I would not say that our project has crossed that line, but it definitely operates on the assumptions undergrounding it. As the girls’ reticence to respond to the ’zine may suggest, our project, while well-intentioned, requires serious revision before it effectively can address the issues of girls’ independent creativity we originally wanted to explore.

Reciprocity:

Most of what I have gained from this week and, indeed, from the entire project has centered around ways to improve this project for next semester. We began this term with expectations for how the girls would respond and what our finished products would be. These expectations were not fundamentally wrong, but they did create difficulties in our ability to reassess and make changes as the semester progressed. Now that the term is concluding and we have a complete picture of our project’s successes and failures, we can extensively reevaluate and redesign the project where needed. Primarily, we need to keep in mind that this reevaluation does not mean we have entirely failed. As this term has showed me, every project is a work-in-progress; success depends not on your original design, but on how willing you are to change and improve it where needed

Work Cited

Harris, Anita. Future Girl. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

[Word Count: 500]

Service Learning Activism Log: Two

Rachel Miles

Prof. Meredith Tweed

WST 4021

10 November 2011

Service Learning Activism Log: Two

Action:

This week was, like last week, fairly quiet regarding our individual project. We collected and posted tweets from the girls at Wednesday’s meeting. Emily also got the pictures from UCF Day developed, but we have not looked through them. We still have only received a few submissions from the girls for the ’zine, so we reminded them about it again on Wednesday. A few of the girls expressed open enthusiasm when we brought it up, which I am hoping means that we will have more submissions from them soon. Until then, we plan to just continue reminding them with fliers and announcements to encourage them to submit work.

Reflection:

Lately, I have been focusing on the lack of response from the girls regarding the ’zine. We intended for the ’zine to be a creative space for the girls to express themselves, and I think in many ways, it could still become that. With the reality of the girls’ seeming disinterest, though, I cannot help but feel that we might have let our ideas about which activities and spaces are empowering overwhelm the actual intended goal of the project. Instead of, as the girls in the AGSL program did with their group research project, allowing the girls to choose how to express themselves and how to define the space they would use for that, we presented the girls with a set idea of what they would be contributing to, not an opportunity to decide what they would create (Muno and Keenan). Even without intention on our part—quite the opposite, actually, given how we provided for areas, like the girls coming up with the ’zine name, that we thought would specifically address girls’ autonomy in creating it—the space of the ’zine has been classified as one we set up for the girls to add to, not one that they made from the start. With time and scheduling constraints of YWLP as a program, I understand that allowing the girls total freedom in developing the type of project they would work on from the beginning is an unrealistic goal. Still, I cannot shake the thought that we might have contradicted ourselves in assuming that a ’zine, not a girl-decided project, would be the best and most empowering project for the girls to complete.

Reciprocity:

Most of this week’s activities have forced me to examine the assumptions I bring to YWLP about the girls we work with. The discussion we had with the girls about body image at Wednesday’s meeting were eye-opening for everyone in terms of how much our girls already knew. I love YWLP, but as with our plan for the ’zine, I think it might benefit the program and us as participants to reevaluate what we assume about what the girls already know, what would be most empowering for them, and what they need from us. Otherwise, we risk supplanting our own ideas of what girls’ agency should look like, rather than providing the girls with genuine opportunity to reclaim that agency for themselves.

Work Cited:

Muno, Ann, and Lynn D. Keenan. “The After-School Girls Leadership Program: Transforming the School Environment for Adolescent Girls.” Social Work in Education 22.2 Apr. (2000): 116-28. CINAHL Plus. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

[Word Count: 500]

Service Learning Activism Log: One

Rachel Miles

Prof. Meredith Tweed

WST 4021

3 November 2011

Service Learning Activism Log: One

Action:

This week, most of my group’s activist work was focused on general YWLP involvement. As part of a fundraising effort for YWLP, we all had dinner at Applebee’s on Thursday night. We also attended the big sister meeting on Wednesday, where we prepared for next week’s lesson on body image and self-esteem. Given the subject matter, I am both excited and nervous for the tweets we will receive from the girls after next week’s meeting; should they choose to use the tweets to respond to the themes of our discussion, they could be very telling of how these issues actually affect the littles we are working with this term.

Specific to our project, we received our first submission for the ’zine this week. Response to this has not quite been what we had looked forward to so far, but hopefully we will receive more as the term wraps up and we continue reminding the girls about the ongoing project. We had also planned to meet up and discuss this, the video, and adjustments to our UCF day lesson plan for next term, but that meeting did not occur. Instead, we are all going to continue brainstorming ideas for when we are able to meet, preferably sometime this week.

Reflection:

Because our group did not make much progress on our specific project, most of my own thoughts and self-reflections for this week have focused on larger YWLP activities, unfortunately in a more critical light. Probably because of the topic I chose for our last class paper, I have been concentrating on consumerist activism recently. As much as I enjoyed getting dinner with friends from YWLP tonight, I cannot help but feel a little uncomfortable at how much of the activism I do plays into consumerist ideas of the dollar and the choice of when and where to spend it as power. In eating at Applebee’s under the frame of supporting YWLP, I bought into models of activism that “[link] civic viability with consumption” and consequently construct “civic rights” as “exercised by making these kinds of consumer choices” (Harris 69), even knowing how these systems negatively impact girls’ leadership thanks to our in-class discussions. I recognize that much of this is a necessary evil; as Emily reminded me, YWLP receives no funding from UCF and depends entirely on donations and fundraising drives like tonight’s. Regardless, I still feel a bit hypocritical and like I should be working harder to change these systems instead of participating in them as necessary evils, even if I am not sure yet of how to begin doing that.

Reciprocity:

This week, the “work” I did with YWLP inspired some fairly difficult realizations about my own activist work and how often it falls into the category of consumerist activism. I still do not have any answers to that issue and do not expect to come across any through this project. It is, however, something to think about and work on as I develop my own activist involvement in future projects and undertakings.

Works Cited:

Harris, Anita. Future Girl. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

[Word Count: 500]

Service-Learning Proposal

Girls and Leadership Service-Learning Proposal

Contact Information

Samantha Daley: sdaleyucf@knights.ucf.edu; (954) 636-9096
Rachel Miles: ramiles@knights.ucf.edu; (321) 331-3602
Emily Vrotsos: evrotsos@knights.ucf.edu; (352) 812-2137

Community Partner Profile

Community Partner: Young Women Leaders Program
Address: 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL 32816
Contact: 407-823-6502

Mission Statement: “The Young Women Leaders Program is a mentoring program sponsored by the UCF Women’s Studies Program . . . YWLP promotes middle school girls’ leadership abilities, pairing collegiate women with middle school girls. In mentoring pairs and small groups of Big and Little Sisters, participants focus on learning competence and autonomy, independent thinking, empowerment, self-esteem, and encouraging girls to think about their futures.” (http://womensstudies.cah.ucf.edu/ywlp/)

Political and/or Social Basis for Organization: As stated above, the basis for the organization is to promote positive self-image and encourage leadership skills in young girls who are at an important part of their developmental stages (http://womensstudies.cah.ucf.edu/ywlp/).

Community Needs: Members of the YWLP will benefit from extra assistance organizing and running alumni events and UCF day in the form of running lesson plans and engaging the girls in activities that encourage and acknowledge how they are leaders in their everyday lives.

Memorandum

TO: Meredith Tweed

FROM: Rachel Miles

DATE: 30 September 2011

RE: Proposal to Write a Feasibility Report for a Service Learning Project

Need of the Community Partner

Youth leadership is highly undervalued in American society. While complicates the leadership efforts of adolescents in general, it is especially relevant when considering girls’ leadership. With only a few role models, either “real world” or fictional, of women and/or girls in positions of leadership to look up to, and with their own attempts at leadership so often discouraged or ignored, girls may find it difficult to view themselves as leaders. Apart from its potential long-term effects on the emergence of future women leaders, this also has more immediate short-term effects, including possible struggles with self-esteem, self-confidence in themselves and their work, and other issues of self-image and conduct that may go underdeveloped in girls who are so infrequently encouraged to think critically about and give voice to their own experiences and decisions.

Plan Proposal

As part of working with YWLP, an organization focused on helping girls develop and use leadership skills, our project will address much the same need. In response to the specific needs we have so far seen demonstrated by this semester’s group of little sisters, we have shifted the focus of our work with the girls to more effectively address bullying. We hope to support the girls in exploring ways to respond to bullying (including cyber-bullying) of themselves and others, and possible ways to creatively raise others’ awareness of the bullying problem, on- and offline.

Through the creation of a ’zine, a Twitter account, a scrapbook, and two videos by the middle school girls in YWLP and a anti-bullying lesson on UCF Day and an academic blog by our service-learning group, we will be meeting the needs of our community partner. This approach will allow the girls to create and have agency in their own spaces and will allow our group to tackle the topic of bullying directly by engaging the girls to find their own positive leadership influence in their everyday activities and also in technological endeavors.

Rationale for Women’s Studies



Action

In order to fulfill our service-learning requirement, our group has several different components that we will be implementing as a work-in-progress throughout the semester. Apart from working with the girls, we will also be creating an academic blog to which we will be documenting our progress, including our activism logs and other conclusions we will be drawing as the semester continues. We will be attending the weekly meetings and participating on the weekend alumni events.

The largest portion of our project will be compiling a ’zine wholly developed and executed by the middle school girls participating in YWLP. The girls will also be decorating a scrapbook to document their progression throughout this semester’s service-learning project, which will be an ongoing part of their YWLP experience. We will also be engaging the girls on the internet by creating spaces for them on Twitter and Youtube. A Twitter account will be set up by our service-learning group and we will post thoughts the girls turn in on slips of paper at the end of every meeting. The girls will also be creating a YWLP promotional video and an independent video of their own creative design. On UCF Day we will be conducting a lesson on bullying, with a section on cyber bullying. We will also be working on the scrapbook, voting on the ’zine’s title, and filming the videos.

Timeline

Our completed project will be submitted on 29 November 2011. Given YWLP’s schedule, our in-field work will extend a few days beyond this date; however, the bulk of our research will be completed by 17 November, and the major creative components of our project will be ready for our in-class presentation of it on 8 December.

9/23/2011—First Group Meeting (Big sisters met up and created a rough plan)
9/25/2011—Alumnae Potluck
10/5/2011—Big Sister (“Bigs”) Meeting
10/12/2011— Little Sister (“Littles”) Meeting
10/15/2011—UCF Day
10/19/2011—Bigs Meeting
10/23/2011—Alumnae Nursing Home Visit
10/26/2011—Littles Meeting
11/2/2011—Bigs Meeting
11/6/2011—Alumnae Mud Walk
11/9/2011—LittlesMeeting
11/13/2011—Alumnae Soup Kitchen Volunteering
11/16/2011—Bigs Meeting
11/19/2011—Alumnae Picnic in the Park
11/25/2011—Finish compiling the ’zine using girls’ submissions and publish (by combination of printed copies for the girls and PDF for the bigs) to distribute at the last Littles meeting.
11/29/2011—Submit final project report, including creative components (’zine, scrapbook pages, video made with the girls, etc.).
11/30/2011—Littles Meeting
12/8/2011—In-class presentation of project

Works Cited

“UCF: CAH: Young Women Leaders Program.” UCF: CAH: Women’s Studies Program: Mentoring Programs for Faculty. University of Central Florida, 2010. Web. 28 Sept. 2011.

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Introduction Post

Hello!

I’m Rachel (or Miles, as Emily calls me), currently a junior at UCF. I am majoring in Literature and minoring in Women’s Studies, with hopes of earning a certificate in Service Learning and a second minor in some has-yet-to-be-determined field. My interest in this class stems from a few points. First, although I have been a registered Women’s Studies minor since my second semester at UCF, I have never actually taken a Girls’ Studies class face-to-face. I took Leandra Preston’s Virtual Girls class last spring, and while I did not have enough time in my schedule to give it the attention and commitment it really deserved, it was enough to pique my interest in the subject of girls as a field and topic of discussion. Perhaps even more importantly, and as we have already begun touching on in this class, girls as a topic of discussion are too often forgotten or erased erroneously as a lumped-in category of a larger group, usually women in discussion of women’s rights and general children in discussion of children’s rights. If I took away one thing from Virtual Girls, it is that, while this is something of which I have certainly been guilty in the past, it is just as certainly something I cannot afford to continue with in the future as I continue to explore Women’s Studies. Taking this course, then, is not me trying to make amends; rather, it is an effort to start myself, my scholarship, and my growing work as a feminist from a new position, a fresher perspective that will allow me to more accurately work with the issues that have become so important to me since starting college.

Secondly, and, I’ll admit, seemingly contradictory to the last point, I have been interested in this course for reasons of my own experience. Most recently, this is due to my involvement with UCF’s chapter of YWLP, an organization aimed entirely at addressing the topic of girls and leadership. However, thinking about it now, my experience with this topic and the ideas foregrounding it predates my awakening as a feminist. Throughout grade school, I was involved in Girl Scouts, and very proudly at that. But despite my pride, this involvement was something I also felt a sense of external discouragement towards—not from my parents, but easily from my peers at school and friends from other clubs and social activities. This definitely frustrated me, as I could see no legitimate reason for it. Girl Scouts, like Boy Scouts, emphasized developing leadership skills through service projects, community involvement, and the creation of a supportive, networked group of peers undergoing the same. Admittedly, neither organization could easily be dubbed “cool” in a high school setting, but there still seemed to be more of a willingness to accept my male friends’ involvement in scouting than my own. At the time, I didn’t have any of the academic jargon and theoretical terms to use to put my frustrations into words; I just knew that it bothered me enormously that I was almost constantly being told in every setting outside my troop meetings that what I was doing, something that made me feel happy and confident in myself and my decisions, was not something I should want to do. I do have the words to describe it now, but I still feel like those aren’t enough on their own. I want to also understand more about the issues at work, why those actions were and are discouraged for girls and what I can do now, even though I am no longer a Girl Scout myself, to help change things.

And for the record, I have read, understand, and agree to the terms of the course syllabus and the blogging protocols.