Book Club Pilot Project concluded!

Katie D.

August 14, 2010 - 8:22 PM

Yesterday was the final day of our pilot project of a book club held with UO students and youth incarcerated at Serbu Youth Campus in Eugene. (For an introduction to this project, please see previous blog)

It has been quite the interesting journey. The youth we met and worked with were fabulous. They are 14-17 years old, and of varying backgrounds. We met a total of eleven youth, four of whom were young women. All were spending four to six months in the Phoenix program at Serbu, serving time while also benefiting from the counseling, substance abuse treatment, and family-oriented therapy offered there.

Essentially, four UO students who had previously participated in Inside-Out classes set up a five-week pilot book study with the Phoenix Program youth. We created the curriculum, the program proposal, the course structure and goals. We did a brief training program with the Inside-Out Assistant National Director.

When we finally started the book club, things went fabulously, but not without some bumps in the road. One major setback was that we had selected Y: The Last Man, which was later deemed inappropriate by the program staff. This could have led to a complete derailment of the project, but instead we had some very constructive conversations with staff members and worked through the problem, learning how to identify troublesome content (essentially the problem lay in relatively realistic gun violence and a brief depiction of someone considering suicide). We learned a lot about what would work for youth in general, and youth in a sensitive situation like those involved in this program.

Our second selection was The Ultimate Spider-Man. A collection of the first thirteen Ultimate Spider-Man comics provided plenty of material for discussion for the remaining three weeks of the summer program.

We worked hard to combine discussion of the text with conversations and interactions that related directly with the youth. We used ice breaker exercises and camp games every time we met as a group, partly to get the youth involved in the day's discussion, and partly so we could all bond and become comfortable with one another.

The comic book provided an interesting launching-point for a whole series of involved and interesting conversations. We talked about moments of transformation in our lives, and how we chose to deal with traumatic change (as Peter Parker does first when he becomes Spider-Man, and second when his uncle is killed). We talked about super powers and what that would mean in our lives: who we would tell, what we would do with our powers, and how our lives would change as a result. We talked about themes of revenge and of violence as portrayed in the comic and in much of popular culture. We used specific scenarios from the collection to talk about leadership and social structures.

Through all these conversations the youth acted like high-school aged youth do. They were funny. They were a bit self-conscious and reluctant to make a stab at new ideas. They were willing to see us as goofy, as authority, as peers. When we led them to a new subject, some were willing to dive right in while others hesitated or kept quiet. Most spoke up at one time or another. Some wanted to talk more about their own lives than the book. A few were constantly tipping their chairs back on two legs.

This was totally unlike anything else I had ever done. These were kids with complicated and painful backgrounds. They didn't share their stories in full, but we heard bits and pieces of history that included drugs and truancy and crime. It was obvious that some had never been a part of classroom dialogue before. But they were willing to try. They came up with some incredible insights, and combined self-consciousness and goofy humor in a way that only kids can.

The four UO participants learned a lot from this project. We had a chance to create a program from scratch, and that meant a lot of fumbling and reliance on our good intentions. We spent lots of time figuring out how each meeting would go, and working desperately to come up with a new book.

It looks like we'll be continuing the project in the fall. We envision two-month programs, hopefully with a more equal number of UO students and Serbu youth. We'll get together multiple options for the book selections, and work through volunteer application forms, curricular development, and personnel questions weeks early (hopefully).

What's exciting to me is the chance to create something that will hopefully last long beyond my own college career. With the success of the pilot project, we have proved ourselves to be flexible, resourceful, open to criticism, and relentlessly optimistic. We have also determined several ways of approaching youth that work, and some that don't. And we've met the youth in question and found interesting and engaging individuals. We have a chance to start something new for them and for us.

I hope you celebrate this UO success like we are, and see it as the fabulous chance to link with another organization filling a vital role in our community. We're making history here in Eugene, one comic book at a time.

Can't wait to send updates in September!