The blood beneath my bruise
One of my favorite but most challenging courses this semester is called Community Empowerment Through the Arts, an innovative collaboration between the School of Social Work and the Residential College at U of M, which I think is sort of like an honors arts program for undergraduates. There are only five social work students in the class with about 15 20 to 21-year-olds, which makes for an interesting dynamic. I have definitely despaired for humanity after several of our larger class discussions, for example. But the best part of the course is that we get to engage in community outreach and service at various agencies throughout the county. Each social work student is in charge of planning groups or activities, along with the site coordinator at the agency who is also in charge of supervising us, and sort of corralling the undergrads while trying to ensure that they have a learning experience around issues of social justice. Once a month, the site coordinator and I co-facilitate a discussion with the students around the work we’re doing and try to inculcate some sense of awareness about privilege and oppression in them. I’ve at times been pleasantly surprised and horrified, so it’s a bit of a toss-up as to whether any real consciousness raising is taking place.