Reflections on Praxis

Yesterday in class at the correctional facility, I felt like it was increasingly difficult to participate. I'm not sure what happened to the open, liberating, refreshing environment I and many of us described about the earlier classes. Yesterday I didn't feel that at all.

I think the dicussion around Kindred was really interesting; How did the plantation come to feel like home for Dana? Did Dana grow to love Rufus, or was it just fear? Still, I didn't feel as connected as I wanted to and I'm not sure why.

This was the most successful praxis session so far. Perhaps it was because of the increased level of responsibility that comes with selecting the books, rather than just packing them. In that back room, social interaction was increased, and I spent my night talking to several U-Penn students who had all started here for various reasons (mostly to fulfill requirements), and then just decided to continue. The first person I asked said that she and her friends all came together because it was fun, they got to chat, and it made her feel good about herself. If she was going to spend time socializing with her friends, why not also do something for the benefit of others.

This week I finally met S and J. They were preparing for an online webinar presentation that they had to do while we were there and so we served as their practice interviewers. I talked with S for a while in the beginning and we finally caught me up more on what I've missed so far. I told her I'm interested in helping with the poetry collection and so I spent a good half of the time by going through and organize all the submitted poetry for the book. About five minutes before I finished sorting through the poetry, S and J had already started their online presentation, and so we sat there silently trying to let them focus on their presentation as we looked through their website for ideas on how to update it.

I was, very frustratingly, sick again this past week, and so I was unable to go into the city with my group this week. I'm still not really sure what happened and I got sick again, but it hit me at once and then left me again three days later with nothing but some whispers of the weakness in my body from being ill. Though I felt extremely guilty when I woke up Friday morning with my originally set alarm, I immediately made the decision that it woudn't be a good idea for me to go to my Praxis site that day. It was frustrating, having to tell people that I was sick again and couldn't show up. 

This week was my first visit to my group's Praxis site. The other two had already chosen a project to work on, and so they quickly settled into their projects in that cold office when we got there. R showed me the video as part of my mini-orientation, which she made an appearance in, and we talked about the organization and how it works there. Although the office didn't warm up much while we were there, we gradually became closer to R as she recounted her own personal and painful experience as a youth in an adult prison. It was a ridiculous story from start to finish, ridiculous in the sense that it was hard to believe, yet disappointingly unsurprising at the same time.

When we arrived to YASP we got to know two of the other people that work with the program including Sarah who is the co-founder. She is actually the one that does many of the visits/workshops and has created a bond with the people who where incarcerated and are now working for YASP. We discussed what we would like to do to help them and they were very welcoming towards us. They even suggested that we attend some of their meetings during the week if it fit our schedule. I found some interest in helping them promote the program after I learned that they had a Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter page that had not been updated frequently. Another thing that interested me was the poetry workshop that they have at the jails.

Hello peers, friends and optimistic learners, 

Unfortunately, I've been sick with the flu since Tuesday so I missed class on Wednesday and Thursday and wasn't able to join my group on our first Praxis trip. While I am excited and anxious to get better so I can return to the class and join my classmates, as well as hear about the other Praxis sites, I can't help but feel like I've fallen behind just a little beecause I couldn't join everyone for the majority of our second week of the semester, and therefore missed a lot of the courssekeeping and discussions that took place in the classroom.