Digital Short for Nashville MTA Project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LxFkUuga70

Connection to Class Readings

The reading that related most to my service learning experience at the Easly Community Center was defiantly the Kozol piece, Savage Inequalities. The book explores the public school systems of some of the poorest and most underserved school districts. While I think Nashville is a stronger district than some covered in the Kozol book, I do think that many parallels can be drawn between the two. Several of the posts have pertained to this notion of class sizes and the lack of individualized instruction that is provided to the students. In Savage Inequalities, Kozol talks of the oversized classrooms due to the lack of additional funding for more teachers. From my experiences at Easly, it is obvious that these are larger class sizes and many of the children are at differing points of their comprehension of the materials. Upon coming into the center many of the children to not had solid understandings of the lesson and all but ask the tutors to do the homework for them. However once the child is given sample problems and guided through a section or two of the homework they become more independent and versed in the material. I feel that this goes back to Kozol’s observation of inadequate staffing and funding in many of the public school systems. Maybe if more teachers were hired and the class sizes were smaller than these youth would be able to gain the material faster comprehend the material more easily. While I was not directly in the school system like Kozol I could see many of the things that he faced by simply talking to the outcomes of these institutions—the students who come to the after school programs. For me personally, I would say that my experiences at Easly Community Center reinforce many of the points that Kozol made evident in his book Savage Inequalities.

Final Easley Visit

Today was my last visit to Easly Community Center. I am sad to see the semester drawing to a close and hope to go back to the center next semester. By now I have gotten to know several of the kids, and pretty much have my tutoring regulars who I work with each time I am at the center. I normally work with two twin girls, both with hilarious personalities. I would say my over all experience at Easly is how smart the kids are. It amazed me that once they got to the center in the afternoon many of them would struggle with their homework initially (or at least the ones in the homework room). Then after a couple of sample problems and individualized help they were able to grasp the concepts and succeed at the work. Davidson County schools has a very high dropout rate among high school students, and working at Easly showed me that so many of these students become discouraged because of their one-on-one lack of attention when gaining the materials. It really showed me that it is not necessarily the kids that are failing in the schools, but the schools that are failing the children. Large class sizes, lack of funding, and various other factors probably effect the learning, however this experience has proven to me the potential behind many of these inner-city students.

Consideration of materials and/or social space

While working out at the Easly community center materials played an interesting role in the learning process. Many of the students had Tennessee TCAP approved text and workbooks which gave examples and learning targets, however Easly community center lacked many of the luxuries such as computers with internet access, notebook paper, rules, calculators, and other needed materials. Often times for projects the students and I would be on my iPhone looking up project information, using the calculator, and other functions to complete homework assignments. We are moving more and more to digital interfaces as a society and the lack of resources at the community center and the schools is troublesome. As encyclopedias and other text reference sources being to disappear it is important that the gap be closed and these digital resources be provided to the students for learning.

When it comes to the arrangement of learning, the homework room at easly was a simple room, with three tables surrounded by chairs. One of the major problems I found with the set-up was the distraction by the other students. For example, while the children were sitting next to, or across from, each other they would Easley get into conversation unrelated to the assignments they should have been working on for school. I feel that if they had separate desks maybe separated by cubical style walls they students would be able to better focus on their assignments and complete their work, while at the same time better comprehending what they had learned. Also, because the community center is small their was a lot of external noise in and surrounding the homework room. Unfortunately this too distracted the students and made it difficult for them to concentrate on their homework assignment.

Easly Three

Today was my third trip out to the Easly community center. Once again I had a great time working with the kids. There was not much homework this afternoon and I had the opportunity to play connect-four with a few of the kids at the center. I was surprised at how excited they are that an adult was playing at the center with them. There are several adult chaperons that walk around the center in their metro parks attire, but they seem to rarely sit down and actually play games with the kids. One girl in particular that I played the game with was very excited everything she would win. Previously she had been playing with some of the older boys who would win every game leaving her rather discouraged. It was so exciting for me to watch her laugh and jump around whenever she would win the game between the two of us. It was amazing how once she started winning her confidence automatically improved. She started talking more, telling me more about herself, what types of things she liked to do, etc. At first she was very quiet and seemed rather sad, but once she started winning at the game the transformation was amazing. What I took away from today’s experience was the power of confidence and the feeling of wining and what it can do for a child. Its amazing on attitudes change once you think you can win at something.

Final Service Learning Reflection # 1, Connection to my own literacy experience

In 1999 my family and I moved from Memphis to Brentwood, Tennessee. Upon exiting the Memphis city school system and entering the Williamson County School system I was placed on an IEP, individual education plan. Due to my lack of preparation and learning in Memphis schools I was take out of my regular math and reading classes each school day and placed in a specialized learning environment with a 4:1 teacher to student ratio. After about three years I was able to graduate from my IEP and rejoin the general student learning classes during instructional time. At the Easly community center I saw a need for this type of model. Many of the students would come to the center struggling with the materials they had learned at school that day. Many students would be from the same class; some would grasp the materials quickly, others would take more time to understand what concepts. What I found was that once a student had been given individualized attention and shown a couple of the sample problems one-on-one they normally did very well with the rest of the assignment. It simply took time and effort with the child to get them to grasp the concepts. For me in elementary school large learning environments were not the best way of learning for me. The IEP plan allowed me to gain the foundations to succeeded in the standard classroom. Im sure that due to budget and staffing constraints offering IEPs for these students would be much more difficult, however I do feel that many of the students could benefit from this one-on-one experiences. From my obsorvations and tutoring of the students it wasn’t that some of the kids were not smart, they just needed a different approach to learning than what was being provided in their schools.

Easly Vist 2

This afternoon was my second trip out to Easley community center. I was surprised to find that many of the kids remember me from my pervious trip, which was several weeks ago. One girl in particular even remembered me by name. This week their were about 8 kids in the homework room, all of whom needed help. It was somewhat hectic because each child wanted help all at the same time. For a moment it made me think about what many of the teachers in the metro school system do each day. I was alone at the time with only eight children and they typically have 25 per room in their schools. While it was able to show the individual student who to do a sample problem then move to the next kid, it was hard to manage all of the students who were working at various levels. While many of the children at the schools are focusing on the same assignments, some of the kids were even in the same classes yet they all were at different levels with the material. Some caught on right away while others needed much more individualized attention. It was interesting to think about how the teachers at metro are able to juggle all of these various skill levels into one uniformed classroom. I have been having a good time at Easly so far and am looking forward to going back soon.

Glossery of Terms

• MTA: is the acronym referring to Metropolitan Transit Authority.
• BRT: Bus Rapid Transit is a public transportation service designed to move MTA bus riders along the city's busiest corridors with fewer stops and more frequent buses.
• Music City Central: Nashville's central downtown transit station. The building provides a comfortable and covered place for passengers to await the arrival of their buses.
  
• Music City Circuit: A free downtown bus services that travels only around and through the downtown loop. Provides access to various locations around downtown and runs about every 15minutes.
  
• AccessRide: a program is a publicly funded paratransit service, which operates specialized van services for persons with disabilities who are unable to use regular fixed-route buses. AccessRide provides door-to-door paratransit service within Davidson County 1.5 miles from a regular bus route, excluding commuter or express service.
• Park-n-ride: Free 24-hour parking is available for MTA riders, carpoolers or vanpoolers. Riders can park free of charge up to 24 hours or as posted at the various Park-n-Ride locations where bus service is located. Individuals simply park their cars, then ride the bus to their desired location.
  
• Quest: A youth bus service that offers discounted bus passes for students ages 19 and under that allows them to ride the bus from a stop close to their school to after school programs or home.
• Fare Box: Tall, silver, metal box located next to the driver on Metro Buses that allows riders to purchase their tickets and pay for their rides.

• Ridership — The number of rides taken by people using a public transportation system in a given time period.

• Transfer Point: A location where bus routes intersect, and passengers can transfer from one route to another.

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Project Ponders

When looking at the composition of my project, two questions really bring into focus the purpose of what I am doing. "Why is my project important", and "how am I connected to my project", really define the foundation of this effort. In an effort to discover the Nashville Metro Bus culture, originally I just wanted to figure out simply what this culture is. Who makes up the bus ridership? Why do they ride the bus? Do different bus routes have different cultures? Those were all major questions I am focusing this project around. During my first interview, however, I heard something that really snapped this project into perspective for me. The interview said that the majority of people on the metro bus, while certainly not all, are lower income "blue collar" individuals. While he mentioned that in recent decades that the middle-class ridership is strongly increasing, the segment of the population that most use the bus system are those who use it as a necessity not as a luxury. Those that depend on the bus for survival. The bus gets them to their jobs, to the market, and takes them everywhere, anywhere, they need to go-- and it is their only means of independent transportation. Bringing this back to in initial interview, I asked the interviewee, "what has been something of significance for you when taking the bus?" The response was very fascinating and unexpected, he said "I feel much more closely connected with my city." He elaborated on this by saying that often times if you just take the interstates and main thoroughfares across town, and don't wonder off into the side streets, north Nashville, and other parts of the city, you would be very blind to the harsh realities that face many people living within the city. The bus takes you everywhere, and depending on the route, often times into places you would never go on your own. At the main bus station you can see a segment of the population you would never know existed if you were not looking for them. This for me, really brought purpose to my project. To shed light on the men and women who would stay virtually invisible if you didn't go looking for them. Those that really are the backbones of our society. The men and women who start their day before daylight and finish it far after night falls. I hope this project can show how fortunate some of us are, and how we live in a very complex and diverse society.

Service Learning Reflection 1:

Today I had my first service learning experience out at the Easley community center. I was a tad surprised first by the age of the facility. It was older and seemed to be from the late sixties. When I arrived their were close to 50-60 kids already at the center around 3pm. The homework room was were I spent about the first hour of my time, before moving into the general activities area. Assisting in the homework room was actually a lot of fun. Of course their was a mixture of children; some intently working on their homework while others were much less focused. I had the opportunity to help one boy, we’ll call him Frank, on his algebra homework. First off all of the homework booklets were TCAP approved or written. I thought it was interesting because all of the material seemed to be directed towards helping the students excel on the TCAP assessment. Frank was struggling at first with the assignment. Clearly he had been given little instruction while in school and asked me to basically solve the problems for him. However, once I should him how to do the problem and broke it down step-by-step he started to improve significantly. It showed me that Frank was by no means academically challenged, he just wasn’t shown how to do the problems in the first place. I feel that is the case with many of the children at the center. School classrooms are probably over loaded and unable to provide children some of the individual attention that they need in order to fully grasp the concepts.

First Project Interview

Interview with Dr. Douglas Murray- Professor Belmont University

03 October 2011

Andrew Bishop (AB): What bus routes do you most frequently take to Belmont?

Douglas Murray (DM): Um, yes, I use several bus routes, and I am afraid to say it is based on the time of day. The following are the routes I use most frequently, the 20 Scott, the 56 BRT, that is to get me from my house to downtown Nashville, and coming to Belmont in the following order of frequency route 7, route 2, and route 17. Also, when I have health appointment for example I use route three and ten to get me to my health appointments.

AB: How long does it take you to get from your house in East Nashville to school every day?

DM: Um, it takes me a little bit more than an hour in the morning and it always take less, excuse me more, in the morning because the connections are not as good.

AB: What would you say is your overall all experience with the metro bus? What are your feelings toward it?

DM: Can you be more specific?

AB: Do you think it is a good system, or do you think that it…

DM: I really don’t know, I don’t know to what extent it is a good system. I am sure there are ways in which it could be better, but I think it lots of ways it is a wonderful system. And I have greatly enjoyed, I feel like my eyes have been opened to so many things as a consequence of riding the bus.

AB: What are your primary motivations for taking the bus? Why do you do it?

DM: Hmm, I think my initial motivation, Um, well my motivations are the following, I do feel it is my responsibility um to lower my carbon footprint, and so I think it is the green think to do, to ride the bus. I am always eager to save money, and since Belmont, even before Belmont, paid for us to ride the bus, I bought my own tickets and came that way. I do think I am saving money, especially since Belmont is paying for the busses. I also don’t like the um, the hunt for a parking place once you come to the Belmont campus. When I step off the bus I feel I am ready for life and not concerned about finding a parking space. And then, I suppose this is the biggest advantage is I get to work on the bus, I get a lot of things done. And I am not going to be interrupted.

AB: So when did you first start taking the bus, how many years have you been doing this?

DM: 10 years.

AB: Have you seen any major shifts in time, from when you first started taking the bus? Has there been anything worth noting over the past ten years?

DM: There has been a gradual improvement of the bus system, I think, over the past 10 years. There are also more middle class riders than there use to be. I think that that has improved I guessed the biggest changed has been in introduction of the Bus BRT that only has certain stops along the various roots. I think that that has been a good thing in improve the efficacy and I look forward to the institution of other BRT lines, maybe um, along west end or something.

AB: I have been doing some reading about the Nashville Bus system, and I have found many stories of racial segregation on the Nashville Bus system and racial tensions on the public transportation system? Does that still exist or have you noticed that at all?

DM: I think everybody has to be fully aware that in a lot of ways that the public transportation system um, in many American cities and particularly in the south is very racialized. Many working class African Americans, they have no cars and the busses are the only means of transportation that they seem to have. Particularly early in the morning. I was on, this morning, I was on the very first Belmont number 2 bus. It left music city central at 6:15 in the morning. First of all, it was completely full. I think it was standing room only, and ummm… People did a pretty good job of not taking seats with baggage and such, and there were maybe threeeee… white people one the bus.

AB: And that was the Belmont route?

DM: That was the Belmont route, which you would not think, of course, well those are the men and women who often times have menial low paying jobs that need to get to work very early before the offices and business open. So, and some of them were students that were going to Hillsboro High School. But at that time it was interesting that it was the black, what seemed to be the black students and the black people who do various menial tasks on the bus that early in the morning.

AB: In your 10 years, what have been the most exciting, or most meaningful events that have taken place? Then, on the other end of that question, what has been one of the most frightening experiences on the bus? By that same token, do you think the bus is at all dangerous?

DM: I really don’t think the busses are dangerous. I will say that I use to do a lot of riding on the number 17 bus, which goes down 12 Avenue. And it had a very high, or it has a very high African American ridership and um, there was a man, who was accosting me about my bicycle and was saying how it was a very nice bicycle, which of course was an absolute lie, um, and he said “that’s my bicycle”, ah, he said, “you took my bicycle” and it was very very unpleasant. And would not, I tried to say I am not interested in having a conversation with you and it got a little unpleasant. I did not feel physically unpleasant. I feel the bus driver should have intervened.

AB: Did he take your bike, when he got off?

DM: No, I was afraid he was going to, I was afraid there was going to be a wrestling struggle over this bicycle. Of course, I had paid $20 for it at a yard sale.

AB: So, it doesn’t seem like there has ever been any major, or you’ve never seen any major injuries, and never felt threatened on the bus in well, 10 years.

DM: I’ve never felt really physically threatened. Um, and I do realize that women and girls responses are very different, and so often times they feel threaded. I’ve never really felt threaded. Then too, I’ve never felt, or there have never really been some standout single feel good moments. But I do feel much more closely connected to my city. You know, if you just stay on the major thoroughfares and if you go over things as quickly as possible on interstates and four lane roads and that kind of thing, in some ways you don’t really see the surface of the city. And I think certain parts, certain parts of the Nashville population um, are often times invisible form a lot of people’s perspectives. But the bus, takes you everywhere, and the bus provides service for a lot of people who would ordinarily remain invisible to all of those who don’t experience a ride on the bus.

Humanities Symposium Write Up

Like most Belmont students I too attended the Maya Angelou talk, but also had the opportunity to attend the wrap-up panel and the Dave Chappelle/ Maya Angelou convocation. It was interesting to see her in these various settings. One thing I found about her personality is her willingness and ease of talking about painful experiences. Often when talking about painful experience there is a sense of anger and sadness behind the words. In the case of Dr. Angelou I was surprised by her calm attitude toward many of these subjects. While she expressed her opinion she did so in a respectful way. Rather than wanting revenge for her past grievances she wanted her audiences to learn from the mistakes. She has an attitude that we must progress as a society, together. Not necessarily as one race, or one gender, but as a people as a whole. She emphasised forgiveness and love each time I heard her speak. I admire Dr. Angelou and think she is an exceptional person. I hope to have the opportunity to see her speak live again in the future.

Mini-Ethnography

For my observation I choose to sit in the Writing Center on the second floor of the Wheeler Humanities Building. Conveniently there was a session taking place just as I walked up. A freshman first year seminar student was seeking advice on his first class paper. The writing center tutor was a graduate student working to complete her Masters Degree in English. There was a significant age gap between these two individuals and it became obvious as the session progressed.

At first the interactions between the two were awkward at best. They only focused on the paper and clearly had little in common. However as the session progressed on of the comments in the paper struck a cord with the tutor, at that moment she engaged in student in conversation and they immediately began talking about the subject. It was a little shocked at the amount of time they spent on that one subject rather than revising the paper. It seemed as if they older tutor really wanted to connect with the student. I felt that because the tutor was an adult student, coming back to college after a mid-life career change, she wanted to assimilate into the Belmont student culture and connect with those who were her "peers" per say.

She did eventually offer some good advice on the students paper. But more so than benefiting the student, the tutor seemed to have gained more out of the experience. Maybe a sense of confidence that she could find a common ground on this campus full of young and energetic college students.

Topic Idea

I am currently considering writing my paper on Nashville's MTA Bus culture. I ride the bus most days to campus and love watching the various people that get on and off each day. There are so many different people that ride the bus, each of them are different in their own way. From suits to a cow costume, you never know what you are going to see when to step up into the city bus. I have so many questions: Why do they ride the bus, do they have to, are they just making a political statement or is it the only means of transportation? I would also like to explore the past and present culture of the bus. What was it like in decades gone by (buses were a hot topic issue, epically during the civil rights movement)? How have things changed? I am looking forward to answering these questions and seeing "where the bus will take me".

President Clinton Vs. Fox New's Chris Wallace

What they told me never to do...

Writing is a subject I have a strong passion for; I feel it is a very basic necessity in how a society functions. While it is a favorite subject of mine, writing has never come easy for me and is something I must constantly work at to get better. Through the years and several teachers many rules were passed down as "no,nos" when it comes to good writing. Some rules have proven widely accepted, while others make me feel like the teacher invented his/her own rules. Below are a few things I was told never to do as a writer.

• Start a sentence with AND, OR, BUT
• Don't write something that doesn't have a purpose. Each sentence should convey meaning.
• Put a comma after AND when separating lists
• Don't be overly basic, add Gravy to what you are writing.
• Never spell ALOT as one word
• Turn in a paper without reading it twice and aloud
• Spell the professors name wrong
• Inserting an idea for a source that is not your own without proper citation
• Switch from 1st and 3rd person
• Alternate between past and present tense
• End a sentence with a preposition