Abstract

Although service is an active experience, comprising endeavors such as service projects, service days, or regular tutoring sessions, reflecting on service can bring even more meaning for members and volunteers, as participants both see their personal contribution in a larger historical context and explore social issues. This effective practice highlights a discussion series that is designed to encourage challenging and open debate among members, and can be used as a training session or as material for a quarterly retreat.

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Issue

Promoting discussion and reflection about service to enhance members' experience and to help foster life-long service and character building.

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Action

Building Towards Justice (BTJ) is a reading and discussion series that gives AmeriCorps volunteers, staff, and alumni an opportunity to reflect on their chosen form of civic engagement. "What is the meaning and content of their commitment to public service? What does it mean to choose to serve? What or whom are we serving, and why? What is social justice, and what is the character of its call?" are some of the questions participants explore in the series.

Steps for setting up a discussion series include:

• Orient each discussion around one or two brief readings that will elicit an engaging dialogue.
• Keep group size below twelve, if possible.
• All sessions should be facilitated by an instructor attentive not only to the readings, but to the questions raised by the participants.
• The set of themes and readings is dynamic. As members proceed through the series, they are encouraged to make reading suggestions, which the facilitator should attempt to incorporate.
• In the Chicago area, the discussion series usually meets for seven 90-minute sessions over a span of a few months.
• For AmeriCorps organizations whose members are geographically scattered, BTJ would be most useful as part of quarterly retreats.

Possible themes and readings include the following:

What is injustice?
• J.M. Whitfield, "America"
What is justice?
• Plato's Republic, four excerpted definitions
• Martin Luther King, Jr. "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
What is compassion? What is duty?
• Jean Jacques Rousseau's, Reveries of the Solitary Walker
• Gwendolyn Brooks, "The Lovers of the Poor"
What is a right? What does it mean to claim a right?
• Henry MacNeal Turner, "I Shall Not Beg for My Rights"
• United States Constitution, Amendments 1-10
• United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights
Why do we try to do (or be) good? How do we do good?
• Benjamin Franklin, excerpts from the Autobiography
• Dave Eggers, "Where Were We"
What others, or what sorts of others, do we care for?
• Toni Morrison, "Recitatif"
• J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals
• George Orwell, "Reflections on Gandhi"
Why choose to serve?
• Martin Luther King, Jr., "The Drum Major Instinct"
• Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "Luella Miller"
What should social leadership look like?
• Charles Chesnutt, "The Wife of His Youth"

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Context

Building Towards Justice began in 2001 as a reading and discussion series for Chicago-area AmeriCorps program participants. A collaboration between the Illinois Humanities Council and Public Allies Chicago, with funding from the Project on Civic Reflection, the series grew out of the vision and experience of a few members of the 2001-2002 class of Public Allies, who gathered informally to discuss ideas on service.

In 2002, Project YES joined Public Allies in offering the series to its members. In 2003, PCC Westside AmeriCorps and Hope worldwide incorporated BTJ into their training days. In 2004, two more Chicago AmeriCorps organizations — City Year Chicago and the Center for Urban School Improvement at the University of Chicago — have integrated BTJ in training.

The Illinois Humanities Council (IHC) is an educational organization dedicated to fostering a culture in which the humanities are a vital part of the lives of individuals and communities. Through its programs and services, the IHC promotes greater understanding of, appreciation for, and involvement in the humanities by the citizens of Illinois, regardless of their economic resources, cultural background, or geographic location. A non-profit organization IHC is funded by contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations, by the Illinois General Assembly through the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and by the NEH.

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Outcome

Building Towards Justice generates challenging, open discussions about service, justice, and civic engagement. Since its inception, Building Toward Justice has served volunteers, staff, and alumni at Public Allies, Project YES, Hope worldwide, and PCC Westside AmeriCorps. The series is flexible enough — in terms of logistics and content — to meet the specific needs posed by a diverse range of organizations. BTJ is also intended to function as a pilot program for other state and national AmeriCorps organizations, and to cultivate a corps of facilitators from within the partner organizations themselves. From the returned exit surveys from 2003-2004, 100 percent of participants reported that they enjoyed the series and would recommend it to others. Participants stated:

• "It allowed me to face my fear of not wanting to express my critical thinking in front of other people."
• "I was able to express my opinions pertaining to the various discussions and not feel belittled."
• "It made me think about what I believe, why I believe, and then why I act."
• "It was good to hear the perspective of others in the group. We really got to know each other better."

When asked if they had ever addressed these topics before (for instance in a school or other academic environment), two-thirds of participants responded that they had not. Of the one-third who had been exposed to similar material in other contexts, most preferred the BTJ format because it "encouraged more freedom of expression," and because the facilitator guided and clarified the process without presenting an "authoritative figure like a teacher."

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Evidence

• This collaboration between the Illinois Humanities Council and local AmeriCorps organizations has come quite far in a very short time, and its rapid growth seems to attest to its utility.
• Other signs of this collaborative projectÕs value include the emergence of facilitators from within the AmeriCorps organizations themselves and, perhaps most meaningfully, the enthusiasm among AmeriCorps volunteers who participate in the BTJ series.
• Eighty-seven percent of the 2003-2004 participants said they were interested in staying involved with the program in the future.
• Ninety-two percent of the 2003-2004 participants reported that the series prompted them to revise some of their assumptions regarding service and justice.

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Posted On

January 5, 2005

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For More Information

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Related Practices

• Finding resources on civic engagement

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Related sites

Illinois Humanities Council (Educational Programs and Grants: Art of Association)

Project for Civic Reflection

Topic Areas

• Civic engagement
• Development
• Reflection
• AmeriCorps
• Volunteer
• Member
• Education

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