What should we PS3 Liberal Activist Gentrifiers do, and not do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:for starters, never use the phrase "liberal activist gentrifiers," even anonymously and tongue-in-cheek.

+1

+2. I immediately felt sorry for the other parents when I read this.

+3 yuck

[Anonymous]

Old story from 2006 about Ross ES. Provides material for reflection on how to support a school without being an ****hole. Finding the right mix of energy, patience and respect seems to be key.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/2006/cover0616.html

[Anonymous]

My high SES kid was at a 90% FARM school for 3 months. It wasn't hard to fit in, for the kid or me. I would spend time observing before jumping in to donate and volunteer. I would appreciate all the things that are happening right already.

[Anonymous]

use yo at the end of every sentance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:use yo at the end of every sentance

And misspell words when you are trying to be clever to reinforce what an idiot you are like this poster right here!

[Anonymous]

Does the school have a PTA? That's one place to start getting involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi. I'm a high-SES (and yes, white) liberal parent of a three year-old entering PS3 in a high-poverty, low-diversity school that, I am happy to say, is rising like many DCPS schools. I want to do the best for my child and the school and am very interested in being be involved in making the school the best it can be. I don't want to screw this up, alienate people, look like a narcissist, or cause myself or anyone else headaches.

What should I do or not do? Any lessons learned? I really want to help out.

Let ppl know your intentions upfront. Use humor. Fall in line. Become friends with parents of the PTA. Don't try to be president at this point. Just like entering a new job environment.

[Anonymous]

Be a human being, who along with other adult humans, are helping your children through a normal transition process. Don't treat your collective lives as a sociology experiment. Get a lay of the land at the school. Ask productive questions if you are curious about the school's practices. Not "Why don't you do xyz?" questions that only make people defensice. Don't undermine the flow if you don't have a concrete reason. Don't assume your mere presence, or your child's is a greater gift to the school than any other families' presence.

[Anonymous]

OP, I was you last year. We are staying at our EOTP school.

A few words of advice:

- Be present when you can. Observe. Help. Get to know kids and parents.

- Realize people may resent or be skeptical of you. Even teachers. Be respectful, and disregard it as best you can.

- Do the PTA thing, but don't invest too much in it. Your kid is so young and sometimes PTA's aren't the way to change things. At our school, the PTA has well meaning members but it's not really a game changer. Our school has bigger issues than bake sales, and sometimes what you really need to do is talk to the principal or volunteer your time or ideas. That said, we attended meetings, and the public forum was a nice opportunity.

- Talk to everyone. I had the nicest little group of parents and grandparents that I "hung out" with at pick-up daily. We were incredibly diverse in ways that transcend ethnicity (age, jobs, life experience, relationship to the kid we were caring for), and after talking for 2-15 minutes daily for months, we realized we had a lot in common just by having similarly aged kids in our lives. We knew about each other's days and traffic tickets and families in a way that you don't get from car pool line. It created a nice sense of community. If there was a school issue (for example, we were all upset that there was little notice given for field trips) we could discuss it together and form an alliance to approach the school. That was nice.

- Don't expect things to change too much. Our school has poor testing scores and deals with a lot of organizational and fundamentally non-academic issues and isn't going to work for us for compulsory school (K and up). We hoped it might, but I just don't think it will. But we still are invested in being part of and improving the early education experience, because that's where change often starts with these DCPS schools. If the long term doesn't work out, don't be disheartened.

- Give money if you can. It helps. $200 takes the burden off of the preschool to worry about if everyone can go on a field trip and lets them focus on something else that's more important. I only suggest this because you said you're high SES and want to help. This helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:for starters, never use the phrase "liberal activist gentrifiers," even anonymously and tongue-in-cheek.

+1

+2. I immediately felt sorry for the other parents when I read this.

+3 yuck

Christ, people, really? I appreciate that OP is decent enough to be thinking about this. Not everyone does when faced with the same situation. (I'm recalling efforts at F-S in the not-too-distant past. I happened to be only slightly familiar with those efforts, but was in a meeting or two with a bunch of "liberal activist gentrifiers" who wouldn't have used the phrase ironically, or maybe even known it could be ironic. Their whole style was offensive, and even if I'd liked what was going on at F-S, I couldn't have stomached having to interact with those "concerned" parents who were somehow completely unconcerned with the families who got there before them. Frankly, I bet some of you are a lot like some of them. Anonymity does crazy things, no?

And yeah, I'm a white liberal activist gentrifier, and a good bit of that is true whether I want it to be or not. (But you're all sophisticated enough to know that race is a white issue too, right?) Like OP, I'm at least interested enough in other people to know that's likely how they see me, at least at first, regardless of my own ideas of who I want to be as a member of whatever community I'm engaged with at the time. Just exactly what's wrong with not wanting to alienate people? OP never said her assumption was that all people would immediately believe that about her. Still, you're an idiot if you don't know that some will. Or have you never made an assumption or been subject to stereotyping another?

Such a bunch of mean girls with such talent for turning good intentions into another sign the Apocalypse is near. I hope DCUM is all just some bizarre experiment and none of you are actually raising children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Old story from 2006 about Ross ES. Provides material for reflection on how to support a school without being an ****hole. Finding the right mix of energy, patience and respect seems to be key.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/2006/cover0616.html

Interesting story. There were so many anecdotes that stuck out but NIMBY quote really killed me:

Jeff Wise is the condo-association president of the Pierre, a building directly across the street. He says that his constituents worried that the playground would disrupt the block’s ambience if it went unrestricted. “Not only would there be the sound of children during the week, but a lot of people had strong feelings about having to hear that during the weekends, the only time of the week we had peace and quiet,” he says. “I invite you to come live in my apartment and subject yourself to this every day.”

Wise says that when he approached the parents and the school, his building’s concerns were dismissed. “They were just so offended that anyone would want to regulate a playground,” he says.

Well, duh. What a douchebag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:for starters, never use the phrase "liberal activist gentrifiers," even anonymously and tongue-in-cheek.

+1

+2. I immediately felt sorry for the other parents when I read this.

+3 yuck

Christ, people, really? I appreciate that OP is decent enough to be thinking about this. Not everyone does when faced with the same situation. (I'm recalling efforts at F-S in the not-too-distant past. I happened to be only slightly familiar with those efforts, but was in a meeting or two with a bunch of "liberal activist gentrifiers" who wouldn't have used the phrase ironically, or maybe even known it could be ironic. Their whole style was offensive, and even if I'd liked what was going on at F-S, I couldn't have stomached having to interact with those "concerned" parents who were somehow completely unconcerned with the families who got there before them. Frankly, I bet some of you are a lot like some of them. Anonymity does crazy things, no?

And yeah, I'm a white liberal activist gentrifier, and a good bit of that is true whether I want it to be or not. (But you're all sophisticated enough to know that race is a white issue too, right?) Like OP, I'm at least interested enough in other people to know that's likely how they see me, at least at first, regardless of my own ideas of who I want to be as a member of whatever community I'm engaged with at the time. Just exactly what's wrong with not wanting to alienate people? OP never said her assumption was that all people would immediately believe that about her. Still, you're an idiot if you don't know that some will. Or have you never made an assumption or been subject to stereotyping another?

Such a bunch of mean girls with such talent for turning good intentions into another sign the Apocalypse is near. I hope DCUM is all just some bizarre experiment and none of you are actually raising children.

Listen, I get you. I moved into a predominately AA neighborhood a few years ago and had the same worries. They were unfounded. We simply treated our neighbors like any other people and they, in turn, did the same. We didn't come up with some guilt-ridden "white liberal gentrifier" plan to win them over. We just were friendly and ourselves. We interacted with our neighbors and demonstrated interest in getting to know them as opposed to make assumptions. Now they are sad we are moving. What the heck do you expect people to tell you, or the OP, for that matter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be a human being, who along with other adult humans, are helping your children through a normal transition process. Don't treat your collective lives as a sociology experiment. Get a lay of the land at the school. Ask productive questions if you are curious about the school's practices. Not "Why don't you do xyz?" questions that only make people defensice. Don't undermine the flow if you don't have a concrete reason. Don't assume your mere presence, or your child's is a greater gift to the school than any other families' presence.

Ding ding!!

[Anonymous]

I take issue with the stereotypes perpetuated in this thread. Just because OP believes and identifies and self-stereotypes, doesn't mean it's a good thing. In fact, it's bad precisely for those reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Listen, I get you. I moved into a predominately AA neighborhood a few years ago and had the same worries. They were unfounded. We simply treated our neighbors like any other people and they, in turn, did the same. We didn't come up with some guilt-ridden "white liberal gentrifier" plan to win them over. We just were friendly and ourselves. We interacted with our neighbors and demonstrated interest in getting to know them as opposed to make assumptions. Now they are sad we are moving. What the heck do you expect people to tell you, or the OP, for that matter?

If I were asking, I'd expect lots of good advice like the type given in a number of replies here. What I wouldn't expect would be for people to assume that my my self-awareness (including knowning myself well enough to know my own blind spots) and the thread that it ocassioned is something other than me asking for help to avoid being a complete douche in ways I might not recognize. That is, why does OP's asking have to be a "gilt-ridden 'white liberal gentrifier' plan to win [people] over?" Why do we have to ascribe motives when we really don't know who we're even talking to, much less what she's actually like?

That said, I appreciate that you took the time to respond. (I suspect you're not one of the mean girls, and for that I'm grateful.) Mine was a rant against the weird machinations evidenced by DCUM group-think and how utterly insane and mean people get over even the most well-intentioned threads. It wasn't at all to question OP or the good advice given here. I commend both OP and (most of) the respondents.