Public Achievement at Minneapolis Community and Technical College

[Michael C. Kuhne]

This is a space where students in two courses - one in which they are participating on Public Achievement teams and the other where they are coaching Public Achievement teams - have an opportunity to share the questions that they have and also what they have learned.

[Schmutzie]

Hello, my name is Karl Schmutzer. I have been involved in Public Achievement at Minneapolis Community and Technical College for two years and both a team member and now as a coach. As a team member I helped design a nutrition, fitness and body image program that was implemented at two community centers in Minneapolis. As a coach, I led a group of second and third graders at Inner District Downtown School in Minneapolis try to change their schools uniform policy. I have just now finished up my coaching experience and would like to take this opportunity to reflect on my experiences and give others the chance to relate to my experiences or give me some good advice. I would also like to preface what I am going to say by telling you all that I am a firm believer in the core concepts of Public Achievement and that the lessons that can be learned through Public Achievement are very valuable life lessons. I am just very disappointed with my most recent experience.
The first disappointment I encountered was with my group. I was given a very rambunctious group and had a very hard time convincing them to do anything but play games and draw. It really seemed to me that three of the six kids were there simply to goof off and get out of class for an hour. When I did try to put my foot down and enforce the rules that they had laid down for themselves, the kids would threaten to quit the project and pout. A lot of this could be my fault for not being able to gain control of the three who were causing the problems, but I felt if controlling the three became my objective, nothing else would get done with the kids who did want to participate. One of the kids, who I will call Bob, even went as far as to repeatedly call me a “trick” several times even though I had repeatedly asked to stop.
This brings me to my second and quite possibly biggest disappointment of the whole semester, the staff at Inner District Downtown School. After being called a trick over and over, I had Bob sit in timeout but felt there should be a little more of a consequence than that for calling me a name. I approached his teacher, and told her that Bob had called me a trick, she literally laughed at me and said “trick could mean a lot of things”. I was astounded! I tried after that to have Bob removed from my group through my instructor at MCTC, but my request was denied. Bob continued to be a source of frustration and distraction for the duration of the semester. I honestly felt I was being asked to babysit Bob for an hour a week, not to coach him in a public achievement project.
I also was disappointed when my group set up a meeting with the principal and he told them face to face, more than once that they should get their parents to weigh in on the issue of school uniforms and that he would listen to what the parents had to say. My team immediately went to work putting together a petition to send home to the second and third grade students parents and were getting very excited about the progress that they might be making. When the team wrote back to the principal to obtain the permission to send the petitions home, they were denied. Again, I was astounded! I was also a little confused. I did not go into this thinking that the school administration would roll over and the uniform policy would actually be changed, but I did expect them to “humor” us and play along with the public achievement project. When my team wrote to the principal to ask why they were denied, they never heard back!
This disappointment of the petitions being denied was hard for my group to overcome. After all was said and done I think this was a sobering experience for me and my group. People with power really can be hard to persuade when your viewpoint doesn’t mean anything to them.
I really make this seem like it was all bad but only 85% was horrible, mixed in with the constant reprimand for someone poking, kicking, calling names, getting up and walking around or making faces at someone, there were good times too. The two second graders in my group may have surprised themselves and realized they are more mature than they thought. I think they both gained a great deal of self confidence through the project and have that to take with them. I know I learned a lot about dealing with troubled kids at second or third grade levels and that I may not want my career path to intersect with them until I am more equipped to deal with ugly situations that can come up with them. But hey, no lesson learned is a bad lesson learned, right?

[Jordan A Carter]

Hi, my name is Jordan Carter. I attend Minneapolis Community and Technical College. My Public Achievement teams name was the Animal Super Friends. I coached my six students at InterDistrict Downtown School aka IDDS. What I’ve learned about being myself as a citizen is that it’s a challenge but a rewarding challenge to get things accomplished. A story I have for this is the whole class I took at MCTC, which is titled Field experience. The first two meets our instructor, Michael Kuhne, explaining the process of working with our groups every week and stressing the importance of being consistent. What he meant by this is always be at the team meetings every week and come with a good enough plan to fill the entire time.
The most frustrating and confusing part of my Public Achievement experience were perfecting the plans to the point that they were satisfactory to me. I had a difficult time in the middle of the process when it was real important to get what we were going to do for the final. At first, we were going to do a skit. I realized that we only had five to six minutes to perform. We then came up with a proposal to bring to the vice principal to see if we could make birdhouses and put them on the playground. We went to meet with the vice principal and she told us that we could make them, but we couldn’t put them on the playground. We could put them in the front of the school where there are trees that belonged to the school.
Two core concepts that have taken on a deeper meaning to me are Accountability and Power . I had to be accountable to my students. I felt real good to see that they learned my name and was excited when I came to meet with them. I also had to be accountable with my coaching plans too. I really enjoyed planning what the group was going to do after I got a good grasp on it. I would ask them what they want to see more of in the beginning of the process. They would say more games. That made me feel I was a little too serious when it came to work. So I worked on incorporating games into our meetings. I felt that it really helped with keeping the kids focused on getting work done by doing games and work together. I felt that I became more comfortable in my position of power in the group because I was thrown into the arena of Public Achievement. I also was supported by my fellow coaches and Michael Kuhne, my instructor.

[Molly Johnson]

I am Molly Johnson. I am a graduating student of Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC) in Minnesota. In the past semester, I have been co-coaching with my classmate Elliot at Inter District Downtown School (IDDS). We worked with young people in 2nd and 3rd grade around the issue of gang violence.
Working with these young people at IDDS and my classmates over this semester has helped my career grow to a new level. I couldn’t believe how much I’ve learned and still am learning from something that seemed so simple. I believe that the work my team has done, carried us to a new way of learning.
In the past three years I have grown from a bull headed adolescent to a strong, contemplative young adult. I used to think that my peers and I had nothing in common other than the classes we were taking. That notion changed this spring at IDDS and our presentation celebration that happened May 5th. I started to understand that even though our approaches to working with youth were very different, the passions were very similar. We all wanted to see the young people feel accomplished and succeed.
Public work such as a group project is one the hardest tasks to accomplish in life. I had the benefit of having a co-coach that had the exact opposite temperament as me. I tend be very commanding and flamboyant. Elliot made it possible for me to observe and become more accountable for my words. We had very different backgrounds yet were able to understand each other enough to get the work done. He helped me learn not take events that seemed negative personal.
As coaches, the two of us had some challenges. Our first challenge was the project itself. Stopping gangs and gang violence can be a life long battle. Luckily the young people were okay with learning about what goes into stopping gangs and why people join gangs. Our presentation at MCTC didn’t reflect all of what they learned but they seem to have got the message across.
In the middle of the semester, we were given another challenge, extra team members. They were a similar group (stop violence) so intergrading them wasn’t too hard. This wasn’t the problem, there two of us, and ten of them. It became obvious why some of them were separated. We took turns keeping order; luckily Elliot had more experience with younger children. I on the other hand I had an easier time getting the team to do the “boring” work. By the last meeting, the team had no worries about public speaking or their part in the presentation. They all did amazing work and I witnessed some dramatic changes in the team’s attitude toward their project. My hope for them is that they will remember what they learned and not get mixed up in that horrible lifestyle of kill or be killed.
These future adults have given my personal life much more power than I could imagine. "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for" quoted by Grace Murray Hopper, was given to me just a week ago by my future professor at MSU Mankato. My current professor had challenged me in how I thought about leadership. I feel safer just helping instead of leading the whole group. Michael Kuhne asked me if being passive is something that has been comfortable and safe. It is much more comfortable to let the team fail on their own than to have me let them down. I like to play victim in bad situations, but that just keeps me at port, but my personality and passions are made for sea.
This experience along with working with the other young people outside of school has made me strengthen my capacity and resilience. Oddly, the only major thing I need to work on as a coach is to say no and mean it. My passiveness has subsided significantly yet permissiveness prevails, weakening my leadership skills. I hope that I can gain the notion that in young age (20), with no children of my own, that I still have power to earn respect from the younger people.
I know that my path is not to become a major public figure. I have no personal interest in major politics. My passion lies in working side by side with people who want to rise above their current situations and prevail through hardships. Working with these people taught me that.
The biggest thing I take from this class is that I’m a strong, powerful, resilient, and passionate student. I have a lot more to learn and lot a more mistakes to make before I can be satisfied with my leadership skills.

[Alicia Patterson]

Hey, my name is Alicia Patterson. I have been involved in Public Achievement at Minneapolis Community and Technical College for two years and both a team member at Whittier Elementary School and now as a coach InterDistrict Downtown School (IDDS). Confidence is what Public Achievement has given me over the last two years. My first year as a team member, my group wanted to get grant funds for afterschool programs. I helped / ran an after school program at Whittier Elementary School with 4th and 5th graders. I had 3 other team members so I was able to fade into the background, making sure everyone was on task, helping students one on one, and checking any behavioral problems that may a raise.

I decided that I would teach a class to take some of the pressure off of the head group member running the class. Talk about being nervous, in the background I am good but up front with all eyes on me. My mind starts racing, I doubt myself a lot, I worry that my ideas will not be spoken correctly and they won’t have fun. I don’t remember exactly how it went but it must have went okay because I haven’t give up the conquest of become a teacher.

Now a year and a half later, I am a coach of Public Achievement to a group of 8 2nd and 3rd graders at InterDistrict Downtown School (IDDS). I was lucky enough to have a co-coach that was in my group when I was a participant in Public Achievement. This time around I stepped up to the plate more with leading the group sessions along with coming up with the weekly activities. My co-coach Pearl and I switched off each week leading the groups and some weeks we coached together.

My favorite part of Public Achievement would be watching the kids minds work and come up with ideas that will them succeed in the goal they are trying to achieve. The look on they have when they with a great idea. The ideas and interpretations they come up with are sometimes amazing. I asked, “What did they learn from Public Achievement?” I was expecting a “lame” answer or something that would showed we did not teach them one thing the last 5 months we had been working with them. The answer that blew me away was, “Public Achievement is not to play around, it’s to help the world.” Me personally, I would have never thought that a 3rd grade student would look at the world in such a way.

In the beginning, I said that Public Achievement has given me confidence. Confidence to do what, you may have been wondering. The confidence to retake Public Achievement Coaching course, if I had the chance to and lead the group myself. I would I get the same results? Maybe I would not. Will I freeze or be unsure of some things? Of course I will be. When I fail, will I get back up and try something different? Definitely, because as they say practice makes perfect.

[Jeremy Johnson]

My name is Jeremy Johnson and I am a student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). I have been involved with Public Achievement (PA) for two years, as a coach this year and as a team member last year. PA this year has brought me a few steps closer to an understanding of what day-to-day life as a teacher would be like. Being with my PA group brought me greater insight into this by allowing me to interact with a great group of kids at Inter District Downtown School (IDDS). Early on I was a little overwhelmed with the students lets say energy and lack of focus. I expected unrealistically for them to be model citizens and listen to an hour-long lecture each week. Being a father of four, I should have known better! Kids will act out simply because that is what they do. They pushed tested their bounds and me by seeing how far I would let them go off the track. Our project was an anti-tobacco/stop smoking campaign. Being an on again off again smoker I was enthusiastic and it seemed so were the kids. I realized almost immediately in the early meetings that my being a smoker was what they call a teachable moment. I explained to the group that I was heavily bombarded by youth focused advertising when I was young. I also made a point of saying that my decision to smoke was made as an ignorant youth and not as an adult who could weigh the pros and cons rationally. The kids understood this and they let it rest that I was smoker after making it one of their rules that I would not bring cigarettes on the days I met with them and I would try to quit all together.
Even though we had now set, rules and expectations we still had no idea how to accomplish what we sought to do. The kids were still unfocused and restless and sometimes I feared that I would lose the tenuous hold I had on them. One student specifically interrupted often and caused the rest of the group to lose focus. I felt honestly this reflected poorly on my ability as a teacher and began to doubt my future career path. Then a couple of things happened that helped me turn things around quickly.
One morning early on, I came in into the common area we meet each morning before most of the rest of class got there. There was a group of IDDS students in a small room with an IDDS teacher. I learned from a fellow coach that these were the students who were being disciplined for bad behavior. The students were being very rude and speaking to her a hundred times worse then anything I had faced as a coach. I took guilty satisfaction in the fact that even a seasoned educator could take a beating at times from students. She walked out of the room smiled at me and said good morning! The light bulb went and I thought she just stood calmly while these kids insulted her and still had enough to wherewithal smile and be polite. This struck me as very important. The lesson being that we all can have bad days or moments and we need to let it pass and move on anyway without letting it control our mood..
The second “moment of clarity” was during one of our debriefing sessions when our instructor Michael Kuhne told us that students are not required to participate in PA. He suggested asking problem students if they really wanted to be there as behavior control or simply to eliminate un-coachable students. This gave them the choice or at least the perceived choice of participating. I used this method on my most restless student and from then on, he seemed focused because he knew it was his choice to be there. I also pointed out to him that he was leader among our group and whatever way he went was in general the way the group went. Usually I think loud outspoken children relish the role of leader and the attention it brings. I think this created buy in with him and the rest of the group I had not previously gained.
The final lesson and perhaps the most important came from the PA book. I sat everyone down at the third meeting and told them that it was my fault that we got off to such a rocky start. I had not taken the time to get to know them or let them get to know me. So we played the M&M game were each student grabbed a handful of M&M’s and had to tell something about themselves for each one they ate. As we all know all kids love candy and they opened up more then I could ever have hoped. In fact, they loved the M&M’s so much I made it a feature of all my weekly meetings. Not the game just the M&M’s and small prizes for adding to our core concept posters. For about $20.00 for the semester, I brought a little piece of through chocolate treats.
The next week it all seemed to come together when I discovered a national event call Kick Butts Day (KBD). KBD is a national event that is focus is on youth activism. They have produced stop smoking commercials and anti tobacco rallies all over the country. They had several suggestions in their pamphlet. The students chose to concentrate on the ingredients of cigarettes. Originally, we were going to create a giant cigarette fill with ingredients of a cigarette. These include lighter fluid, arsenic (rat poison), cyanide (insect poison) and carbon monoxide. I ran across a skit online called “Smokey’s Café” where the dishes being served in a restaurant are the ingredients of cigarettes. The kids seemed very excited about this new direction. They rehearsed and wrote scripts while I gathered the props from home and brought them in weekly. On March 25th, we performed our KBD skit in full with all the props. I recorded and posted it on the KBD web site.
After that, I lost a little focus and missed several meetings. I feel that this was largest failure as a coach not being there every day with my group. We had one week to get ready for the final presentation and I rarely been more proud than we the kids did an excellent job of presenting their work. They did so well dealing with changes and stage fright that I could have sworn they were seasoned theater kids.
Overall, my experience was a good one and I have moved forward leaps and bounds in my personal pedagogy. I had days were I felt like pulling my hair (if I had some) out. I also had days where it felt like I was doing much then a PA project and that I was doing real work and actually teaching! I have learned as much from the students of IDDS and have taken several lessons my fellow MCTC students and our coach Michael Kuhne. I thank all of you and hope that you found this as rewarding and pleasing as I did.

[Allie Bonyata]

EDUC 2600:

Hello, my name is Allie Bonyata; this is my second semester at MCTC and I am a Recreation major. I am hoping to work both in outdoor recreation. This experience in public achievement was nothing short of life changing to me. For the past 3 months, I have coached a group of second and third graders. Our group's theme was centered around recycling. I learned a lot about myself, as well as what it means to work with children who are still so young. And to be completely honest, these children truly opened my eyes as to how hopeful our youth are.

The first few weeks, I pretty much focused on merely getting through our time together without any major mishaps, but by the end of our time together, I felt as though I had actually made a difference in 6 young lives. A little more than halfway through our experience, we had a meeting with the head janitorial staff member to see if we might be able to place homemade recycling cans around the school, and have them picked up. To my shock, he said yes. This showed me that when you find the right people to help you, you can make anything happen. These recycling boxes we constructed ourselves are now picked up every day, and bussed to IDDS's sister school. I am so proud of these 6 children for standing up for what they know is right. They are not yet jaded by the world they live in, and that is a truly beautiful thing. Imagine if all adults around the world were as hopeful and faithful that the right thing will be done as these 6 children? It would be a magical thing indeed.

Not only am I proud of my students for accomplishing what they set out to do (get recycling cans around their school), I am also am proud of myself for learning to be more patient. Patience is a quality that I have wanted to possess for a long time, but severely lacked. Let me tell you, that the people who either make or break a person's patience the most are children. They will act the way that they want whether you like or not, so you can either run screaming in the opposite direction or learn to take it as it comes, and work with them. I am incredibly greatful to have had this opportunity to get the know 6 wonderful children as well as a great deal more about myself.

[Zack Anderson]

Oh wow you had to do two of these? Bummer.

[Inga Ostrer]

I am Inga Ostrer. Today I am a student of Minneapolis Community and Technical College, and my final goal is being a professional and respectful smart teacher. Now, for my “Urban Teacher” A.S. diploma, this semester was my last semester. During this semester I took one very important for my future carrier class: EDUC/RECR 2600, where I studied how to coach a Public Achievement team. Name of my team was “HELP ANIMAL -1”, and it was 6 kids from second and third grades together. We had meetings every Tuesday from 9:45 to 10:45 in their school during whole semester except spring break time. Now it important to me shears with you my feelings and thoughts about this experience.
At first, I was happy we always had class -meetings before coaching process (from 9:00 to 9:45), and after coaching process (from10:45 to 12:00). It was great support because it was time for questions we had; we can shear recourses we used, or had smart advises from Michael Kuhne, our best teacher. Also, during whole week between sessions, we always had chance communicate with Michael by e-mail ([e-mail]) if something still not clear for us.
First skill I learned in this class was skill how professionally make a lesson plan. Our first lesson plan we did with Michael together, and after we did it by ourselves every week until and of semester. It skill organized me and taught how to be in harmony with time and with amount of work I must to do. In a reality I realized my plan and my real lesson sometimes had disagreement because without experience I never know what is easy for kids, and what is harder, and how long every process will take.
Second I leaned my plan always must include extra- time for little details, which I never count in the beginning, such as: ask kids about how they feels are, ask them clean tables after task is done, ets…
Also I learner “slowly learning is better than quickly learning”. My mistake was I tried gave to kids all knowledge about subject I had, and there were too much for their age. In this curse I studied how to limit my wishes.
Another interesting detail was: I realized it hard for me give kids freedom and space to do mistakes. I always suggested them good things, but it will be better, if at first they did mistakes, and at second find out good way to improve them by themselves.
I know, like future teacher I have one good and important skill: I have a lot of fun from communication with kids (and they catch it immediately). Because of this skill, kids feel comfortable with me and they trust to me. From all my experiences with kids I never had problem having some barriers between kids and me, or never had some discomfort discuss any question or problem. It is a big plus. On another hand, English is my second language, and it can be some problem. But personally I believe language is the skill too, and the more I will go through my language-barrier fear, the better it will be.
I hope I can be a useful teacher because I love kids, have a lot of patience, creative and strong.
I think I still need to learn how to be on time, in schedule, not sweet too much, and how use power, not only love toward kids.
I am very thankful for this important course to Michael Kuhne, who is very professional teacher and coach, and to Cindy Finnamore, who gave chance to us have practice with kids from her class.
Thank you!

[Inga Ostrer]

I am Inga Ostrer. Today I am a student of Minneapolis Community and Technical College, and my final goal is being a professional and respectful smart teacher. Now, for my “Urban Teacher” A.S. diploma, this semester was my last semester. During this semester I took one very important for my future carrier class: EDUC/RECR 2600, where I studied how to coach a Public Achievement team. Name of my team was “HELP ANIMAL -1”, and it was 6 kids from second and third grades together. We had meetings every Tuesday from 9:45 to 10:45 in their school during whole semester except spring break time. Now it important to me shears with you my feelings and thoughts about this experience.
At first, I was happy we always had class -meetings before coaching process (from 9:00 to 9:45), and after coaching process (from10:45 to 12:00). It was great support because it was time for questions we had; we can shear recourses we used, or had smart advises from Michael Kuhne, our best teacher. Also, during whole week between sessions, we always had chance communicate with Michael by e-mail ([e-mail]) if something still not clear for us.
First skill I learned in this class was skill how professionally make a lesson plan. Our first lesson plan we did with Michael together, and after we did it by ourselves every week until and of semester. It skill organized me and taught how to be in harmony with time and with amount of work I must to do. In a reality I realized my plan and my real lesson sometimes had disagreement because without experience I never know what is easy for kids, and what is harder, and how long every process will take.
Second I leaned my plan always must include extra- time for little details, which I never count in the beginning, such as: ask kids about how they feels are, ask them clean tables after task is done, ets…
Also I learner “slowly learning is better than quickly learning”. My mistake was I tried gave to kids all knowledge about subject I had, and there were too much for their age. In this curse I studied how to limit my wishes.
Another interesting detail was: I realized it hard for me give kids freedom and space to do mistakes. I always suggested them good things, but it will be better, if at first they did mistakes, and at second find out good way to improve them by themselves.
I know, like future teacher I have one good and important skill: I have a lot of fun from communication with kids (and they catch it immediately). Because of this skill, kids feel comfortable with me and they trust to me. From all my experiences with kids I never had problem having some barriers between kids and me, or never had some discomfort discuss any question or problem. It is a big plus. On another hand, English is my second language, and it can be some problem. But personally I believe language is the skill too, and the more I will go through my language-barrier fear, the better it will be.
I hope I can be a useful teacher because I love kids, have a lot of patience, creative and strong.
I think I still need to learn how to be on time, in schedule, not sweet too much, and how use power, not only love toward kids.
I am very thankful for this important course to Michael Kuhne, who is very professional teacher and coach, and to Cindy Finnamore, who gave chance to us have practice with kids from her class.
Thank you!

[Matthew Herbert]

Hi, My name is Matthew Herbert. I am a student at Minneaplis Community and Technical College and have been involved in public achievement for the last two years once as a student of public achievement and most recently as a coach of public achievement. As a student of public achievement, two of my classmates and I designed a Health log and fitness program that was aimed towards children and youth, it was to help them learn about healthy and unhealthy options that they had in their daily lives when it comes to exercise and eating. We created this to help them understand about body image and nutrition. As a I worked with second and third graders at Interdistrict Downtown School in Minneapolis,MN the group I was assigned to work with was a no uniform group, and teh main focus of the group was to help the six second and third graders I had implemnet a no uniform policy for themselves.

There were two other no uniform groups that were gorking on the same thing so we thought we might try and tackle the subject as a whole which proved more difficult than the other two coaches and myself thought it was going to be. We had students that could not get along together and students that when paired together would nit pick at other students and act out to get attention. We did have bright spots in working as a large collabrative group though, such as when we met wiith hte principal of the school to discuss how we might go about getting a no uniform policy put in place at teh school. His answer to the that particular question was " if you can get your parents to agree to a no uniform policy then I am perfectly fine with having no uniforms, your parents are the ones that believe you should wear uniforms not me."

After receiving that response from the principal we tried to create petitions to send home to the parents to try and help the students sway their parents to agreee to a no uniform policy but taht was immediately shot down by the principal, he said " I never intended to have you send anything home to the parents to have them sign." After hearing that we knew as a large group that we had very little if any power in the school and it was going to be difficult to get through to any one in a position of power in the school. The kids did get awarded one day a week to not have to wear uniforms but they were given that right before we even started our public ahcievement project so it basically defeated anything we were going to try and get from scratch and they also now have a committee for the 2nd-8th grade students trying to get rid of teh uniform policy.

A few things that have been frustratuing for me in my experiences with public achievement have been dealing with power and not being able to hold the cards that can be another hand so to speak, like in the coaching at IDDS we thought we had everything that was necessary to get what the kids wanted for themselves and in a blink of an eye it was all gone blown to bits and it made me very angry to see that happen. Another thing that has bothered me was having to fight to even persue a cause or topic that I believed in, in my experience as a student my classmates and I that created our project had to fight against the teachers want for atleast five memebers to a group, we were able to sway her and let her know that we would not let her down, and we did not disappoint we got our program started at two different recreation facilities in downtown and north Minneapolis, whic was amazing.

As a citizen I have learned that I have the power to achieve anything I want and to implement programs or ideas anywhere if I put my mind and body to it. The best example of this would be my project with the health and nutrtion log. Starting out with a personal goal of helping youth stay healthy and achieve the best tehy can in life came from looking at my then 12 year old cousin and his lifestyle habits of eating junk food and sitting on the computer or palying video games all day long during the summer or when he got home from school. After using that and getting the ball rolling on the project with my teammates we never looked back we found an article that hit home hard for us and that made us strive to really get our project and ideas out to whom ever we could, the article talked about how the current generation of youth may be the first ever in the history of teh U.S. to not outlive their parents which is a scary thought. so when the two recreation centers said yes to our project we were extremely delighted to share our research and our program model to the leaders at the centers.

Lastly two the two core concepts that I have a whole new meaning for are public work and power. In my own life I think both of these fit well together because, in public work if you have enough numbers you have the power and vise versa if you don't have the numbers you either don't have the power or you have to fight and claw to maintain or gain the power and that became very apparent in both of my public achievement experiences which both had good endings but the coaching experience has still left a bitter taste in mouth because of the way the principal handeled his power and refusing to budge to let us try and do exactly what he told us to do, therefore I say this final statement, if you want power you have got to take it out of the hands of those who have it in order to get anything done that you want to see happen.

[Latoya Balogun]

Hello my name is Latoya Balogun, going into my final years at M.C.T.C. I was presented the opportunity to participate in Public Achievement with me in the coaching seat; previously the Public Achievement group I was in consisted of fellow students who were working together to complete a project. As part of that Public Achievement group we worked together to bring awareness to the issues of Pre-Kindergerten education and how it goes on to effect not only the individual children but society as a whole. With most group projects we faced battles; being accountable for are assigned work load, having to come together to make decisions, and helping pick up slack where another member left off. Working with students within your peer group is always a bit different than working with children, with adults there seems to be an expectation that when you do not complete an assigned task other group members should be understanding; you had errands to run, you had to work, or other issues that arise in life. What I found in working with the young people is that they don’t really have time for excuses. You are their coach and expected to be there with them every step of the way in their Public Achievement project, but what I also learned about myself is that you find ways to show up even when those life issues arise.
Public Achievement with me in the coaching chair allowed me the chance to work with four students, both second and third graders; our project was focused on smoking and how to get people to quit. From the very beginning this was different than any class I had taken in that we were actually “in charge” of a group of young people and expected to have a completed project by the end of the semester. I had previous experience working with children before so my nerves were not centered around working with them, it was more so could I actually pull this off and be able to teach them something about Public Achievement and the core concepts?
As a way to be prepared for our meetings we were required to have a weekly coaching plan ready to go the night before, I will be the first to admit that I’ve never planned; on a weekly basis activities for the children that I’ve worked with previously. It had been my thought that I could go in and wing it, while that sort of worked in the past this experience called for something different. Having to create a lesson plan for me allowed there to be focus not only on my part but to help the children feel like I was prepared and had taken the time to consider the best activities for them. What I realized in having to be accountable to my instructor, the children and myself is that having a plan keeps you focused on task and ready to be an effective coach. The children learn not only by what you say to them but also your actions; when there is a clear direction there can also be a clear goal. One other point I would like to mention before wrapping up are the core concepts; of the eleven that we learned the one the students walked away knowing is accountability and responsibility. As we were getting closer to completing our project the group received an additional member, on this particular day the boys were acting a bit antsy and unable to focus. I did not want to have to get on my soap-box and talk about the importance of what we were doing or how this was their project. Before I could move on one of the female students in the group spoke up and basically said everything that I did not want to. It was amazing to see this third grader share her feeling s and thoughts on their behavior and how they were taking time away from their project to do what they wanted to do; after she finished I explained to them why I did not step and why I let her talk; it makes a difference to have a peer tell you their feelings than to have adults in your ear all the time. And it was even more amazing to see the look on their faces!
Overall this Public Achievement experience was great for me! I learned the true importance of planning, how mostly you just need to show up for your kids and they in turn will work their hardest not only for you but for themselves! Being a coach is more than just hoping to pass another class, it is a dry run at what being in a actually classroom may be like, what having little people who depend on you and for me it became an opportunity to see just how bright the future of our youth can be if we all just take some time to learn something from them.

[Michael C. Kuhne]

From Eugene Young, PA Coach at IDDS
This was a very interesting class this semester because it was a class that I originally thought I had it in the bag because I had so much experience working with kids, but this class ended up teaching me more than I could’ve imagined about myself and about my choice to go into this field.
I chose this field originally to just work with kids and that was pretty much the only reason now I have more goals that I want to accomplish I want to make a difference with children and adults.
I think the most important thing that I learned was that having a flexible plan that is consistent, but also open to change and be willing to take suggestions from people around you. The thing about my group was that we didn’t have any clue on how to make a change with homelessness that would show that we really cared and we knew that we wanted to do something positive and something huge at first, but over time we scaled down our vision and I think we came up with something that showed how much we cared. Our donation box had its ups and downs but in the end we did something that had a positive effect on the community that we targeted.
My group in the beginning wasn’t serious about this topic and I don’t think they were really interested in the topic but as the time went on we gained a lot more interest and the ideas started coming left and right I think that the turning point was our first meeting with the assistant principle, we were not prepared and it showed in how we reacted to questions that Mrs. Cummings had for us. When we went back the second time we had a more clear vision of what we wanted to do and we went in there a more confident group and more prepared group that knew what we wanted and was ready for the questions that was asked of us.
Overall I had a great time in this class and was happy that I was able to be apart of this experience and will take what I learned and apply it to my everyday life. I am also grateful for the group of coaches I was paired with they were very supportive and gave great ideas and suggestions when I need them they were always positive and kept a good attitude no matter the situation. I appreciate them all and look forward to seeing and working with them in the field.