Book Club Summaries
“What kind of world do we live in where a black boy getting beaten by the cops is better than getting killed? ” This is one of the statements by our group members. All American Boys is a young adult novel about a black teen named Rashad who is beaten by a law enforcement officer while another white teen, Quinn, witnesses the incident. The readers follow along through the alternating narratives of Rashad and Quinn about how this incident impacts them individually, their school, and their city.
Rose explores the importance of individuality where no one is average. Although using an “average” may be helpful, Rose challenges us to think of the world differently. He walks through how we got to using and measuring by an “average” and the impact this has had on our military, schools, and workplace. It’s an interesting read that helps expose the error in thinking in just “average” ways.
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On a Tuesday night, when the doorman at the 360 Building on 22nd Street has gone home for the evening, the Cohort Collab group meets, consumes a half cheese, half pepperoni pizza, and discusses how to identify noteworthy volunteers. As the group, led by Yoshira Condenas, alternates between projecting three different volunteer applications, a consistent theme begins to surface. The online process of registering to be a volunteer on the Reading Partners’ website simply put, is not easy.
The result of this realization begins a dialogue around how deliberate organizations might be when trying to solicit dedicated volunteers. Does having a more complicated sign up process deter fickel and otherwise inconsistent volunteers? Is the thinking, if they have the patience and determination to fill out this complicated application, this should be a good indication of their commitment to the program they’re volunteering? Or could this be a deterrent to finding any volunteer, let alone a quality volunteer? Ankit Harneja, another Cohort Collab contributor, quickly points out that upon seeing this process, he may have closed the window and decided not to volunteer, which he said was a good thing. “I’m not the type of volunteer you should be looking for,” Ankit affirmed. The conversation eventually shifts to identifying outcomes. The group begins devising a plan that would help the Reading Partners organization, and specifically Robert Duran, solicit feedback from the LA/BA Summer 2017 Cohort members in order to be able to present information to the Executive Director of Silicon Valley Reading Partners on ways to improve volunteer outreach efforts. The vision for this feedback would require all the EP fellows to not only create a test account to experience the volunteer sign-up process first hand but more importantly fill out a survey that acts as a usability study. The results of which allow the Volunteer Outreach Support group to gather enough data to pinpoint specific improvements moving forward. Before the group finally leaves, Sonali Nijhawan asks the group about next steps, to which Robert Duran notes, “My ED has been really open to feedback thus far, I’m hoping we can confirm to meet on Friday, August 4th to discuss the results of the survey. Ultimately, I hope we can make a compelling enough argument that this information could be given to our Reading Partners National Office.” --Robert Duran We're working on seven projects this summer, ranging from volunteering to learning and teaching Python to creating a visualization of the Oakland education ecosystem. Read below for an overview of each project. We'll update as we make progress.
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