My service with St. Ignatius Middle School in the past few months along with our discussions in class about boundaries have shown me first hand what boundaries can do and how we can begin to tear them down. One of the most prominent themes from this year is one of boundaries. We have discussed how they are formed, how they are strengthened and perpetuated, and how they can be torn down. I think that there is a wall between the impoverished students of St. Ignatius and those who are wealthy enough not to have to worry about being poor themselves. It seems that the wall is maintained because it remains untested and unquestioned- much like the wall that Robert Frost talks about in “Mending Wall”. People simply do not get involved with the disadvantaged and, therefore, cannot truly comprehend them or their situations. My service with St. Ignatius and the ideas that Jane Jacob’s presents in her The Death and Life of Great American Cities have shown me that the only way to break down these barriers is for the walls to be crossed over and over until the boundaries have become fluid and indefinable.
There is an obvious disconnect between the well off and the poor in many things- culture, lifestyle, resources, etc. This disconnect lends itself to creating a boundary or wall between the poor and the wealthier. I noticed that, much like in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, my peers’ and my preconceived notions about the service we would be doing were the result of ideas and fears that were continuously built up in our heads without being questioned. I entered St. Ignatius on my first day half expecting to be paired with a punk kid who had no interest in learning and who showed little or no respect for those around him. I expected to spend most of my time trying to keep the kid in his seat rather than doing homework. These expectations were in my head because, although I had worked with very young and very old people, I had never worked with middle school aged children. I did not have any experience with them, but I had already formed my own ideas about the children that I half believed without ever having met or talked with any of the students.
The fact that I had these negative expectations means that there was a boundary between me and the students I would work with. This is because I had no idea where they were coming from and what they experienced daily, yet I walked into the school with the idea that maybe these children just couldn’t be taught because of the environment they have grown up in and learned from. By being pessimistic about the students I would serve, I was separating myself from the kids I would tutor.
However, my notions did not last long. My experience proved my ideas wrong almost immediately. I was paired with a kid named Scott who loved to joke around and talk with his friends, but at the same time, he was also more than willing to sit down and work hard on his homework until it was finished. He shook my hand when I first met him and he never showed any disrespect to his peers or to me. He was polite and listened to what I had to say and we talked about baseball, something we both had in common. Jane Jacobs argues that boundaries should not be static walls; rather, they should be permeable, with many crossovers on both sides. By volunteering and, in effect, crossing the boundary or questioning the walls, I was forced to question and throw out my preconceived notions.
These ideas of questioning and experience are extremely important in the ideas that form in people’s heads. Rather than forming ideas based on prejudices and stereotypes that have existed longer than our parents or grandparents, we should form our ideas based on our own experiences and our own reflection on those experiences. Two weeks ago was about my 6th week at St. Ignatius. I showed up excited to work with a student because I was excited to see what he had done in school that day and to hear any funny stories he had to tell. I had a few funny stories myself to tell the student. At the end of our time together, my student, Eric, turned to me and said “Hey, this was fun. I’m going to do this again next week and request to be with you.”
I am just one microcosm of the people who should cross the permeable walls of our society and experience life on the other side with those from that side. Many wealthy people probably have their own ideas about the poor and disadvantaged, regardless of whether they have worked with them. I think that a good part of the walls of misunderstanding between the wealthy and the poor could be tested if the two sides crossed into the other’s environment regularly and interacting with others, creating a sense of familiarity. My work with St. Ignatius certainly has taught me not to make assumptions about people before they are given a chance to present themselves and it has made me more comfortable with others who may not be like me.