For my LiA, I chose to work at 826NYC, a writing center in Brooklyn, New York, that empowers students to express themselves, their creativity and their identity through story writing and illustration. 826NYC works with a variety of schools in the NYC area: public, private, charter, however the age group skews closer to primary and middle schoolers. 

My first week of volunteering was what I'd characterize more as a week of adaptation and assimilation into my new environment. I had to venture out to Brooklyn at 9 am everyday, almost an hour's commute from my summer residence, and an area I was entirely unfamiliar with. I also underwent a training to equip myself with the right cues and responses that I could utilize while interacting with children that were much younger than me (considering that my everyday interaction age group over the past several years had been just adults).

A typical day at the center looks something like this: we all come in at 9 a.m., get a brief overview of the school and kids that would be attending and the activity they'd chosen (Storytelling + Bookmaking or Choose Your Own Adventure), and then we'd pick the roles we'd want to take on for that particular day with the students (assistant story editor, illustrator, workshop leader, or a floater). Younger kids (fourth graders and below) would usually pick Storytelling + Bookmaking -- where the entire class would brainstorm and write an original story together after learning the architecture of a good story. They'd end on a cliffhanger, and then each student would individually get a piece of paper to craft their own endings and illustrations per their liking. My first week consisted of conducting just this activity with the students, and while I stuck to comfortable territory in the initial few days (as the assistant editor), eventually, I began to take up more roles such as an illustrator (a first for me, ever!) and workshop lead by the end of the week. 

It was too early for me to make too many observations about my journey, but I began to put my thoughts together while focusing on the tasks at hand + the environment I was placed in. There were sometimes subtle, sometimes striking differences in the level of creativity among kids crafting stories. Some of these were socioeconomic, some of these were TikTok-influenced... and some were still, indecipherable to me. I was pretty fascinated by how creativity -- rather, even the collection/creation/curation of creative thoughts among these groups of children that would come in were depended on so many factors: socioeconomic circumstances, technological influence, teacher attention, their peers' reactions/nonreactions.. all of which can be so different from creativity generated just from creative/cultural influences on the kids by themselves. I decided to connect this thread of thought with a lot of the things I'd learnt in my Sociology of Education + Human Rights classes during the past year, revisiting some readings for further reflection. More to follow as it develops in Week 2... :)