Rock Concert

This past week, I have been writing a case study about the Senior Citizens Center established at the YM-YWHA of Washington Heights-Inwood in 1973. As a result, I have been thoroughly rereading the minutes of the meetings held by the Y's Board of Directors in the 1970s. Although the Board devoted much of its discussion to its new programs for older adults, the minutes reflect that the Board was also concerned by declining participation in their programs for teenagers and young adults. They often discussed strategies to reengage lapsed members and recruit new ones.

One suggestion that arose again and again was a "rock" concert [puzzling quotation marks theirs, not mine]. Board members proposed a rock concert on three separate occasions in 1971 and 1972, without ever elaborating on what bands they could possibly get to play such a show. Neither did they reflect on the fact that teenagers may not be interested in an act or band that a group of middle-aged adults found palatable. 

In 1978, the Y actually did follow through on the strategy. In May of that year, the Y's Teen Supervisor, Stan Friedman, suggested to the members of the Board's Program Committee that they re-launch the Teen Program with a rock concert. The minutes recorded: "Members would be allowed to bring one friend. Again, a special invitation would go to the list of Jewish Teens. Stan said that a former gym member of the Y, Dennis Minogue, is now a band manager."

The concert was held in December, and in the intervening months the goal shifted from recruiting teenagers to recruiting college-aged young adults into a new Y program for this age group. Although staff member Martin Englisher reported to the Y Board that 110 people had attended the show, most were non-Jewish high school students who were not Y members. Englisher concluded, "It was felt that the concert, although it went well, did not really serve the Y's purpose."

Most remarkably, the rock concert continues to be an idea that adults suggest for teen recruitment and engagement. I texted a friend who works with teenagers in the Jewish community about the Y's history with rock concerts--admittedly, my description was hyperbolic--and she responded that this is an idea she still hears with regularity, despite rock music's precipitous decline in popularity in the 21st century.

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The problem with suggesting a rock concert, besides its being freighted with nostalgia, is that it is not something that teenagers need. A rock concert is something that adults think teens want, and no one likes to be told what they should want or what they should find meaningful. With history on my side, I urge the adults who lead Jewish communal organizations to retire this strategy. 

Productivity Humor (TGIF)

A few weeks ago, I watched my friends' cat, Bigsby, for a few hours as a favor. I had hoped that she would cuddle with me while I worked, but she mostly seemed irritated about the whole situation and stayed in her crate. I tried to salvage the afternoon and capture a cute photo, at least, but only got a withering stare. 

This morning I was searching through my photos for a document I photographed at the archive earlier this summer, and I came upon the snap I took of glowering Bigsby. I decided to send it to her owners, who are also academics and devotees of the pomodoro technique.

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I thought the conversation would end there, but my friend's creativity had been sparked...

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And with that, I think this week's a wrap. 

Binary Fission

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have been working on the fourth chapter of my dissertation for over six months. The preceding chapters each took an average of four months, and I've blown right past that. It feels especially overdue because I submitted the last chapter on December 30, 2015, and so my committee has not received anything new from me in 2016. I did spend a month this summer working on an article draft, and several months in the winter were spent revising earlier chapters, so I have made progress in other ways. Nonetheless, I'm uncomfortable with the pace I've been on and with my delinquency in delivering work to my committee.

Today, however, I had a realization--one that has been quietly dawning for some time, but which finally flamed out into the wide open air at 11:00 AM this morning. 

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In over six months of work, I have generated a lot writing. Even as it has amassed, I've mostly felt burdened by how much still remains to be done. At some point, I began to suspect that I already had a monster, and it was not done growing. I tried not to worry about, and stayed committed to my original plan.

This morning, I decided that there was just no way that I could fit two topics as big, broad, and deep as the Urban Crisis and the War on Poverty into one chapter. Although they are intimately related, the JCC movement responded in different (though not contradictory) ways to the destruction and rebuilding of their urban surroundings. 

Once I pulled the trigger and separated the chapter into two, I felt an immense relief. My monster baby has been transformed into fraternal twins, different from one another but obviously of a pair. More reassuringly, I have written TWO chapters so far this year, each averaging about four months! There's still more work to do, but a burden has lifted.

Character

This week, I've made a transition from crunching numbers and plotting graphs back to the historian's bread-and-butter, reading and analyzing archival documents. In doing so, I have been reunited with several historical actors that, throughout the years, I have grown an immense affection for. These are not the central players in the dissertation--they're not the ones calling the shots that I am lauding or criticizing, or at least not them alone. One was a social worker at a JCC who, by all accounts, was beloved in the community and undervalued by her supervisors. Another was a JCC Board member, a Judge, who was upstanding and decorous but also wrote whimsical poems and earnest eulogies.

I have learned a lot from the characters in my dissertation about how to live a meaningful life, which I did not expect. I'm a systems person. I like big questions and broadly-applicable arguments. My dissertation is supposed to explain why non-Jews use the Jewish Community Center with such regularity. And yet, I think the most precious lesson I have learned from writing on this topic is the value of investing your time and energy in building community. These characters were listeners and helpers and gave freely and widely of their time and resources. Perhaps I did not learn this from them, and it was a case of self-selection; I was drawn to them because I also value community, voluntarism, and investment in human capital. Even if this is so, they have deepened my belief in the importance of caring for and sustaining community.

Mental Health First Aid

Yesterday I attended a day-long training to become certified in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA). This course teaches you how to support an individual in the midst of a mental health crisis until assistance arrives from an appropriate professional. The training also teaches how, in a less emergent scenario, you can facilitate a conversation with a person who is struggling with a mental health disorder. 

I was compelled to become MHFA certified for two reasons. Primarily, I believe it is vital that anyone who works with young adults be prepared to talk to them about their mental health. Too many times I have found myself sitting across from a student who is telling me about their stress or anxiety or depression, and I have had to try and help them without knowing any strategies to make the conversation successful. Secondarily, I have anxiety and seasonal depression. I believe it is important to speak more frequently and openly about mental wellness, to combat the stigma against people who live with mental health disorders and to encourage people to seek appropriate professional treatment.

The training was immensely informative. I learned that mental health disorders compromise an individual's ability to carry out daily activities, to enjoy life, or to have satisfying relationships (which we were told to remember with the schmaltzy but helpful mnemonic of "live, laugh, love"). The course then covered the characteristics of depression, anxiety, psychosis, and substance use disorders. We practiced a process called ALGEE for assisting and supporting individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. After Assessing their risk for suicide and self harm, the best thing to do is to Listen nonjudgmentally and Give reassurance and information. This means to calmly and genuinely express your concern for their feelings, and to accept and validate their experience. The last steps are to Encourage appropriate professional help and to Encourage self-help and other support strategies. The course provides ample opportunity to review the steps of ALGEE, to observe how it can be tailored to a variety of disorders, and to practice using ALGEE in a variety of scenarios.  

Having completed the course, I feel much more prepared to discuss mental health--both disorder and wellness--with students and peers. More specifically, I feel like I now have a framework and a set of best practices that will improve the likelihood that these conversations will be effective in planting a seed of encouragement for someone to seek appropriate professional help in moments of crisis. Just as with CPR, I hope this is a set of skills that I never have to put to use, but I feel much more responsible and prepared having learned to administer Mental Health First Aid.