Community Essay

Anja Mayr

Jessica Pisano

Lang 120

18 April 2014

A Multigenerational Community

Community means different things to different people.  According to the Oxford Dictionary website, community is defined as:  “A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” To me, this definition is a beginning, yet what strengthens a community is often the characteristics we do not have in common, such as age. For my service-learning experience, I coached a Girls On The Run team at Sand Hill Elementary School. Working with these elementary age girls and getting to know them, as well as the other coaches, was an amazing opportunity.  Over the time I’ve been with the group, though short, I have developed a connection with the girls and the other coaches.  Our group ranges in age from eight to sixty years old.  As I reflect on my experience, one element of our community seems especially significant.  Within the group of girls, I saw them look up to me as a role model, to the other coaches as role models, and the younger ones also looked to the older girls as role models.  I was expecting and prepared to be seen as a role model as were the other coaches yet what I didn’t expect was how much the younger girls looked up to the older girls and learned from them.  Of course, the girls were not the only ones learning something new every session, I was learning with them.  Community thrives when multigenerational relationships exist and are nourished because it creates an environment where different generations can learn from one another.  Even though being a role model is not always a conscious decision, it can have significant effects, whether the role model is nine years old or sixty years old. 

In “The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies,” I found a strong connection between the ideas and my service learning experience at Girls On The Run.  One of the many things we talk about in Girls On The Run is body image and the negative stereotypes that exist.  We talk about how the media is one of the main culprits and different ways to overcome these stereotypes. There are many articles that talk about body image and advertising’s negative effects on body image, but this was the first article I read that mentions the increasing importance having a variety of strong role models and the profound impact it can have on girls and their self-esteem.  And, as with Girls on the Run, athleticism also plays a significant role:

When I see young girls being diminished and harassed by the culture it feels even more personal to me now. I'm grateful that there's a new generation of female athletes to inspire and support girls like my daughter, Cassie. That our icons are no longer just tiny gymnasts, but powerful soccer, softball, and tennis players, broad-shouldered track stars -- Mia Hamm, Sarah Walden, Serena Williams, Marion Jones. During a recent visit to a high school, I saw how the eyes of a 14-year-old athlete shone as she talked about what Marion Jones means to her, and that fills me with hope. (Bordo)

While benefitting from the positive behavior powerful female athletic icons, girls are most influenced by ones closest to us, women, such as our mothers, who can model behavior without being conscious of how closely they are being observed and ultimately emulated.

For example a mother may look in the mirror and sigh or talk about how she needs to loose more weight.  Though in the moment the mother may not think of herself as a role model for her child, her child still observes her mother’s acts and attitudes and adopts the same expectations and criticism as her own.  During my community service experience, I noticed similar subconscious interactions occurring in two different situations.  One day near the beginning of my coaching, I was discussing diet and healthy eating habits with on of the girls in the in the program.  She mentioned she was afraid to eat snacks because she thought she would get “fat.”  The snacks provided at GOTR are healthy snacks that the girls need to keep their energy levels up while they are running. I asked her why she thought she shouldn’t eat a snack and she said, “I’m fat and when my mom thinks she is fat she sometimes doesn’t eat dinner.”  Though it may be okay for older women to skip meals, it’s not okay for a growing child to skip meals to try to loose weight. The young girl’s mom never told her daughter that she looked fat or to skip a meal, but she did set an unhealthy example for her daughter.  Mothers are role models for their daughters and though sometimes they may not think about it, mothers should act the way they want their daughters to act in, especially pertaining to body image and healthy eating.

I also noticed something similar occurring between the oldest and youngest girls in Girls On The Run. Some of the girls are four years apart in age, which is a significant difference in elementary school.  Some of the older girls do not realize they are being observed and that what they do might be copied by some of the younger girls.  Two of the older girls were joking around and teasing each other in a seemingly innocent way. Even though it seemed harmless, I asked them to stop because teasing each other is not what Girls On The Run is about.  They complied at first, but a little while later, out of habit, preceded joking around. A few of the younger girls observed this teasing and seemed to think it looked fun, so they tried to joke around with their friends; however they took it a little too far and ended up hurting each other’s feelings.  The older girls knew the limits to what was okay to joke about and what was not, but the younger girls did not understand this yet.  The younger girls merely saw the older girls having fun and joking around, so they wanted to try.  Though the older girls did not realize they were being observed as role models, they were.  People often look to anyone as a role model and often younger girls idolize any female who is even a little older then them.  The only requirement for a role model in a young girls eye is that it is someone they might want to be like when they are older, usually a chance to try out a new behavior.  For these young girls, they saw the older girls having fun and wanted to do the same, so the older girls became role models, without even knowing it.

Friere writes of a similar dilemma:

In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teachers existence -- but unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher. (Freire)

This is a statement I whole-heartedly agree with. “The Banking Concept of Education” encourages creativity and questioning. When teachers and students learn from each other, they are going against the norm, they are questioning, their learning is more authentic and valuable. In my opinion, this fear of creativity is a fear of learning.  Though this can sometime be a negative consequence of a community, it can also be positive. Younger girls can look up to their role models and mimic someone’s positive attributes instead of their negative ones.  Having a multigenerational community allows for multigenerational learning, the young can learn from the older and the older can learn from the young.  Every generation brings a different perspective to a community and the more perspectives a community has, the more it thrives.  This season I have learned lessons from the older coaches and the younger girls.   The younger girls have taught me lessons as well as the older coaches.   In a multigenerational community there is a lot of give and take when it comes to knowledge and influence, and that is what makes a community thrive.  In Girls On The Run, I did not only coach, but I also learned how to be a leader of a community, keep young girl’s attention, and be conscious of the multi-level influences.

I found Girls On The Run to be an amazing community to be a part of, not only in the coaching setting, but also in the administration setting.  I worked with Amy Renigar on my other service-learning project.  She is an inspirational and supportive leader and was a role model for me as I developed my first fundraising event.  The Girls on the Run program gives many girls, and women, the chance to be part of a community that consciously encourages girls to develop positive body images, exercise, and intergenerational relationships.  Any community can benefit from a multigenerational community members because the is helps members see different points of view.  I will continue to support and be involved in the Girls on the Run community --- at every age.

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan. "The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies." The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 Dec. 2013. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. <https://chronicle.com/article/The-Empire-of-Images-in-Our/6115>.

Freire, Paulo. "Excerpt: Paulo Freire, The Banking Concepts." Writing and Community Action: A Service-learning Rhetoric and Reader. By Thomas Deans. New York: Longman, 2003. 69-72. Print.