It wasn’t until the ride back from Palm Springs that I began to absorb my most recent BOOST experience.
BOOST, for me, has been the metaphor for the movement of afterschool. BOOST has become a type of gauge of the movement. Whether it’s the number of participants, the quality of workshops, the keynote, I have always been able to use BOOST as a diagnostic for the movement.
This was the first year that I went alone with no team, no training to prepare for, or no real “role”. This definitely provided me with an array of introspective moments. There was that initial human desire to recreate memories, which in turn resulted in staged and scattered conversations. More importantly, my focus on the past would take away from the present, which turned out to be my greatest struggle with BOOST this year…
I found myself spending hours uncovering “evidence” that made me uneasy such as the fact that after school funding is not what it was 5 years ago, this saddened me.
It wasn’t the actual evidence that distressed me but rather the context some individuals had created around it. I heard some say,
“Why is that person presenting?”
“Can you believe so-and-so got that funding?”
“Did you hear about so-and-so”
“Why are we wasting money in sending people to this”.
Few said,
“How can we collaborate or work together and make this happen?”
“So-and-so is doing some AMAZING work”
The crazy thing was that I even heard some my mentors saying the former statements. I then asked myself,
“Am I doing this?”
“Am I projecting this?”
“Am I becoming that which saddens me?”
“Am I playing the small game and down playing the efforts of others?”
I then began thinking, “No wonder our youth are so messed up… we [the adults in charge] are just as bad if not worse.
“I began fearing that this movement that has inspired me for nearly two decades was on the verge of decaying. And to quote one of the sages of afterschool, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering” [1]. And these were sentiments that haunted me throughout much of BOOST.
Yet there was something incredibly beautiful, an ironic beauty. A beauty that is not realized because of the layers meaning we have placed on it. This is something akin to when someone has pushed his or her limits to an evening’s libation. The regression of their character is rarely beautiful… but then there is that moment when the pretense of an identity is stripped and the authentic self emerges in full expression of one’s fears, hopes, and beauty.
And this is my Breakthrough at BOOST; that our Context is always more powerful than the Content.
In other words, the meaning we choose to create is always more powerful than what actually happens to us. And more importantly, we can choose whatever meaning we want… be it empowering or disempowering (but are we willing to peel back the layers?) Because the truth is that this movement has saved lives. It has inspired some of my former students to serve their country with honor. It has given direction to some of my young college students looking to be a part of something bigger than themselves. This is what has happened to me in my afterschool experience. I refuse to choose a cynical, pessimistic, shallow, and disempowering context to what is currently happening in the afterschool movement. Instead, I am choosing to create a powerful, inspiring, beautiful, and unstoppable context to what is happening in afterschool…. Who’s with me?
Oh, and breakfast for me was a cup of coffee (beans roasted @ home & made w/a french press) & bowl of oatmeal!
[1] Master Yoda, “Stars Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace”
Author Profile: @diegoarancibia