#had this svaed in my drafts

[himbotheninth]

I hope nureyev gets to bite someone. idk why i just think he deserves a little treat y'know? my man needs to be a little feral

[framing-visualculture]

Garden by Meiting Song

Hello everyone, welcome to Framing Visual Culture. I am Yi Jing Fly. Today’s guest is Meiting Song, a graphic design and motion graphics artist based in New York and Beijing. Her works exude the fun and exciting energy of early 2000s Asian pop culture and embraces girlishness in their character designs and color palettes. She is currently finishing her final semester at School of Visual Arts (SVA) in NYC.

Meiting talks about how she developed a simple aesthetic for her digital designs through the process of silkscreen printing, finding the relationship between colors blocks. She also shares her influences looking back on the nostalgia of 90s and y2k aesthetic shared between her Asian friends, where the common language of communication is English but the visual language of shared pop cultural knowledge transcends words. Meiting ponders why no one aspires to design the branding of feminine hygiene products, and hopes to one day work on such a project herself, where she gets to design a fun and lovable brand image for such a ubiquitous and important product.

I saw that one of your illustration has been translated to a t-shirt design on Animal Crossing?

Haha, yes. In the beginning I tried to make a pixel art design in Adobe Illustrator, but there is some difficulty as the squared corners become rounded in the game drawing tool. It’s hard to come up with original designs as I have to do a lot of drafts, so what I do more now is to turn clothes already available in stores or others’ designs into digital versions in the game. There are also many accounts (like Nook Street Market) dedicated to making designer fashion and luxury items into Animal Crossing outfits. It also feels great when I can wear a luxury brand I really really like without spending any real money!

What is the situation like for young artists and art students now in NYC with Covid-19? Do you feel less affected since most of your works are digital?

For students in the digital art department it’s pretty much the same, we are used to working remotely on our laptops. But I’m taking a risograph course this semester and I can’t access the studios to work on my prints.

The grad show is also affected, as we usually have a huge event at SVA where we get to present our works to industry experts and network with them. I would say our career prospects are definitely jeopardized.

I especially love the animation series and gifs you’ve been working on lately. They remind me of Chinese paper-cut animation enlivened with simple Internet aesthetic. Can you tell us more about how you developed this aesthetic over time?

When I first started out doing graphic design in college I was making a lot of minimal and clichéd designs. We were all inspired by Apple’s aesthetic, but the minimal things I made in the beginning were more unfinished, and I realized I can’t keep doing that.

For the whole of last year I took silkscreen printing classes, and that was where I really challenged myself to think about the relationship between color blocks and each layer I’m making; eventually I learnt the skill of simplifying a very complicated thing. A lot of people like to make complex prints with silkscreen, but that’s not meaningful for me personally. At the time I also looked at a lot of art involving color blocks, and Taiwanese graphic designer Wang Zhihong’s works especially inspired me.

There are strong elements of 90s and Y2K Asian pop-culture in your works, are they from your own nostalgic references?

When I was little I didn’t pay particular attention to the pop-culture I was consuming. It was actually after growing up and meeting many Asian people from other parts of Asia that I noticed these things more. In fact, my inspiration comes more from other people’s sense of nostalgia. For me I watched a lot of Card Captor Sakura, Crayon Shin-Chan, Doraemon, and Hannah Montana. Hannah Montana was actually my fashion icon as a kid. Now I am searching for the songs that were super popular in my childhood, like Jay Chou’s songs, and trying to recall the streets and scenes where I heard them. It brings me a lot of joy doing that.

Another interesting thing I found is that, with my Asian friends, even though we communicate in English, we actually know the celebrity or show we’re talking about, we just don’t know the name in the other language. Communicating this shared cultural experience in English and reaching that moment of connection beyond language is really great!

Fashion and art are very interrelated. Oftentimes we find artists expressing themselves in both their art and fashion, and the aesthetics of both are usually aligned. What kind of clothes are you into right now, and how do they reflect or inspire your creative process?

Right now I’m really into the clothes by designer Rui Zhou (a recent Parsons MFA graduate). I especially like the sinuous lines in her garments, the flow of the curves, as I like round edges. The pearl/ bead element that holds the delicate knitwear together is my favorite part, it almost looks like an exclamation mark! I probably wouldn’t wear the whole look directly over my body, but it’d nice to just wear a piece of the ensemble as an accessory. There are also a lot of singers and celebrities in America that are wearing her clothes in their MVs or photoshoots. I find it interesting that what is indie or non-mainstream is the mainstream in New York.

Ruizhou SS19

I do think that she is one of the designers creating entirely original designs and pushing the boundaries of fashion. You recently did a collab with clothing brand Unif and photographer Monimogi, can you tell us the concept behind that collab?

It began with Moni following me on Instagram, and she liked the Sunrise Mart zine that I made and wanted to collab on something similar for Unif. Sunrise Mart had more of a Shōwa era advertorial aesthetic, with the nostalgic design elements stemming from that time, but for the Unif zine I wanted to make something with a Y2K aesthetic.

A page from Sunrise Mart

A page from Unif zine

I wanted to make something very “Tai” (corny Taiwanese subcultural style), hence the blings and saturated colors, and the use of Traditional Chinese chracters. They are quite characteristic of early 2000s teenage girls magazines as well. In those magazines you will often find horoscope readings or personality quizzes, and I incorporated that into the Unif zine, by making a quiz for “finding your perfect shoes.” I previously made a quiz for finding out what type of drink you are in Sunrise Mart and my friends told me it was pretty accurate lol.  

I also made a series of stickers to go with the zine, adding many elements that I have designed on my own. I also slid in a picture of a glass dildo with a heart shape on the top, and I thought no one would find out since its quite inconspicuous, but Unif side found out immediately and exposed me. But they kept it anyway because they thought it was funny. They’re pretty chill about things.

It took quite a while to make this, from the photoshoot in February to layout design of the zine in March. The Covid-19 situation was worsening at this time, and I had to focus my mind on making this really cute and fun zine when in reality I was being super anxious.

[amyashida]

A Big False Start

After my conversation with Hannah, I started preparing to go back to Great Oaks and work with the 8th-grade students there. Kate had let me know the week before that I should be able to come twice in December to observe and work with students. That didn’t quite work out as planned. 

Hurry Up and Pause

In preparation, I wrote up a proposal for what I would like to do over the course of two visits, sent it to Kate, and started preparing. I spent several hours one night working out how I was going to introduce myself and my project to the students and drafting a few activities we could do together. I was ready to go!

Then, the day before I was supposed to go to the school, Kate emailed me and said that she didn't have the capacity to help organize my visits this semester. I felt all of the momentum I had built up leave. In the next two weeks, I needed to find a way to prototype my idea with students, hold a workshop ideally with students and teachers, and create a prototype to present to my advisor and class.

Lessons Learned

I believe every time you fall, you fail if you don’t figure out why. Here are the reasons why I think Great Oaks didn’t work out this time; 

I was ambiguous with my ask. It wasn’t clear what I was asking Kate to do and what I was going to do to make it easy for her. 

I asked for too much. I got excited about the workshop with the students and doing a workshop with multiple stakeholders. This was too big of an ask and merited the response of “not having the capacity.”

I was trying to design collaboratively, but it made me timid. I was afraid to push buttons, but in trying to avoid pushing buttons I made things overly complicated. 

Hit the Ground Running

I gave myself the night to freak out, process what I could learn from the experience, then did one thing that I actually know how to do well: cold email. I started by emailing the people I knew who worked with kids. Then I just started researching schools they were connected to and schools close to SVA. I found email addresses of History, English, and Film teachers and sent out emails. Within a few hours, I had a response from an English and Film teacher at The Young Women's Leadership School in Astoria.

Xenia, the teacher that I connected with, was excited and open to me visiting in a short turn around. I was also super excited to connect with her because film was an element of my long-term vision for the projects students could create. The catch was that her students are high schoolers and the school is in Astoria. I knew that going in and I needed a group to work with, so I was excited to talk to her about what her students were working on.

During our conversation, Xenia told me about the film program they have in partnership with Tribeca and how her students are currently working on documentaries exploring different aspects of identity and stereotypes. Groups were tackling topics like being Latina, African-American, an Immigrant, a student-athlete, and sexualization of women. In order to complement what the students were already learning, the age of the students, and the quick turn around, I would need to change the way I was approaching the workshop.

Finding a Subject to Engage

Not sure of the best way to move forward, I started researching policies that had been recently passed in the New York City Council that touched on women's or immigrant rights. I quickly realized that finding an argument with two true sides to it in those areas might be difficult because of the strong blue hold in the city. The best arguments against programs were often budgetary - and that doesn't make for a very exciting discussion.

Luckily, I found a debate that had been filmed tackling the question of whether campus sexual assault cases should be decided by courts or colleges. It presented a great opportunity for code-switching as the debaters were law professors speaking to an academic audience, but were still approachable enough for high schoolers to understand (hopefully). I spent the weekend watching and rewatching the debate, making sure it was okay to cover the topic in the class, and trying to figure out meaningful but not gut-wrenching ways to help the students reiterate what they heard and articulate how they felt about it.

In my quest to find a meaningful discussion format, I tried a few different approaches on for size including: - Writing a skit explaining the impact of the policy to a friend - 1, 2, 4, All - Storyboarding - Representational crafting

I ended up finding an educational blog called "Minds in Bloom" with a post called "10 Classroom Discussion Techniques" by Kelly Malloy. I was skeptical at first because this blog was written by a fourth-grade teacher (that's a big age difference), but the tactics listed seemed really solid. So, I incorporated one of the exercises called Four Corners. In this exercise, the facilitator hangs up signs that say "Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree" around the room. They then read out statements and students move to the corner they identify with. Then the facilitator asks for a volunteer to share why they felt that way.

So, with that exercise in mind, I came up with the following plan:

Hypothesis: I believe that if students learn how to code switch when it comes to policy, they will be able to understand how it impacts them and be better advocates for their communities.

I will know this is true when students are able to translate policy impacts into their own words and articulate how they feel about it to others.

Objective: Students will understand both sides of an argument/policy, decide whether they agree or disagree, and articulate why

Methodology:

Start with some ground-setting: What is code-switching (setting examples: professional, school, home)? Why apply code-switching to policy? 

Break down the vocab words in the debate video or that a guest might use. Vocab words include due process, neutrality, and adjudication.

Watch the opening argument for courts to decide

Four corners group discussion - Students will receive a hand out reviewing the points made in the video. They will circle "strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree" for each point. Signs displaying with "strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree" will be put up in four corners of the room. Each point will be read allowed, students will move to the corner that has the side they agree with. One volunteer will from each side will share their opinion. 

Watch the argument for campuses to decide

Four corners group discussion round 2

Debrief - On provided sheets, students will write down one thing they enjoyed about the class, why they enjoyed it, and one reason why code-switching is relevant to their lives/projects

I also designed the following worksheet. Wish me luck!

[amazingviralinfo]

Thursday, December 13, 1979

2 PM on a cold, rainy afternoon. I felt good today even though I didnt sleep very well last night. But I got out of the house this morning at 7 AM and drove to the Junction; because of the LIRR strike, theres no alternate parking.

Getting a seat on the train, I arrived at SVA around 8:30 AM. I entertained my class by reading them my own stories and Crad Kilodneys, and when they enjoyed them, I felt good about it.

On Tuesday were having a party; I can do the final grades this weekend, and then Ill be free of responsibilities.

Theres much to dislike about this city, yet I feel an overwhelming affectionate loyalty to New York. I cant imagine any other place making me feel this good.

I guess its like the old house in Brooklyn: I miss it terribly. I imagine coming home in the middle of the day, walking in to the hustle and bustle of Maud cleaning, Mom putting away groceries, Jonny working out to loud music in the basement.

Sometimes I feel like looking back six months and wondering how it got to be this way. If Mom and Dad hadnt moved, I probably would have gone to Albany; I wonder how I would have liked it.

There are moments I cant believe Im living alone in New York City in 1979. It definitely feels like the end of the decade. The Iranian crisis seems to drag on monstrously, as if the hostages will never be released.

What if Im going to die with the decade? I think Id die happy. I accomplished a lot more than I ever thought I would. If I die, Ill be leaving something behind: a book, lots of stories, my diaries, memories of a lot of people.

Lets just put it this way: Im prepared to die, but Im also prepared to live. God knows what my world will be like in another ten years, but Im certain its going to be an interesting time.

Perhaps many people would say I lived a sheltered life, that Ive missed so much and at times I feel that, too but on the whole (are we getting really banal here?), Ive enjoyed myself enormously.

Maybe one day Ill look back on this particular time with nostalgia, the way I now look upon my undergraduate days. I can always talk about the time I lived like a pauper in Rockaway, just on the verge of success.

I finished reading The Glittering Prizes; I loved it and identified like mad with its protagonist, Adam Morris, the writer who finally makes it and yet doesnt make it.

One day I may be pretty rich, and I predict I wont be happier at that time than I

Dont get me wrong: Im still very scared about the future. But somehow, at least right now, it doesnt matter so much what happens to me.

Monday, December 17, 1979

9 PM. Its so cold I cant think of anything else. Theres absolutely no heat and the wind-chill factor is six below zero. I dont know how Im going to get through the night.

I have on thermal underwear and a bathrobe, and Im under three blankets and a heating pad. The wind is racing through my apartment. Even my diary is as cold as ice. God knows how Ill sleep tonight.

All I can think about it is that in a week Ill be in Florida. I feel miserable right now, unable to enjoy even the good things that happened today. Ironically, they passed a rent fuel-pass-along increase today; Ill be damned if Im going to pay it.

Damn landlords! They suck. How many people all over New York must be freezing like I am because of their landlords stupid greed. I just want to get out of New York.

Today I definitely decided that I must be out of here as soon as I can. Ill take any job out of town, and if I dont get one, Ill move in with my parents. Living alone in New York sucks.

Hell, today I was videotaped for a PBS documentary, was invited to read my fiction at the University of Louisvilles Annual Conference on 20th Century Literature, got a letter from John Gardner praising me for my writing, found a press release from Taplinger containing great quotes from reviews, and got a letter from Susan Fromberg Schaeffer telling me to hang on.

Can I hang on? Not much longer. Im wildly unhappy.

I suppose thats narcissism. Maybe Im wrong. I probably am. Still, I know what it feels like to go to bed cold and to feel as though life isnt worth living. My problem is that I know that life is worth living: I see people who lead satisfying and comfortable lives, but Im just not among them.

People like Roger Weisberg, the PBS producer, or Gregory Jackson, the host of the program who interviewed me: theyve made it. They can take time out

But they dont live the lives that more unfortunate people do. They ride taxis and dont have to wait an hour for a subway to get from Columbus Circle to Washington Square, the way I did.

I hope my interview does some good, but I doubt it will, for there will always be greedy people like Fabrikant making money off others misery. Fabrikant was evil; my landlord is evil; they are banal, but then you know Hannah Arendt.

Someday, if I survive, a lot of good is going to come out of this pain. Still, on the whole, it would be better not to have to go through this.

Hell, this is not the diary entry I wanted to write. I would have liked to give detailed descriptions of my day with the TV crew of From Back Wards to Back Streetsand write about my feelings about the nice mail I got today.

But the mail uppermost in my mind are the bills. Im almost to the point where I cant think about art because my necessities arent provided for.

Tuesday, December 18, 1979

The heat finally did come on late last night and I did sleep fairly well. This morning I found I had a flat tire, so I took the subway to school: four different trains in the rush hour, and I was still half an hour late to SVA. We had a so-so party; most of my class went to a better one next door. I showed up with my fly open, which sort of set the mood for the day.

It was freezing again. When I got home, I called the AAA, and when they came, they inflated my tire, and I went to buy a new one: another $57 gone.

The toilet stopped up, and Tom, the Irish handyman, came up and fixed it. He said my bed was in bad spot between the two windows, and so we moved it. After Tom left, I rearranged the other furniture for half an hour, but finally I think Ive got it the way I want it. It does feel warmer this way.

At SVA, I handed in my grades, and so for the next six weeks I am a free man! Ive decided not to do the textbook job, as it just isnt worth the hassles to be paid so little.

The item was called The Wrath of Fred, and referred to me as playful prankster Richard Grayson. (I like that, I must admit.) It was about Silverman and NBCs peacock getting their feathers ruffled by my joke about drafting him for President.

It was quite sympathetic to me, who was portrayed as a nice pract

On Saturday, Marie told her that Melvin mentioned reading about me and seeing my book in the window of the Waldenbooks on Wall Street. Among people who know me, Im sure, Im being talked about.

Susan Schaeffer wrote that with your writing ability and genius for publicity, youll make it. Pack a box lunch. Besides, she said, I should get some satisfaction knowing that every success I have just makes Baumbach madder.

I do like Susan. Shes recommending me to Yaddo and MacDowell.

And did The Conference on 20th Century Literature in Louisville wants me to read Nice Weather, Arent We. I think its worth it for me to go. Ill

Mom and Dad said theyll pay for my fare, and there should be a small honorarium. I just want to go to a place where Ill be treated with respect, so Ill go to Louisville at the end of February and hope it will be a good experience.

Wednesday, December 19, 1979

10 PM. Last night I finished Scott Sommers Nearings Grace and was very impressed with it. Its a novel that worked totally for me; it was quite moving.

Moving the bed was the smartest thing I ever did, as I didnt freeze last night and slept well. It felt luxurious to lie in bed all morning, especially on a snowy day like today. I spent the morning in my underwear, cleaning, exercising, taking care of correspondence, watching game shows, and just enjoying my freedom.

Too bad about the snow, but I didnt really have to go anywhere. About three or four inches fell, and it was slippery, so I decided not to drive and went to Kings Plaza by bus.

Back home, I did the laundry, read the papers, made dinner. When Mom called, I managed to sound less depressed than I had during our last conversation. In five days Ill be in Florida for what will be both a homecoming and a visit.

Ive been living on my own for two months now, a fact which still amazes me at odd moments. Today, for example, I was putting a new roll of paper towels in the thingamajig in the kitchen when it suddenly struck me: I have my own apartment.

Friends are very important; I feel closer to Alice and Avis and Ronna, all of whom I talked to today, than I do to any member of my family. Yet theres something in a family that friends cant duplicate.

Gee, Im starting to get nervous about flying. Last Saturdays anx

Especially after the past few days, I need a warmer climate, and I need a respite in order to marshal my resources for what I dont know, but Ive gone through so many changes that I need to rest up and take stock.

1979 has been the year I finally took risks. My book was published, and I became something of a celebrity. I moved out on my own. My parents moved to Florida. I began therapy again. I taught another six college classes and earned more money than I ever had though not enough, certainly, for me to support myself comfortably.

Will I ever stop being so frightened? I feel a need to shiver, to be held by someone wholl tell me that its all going to be all right. How about my trying it myself? Richie, everythings going to be all right.

(Convincing?)

Thursday, December 20, 1979

4 PM. It will be dark soon. This is a very strange time in my life; I feel as though Im going through new experiences all the time. Now that Im free of school, I have time to reflect on all the changes.

Ive been annoyed by the artificial parts of my body in need of repair: my capped tooth and my left contact lens. But I want to postpone work on t

Maybe Im placing too much hope on this trip. Twenty-five days in Florida is not going to change my life. In a month, Ill be back here and there still will be two months of winter to get through and Ill have a hectic schedule teaching, and no doubt Ill be miserable again.

I dont have much to look forward to. But slowly my life is changing. The accumulation of publicity is working. Every day I meet someone or hear of a third person whos seen my name in the papers.

Last night Pete Cherches said that Bruce Chadwick exclaimed that Id gone out of kilter because my name is in the Post every other day.

Is there any point in it? I think so. The point is I need an escape hatch from a dull, impoverished existence. Im aware that my playful prankster activities are moronic, but they do seem to have value in the eyes of the media and hence the public.

That Ive become a minor celebrity is actually a sad commentary on the times: people are so starved for gossip, trivia and weirdness.

But writing, after all, is the important thing. Today my story, Douglas,

But Im finished with that stage of my career. I need to go on to something new. I know Ive been saying that for a year and a half, and in all that time, Ive written almost nothing. Yet I am a writer, and eventually Ill find what needs writing about.

Last night I called Ronna to say goodbye. She said that Susan and Evan saw the two copies of Hitler in Waldenbooks at Kings Plaza and looked through them (of course they didnt buy).

Evan told Ronna that she should get a good libel lawyer. What an asshole he is: he and Susan are little people living little lives. Susan must hate me

As Crad Kilodney says, You should take satisfaction where it comes because theres not much of it around.

So I have no money, but I did fulfill my dreams. I know this must sound pompous Im sure Ronna would say it does but I dont care anymore. After all, this is my diary.

This morning when he phoned, Josh said hes sending out rsums again. What a drag. I cant take this adjunct business for another year; forgive me, Father, if I think Im too good for it.

Tomorrows the shortest day of the year, but then the days start to become longer, and in Florida it gets dark later. The driving wasnt too hazardous

Since neither Marc nor Avis can drive me to the airport, I guess Ill have to take a cab: The guy whos driven everyone to the airport all these years finally gets to go somewhere on a plane himself and theres nobody to take me.

My Wizard Owl air freshener is staring at me questioningly.

* 11:30 PM. What is it that impels us to live? The cockroach that kept escaping me today had whatever it is. And I, for the moment, have it, too.

I’ve just trudged up the block: a desolate winter landscape of dirty snow and ice melted and refrozen. Yet I looked up, and surprisingly, the stars were out, very bright and numerous. Orion’s belt looked so sharp, I felt it was

This evening I went to dinner at my grandparents’. Their kindly questions, as usual, had obvious answers: When you put the laundry in the machine, did you put in detergent, too? When you made eggs, did you clean the skillet? God bless them.

Grandpa Herb will be 76 today, in a few minutes, when it’s the shortest day of the year and the start of winter. On Monday night, my grandparents will have been married fifty years.

When I returned from my grandparents, I decided to do some phoning. I reached Elihu just as he was going out. Scott Sommer hasnt been home for days. Gary wasnt in, nor was Mikey.

I decided to call Evie Wagner; I had passed the old block today when I went to Deutsch Pharmacy to get myself enough Triavils to last me through Florida.

To pass the time, I called Mrs. Judson. Wayne answered and said he had to wake up his mother anyway.

Mrs. Judson told me theyve extended her unemployment benefits, and in January the government will begin retraining her, perhaps as a keypu

The leather industry in this country is dying; Mrs. Judsons boss had to go out of business.

Maybe it will come back one day, she said. Who would imagine that at 56, Im going to learn something new?

We had a great conversation, and then I put in my lenses and drove into Brooklyn for the wake, which was in a giant funeral parlor on Bay Parkway.

Lou and Ev

Her father-in-law died on Tuesday night, a week after an apparently successful hip operation. Mr. Bisogno lay in the open coffin, his hands folded around a rosary; he looked very serene.

Jerry seemed very upset, of course. But he was gracious enough to introduce me to his sister-in-law Louise, the playwright who eit

Shes a lovely woman, slim with blonde frizzed hair, green eyes and age lines that show character.

She told me how she and her husband began by taking teleplay writing courses at The New School.

Louise has been working as a social studies teacher in Westchester, but now CBS has offered her a job writing a long form story for their soaps. She wants to make the sho

Herb Brodkin wanted her play on abortion and euthanasia, and theyre working on a deal for it to appear on a TV network.

Louise told me that at her age, she feels she has to make up for lost time. But I think she must have more discipline than young writers; moreover, shes suffered and survived I can see that in her face.

I was so taken with her that I stayed until the funeral parlor closed.

Then me who knows Brooklyn like the back of his hand got abs

Still, I loved driving around Brooklyn on a (now) winter night. It made me feel .

[amyashida]

Hypothesis (theses?)

Following our assumption maps, we were challenged to start creating hypothesis statements. I know it’s kind of weird to use a chess metaphor when talking about students, but I feel like it’s the best hypothesis metaphor I could find a decent stock photo for. 

Talking with Azu and Katarina about their own experiences in school helped me dig deeper than using words like “engagement” in class to outcomes that could actually be measured. I’ve refined the hypotheses statements I started earlier this week into three new drafts. 

Here are my first stabs at some hypotheses statements: 

I believe that if student advocates (teachers and administrators) had a simple way to share resources and access examples of how to involve student feedback and voices, then they would be able to garner support and implement ideas in their schools with less friction. 

I believe that if student voices are involved in the way schools work, then students will be more invested in school and will learn that their voices and ideas are valuable. 

I believe that if teachers are empowered and encouraged to collect student feedback, then there will be more respect between students, teachers will become better instructors, and students will be more invested in class. 

I will know that the above things are true when: 

Class attendance rises

Disciplinary infractions drop

Student participation in class increases 

Students report that they feel their ideas can have an impact in the way the school or classroom operate

Student involvement in voluntary school leadership positions rises

Students are able to think critically about what they can do to improve the world around them

Teachers and administrators make student feedback/ideas a priority

Next up is figuring out how in the world to test these hypotheses. I have a meeting this week at Great Oaks and one of the items I need to focus on is getting access to more schools in New York. There are a few around SVA that I could reach out to. 

[amyashida]

Moving Ahead

This week I think I made some good progress toward refining my idea. While I didn't make as many new connections as I had hoped, I am narrowing down on what the idea actually is. It also has a tentative name, which is exciting. As an exercise for class we had to write email drafts explaining my idea. Here is the definition I came to by writing those drafts:

Run Like A Girl’s goal is to connect girls of color between the ages of 11 and 14 with elected officials who look like them. The initial iteration will be a Google Hangouts style conversation between a small group of girls and an elected official from a similar background. There will be a moderator to help start and keep the conversation going, but the goal is for the conversation to be directed by what interests the girls bring to the table.

In the future, the goal is to build a website that helps girls find and learn about women of color in politics throughout the country.

I was inspired to work on this project when the recent election results reminded me of an experience I had in high school. I was asked to write an essay about a leader who inspired me and I decided I wanted to write about an Asian American politician. Unfortunately, at the time there were very few that I could find and none of them were women. This subconsciously reinforced that there wasn't a place for me at the table. Since then, representation has improved slightly, but it is still difficult to find and get in contact with women of color in politics.

A conversation with Ruth, another student at SVA, sparked an idea around widening the scope of the women to include activists and also creating a platform where girls could nominate women that they look up to. I think that crowd sourcing the women, or at least some of them, is a really interesting idea that would take some of the burden off of me as the organizer to find all of them myself. Telling someone that they have been recognized as a role model and a contributor to their community also seems like a great way to get a conversation going and warm them up to the idea of participating.

One of the things I have been wrestling with is trying to figure out how to articulate the Kickstarter raise when the first iteration of the idea is actually very low cost. Spinning off the community-nomination idea might help by giving people something to contribute  and possibly receive in addition to their contribution to the idea. For example, what if the Kickstarter artifact is a post card (physical or digital) that goes to a woman of color who is nominated by the backer. The backer would provide a reason for why they are nominating that person and that reason is written on the post card. There could also be a website or blog (maybe tied directly to the Run Like A Girl site) that highlights the women who are nominated. This would be a way to raise money, grow the network, get girls involved in a fairly low-commitment way, and highlight women in a grass roots way.

Another piece of feedback that I got on the actual connecting events is that they should probably be on set dates on a regular schedule. For example, the first Tuesday of the month. This would make it easier for everyone involved to say yes or no and put it on their calendars by making the commitment clear and the ask less ambiguous. I would need to talk to the girls I am targeting to see the best time for them as I wouldn't want it to conflict with school.

Although I wasn't able to speak to new women or girls this week, I was able to get some good feedback from Victor and Aaron at the Experience Institute. EI did a workshop at SVA over the weekend and I had the chance to talk to them about my idea. One of my main take aways is that I need to just get a meet up on the calendar so that I can do a prototype of what I am thinking. Having done one meet up will also help me when I am pitching the idea to others.

That brings me to next steps:

- I reallly need to speak with girls that are in my target age range to see what modes of communication, formats, and times work best for them. In order to do this I need to get in contact with them. I have a few connections that could help me with this. This task is my top priority going into this week.

- I need to figure out an artifact for the Kickstarter campaign. It seems like it will be difficult to raise money for the connections themselves, there needs to be a more tangible ask. The post card idea is a good one, another one might be voting for the type of connections you want to see. I want to do something that helps build the community and acts as feedback to show me what direction I should move in.

- I need to get a meet up (or whatever I am calling them) on the books. That way I can run a prototype and see what works and what doesn't. This means that I need a politician or at least an activist and some girls who have agreed to participate. Knowing this makes it clear that I need to have direct asks when I am reaching out to people. I should probably start by drafting some emails with those very specific asks.