Field Notes from Project Homeless Connect

After you finish your volunteer shift at Project Homeless Connect, record your observations from your experience here as a comment. Record everything you remember from your day and include as many details as you can. Be as descriptive as possible. As you conclude, reflect on what was significant about your experience.

IMPORTANT: Please do not use people’s real names. Use initials or pseudonyms. We want to preserve the anonymity of the people you interacted with.

Preparing for Project Homeless Connect

As you prepare for Project Homeless Connect, reflect on your expectations for Friday’s event. What do you think the day will be like? What do expect to learn? What have you already learned about homelessness or poverty that you think prepares you for volunteering? What did you learn from the volunteer training session? If you’re feeling any anxiety, apprehension, or nervousness about the day, please reflect on these feelings, too. Why do you think you feel that way?

The Knowledge of the Lower Class & Research Tactics

In our last class, we discussed how lower-income workers often know more about the lives of the wealthy, than the wealthy do about the lives of lower-income workers. It seems like a strange paradox that although some wealthy individuals are paid more for their knowledge and expertise, they do not know the nuts and bolts of how society functions. On the other hand, lower-income workers work and experience the system, understand it like the back of their hand, and yet they are paid so little for their labor.

Do you think this is a good or bad phenomenon? Why? How might this ignorance on the part of the wealthy contribute to classism and discrimination in the United States? How might this phenomenon contribute to policies and rules that favor the rich and put the poor at a disadvantage?

When our author ventures to Minnesota, she spends a day interviewing an acquaintance of the lower class that has a few children and squeaks by renting a small home.

As far as research practices go, how effective do you think interviewing is in comparison to Ehrenreich’s immersion? In order to learn more about someone’s way of life, would you rather interview them or try to step in their shoes and experience first-hand what their life is like? Which research tactic is more effective?

Clarifying your topic, question and sources for your qualitative literature review

Please describe the topic you are focusing on for this current assignment and post the question that is guiding your research thus far. Also, tell us about the source you found for today and cut and paste the summary you wrote for today's class into this response.

Reflecting on Ehrenreich’s ethics as a researcher

Near the end of her chapter on her experience working at Wal-Mart, Barbara Ehrenreich describes the scene in which she tells Melissa what she’s really been doing. She writes, “We exchange addresses, including my real and permanent one. I tell her about the book I’m working on and she nods, not particularly surprised, and she says she hopes she hasn’t said ‘too many bad things about Wal-Mart.’ I assure her that she hasn’t and that she’ll be well disguised anyway” (189-190).

I’d like you to reflect on how Ehrenreich informs the women around her that she’s been observing them. Do you think it’s fair that she waits until after her month of working is over to tell them what she’s been doing? What knowledge or insight does she gain as a researcher by informing them at the end of the month? In what ways, though, does she infringe upon their rights as human beings by studying them secretly? How could her study and her writing potentially harm these women? What precautions does Ehrenreich take to alleviate such harm? Is it enough?

Responding to the Workforce

Recently, we’ve been discussing the lower position jobs in the workforce.  Many questions were raised about the reasons behind some job disparities.  Some of us dislike our managers and bosses because they are not doing the physical labor.  Others found that they held close personal relationships with their bosses or managers.  This also brought up the question of who works these low paying jobs.  Barbara Ehrenreich’s book shed some light on the issues at hand.  During her job as a server, she was upset with herself because she failed to help George when he was being accused.  She said this was because of the workforce she was in.  However, being from a more prestigious background, it is hard to tell if that is how someone would truly feel in that position. She also showed how poorly we treat the people who work in our lower paying positions.  We see that there are problems in our workforce that need to fixed.

My Question to you is:  What do you think would help change the current disparity of the workforce to become more diverse and more supportive of lower income families?

            

Responding to Ehrenreich’s Observations

What has been the most surprising observation that you’ve read so far in Barbara Ehrenreich’s account of her work as a waitress or a maid? What was surprising about it? How was Ehrenreich able to make this observation as a researcher? (As you respond, find a quotation from this passage and include it in your response.)

As you conclude your reflection, pose a question to the rest of class about today’s (or last Wednesday’s) reading that you think will help generate class discussion.

After the last blizzard, Before the next one...

Though our class was briefly interrupted last week with that lovely display of Colorado’s finest spring weather (and hey, guess what the weather man said about tonight?? We very well may find ourselves buried under more of the white stuff in a matter of hours, people!), it is safe to say we find ourselves back on track. To briefly review, this week, we have dissected the Alger Myth and discussed its relate-ability to contemporary homelessness. In addition, we began the process of writing our first paper for the course, and began to select topics for our papers. A very hot topic that arose from this week’s discussion came in the form of racial identity and how that plays a role in homelessness. Dalton’s article suggests (well, more than suggests – more like punches the reader in the face with the idea) that by not including race as an element in his story, Alger was fueling racism. Considering the time this story was written and published, we all know that racial tension at the time was strong, and racial questions kept popping up. The question, then, is this – by ignoring race all together, does Alger suggest that other races were insignificant and not worth mentioning? By not saying anything about racial groups that were in fact present in the city at the time, does Alger’s any-one-can-make-it-in-this-world-if-they-try-hard-enough theory exclude these races? What are your thoughts about race and contemporary homelessness? Are these ideas (the challenges to Alger’s theory in reference to race) outdated, or does race still play a large part in the problem of homelessness?
For a quick look at statistics, including race and homelessness in Denver, consider visiting DU’s site for Project Homeless Connect:
http://www.du.edu/homelessness/about-homelessness/

Responding to scholars’ claims about Alger

For today’s class you read two very different arguments about Horatio Alger, his work, and the myth it helped form. I’d like you to pick one of the following statements and use textual evidence from Ragged Dick to dispute the author’s claim or show how you think it is an accurate assessment of Alger’s philosophy. Write a paragraph that presents your response in a thoughtful and persuasive manner.

Position #1: Harlon Dalton obviously critiques the myth the Alger’s writing helped create. He writes, “In a nutshell, my objection to the Alger myth is that it serves to maintain the racial pecking order. It does so by mentally bypassing the role of race in American society” (132). What does Dalton mean here? What passages from Ragged Dick confirms this reading of the text? What parts of the novel challenge it?

Position #2: Michael Zuckerman seems much more interested in showing how Alger’s novels are at odds with the myth that grew out of them. He does not view Alger as a writer who endorsed a mercenary form of free-market capitalism, solely concerned with individual ability and responsibility. Rather, he writes that Alger’s tales “seem overdependent on luck, patronage and the deus ex machina” (192-193), and his characters “all place their bellies before their bank accounts and otherwise set gratification above accumulation” (194). What do you think? Does your reading of Ragged Dick support or challenge this interpretation?