Maryland Students Travel to Las Vegas for Service Trip Ben Bryer

COMMUNITY NEWS

Maryland Hillel Students Travel to Las Vegas for Service Trip

By Ben Bryer

My name is Ben Bryer and I am currently a sophomore majoring in public health at University of Maryland. This past winter vacation, I had the pleasure of leading a Maryland Hillel Alternative Break trip with my partner Jessie Cohen. Along with 10 other students and a staff member, we traveled to Las Vegas to learn about the education system in the city, home to one of the poorest-performing school districts in the entire country.

It was a truly incredible experience to plan, organize and orchestrate a trip and see it all come to life. The week was packed with meetings with a range of speakers from the district superintendent, to school principals, local reporters, community organizers and more. We had a smooth group dynamic where people were not afraid to speak up, ask questions and participate in each activity we had. We had no major issues during the trip, and everyone left feeling refreshed and knowledgeable from their week in Las Vegas. We could have gone through the motions, done what was expected of us and come out feeling like we had made a difference. Our group, on the other hand, wanted to do something different.

When I first found out I was leading a social justice/community service trip to Las Vegas, I was a little hesitant and skeptical. I was hoping to lead a trip to an urban environment and learn about racial issues, or to a Native American reservation and gain a deep understanding of the institutional racism and destructive policies that have shaped this country.

What were we going to do in Sin City? What would we learn in a mirage of a city in the middle of the dessert where people leave their secrets because, hey, what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.

The more research I did, the more phone calls I made and emails I sent, the more I learned about the disaster of education within the city. Just last year, Nevada was ranked the lowest performing state in the country due to its failing education system. The more I read, the more I imagined the potential impact of our trip.

Throughout the week, we volunteered at a low-performing public charter K-8 school, helping out in the classrooms and forming relationships with the students and teachers. My biggest worry going into this trip was feeling like we were the “white saviors.” As a group of 13 white Jewish students going into a predominantly African-American and Latino school, the motivation and purpose of our trip could be easily distorted. I was pleasantly surprised to see how warmly we were welcomed by everyone at the school, from the administration all the way down to the kindergarten kids.

On Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, we showed up in the morning and were placed in various classrooms to help out with whatever the teachers needed. Some participants in the group really enjoyed the experience, whereas some felt that they were distractions in the classrooms and were taking away from the students’ learning.

Front Row (L-R): Ben Bryer, Jessie Cohen, Talia Orencel. Middle Row (L-R): Sam Lippman, Shana Katz, Alyssa Marshak. Back Row (L-R): Aliza Silverman, Avi Kozlowski, Emily Kader, Mayan Beroukhim, Craig Wasserman, Sari Dorn, Jess Koenigsberg

As a group, we felt that we needed to do something more on Friday morning – our last day at the school– instead of “simply” helping out in the classrooms. We had discussed at length throughout the week about the pros and cons of a community service trip, and how we could maximize our impact in the short amount of time that we had. We created an activity where we split into pairs and stationed ourselves at tables in the cafeteria. Groups of middle school students cycled into the cafeteria and rotated around the stations we had set up to learn about our experiences as college students. Each table had a different topic such as academics, sports and student groups.

This activity gave us an opportunity to have personal conversations with the students and hear about their experiences, dreams and aspirations. It was also a way for us to answer any questions the students had about college life, since many of them do not have people close to their age who they can ask about higher education. It was an extremely successful activity, and each pair raved about the conversations they had with the students.

I truly believe that the conversations we had on Friday were the most effective way to make a real impact on the students in the time we had. In a few weeks or months’ time, most of the students will forget our names and faces, but if we were able to answer one question about college or get one student excited to continue his/her education, then we were successful in making a difference.