Manipulation of an Image, Sending of a Message, Changing of a Life

Original (above)

Figure 1 (above)

Figure 2 (above)

Figure 3 (above)

Figure 4 (above)

Figure 5 (above)

I chose Option 2 for Blog Assignment #3.

Referring to the original image, I thought it was so powerful that I knew it would be my chosen piece immediately when I saw it. It holds so much power because it is not just an image, as we often see, of a homeless individual on the side of a brick building holding a sign asking for "change" (whether it is literal or metaphorical.) This image is about the man holding this picture and it is about the person walking by, the person viewing this photo, the person who is reaching out.

Figure 1
The first image brings attention to the sign the man is holding. We would assume from this image that he wrote on this piece of cardboard. His message is so strong, because he is not just asking for someone to help him with some food or money, but he is drawing the reader in. He is asking for an end to "this." He wants to stop doing "this." He wants a permanent shift in his life and situation. He is asking for a change on the bigger scale. What is "this"? I believe "this" is homelessness. He is asking for help to end the vicious cycle that is his current life. He is asking for a change in his own life and, I believe, in the lives of others like himself. In Figure 1, the sign is made difficult to read to not only draw attention to his words and their meaning, but also to show a blurring and erasure of his words, which symbolizes an elimination of all evil and unhappiness in his life and in the lives of others like him. This image represents the gradual elimination of homelessness.

Figure 2
This image symbolizes the man's life being consumed by his current situation. The words transparently written all over his clothing and body (I think) bring out the fact that his head is down and his face is covered. The words make the man's hopelessness and sadness (which are not concrete things) really stand out. I have worked with the homeless population before, and they are consumed by poverty. Poverty can be defined as a lack of basic resources. You must really think deeply about this to understand. Don't just superficially read my sentence "consumed by poverty." Think of your own life. Think of waking up in a bed, brushing your teeth, pouring a bowl of cereal, sending a text to a friend, watching your favorite television show, taking a shower, decorating your room, going to dinner. People in the same situation as the man in this photo do not even have these things. Think of how your life would be without them. Really, right now, think about it. And there are people who have even less than that. They are consumed by their situations, emotionally, physically, financially, and in every way. I think the overlaying words on the man, as I mentioned before, really bring out a sense of hopelessness and sadness and allow the viewer to sympathize, if not empathize. I think because the image invokes this feeling in the viewer, it symbolizes how poverty consumes its victims, especially emotionally.

Figure 3
This image sends a direct message to the viewer. The sign now reads "stop this." This is a more active and direct type of speech. It could even be received as a command. I chose to manipulate the image in this way to not only grab the viewer's attention with a more straightforward sense of speech, but also as a way to embody the fact that direct action must be taken. Donating money is charitable and a wonderful act. Serving food in a kitchen is also an amazing act of kindness. But what needs to be done is to teach the man to fish, not to simply bring him a fish. "Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life," right? The sign now reads "stop this." Change needs to happen and it needs to happen now. Yes, we must plan if we want to do as much as possible in the best way for everyone and make a permanent change. But we need to begin now. We can plan while we act. Perfection is not an attainable state of being and it never will be. So even though planning may be preliminary as we begin to act, waiting is not an option in the fight against homelessness and poverty. Another day without action is another day even deeper into depression, lack of shelter, and much more for the victims of poverty.

Figure 4
In this image, there is no background and no sign. The words "Help Me" that were written on the piece of cardboard were relocated to where the man's face is hidden in this picture. His jeans are colored bright blue, his sweatshirt is bright green, and his gloves are a glowing orange. I wanted his clothes to look brighter, less tattered, and more common. I want to bring to light the fact that those suffering from poverty and homelessness are not some "other" community of people. By volunteering and getting involved in community service, we do risk reinforcing stereotypes and conventionalized social statuses. Someone plays the role of "the giver" and someone plays the role of "the receiver." We need to work to improve the lives of the "receivers" while breaking down boundary lines between 'social classes' and building bridges across these broken boundaries to connect us all as one. This image, again, puts more color into the man's apparel and makes the photo seem less dark. That is not to say that it makes his situation any less grim, but it is emphasizing the fact that most people like this man are good people in a bad situation. They are like you and me and they want to be seen and treated this way. Poverty is not who they are, it is only what they are experiencing. We need to fix this.

Figure 5
This effect on the image was supposed to be more of a comic-book type style. It is supposed to make it seem as if the image is fabricated, not taken from real life. This represents the view many people who are not in poverty have on poverty. It is often seen as "other worldly" or as some sort of legend at times. I honestly do not like the image of Figure 5 because, to me, it does make this man seem distant and unreal. Unfortunately, many people who have never experienced poverty or dealt with it in any way see victims of poverty as distant and unreal. This last image is a powerful one, but, to me, a dangerous one. It is powerful because it exposes the flaw in the system-- the stereotypes, the views of those in poverty as "the others", the distance that is created by the "givers"-- and it is dangerous because it poses the risk of reinforcing that distance by portraying this man in a graphics-design fabricated way.

Balance & Bridges: ‘Perfect Philanthropy’ in Academe (Positioning Essay)

“Sometimes, givers benefit as much as much as receivers,” writes Lillian Bridwell-Bowles in Service-Learning: Help for Higher Education in the New Millenium? “In a perfect world,” as goes the common phrase, the givers and receivers would both equally benefit from a charitable experience, perhaps the receiver benefitting even more in order to counterbalance our social stratums. It is crucial to notice that Bowles begins her statement with “sometimes.” Bowles subtly nudges us in the ribs to point out that America’s outwardly projected vision of being the perfect philanthropist is either nonexistent, flawed, or both within our own land and among our own people. That is not to say we have not made progress. However, we still have not reached the homestretch in our quest for equality in America. Such an affair begins, as it often does, in the classroom. For the people of our country to make any remarkable change, they must be thoroughly educated on the issues and histories we are combatting; they must be taught how to handle these issues in a professional manner while at the same time becoming an independent member of our society, integrating their own ideas and solutions. This must start in academe as there is much history on certain issues such as poverty, homelessness, and disability that is indispensable as a resource for counterpoising these issues that cannot be found anywhere else other than in texts and published works. One may think that from this starting point, moving forward is only natural and will just “happen.” Knowledge is power, and with all of this knowledge about the underlying problems we want to solve, young, energetic, innovative, empowered students will have all the information they need to come to the rescue. Right? Well, we are not quite there yet. What must be considered when integrating service learning into higher education? Technology is now a staple in our everyday lives with assignments being given and completed on the Internet, etc. This allows for more time for intimate student-teacher discussion. However, writing in such a one-on-one manner may hold a student back in that he or she may write according to only his or her view of the world. To meet the need for more service-learning education, bigger classes may be seen as the solution financially. But large classes and their typical end-of-term papers may end up focusing on a blurry “big picture” rather than on individual experiences. Making service learning a requirement in academia may also reinforce social statuses or stratums among the givers and receivers, which in the end may push the two worlds apart even further, rather than indoctrinate a balancing act. How can we integrate efficacious service learning into our increasingly demanding contemporary academe while adequately preparing students for “real world” experience and similar future initiatives without reinforcing conventionalized standards and classifications?

The first problem that comes to most minds in the academic environment is finance. With the already increasingly expensive baccalaureate degree having less and less impact in the employing world, how can and will we be able to afford integrated service learning courses? For as much as students and parents pay now, they ask, as Bowles writes, “What kind of marketable ‘value-added’ skills and abilities can be guaranteed by increasingly expensive baccalaureate degrees?” Many would agree that the best resolution would be to have larger service learning classes so that more students have access to these types of experiences upon which they can build their “marketable ‘value-added’ skills and abilities.” Another author, Betty Smith Franklin, writes in Reading and Writing the World: Charity, Civic Engagement, and Social Action in Service Learning, sees a few flaws in the larger class two-for-one scenario. In a large class, simply “tacking service learning onto a curriculum” and basing it on the “unexamined claims of merit” may not have much of an effect other than to provide a façade for the inadequacies in our “curricular vision.” Another issue Franklin highlights is the all too common end-of-term papers and projects assigned in large classes. Not only are these assignments not long enough or in-depth enough to for students to truly reflect and write something pivotal or influential for their peers or community, this type of work “forecloses opportunities for students to revisit their work from a standpoint informed by multiple peer perspectives,” writes Franklin. Such a class would probably serve merely as a resumé builder and reinforce what students already know about poverty or disabilities, e.g. these problems exist. Also, as a single semester project, it would only be a short-term solution to the problems we are trying to fix through service learning: simply bringing a man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish.

In too many classrooms in large universities, students in classes of hundreds often criticize the lack of student-faculty connection. This fact and the aforementioned disadvantages of large classes might lead to the belief that smaller classes and student-faculty ratios may be the solution. Bowles quotes Mel Elfin, who reaffirms that, “such one-on-one relationships are becoming increasingly important as colleges place more emphasis on so-called experiential-learning programs that take place outside the classroom.” Bowles writes, in response to a two-for-one larger scale approach, that students learn writing skills more rapidly when they are highly motivated in an environment where personal communication matters to them personally. Indeed, the large-scale approach would either not allow for this or make it a very difficult scenario to adopt in the classroom. Bowles also focuses strongly on the imposing role of technology in academe and ties it in with service learning, saying that technology has made the need for a smaller student-faculty ratio even “more dramatic,” as technology makes the connections to the world more withdrawn and unsentimental, which is not a circumstance we want to adapt to if we want to experience truth and counteract adverse truths in our community. So perhaps a smaller class and smaller student-faculty ratios are the answer to integrating efficacious service learning into the modern academe? Then there is the issue of writing assignments and texts within the smaller, more intimate classroom setting. Franklin reveals that assigning papers that become the “private text of the teacher and student” may turn the work back around to the starting point from which we would be trying to grow away from: where the “reading of the world” and the student’s writing is “primarily attuned to one’s own status within it.” Smaller classes may hold the answer, but they may be holding students back with unshared personal writings that reflect only their own thoughts and views, rather than receiving critique from peers or integrating a clear, complex view of the ‘bigger picture’ and the student’s place within it.

Smaller classes and ratios provide benefits when “direct involvement in something increases motivation,” therefore leading to “better learning when the contexts for new ideas are ‘authentic,’” proposes Bowles. She quotes a student from the University of Michigan who writes, “Simply invite someone to see the world as it really is through community service combined with critical reflection and people change themselves.” This is a powerful assertion and it exudes philanthropic perfection in very few words. It however, as Franklin indicates in her writings, it is too superficial a statement. Franklin recounts the story of one girl who, after becoming earnestly involved in her own service-oriented experience with the elderly, felt a deep sense of disconnect from her own age group and peers as she related more to the elderly’s sentiments. The girl did not feel comfortable divulging her feelings of disengagement with her friends and feared that this was “only the beginning of a large, painful transformation.” This circumstance is just one of the many that lie much deeper than the ‘make a change and everyone benefits’ mentality. Franklin discusses how the efforts to balance out the extremities of the social stratums may actually create a negative feedback loop where these collective roles are further engrained. She explains that historically, acts of charity were a concept of moral improvement in which those of higher status demonstrate good character to those “beneath” them. This “improvement by contact” ideal is reproduced today in community service programs across income or race. When one person, the giver in this case, takes time or money to help another, especially in the academic setting for course credit, he or she is probably unaware of the eminence he or she building in the relationship with the receiver. The giver enhances his or her privilege and status as an individual or representative group member. Franklin proclaims that if these social practices and power relations are not challenged, then the “fault” for suffering lies only on the sufferer. The giver, in this case, sympathizes for the sufferer, but does not empathize, and learns to “adjust” to this actuality, which in turn, leads us back to apathy, lack of action, absence of change, and therefore social statuses are begrudgingly restored.

Philanthropic perfection in academe and in communities across our country may seem out of reach or seem to be a fantasy. With all of the complicating issues having been brought into light, immediate actions needs to and should be taken. Often the question is: how can we adjust to the changing times? Even as this paper is written, our world and social norms are changing dramatically day-to-day. Instead of constantly trying to solicit answers and write documents, we need to get these documents out into the world and into academe so that something can be done. Perfection is not an attainable goal, but it is a good philosophy. However, all that can be done is to have a starting point and move forward from that point and address issues as they come along. There is no single answer, there is just breaking boundaries between conventionalized classifications and building bridges over these demolished boundaries. As for the many complications that may arise, especially the previously discussed predicaments, we will have to cross those bridges when we get to them.

References

Bridwell-Bowles, Lillian. “Service-Learning: Help for Higher Education in a New Millenium?” Writing in the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Eds. Linda Adler-Kassner, Robert Crooks, and Ann Waters. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1997. 19-27.

Franklin, Betty. “Reading and Writing the World: Charity, Civic Engagement, and Social Action.” Reflections 1.2 (Fall 2000): 24-29.