What is a family, anyway?

When I began working at el Centro de Estudiantes in the summer of 2009, I have to admit having been slightly turned off by the very free usage of the word "family."  Its frequency in my discussions with students and faculty of existing Big Picture schools across the region (and indeed across the BP literature I read) smacked of "messaging."  I doubted the term's sincerity, or at least its resemblance to the way I use the word.

Family is the very bedrock of my life.  How could it be that a school could share or even supplant this position?  I have extraordinarily fond memories of school, myself-- it was the center of my social, academic, and, for a time, my emotional life and growth-- but as I grow older, those memories recede.  What has come to the forefront once more is family.  I would rather spend a day with my parents and my sister than most other people I've ever known.  (Now, Natalie Portman, that's a different story...)  While I was a rare student who hated to miss school, I can hardly say now that I'd rather spend a day in high school than do much of anything else.  I cannot honestly say I'd want to spend even an hour back in high school.  So, while it provided me with fertile ground from which to grow in many ways, school does not compare to the impact family has had (and continues to have) on me.

I ask again, then, how could a school be family?  My experience at el Centro, and, of course, a growing understanding of, well, everything, has answered this question.  (And it has allowed me to stop from cringing when people use family to describe something other than real, actual family.)  Forgive me for thinking of a country song while ensconced in an urban paradise like Philadelphia, and forgive me further for actually having the audacity to quote one, but it seems apt to recall that "blood is thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood."

It is not simply the blood bond that I share with my family that holds us together.  That might have helped to get us through the tough times, but what makes us strong is the love we share (even if we tend to shy away from that word itself).  This is clear to me, now, and it has become more so with the help of my relationships at el Centro, which is a place full of a familial type of love.  It is deeply conflicted love-- but think of your family.  Is it not so, too?  El Centro is a place where the love does not flow out of all hearts, minds, and mouths on every single day-- but think of your family.  Has that ever been your experience?  It is a place where we have had to strive for love, and on some days we have had to fight, to claw and to scratch and to gnash our teeth for something even resembling love.  And even then, sometimes we have failed.

But we march on, every day, even when we face termination through no fault of our own.  We march on today for a host of complex reasons, but for a single simple (and sincere) one: el Centro is a family.  A conflicted, challenging, loving, changing, growing family.

Matt Prochnow
Advisor, el Centro de Estudiantes