TIGblogs - Adam Fletcher's TIGBlog

Links for 2009-10-29 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:10:00 EDT

Adam Fletcher on Youth Voice Movement

Response to this post by Adam Fletcher http://commonaction.blogspot.com/2009/06/responses-to-youth-voice-movement.html
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3fz5UCm8eo

Reflections on a Long Day's Work

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:06:00 EDT

On an average school day I sit through 4 or 5 meetings or trainings or some other event, everyday. I learn concepts and listen to grievances or struggle with challenges or pose critical questions, and sometimes- often- I simply listen when folks don't have other places to turn. My job is mostly about hand-holding, trying to encourage territorial creatures to lower their boundaries and systematic thinkers to be organic. Legislative policy and school building policy and everyday procedures that would seem to be human in their nature and human in their implementation seem to take on the weight of 1,000 elephants, each one trying to nudge the other from the room. I work to ensure they feel their place at a common conversation, one centered on the health and well-being of students themselves, rather than the social, political, cultural and economic agendas adults have for students.

I understand that a single jangle does not make a sound, so I work to help others understand this, as well. It is a struggle everyday to ensure that everyone feels their place at the table, finds common ground with their opposition, and builds commonality and trust around a common agenda. I try to convene, interpret, translate, and explore people's personal sentiment about their professional endeavors in order to help them find their individual benefit in collective action. Work styles and mandated goals be damned, as they often pose themselves as insurmountable obstacles along the way. Each has to arrive at their own paces.

The other week my dad told me there is a difference between the hungry man running after a rabbit in a field and the one sitting quietly in the bush waiting to pounce. My occupation today is teaching me to sit quietly.

This is my reflection on a long day's work.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Learning About Learning

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:06:00 EDT

You spend 10, 13, 17 years in school or more and you'd think everyone would learn exactly what they need to know in order to learn anything they needed to for the rest of their lives. Instead we're left feeling like John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" or the Dead Prez's "They Schools": resentment or cynicism about compulsory schooling fogs the minds of some, while numbed out superficiality claims many of the rest. Left somewhere else along the way are the few who learned to learn, for better or worse. Unfortunately they're the exception to the rule.

Learning about learning isn't about the mechanical functioning of cognizance - but that's part of it. It isn't about multiple intelligences or social relationships or even student engagement - but they're all part of it. Learning about learning is a multifacited experience including self-evaluation, planning, learning through doing, reflection, and critical self-examination.

Integrating this process into our programming for young people and our schools can only call out the higher purpose of education. Our future demands nothing less.

-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Why "Youth Empowerment" Fails Us (for Maggie)

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:06:00 EDT

A while back I wrote a post called Youth Involvement as a Kludge where I described how youth involvement programs can actually become bigger problems than they are solutions. My friend Maggie responded with the following question:

I don't know how to become an equal [with youth] without losing my authority; how to give youth their power, without giving too much- is it even possible?

Well, its been a month of Sundays, but I'm able to respond this morning. Let me start by saying that I think you've asked a valid question that's in the hearts and minds of many youth workers, Maggie, especially when we hear the drumbeat of Youth Voice and the call for youth involvement so frequently.

When I was young the youth workers in my neighborhood often talked to me about youth empowerment, and as I got older I explored the assumptions behind youth empowerment. I came to conclude that there is an ambiguity built into calls for youth empowerment that is inherently disenfranchising, both to the youth and the adults who are involved. "Youth empowerment" fails youth because there is no standard for it. I wrote a definition of it for Freechild's Guide to Social Change Led By and With Youth, stating that, "Youth empowerment is an attitudinal, structural, and cultural process whereby young people gain the ability, authority, and agency to make decisions and implement change in their own lives and the lives of other people, including youth and adults." But there is no consensus about the definition, as several different organizations, researchers and young people have put out their own definitions. Basically, the term means too many different things to too many different people. Many people will challenge that the intention is the same, and that's what I tried to capture with my own definition.

All the same, with that uncertainty comes a lot of room for interpretation. On one end of the spectrum are folks who attribute any amount of power-sharing with young people as youth empowerment. This can look like youth chosing the colors of their bedrooms, students planning homecoming dances and teens "getting" a new basketball court in their neighborhood. All these things have been labelled as youth empowerment. On the other end of the spectrum is the absolutism represented by the youth liberation movement: young people completely able to control their own destinies, with economic, spiritual, educational, politicial, recreational and social "freedom" to do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want. I learned early that these dicotomous understandings aren't necessarily in opposition of each other; instead, they're locations along a spectrum. All that said Maggie, I think your question ultimately asks how you can find the balance, the midway point along that spectrum. The good news is that I don't think you have to chose - the challenging news is that I don't think the question you asked is an honest choice that anyone should have to make. Now I'll answer your questions within a question directly.

Let me say this unequivocally: Adults and youth cannot and should not be equals. There are practical reasons why nature has provided us with differences in our phsyco- and social metrics, with the child/parent/elder relationship intact in my thinking. This is a challenging thing for me to write, and if asked I'll provide some gray spaces and exceptions to the rule. However, for the most part I believe that all children and youth should be granted the permission, ability, resources and opportunities they need to be children and youth. Likewise, I believe that all adults should receive what they need to be adults, as well. In my reading of the literature, those definitions have been changing throughout modern times, from the European colonization of the Americas onwards, and those changes should be acknowledged and embraced for their inevitability and validity. I am a proponent of changing those roles myself. However, as our society stands today youth and adults should not be equals. I do believe there should be equity between youth and adults.

The authority adults have in society is assumed and granted by social custom and political institution. It is a false, yet logical, authority that grants power, access and reign simply because of age, rather than ability, knowledge, strength or widsom. The question of whether adults should ever lose their authority isn't necessarily the right one, because of the political/judicial systems that reinforce our social norms, customs and expectations. Courts hold adults responsible for the interest and well-being of youth, and no adult should be expected to sacrifice their legal compliance to meet the demands of a moral or ethical high ground. If an adult wants to do that it raises the question of appropriate adult allyship and the role of youth/adult partnerships; however, these are questions of gradation rather than absolutism. You don't have to lose your authority Maggie; instead, you have to recognize where the possibilities for power-sharing are possible. My Cycle of Youth Voice is designed for adults who want to do that.

In a new song U2 sings that, "Every generation gets a chance to change the world. Pity the nation that won't listen to your boys and girls - cos the sweetest melody is the one we haven't heard." Maggie, I think you are on your way to listening to this melody. But I want to make sure you're not overwhelmed by the chorus singing in the background. Do what you can for you, and what you can for Jenna, and everything will turn out exactly the way its supposed to. Good luck, and remember I'm here if you want more.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Youth Voice Has No Limits

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:06:00 EDT

The tech-saavy girl at school builds a website about how students can run schools.That punk kid pulls out a marker and tags a locker on his way down the hall.
Two fifth grades classes at the local elementary band together to replant the native vegetation down by the lake.
A 16-year-old testifies in front of the state legislature against raising the driving age.
Three teens protest the site of the new gravel plant in their rural community; within an hour 15 youth and adults join them.
Brandy and Levon call the police when they witness a shooting.
Miguel and Alejandro start a new hip hop band to speak out against youth unemployment.

Youth Voice has no limits - it simply exists. I have heard many advocates make the argument that we need more Youth Voice or that youth need to be at the table. On the other side adults complain that youth just don't care and that youth already have all the opportunities they need to be heard. Neither is exactly right, no matter what the situation.

In reality I believe that the efforts of individuals, organizations and communities designed that want to actively engage the "distinct ideas, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, and actions of young people" need to look no further than the ends of their noses. For me this gets to the very crux of the Youth Voice question: How can we meet young people where they are rather than insist they come to where we want them to be?

For as long as there has been a conversation about engaging Youth Voice, civic engagement organizations and community development programs and political parties and national service projects and government agencies have sought nothing more than to bring youth to where they want them to be. Voting booths would be full; trees would be planted and trash retrieved; town halls would be filled with youth, and; committees would have young representatives speaking on them. These familiar actions are complimented by the familiar issues addressed by youth. They'd talk about subjects we're familiar with in ways we're familiar with them, only with that particular enthusiasm adults easily attribute to young people.

I first started working with schools almost 10 years ago I spent a few years talking with teachers about engaging youth voice in the classroom. Almost immediately I ran into a core of teachers who always reported that they already did that. Not knowing any better, I easily dismissed them out-of-hand because I thought they didn't understand what I was trying to explain. Today I think I know what they meant - and it only took me 10 years!

I want to see this notion of Youth Voice better understood, and the only way I can think to demonstrate that is through my writing and training. What can you do?

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Wikipedia is Our Friend

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:06:00 EDT

More than five years ago I registered on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anybody can edit. Since then I have created more than 500 articles there, with more than 100 being featured on the front page of the website. I frequently refer to Wikipedia, not as an expert source of information, but as a source for potentially complex perspectives regarding some of the issues that are primary to the work of engaging young people throughout society.

I became fascinated with the potential of Wikipedia when the page I created on adultism became more popular than the page I created on adultism at the Freechild Project website. After that I started gunning at Wikipedia, writing dozens of articles, eventually leading me to create more than 100 articles on Wikipedia about youth-related topics, and collaborating with many other editors to edit 100s of others. I wrote about young people and adults I admired, organizations I was familiar with, and events that made a difference in the social history of young people in the U.S. and abroad. I spent hours and days laboring away, finding the research and other citations to support some of the basic assumptions I had about the key topics I was interested in, and learned a lot of new information about things I thought I already knew a lot about.

In these hours and days of research I found a new interest within me, one focused on the translatory capacity of Wikipedia: absent any other mainstream avenue for people to learn about the particularly advanced concepts in this area, including adultism, adultcentrism, ephebiphobia, children's rights, fear of children, evolving capacities and youth-adult partnerships, I decided to use Wikipedia as the way as the an access point. This led to a particularly pointed increase in Internet-wide traffic about these topics, as hits on the Freechild Project and SoundOut websites increased, and as the frequency and higher numbers of recent postings to blogs and other websites showed me.

This causes me, yet again, to encourage everyone to edit Wikipedia. We have to expand the knowledge base about this movement, field and culture we engender throughout our work, research, writing and activism. Wikipedia is our friend - let's do it right.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Responses to "Youth Voice Movement"

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:06:00 EDT

Several years ago I was asked to write an article for the National Youth Leadership Council's magazine. I posed the question of whether the Youth Voice movement was reality or just a fiction. A few months ago Tim Ladd, a consultant and media guru, posted a video to YouTube as a reply to my call for responses via Twitter.

I'd love to hear your response, either to Tim or the original article. Thanks!

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Examples of Meaningful Student Involvement

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:06:00 EDT

I like to think that my radar is wide. A few years ago my colleagues at Youth On Board in Boston asked me to research the following information, and this morning I decided to share it here. There are descriptions of specific ways that schools can involve students in policy, curriculum, governance, and other aspects of school life.

There are several levels of decision-making that happen in schools, including those affecting individual classrooms, whole schools, citywide and regional districts, state education agencies, and the nationwide education system. Nationally there are a growing number of local schools where student involvement in decision-making is becoming the norm. Many districts have had policies that support student involvement for decades, although few are deliberately enforced. Almost half of all states have some form of student involvement in that level of decision-making, while there are few opportunities for students to be directly involved in national decision-making. I have identified two main approaches to student involvement:

Involve students directly in an existing adult activity, such as a special task force, school site council, or instructional leadership team.
Set up an activity just for students, such as a student advisory board or a peer mediation group.

In some cases, you can incorporate both approaches: for example, have students on an adult task force, but also have a student action forum where students identify important issues the school should address. Remember that there is no “right” approach; you should consider what will work best for your school or education agency. Let me know what you think!

By working with education decision-makers, student advisory boards provide a direct way for adults to access the opinions, ideas, knowledge, and experiences of young people. In Boston, Massachusetts, the Boston Student Advisory Council, or BSAC, is a citywide body of student leaders representing their respective high schools. It serves as the voice of students to the Boston School Committee, the equivalent of a district school board. Student participants offer their perspectives on high school renewal efforts and inform their schools about relevant citywide school issues.

The responsibilities of local school site councils vary across the nation; however, many are responsible for creating and reviewing school improvement plans, making funding decisions, and hiring principals and administrators. Many have regular voting positions for students; some have representative non-voting positions only. In Gonzales, California, students on Gonzales High School’s Site Council have full voting rights, often making decisions on curricula, services for special needs students, teacher training, and more. There are 2 students on an 8-person board.

Most schools nationwide have some form of student government. It’s important to give students a voice in school issues and a chance to learn leadership and organizational skills. However, it is also important to give student governments real responsibility, and to remember that students can address education issues beyond those that students specifically. In Oakland, California, Oakland Unified School District has a unique program called the All-City Council Governing Board (ACCGB). It is comprised of eight student-elected student representatives and represents six different high schools. The students coordinates district-wide events, and represents OUSD students at various community and district events. Currently, student representatives on the ACCGB meet regularly with the state administrator to propose school improvements, and position themselves on district-wide decision-making committees.

The education reform movement has encouraged many schools to develop sustainable, effective methods for engaging a variety of partners in formal school improvement teams. These teams are increasingly recognizing the value of including students as partners. In Portland, Oregon, the Northwest Regional Education Lab, or NWREL, has piloted a powerful programs in schools in California and Oregon that promotes student voice in school improvement teams. Students contribute powerful, effective feedback to adults through structured student-led conversations, and students and adults work together to analyze the feedback and incorporate it into school improvement plans.

Student advisory boards have no governing authority but serve an official advisory capacity within a school or education agency, offering regular feedback and advice on student issues. In Arlington, Virginia, the Arlington Public School District School Board actively seeks input from students through the Student Advisory Board. The Student Advisory Board consists of high school students who provide a student voice on matters of importance to the School Board. They study important issues and make relevant recommendations to the School Board.

Task forces are short-term entities created to complete a special project (such as renovating school facilities) or to address an urgent problem (such as violence at school). Often task forces are organized when a school is given funding to be used for a specific purpose. These can be student groups or mixed groups of students and adults. In Bothell, Washington, students at the Secondary Academy for Success, a suburban alternative high school, facilitated a forum for 100 of their peers and students at other schools who wanted to contribute to the physical and philosophical restructuring of their school. Students led an all-day forum, with assistance from adults, and discussed the most relevant issues on their minds. They submitted a concise report to guide future efforts, and have been installed as permanent members on the school improvement team.

Students can take part in advising school policy committees regarding curricula, academic codes, hiring, budgeting, or other pertinent issues. Like student advisory boards, policy committees have an official, institutionalized role even though they do not necessarily create or implement policy. In Seattle, Washington, NOVA Project is a small alternative high school in the Seattle Public School District, created in 1970 by students and teachers. Committees addressing every policy-related issue govern the school through consensus based decision-making. Membership is voluntary and includes both staff and students, each of whom have an equal vote. Teachers serve on one or more committees, and model leadership skills. Student participation in committees gives young people a stake in their education, and encourages responsibility in their personal lives as well.

If you’re a headmaster or principal, you can form anPrincipal's Advisory Board by asking 6 to 10 students whom you respect to help you process the issues you encounter in your position. Ask them to give you good advice about how things are going in the school and how you can do your job better. Lead teachers or other school leaders can also form personal advisory boards. In Bethel, Connecticut, the Principal’s Advisory Group at Bethel High School launched in February 2000. It started out with 12 participating students, and in just three years, this decision-making group has grown to include more than 186 students and 13 sub-committees. This is a non-elected student body that will look at all aspects of life at Bethel High School. They will make suggestions and recommendations to the principal and Student Congress. Students address a variety of issues, including teacher hiring, the yearly master schedule, and planning key events at the school.

Students can be great staff members. Think about how your school can hire them. Students can be given the responsibility of planning an event or program, or acting as peer leaders in school activities. In Olympia, Washington, a national education program called Generation YES has engaged more than 100,000 students as teachers. Students in the GenYES program receive credit for teaching teachers how to use technology in their classrooms. Students also teach their peers and younger students to use technology in safe, effective ways.

Have students help you hire new teachers and staff members by making them members of the faculty hiring committee. In the final phases of the interviewing process, it’s very important to find out if a prospective teacher can relate well to students—and who better than students themselves to rate a candidate’s abilities in this area. Students don’t have the final say on hiring decisions (unless you want them to), but they can offer invaluable input. In Federal Hocking, Ohio, the local high school regularly includes students as members of teaching hiring committees as part of their commitment to building a democratic learning community. While the official mission is to help young people prepare for flexible career choices, active democratic citizenship, and lifelong learning, students understand what they are trying to accomplish in school, and they are making real choices about how to get it done.

Students can be powerful advocates for student involvement, as well as for other changes that students want in policy or governance. It makes a big difference for a student to say what students think; adults tend to listen to student advocates in a different way than we listen to each other. Student advocates can attend School Committee meetings and make presentations or proposals about their ideas. In the Bronx, New York, high school students with Sistas and Brothas United, a youth-led community organizing group, created an agenda for school change, and advocated for change at local school board meetings through presentations and rallies. Their work paid off: a small school has been established that is dedicated to the students’ social justice agenda.

Student trainers can be effective trainers for other students and/or adults. For instance, students can lead trainings around a special curriculum, such as interpersonal violence or environmental issues. On Vashon Island, Washington, students from StudentLink, the local alternative high school facilitated a service learning training event for teachers and youth workers from their community. Over two days student trainers taught about the basics of service learning, implementing a project, and assessing youth voice.

All of these approaches are tried and true, and assure that student involvement isn't just another tokenistic or simplistic process; rather, it is a powerful, effective avenue to assuring learning through school-focused action. Greater goals can occur, too. Let's find out what they are!

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Sustaining Youth Voice

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:06:00 EDT

The keys to sustaining Youth Voice in schools, organizations or communities is complex - but impossible. Research shows the following elements as central to creating change that lasts.

Policy- Create and foster systematic and sustainable engagement of Youth Voice. These policies can be community-wide and program-specific.

Systems - Create or transform positions that embrace and promote Youth Voice. Regular staff positions, board membership or adjunct opportunities DO matter.

Instruction - Teach your adults (and children and youth) well. Provide sequential, developmentally appropriate and constructivist training activities about Youth Voice, barriers to meaningful youth involvement, and taking action.

Climate - Actively work to transform the way your community or organization feels. Key messages and healthy behaviors focused on engaging Youth Voice are important.

Funding - Don't short change Youth Voice. Providing adequate support demonstrates commitment to young people and adults.

Evaluation - Youth Voice is often relegated to the bins of "feel good" and "interesting" by decision-makers. However, research by Zeldin, Camano, Mitra and others clearly shows the significance of engaging young people. Advocates must grow comfortable using this data to demonstrate the substance of Youth Voice.

Ongoing Support - Youth Voice isn't a one-time or coincidental thing. Instead it must be a deliberate and ongoing process that must be expansive and adaptive, responding to the urgencies and needs of everyone involved.

I'm excited to help schools, districts, organizations and government agencies as they embark on this work. I also regularly share my partners, colleagues and allies' info, too. Let me know what YOU need to succeed!

-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

8 Keys to Sustaining Youth Voice

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:06:00 EDT

Sustaining Youth Voice in schools, organizations or communities is complex - but not impossible. Research shows the following 8 keys are central to creating change that lasts in any organization's climate.

Policy- Create and foster systematic and sustainable engagement of Youth Voice. These policies can be community-wide and program-specific.
Systems - Create or transform positions that embrace and promote Youth Voice. Regular staff positions, board membership or adjunct opportunities DO matter.
Instruction - Teach your adults (and children and youth) well. Provide sequential, developmentally appropriate and constructivist training activities about Youth Voice, barriers to meaningful youth involvement, and taking action.
Climate - Actively work to transform the way your community or organization feels. Key messages and healthy behaviors focused on engaging Youth Voice are important.
Programs - Develop and maintain specific programs designed to emphasize and encourage Youth Voice within your organization and the larger community. Encourage that program to act as the vanguard for Youth Voice in your community, and constantly demonstrate their relevance to larger organizational goals.
Funding - Don't short change Youth Voice. Providing adequate support demonstrates commitment to young people and adults.
Evaluation - Youth Voice is often relegated to the bins of "feel good" and "interesting" by decision-makers. However, research by Zeldin, Camano, Mitra and others clearly shows the significance of engaging young people. Advocates must grow comfortable using this data to demonstrate the substance of Youth Voice.
Ongoing Support - Youth Voice isn't a one-time or coincidental thing. Instead it must be a deliberate and ongoing process that must be expansive and adaptive, responding to the urgencies and needs of everyone involved.

I'm excited to help schools, districts, organizations and government agencies as they embark on this work. I also regularly share my partners, colleagues and allies' info, too. Let me know what YOU need to succeed!

-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Minority Youth Voice

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:06:00 EDT

I am well aware that "Youth Voice" is a misnomer. About a million years ago I started complaining to my work allies and friends that the phrase means absolutely nothing, because its so grossly homogenized, bland and common. After more than 5 years sitting in that frame of mind I decided to adopt the phrase, mostly because of it's commonality among programs. Youth-led media programs, meaningful student involvement programs, participatory action research programs and youth activism programs all talk about Youth Voice, and who am I to go against their hard work? The research literature that surrounds this work also concentrates on Youth Voice, and the good efforts of my allies who do that work matters to me, too. I respect all of this work.

That said, I want to talk about minority Youth Voice today. The reason why I begin with an explanation of my opinion about the phrase is that I believe that refering to "the distinct ideas, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, and actions of young people" as a collective body inherently disenfranchises the minority opinion among those young people who are being refered to. And I wrote this definition of the term, so my work inherently disenfranchises young people.

The reason why I say that is that in this sense Youth Voice serves as a form of representative democracy, actively engaging those who care and deliberately neglecting those who do not care. That's a tough pill to swallow for some folks, but it doesn't take much to see how this plays out in the United States. And I believe the consequence of this neglect is a type of imposed apathy. This is true with Youth Voice.

Now, the danger of this line of thought is that it may appear to relegate minorities to being apathetic, and that is simply not true: sometimes it is the smallest sectors of a population that are most engaged in the decision-making that affects them. I may also risk seeming like I'm equating democracy and Youth Voice to a popularity contest or a shouting contest, and that, well, that may be true. I just don't want to sound too cynical, because its important to me that readers understand I believe in democracy - its just that I believe in a much more radical form that what we're currently acquainted with, which perfectly segues into the next point.

"Minority" isn't simply about race, although that is a part of the equation. Instead, the phrase "minority Youth Voice" refers to any instance when difference and dissent go against the grain of popular culture. Young people themselves are a minority in the United States. While African Americans, Hispanic/Latinos and American Indians are a minority, there are minorities within those populations as well. Even within a racially homogeneous school there may be gender, cultural, religious and educational minorities. There are oppressive relationships between majority and minority populations everywhere, and the active engagement of Youth Voice should be a tool in the toolbelt of every responsible adult who is committed to defeating oppression of all forms.

Engaging Youth Voice encourages young people to come to the forefront so that their "distinct ideas, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, and actions" can challenge and be challenged in the open forums of democracy, whether in classrooms, homes, governments, nonprofit agencies, or other cultural transmission sites throughout our society. This may be the most important thing I've written in a long time, because that is why Youth Voice matters. By actively challenging and being challenged in those forums, young people become acknowledge as the civic actors they are - particularly when they represent any form of minority Youth Voice. On a base level this demonstrates to adults that the passion, excitement, commitment and energy of children and youth can serve the collective good; in a more sophisticated way, this action transmits to adults the core relevance of actively engaging minorities throughout the democracy which we all occupy.

I can expand on this further, and perhaps you can too, seeing how adultism and ephebiphobia play central to the defeat of democracy. Maybe later. In the meantime I hope we can all further expand on why and how minority Youth Voice matters in our own life. That's how we can make this real.

can be challenged.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Establishing Trust with Youth

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:06:00 EDT

Trust is a tricky concept for me to spell out, particularly in its relationship to Youth Voice. Across our society we do not generally value trust between young people and adults. Instead, we live in a culture that routinely distrusts children and youth. Our punitive laws are focused on punishment, exclusion and isolation, rather than establishing connectivity or fostering prevention.

For instance, truancy laws across the country routinely see the young person out-of-school as being guilty of the crime of absence; rather than working with that young person to ensure they are in a safe, supportive and engaging learning environment that compels them to want to be there, police routinely force students to attend by taking them to their school when they are caught truant.

This type of distrust smacks of discrimination, and is perpetutated in all corners of our society, from stores with signs prohibiting more than two people under 18 without a parent to arbitrary voting age laws that completely disregard the education society forces young people to participate in. So the question of how to establish trust between young people and adults can smack of hypocrisy to youth, particularly after they have spent 12, 14, or 16 years of their lives feeling controlled, manipulated, mistrusted, and so forth. Neitzsche once said that, “I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”

This week I shared my Meaningful Student Involvement booklets with a long-time friend of mine I was recently reconnected with who is now working in schools. One of her immediate responses was this question of how to establish trust, particularly with disengaged students. My own experience as a youth and working with youth tells me that distrust is one of the primary causes of disengagement for young people in any setting. As committed adult allies to young people, how can we establish the trust connections we need with young people in order to create the types of youth-adult partnerships our society so desperately needs?

My friends at Youth On Board in Boston come to mind. Their pioneering work over the last 15 years has taught me a lot, particularly over the last five years I've been working with them in varying capacities. The way their work with young people and adults moves flows so easily that its tempting to either see it as magic or as simply natural, as it appears with so many of the best practitioners in this area, parents or youth workers or consultants or whoever. However, I'd suggest that a majority of the time it is neither; instead, its a concious and deliberate attempt to rectify some imbalance of relationship, no matter how its perceived.

In the case of Youth On Board, they are deliberate about engaging young people in safe conversations that allow those youth to engage, explore, identify and promote their perspectives. They conciously create proactive spaces with youth and adults to allow the vital exchange of ideas, attitudes, knowledge and actions that can demonstrate to youth that some adults are worthy of their trust; and demonstrates to adults that youth are trustable, and ultimately trusting. And that's what this boils down to for me.

Rather than seeing young people as inherently distrustful of adults, we need to allow them the space they need in order to demonstrate that trust. But first, particularly with historically disengaged young people, we need to create those spaces. They are not wide-spread nor are they particularly easy to create. However, children and youth want to trust adults. They want to believe what adults have to say. They want to understand that there are safe, supportive, nurturing and engaging places and people who are going to be there for them. As responsible adults we have an obligation to create and foster the relationships that reflect those values. Indira Gandhi once said that, "You can't shake hands with a clenched fist." The simple gesture of opening our hands is one place to start; we can't make young people open theirs. Instead we can create a climate and culture within our programs and organizations that actively demonstrates our support, encouragement, and ultimately, our trust in children and youth. That is the first step.

This post doesn't really explore the A to Z of establishing trust with young people. However, as always I believe its important to acknowledge that there are important considerations, assumptions and implications we must keep in mind. This is a start toward that end.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

If They Swallow This...

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:06:00 EDT

"If they swallow this... 'Empowermints' - The tasty treat with a catchy name but no real content! Give them to your workers in place of raises, benefits, and respect."

Let's think about the implications of "youth empowerment", that tired cliche we try to avoid by using phrases like "youth involvement", "youth voice", "youth engagement" and "youth activism". Individually this phrasing may serve its purpose, depending on the level of understanding each practitioner has when they use it. However, as a body politik does the usage of these phrases mean anything more than youth empowerment? Particularly to young people themselves and unknowledgable adults? Or is there a better language out there? We must keep examining these assumptions.

RIP Northland Poster Collective, my favorite source for radically democratic marketing items for the last 10 years. Ricardo has taught me a lot, and their art inspires me. I encourage you to support their final days, and applaud Northland for being what its been. Thank you!

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Reconsidering the Summer of Service

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:06:00 EDT

The White House is announcing the 2009 Summer of Service in conjunction with the Corporation for National and Community Service within a week. The first summer of service happened in the 1960s in honor of the vision of President Kennedy, who sought to build a culture of service among American youth. There was a lull in interest from the original Summer of Service all the way into the 1990s, when the resurgence of interest in national service led to many half-baked attempts to replicate the original event. The most popular was probably President Clinton's original event in 1994, launching AmeriCorps, the National Civilian Community Corps, and re-invigorating the Senior Corps and VISTA. Senator Edward Kennedy worked with the White House to re-envision this historic mechanism, the largest issue being the inherent unsustainability of single-event service promotion. That's why the White House is emphasizing communities across the country using the Summer of Service as a launching plan to engage entire communities in sustainable service throughout the year.

While the emphasis is on community-wide engagement, I'm concerned that the reality is that youth will continue to provide the brunt of the labor force for this endeavor. It is good that youth serve their communities. The concept of service is vital for the health of democracy. The absence of education about how and why that is the case is disconcerting, but the main dilemma I identify in the Summer of Service is that reality about the disproportion between youth serving and adults serving: raising a generation that cares, that feels commitment towards the greater good of society has led to a kind of bottleneck situation in many of our communities. The burden of proof has been placed on the shoulders of the youngest among us to prove the value of service, and for the most part the whole of society has failed to see that.

Truly a community organizer, I believe President Obama should seriously consider and reconsider its strategy for engaging parents, families and the broader community in service. Youth participation is a given in the climate of national service today; let's address the real gap in service among Americans today by focuing on engaging adults in service and building their ethic of service. By doing this the national service community can go further than its history and truly build a culture of service that supports lifelong service and community engagement.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

I'm Enmeshed in Busy-ness

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:06:00 EDT

Hey all. I've spent the last two weeks enmeshed is strategic planning for two state agencies, writing a Summer of Service guide for a national nonprofit organization, action planning for a state coalition I help run, and rewriting an internationally-renowned guide to getting youth on boards. My brain is exhausted and my fingers are numb... which won't stop me from blogging! It just slows me down a bit. In all of this I've continued twittering as best as I can, and you can see my thoughts are meandering across the topics I'm addressing on any given day.

As I've delved into inter-agency relationships at the state level here in Washington, I've extensively considered the roles and applications of meaningful youth involvement within the state government apparati. It seems daunting, and has caused me to fall back on the question, "What would youth do?" Well, in order to answer this I am going to convene the first meeting of a statewide youth cadre here in Washington soon. The dilemma with that, as always, is who is at the table, and what their interests are. Promoting the homogenization of youth voice seems inevitable in these types of activities, and that is an inherent challenge in involving youth in state and federal government decision-making.

The work of operating a statewide coalition is challenging, to say the least. For the last year I've been the co-chair of Washington Action for Healthy Kids, a group of volunteers who are challenging obesity by promoting physical activity and nutrition in schools. Its been a reach for me, as my interest in the topic is tangential at best. I do see the value of it, as my own daughter attends public school and I do have the opportunity through my position at the state Department of Health to learn more about the effects of these issues on the education of young people. The experience of operating this coalition is what I'm after. So far I've learned a great deal so far, but this last few weeks has been a heap of learning for me as I've worked with our national team service rep to create an action plan for the state. Its interesting to think of the sophistication and deliberation of so many of these types of groups in relationship to their actual operation: instead of a finely honed instrument of democracy actively engaging 1000s in the operation of a movement, its one guy and one woman on the phone and Internet carving out a plan that will affect the masses - if its approved. Fascinating.

Finally, Youth On Board has contracted me to rewrite the wonderfully short and accessible guide to involving youth on boards they originally wrote for BoardSource in the late 1990s. Its a real pleasure to work with Karen Young on this, as her guidance and our conversations have helped shape and drive my work in new directions over the years. I do have to admit though that whenever I work on their materials I find myself challenged to stay focused on the topics at hand: my brain spins in so many directions whenever I think about engaging youth in decision-making. There are so many nuances and subtlties that I know Youth On Board understands as an organization, but that I think youth-serving organizations don't understand in general. Those are the issues I want to address, that I regularly blog about, that need curricula and guides and websites dedicated to it. If I could find the funding or the interested organization that is surely the route I'd go.

I will unpack all this more in later posts, as I tend to see each of these activities as a potential rabbit hole; note my treatment of the Summer of Service section, which was so nice it had to be its own post. However, this is meant to catch you up on where I've been and where I'm going - look for more soon.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Radical at it's Core?

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:06:00 EDT

I had a convo yesterday with a colleague who suggested that any youth voice is inherently radical. I replied that as an identity-based perspective, youth voice can be easily manipulated and construed to be reaffirming of mainstream belief, or tokenized and patronized into an obscure and irrelevant ideal. I believe these outcomes are anti-radical, and largely based in the cynical notion that youth voice is just another way to report that we've "been there and done that", another checkbox on a form. I don't believe youth voice is inherently radical. Instead, it's another tool in the toolbox of democracy. Democracy is only radical when it's most severely practiced. That severe practice has been conceptualized by theorists like Zyglut and Giroux as "radical democracy."

In my understanding of this ideal, radical democracy is the fully actualized potential of democracy. Rather than rely on simplistic participation it demands the active engagement of every citizens' critical thinking, cultural wisdom and utopian vision in order to collectively craft the future.

This is where youth voice takes it's most authentic form, and unfortunately it's generally the most threatening. Consequently it's also labeled "radical" and thus made inaccessible to both youth and adults. The reason for this is that radical democracy calls all children and youth to action throughout society as critical agents of our collective goals in cultural, educational, scientific, ethical and social aspects.

Radical democracy can give us a useful lens through which to re-envision the roles of youth in society, which is my ultimate goal. We should all consider it as a way to move our efforts forward.

-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Dream Out Loud

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:06:00 EDT

Somewhere along the way I learned "utopia" was a bad word, along with other fru-fru-isms like "holistic" and "hope". I think that came from the grating and grinding realities of daily youth work, which I partook in for more than 10 years. Today I have the privilage of distance and opportunity, which I use for reflection sometimes.

Recently in my reflections I came across a memory of Paulo Freire writing about the radical neccesity of envisioning utopia. The hard work many of us do everyday can rob us of opportunities to dream about the ideals we seek to realize through our work. If we are truly committed to transforming the roles of young people throughout society, each of us should create the time and space we need to really imagine what it is we are striving for.

Take a moment soon, right now if you can. What are your goals for youth involvement/engagement/voice/empowerment? Where do you want youth to go? What do you want to see adults do? How do you want to see democracy behave?

There are a lot of urgent needs in our collective and individual works. Those needs should not be ignored or dismissed. However, I challenge that we should take a moment to dream of the world we should live in. And then we should dream out loud, take action, and make the world into the place we want it to be. But this work begins with a dream. What's yours?

-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Links for 2009-05-24 [del.icio.us]

Mon, 25 May 2009 03:05:00 EDT

MLK Day of Service Toolkit

Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) Day of Service Toolkit

In this guide you will find suggested tips on what is involved in organizing your event: from how to get started and project ideas, to how to promote your event and much more.

Semester of Service Toolkit

Everything Oregonians Need to Know to Successfully Plan and Implement a Semester of Service from Volunteer Oregon

Kids Care Clubs Summer of Service

HandsON Network has joined the Summer of Service National Affiliate Network, a national campaign sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service to engage more youth in service projects during the summer months.

LSA Newsletter (April 2007)

An early mention of the quot;Summer of Servicequot; concept from LSA. quot;Summer of Service is a nationwide initiative to engage youth, particularly those from disadvantaged circumstances, in high-quality, service-related activity during the summer months. The Summer of Service initiative recognizes the potential of all youth to contribute in meaningful ways to the communities in which they live through volunteer service. Please download the Summer of Service Toolkit that is available on the Corporation website at www.cns.gov; it includes links to examples of “high quality service and service-learning projects” developed by participating organizations, as well as tips, best practices, and a variety of other useful materials. The 2007 toolkit is targeted toward summer camp program coordinators and staff and is intended for use with small groups of youth. For more information on the Summer of Service Initiative contact Theresa Clower at tclower@cns.gov.quot;

National Affiliate Network for Engaging Youth in Service

quot;The LEAGUE has joined the Summer of Service National Affiliate Network, a national campaign sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service to engage more youth in service projects during the summer months. The LEAGUE, along with dozens of other youth-serving organizations that are committed to improving communities, have agreed to promote the campaign throughout our networks from June 15 to August 31.quot;

Innovations In Civic Participation Summer of Service page

quot;Summer of Service is a proposed new quot;rite of passagequot; that would forge bonds among young Americans and provide experiential learning opportunities through the common experience of service during the summer months. The Summer of Service project will create strong service programs that engage middle-school aged youth during the summers. ICP#039;s work on this project has included assistance with drafting the legislation, building support among stakeholders, and extensive research on existing programs.quot;

CNCS Summer of Service webpage

Summer of Service is a national coalition of major youth-serving organizations that are committed to engaging youth in service during the summer months and recognize the potential of youth to identify issues, develop projects, and provide lasting benefits to the communities in which they live through volunteer service.

Summer of Service Act of 2009

OpenCongress - U.S. Congress - S.466 - quot;A bill to amend the National and Community Service Act of 1990 to establish a Summer of Service State grant program, a Summer of Service national direct grant program, and related national activities, and for other purposes.quot;

United Way of Utah County Summer Of Service webpage

Includes a long list of activities through 2009

CNCS 2008 Summer of Service Factsheet

From the Corporation

Maine Youth Voices

quot;speaking out against underage drinkingquot; is their tagline.

Mississippi History Now | When Youth Protest: The Mississippi Civil ...

“When nobody else is moving and the students are moving, they are the leadership for everybody.” Ed King, Mississippi Civil Rights worker 1963.

Re-post: Stop Seeing Youth! Start Seeing People

Mon, 25 May 2009 02:05:00 EDT

Oh yes, is 2002 all over again! Here's a re-post of an article I wrote in 2002 for TakingITGlobal's Panorama zine. I was working for a state education agency at the time, and was feeling particularly repressed after working for a national foundation whose conception of youth involvement, I felt, was particularly adultist. So read on and you'll see me wrestle; you'll also learn something about the development of my logic and perspective over the years.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that we must be the change we wish to see in the world. Then I say, from this day forward, I will work for social justice with all people, especially those whose race, religion, heritage, sexual orientation and other characteristics, including age, have held them back. I will advocate for change in straight-forward and obvious ways, and I will ally myself with others who do the same.

In his 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Power at its best is love implementing the demans of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." Age-based programs, age-oriented social change efforts, and age-motivated media perpetuate alienation, segregation, and injustice against younger people throughout society, and they are the enemy of love. We must correct these things now.

Soon, The Freechild Project website (www.freechild.org) will feature the new slogan "STOP SEEING YOUTH: Start Seeing People." Our resources will be refocused towards inclusion and empowerment for ALL people, and towards the elimination of age-based segregation. In the book Strength of Love Dr. King also wrote, "We are called to be people of conviction, not conformity; of moral nobility, not social respectability. We are commanded to live differently and according to a higher loyalty." Live different, and have a higher loyalty. Stop seeing youth, and start seeing people. What would a world without youth look like? Some people will shudder when they read that line. I don't. I look forward to that day. When there are no more youth, when there is no more age-based segregation, our communities will change. We will begin to see the need for participation by all people, regardless of age.

While much of our world is currently steeped in ageism and alienation, some people have began to envision change. When many groups who advocate for "youth rights" concentrate on the rewards of age-based elimination, I must differ. I think that the first thing that all people need to experience is authentic responsibility and sincere duty- especially people who haven't experienced those things before. What you have responsibility for and what you feel dutiful towards are up to you. But we can't expect the sweetness of reward until we've given the fruits of our labour.

When younger people volunteer in their communities, they work to eradicate the anti-community sentiment that pervades our larger society. Younger people can be mentors, can be teachers, and can even be elders in the community- as long as they treat themselves that way, and allow others to treat them as such.

The transformation of "youth" to people can- and will- take time. That is the nature of long-lasting, sustainable social change. It is a journey we must take, one foot in front of the other. Enjoy our journey.Across the world there are new youth programs starting up every day. There are youth tutoring programs, youth sports programs, youth involvement programs, youth activism programs, and so many more. All these programs, all just for youth.

It seems that for every youth program created, there is a "youth" problem cited: youth pregnancy, youth violence, youth illiteracy, and youth delinquency. All these problems, all just for youth.

What's wrong with this picture? In our 21st century global culture, we're still focusing on division and separation in an attempt to address our problems. However, instead of building community, increasing activism and engagement, and meeting the challenges of our new century, we are actually only making them worse.

By developing "youth-only" programming, we are reinforcing the dominate social opinions about youth: that youth are purposeless; that youth are inherently "bad" and need special treatment; and that youth are strange, alien beings that should continue to be segregated from mainstream society.

This is why I propose that all young people around the world start demanding that society stops seeing youth as different, and starts seeing everyone as people.

By doing this, our community organizations will actually serve communities, not special agendas; governments will actually work for everyone, not just the privileged; and you and I can work with each other, because we are people all the same. There are many facets to this discussion, and the rest of this article will explore them.

This most important reason why society should stop addressing younger people as "youth": we are tearing out communities apart. Reasoning for this statement comes from Alfie Kohn, an education theorist. He said, "Children, after all, are not just adults-in-the-making. They are people whose current needs and rights and experiences must be taken seriously." Without the inherently altruistic, optimistic, and energetic input and action of younger people, our societies cannot and will not change.

I personally have had many experiences when people have assumed that I am a "youth," and have treated me poorly because of it. When they found out that I am an adult, or work fulltime they automatically treated me with more respect. If we continue to seperate younger people from adults in our society, we will continue to treat each other differently. (I'd bet your opinion about me changed when you read I am an adult.)

If the adults and younger people working for change across the globe are serious about changing society, we must level out the playing field for all people. Folk singer Raffi once wrote, "Children are the most reasonable people I know. Their days are spent trying to make sense of the world, searching for meaning, figuring things out. Their perception is magical, and their questions are intelligent quests for understanding."

This leads into my second point: youth programs are not good. I don't say this flippantly, or without cause. I've been working in youth programs and as a trainer for fourteen years, since I was 14, and I've seen hundreds of youth programs around the US and Canada. Today I firmly believe that "youth work" is flawed from the get-go, and that it isn't sufficient for our efforts to bring peace and justice to the world.

The people who usually participate at the "highest levels" in youth programs are usually upper- or middle-class, highly privileged, and not representative of their age-group peers. We must quit pretending that these efforts are enough. Programs that do focus on other youth are usually charity operations, dealing only with "at-risk" young people. These efforts offer a double-edged sword to the youth they "serve": first they isolate youth from the rest of society, and second they segregate people according to race, religion, and economic status. Without the thorough integration of all people throughout all levels of social change, the situation will not change. All people, especially minorities, people of color, low-income people, and others must be included at the table.

Which brings me to the third reason why society must stop seeing youth as different from other people: "youth" doesn't matter. Being young doesn't make you better or worse than anyone else. Being young doesn't make you smarter, faster, or despite what the media says, prettier. Your age is, for the most part, irrelevant to the rest of society. Businesses see young people as just another demographic. Many major religions have rites-of-passage before "youth" kicks in. And most popular schools treat "youth" the same as children all the way through college.

So what's the difference? There are issues that revolve around voting, drinking, sex, and self-determination, but if society stops seeing youth and starts seeing people, I think that as a society we would quickly determine that those 'rights' should be based on ability, not age.

There are issues around child labor, but how many 15-year-olds in North America and Europe work today? A lot, according to the news. While child labor is a serious issue in many third world countries, the world would see the situation a lot differently if it would stop singling those countries out simply because of the age of the workers. What conditions exist that kids must work in the first place? Seeing youth as people would force us to look at the REAL issues at hand.

Which answers the question of child soldiers, as well. Why do "those" countries employ children as soldiers? Because they can't find adults? Or because a major country backed a civil war that terrorized the country and forced peasants in the country to hide in the city, therefore rendering them inaccessible to the military?

Why does the role of "youth" exist around the world today? Many would argue that it is a psychological role; I would elaborate and call it a psycho-social development. Before our nations deemed it nessesary to have a role for "youth," younger people were seen as people. In the 1960s Robert Kennedy said, "The answer is to rely on youth- not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease." That sums up a former societal opinion about youth. Now its come to this, and that's why we must change.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Political Power is NOT Youth Power

Sat, 23 May 2009 09:05:00 EDT

I am growing increasingly sensitized to the myriad ways youth involvement can potentially fail young people. One of those ways is the assumption that it is only through youth involvement - formalized, systemic participation of young people throughout institutions and organizations - can young people make a difference in the decisions that affect them. However, through workshops and conversations with 1000s of adults I have come to understand that youth involvement in organizations is not the core problem. Instead, its the belief that many youth and adults hold which says that political power is the only power young people have. I would suggest the opposite.

Political power is not youth power - its just one tool among many. The two terms are not synonomous, and for all of the saber-rattling among youth rights activists and civic engagement advocates, the simple fact of the matter is that youth power is much, much bigger than these approaches consider. When I speak here I'm not only talking about political parties or the political process; instead, I'm talking about the definition of politic, which is the process by which people make decisions, and here I'm talking specifically about organizational or governmental decision-making.

Instead of concentrating solely on this form of involvement, I am beginning to understand that we need to engage with young people on their terms where they are. Dragging youth to board meetings or propping them behind podiums or insisting they join advisory committees is only going to work a very, very small portion of the time with a very limited group of youth. There are some who argue that's the very purpose of these activities, to weed out those youth who would become "leaders" throughout our society. However, and unfortunately, there are many, many very well-meaning adults who believe its these approaches that are going to engage the "every youth", and even the historically disengaged young person. In reality though, the culture, the activities and the outcomes of these activities is generally too obtuse and too minute to appeal to these youth.

Unfortunately its this type of participation that gets the brunt of attention. But we must get away from assuming this is enough. Instead, let's help every young person learn the skills and knowledge they need to make successful decisions in their own lives. Let's engage youth in identifying their locus of control and how they can affect that. Let's broaden the abilities of adults to actually meet genuine, practical and everyday needs of youth instead of creating kludges, that while well-meaning, generally result in inadequate or unsustainable outcomes.

My colleague Dan DeLucey has a great quote in the footer of his emails. He writes, "Teach me to successfully navigate life... not systems." Let's starting thinking about generalized youth involvement in decision-making this way, and then build upon that in successive opportunities, rather than vice versa. Let's remember that political power is not youth power - its just one tool among many.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Killing The Future of Youth

Fri, 22 May 2009 07:05:00 EDT

"Confining life to an eternal present is an insidious form of soul murder." - Cornel West

Let's not kill the future of youth.

We're at a transformative moment in history where Robert Kennedy's 1966 incantation has never been more true: "This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease." This was a spectacular statement for the Senator to make, and not the least among his radically idealistic perspectives. It also opens an appropriate doorway towards any discussion about the future of youth, as any conversation about tomorrow is always ushered in by yesterday.

Yesterday... the 1960s were a powerful gateway experience for today's leadership to see, experience and understand the power of young people, and while their frustrated notions of democratic engagement ultimately and unfortunately led to the hyper-neoliberalism, it also laid stepping stones towards today's youth movement, as these days are building towards tomorrow's radically different perspectives. Right now young people are actively engaged in a radical re-envisioning of the role of youth throughout society, and I thoroughly believe our society is at a "push-through" moment that is going to lead to a spectacular future. Let's examine that a little.

When looked at in their individual parts, there are some fascinating activities being undertaken by young people today. Media making, school improvement, participatory action research, community planning, grantmaking and service learning all present massively creative and important responses to some of the most urgent challenges facing our world today. Through deliberative youth/adult partnerships, powerful outlets for youth voice and meaningful student involvement young people are gaining access and leverage to create change in ways that previous generations of youth only dreampt of. Let me reiterate that these activities are rooted in the movements of earlier generations of youth, but luckily they aren't limited to those roots: they also draw from many other movements and traditions. And this all (luckily) defeats Alvin Toffler's assertion that,

"The secret message communicated to most young people today by the society around them is that they are not needed, that the society will run itself quite nicely until they - at some distant point in the future - will take over the reigns..."

Taken with all that in mind, the whole body of youth involvement activities seems to portray a youth movement in transition. Rather than relying on the grandious posturing of well-meaning intellectuals, idealistic protest events, or even elitist summits of the early 20th century, young people today are actually engaged in the proactive and effective development of a society in the making. Rather than being observers in a museum, youth today are co-scientists in the laboratory of society; I would suggest that with all of these activities underway we're doing nothing less than Alfie Kohn insisted when he wrote, "Children, after all, are not just adults-in-the-making. They are people whose current needs and rights and experiences must be taken seriously." These activities take young people seriously. But we're not done yet.

The future of youth is one of hope and will be played out in successive generations of possiblity and power. However, and fortunately, the history of the future isn't mine to write today. Let youth predict their own future. My conscience talks to me often, and this blog is sometimes the exercise of me letting me out. This morning it started to scream louder at me as I considered what I was going to write. So I'll stop here, and let my reading of the past and your own imagination take us to the future.

Reading Dr. West's Democracy Matters reminds me that I want to express the future that I see in store, a future that is so vibrant and dynamic that I can't help but put it down. I have tried before, and I will again today. Remember that when he wrote, "Confining life to an eternal present is an insidious form of soul murder," West was talking to us: We have to make the experience, function and outcomes of "youth" different than we are right now - and when they're different they must be reinvented again. Anything less than that is killing the future of youth.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Links for 2009-05-20 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 21 May 2009 03:05:00 EDT

Leadership for Healthy Communities Action Strategies Toolkit

Good source to crib info from to develop a student voice strategy

Links for 2009-05-18 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 19 May 2009 03:05:00 EDT

Youth Advisory Council Blog Feed

From the Media Center in Palo Alto, CA is a blog feed with a variety of videos by youth.

Look Back to Move Forward

Sun, 17 May 2009 05:05:00 EDT

I believe in the power of reflection and intentionally taking time to look inside and examine and explore and imagine and re-examine and re-imagine the life I live, the times I've had and the places I've been. Lately I've been in a space where that exploration has led me into my far past, back to times when I was a youth. I have spent the last few days in Omaha, Nebraska, the city where I spent my teen years, where I graduated from high school, where I had my first jobs and decided my life's occupation, and where I formed friendships that helped me imagine the rest of my life.

This has been an exceptional time for a variety of reasons. It is the first time I've visited the city on my own terms as an adult. I've had the chance to travel through here twice in the last 14 years since I moved away, and both of those were wholly unfulfilling; this time is completely different, as I'm able to imbibe in the indulgence of tourism: I have been to the museums, spent a great deal of time in the libraries as part of an intellectual exercise, and haunt many of the places I enjoyed as a youth. Continuing to nurture my minor obsession with the neighborhood I grew up in, I have scoured North Omaha for all the landmarks I've learned about and taken a lot of pictures. I have also had the privilege of reconnecting with many old friends. Its that place that stops me up for a minute.

I've lived away from the neighborhood I grew up in for all of my adult life, far away. As a young person I formed my identity along the lines of the friends I surrounded myself with, but they weren't the only formative force. I also spent my teen years surrounded by a crew of peers who lived in my neighborhood, hung around with my older brother, and every now and then dragged me along with them. This wasn't so much a conscious choice I made; instead it was a kind of obligation I felt to be a little brother. And it was cool. These people - some two years older than me, some my age - were braver, bolder, tougher and funnier than me, all the time. My early understanding of how to relate to women, how to treat friends, what to do with family, how to identify with my school and neighborhood... all these were forged within the relationships I had with these friends. Surely these understandings have changed over time, as I've grown and matured, but I would be lieing if I said they didn't still inform me to some extent.

So last night we had a reunion of sorts. Gathered into one crowded room were 25 or 30 folks who'd rescinded to the recesses of my imagination, a place where memories don't live like people do. Suddenly so many of these characters were front and center in my attention, alive and reclaiming their own youth, as well. Much like a coal miner I strove to find value in the life I've lived by digging their stories. Many of them have 17 or 18-year-old kids; a few have been in and out of prison; a bunch work in garages and plants. The rough and stressful realities we may face everyday melted off a bunch of us; others seemed like they couldn't shake them. But as time went on it seemed like everyone laughed a little; our host worked the crowd to draw everyone in, if only for a few minutes; and I had some great conversations. I spent a long time talking with a mama/educator friend who helped me bridge the crazy distance I was feeling at moments.

What I recalled in my reflection in talking with these friends is that this is what all this work is for me: My constant attempt to reconcile the life I lived as a youth and the spectacular privilege I've experienced as an adult. All the powerful experiences, the meaningful learning and the intentionality I've developed would be for naught were I not paying tribute and honoring the past I've lived. Looking back on those times allows me to find the diamond in that coal mine; but it also let's me find value in the coal itself. No matter where you lived, how you came up, I believe we should all do this type of exploration and reflection as frequently as we can. Look back to move forward.

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Links for 2009-05-14 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 15 May 2009 03:05:00 EDT

Empowering Youth Through National Policies

One of the principal aims of UNESCO’s long-standing commitment to youth is the
empowerment of young people in order to foster their full and equal participation in all spheres
of society.The ultimate objective of this publication, in fact, is to provide a conceptual,m e t h o d o l o g i c a l
and practical guideline that will facilitate the achievement of this aim.