The Politics of Youth

"As a concept, youth represents an inescapable intersection of the personal, social, political, and pedagogical." - Henry Giroux in Fugitive Cultures

As parents, youth workers or educators adults have a responsibility to see the inherently political nature of "youth" as a concept. It can seem like a complicated thing: How can a time of life be political? But once we unfurl the banner of youth, we see that its more than a time of life; instead, its a title, a rank and an identity that goes far beyond age, including attitudes, cultures, media, and economic realities that are called "youth". I think this is what Giroux was getting at in Fugitive Cultures, which I'd recommend to anyone interested in learning about the positions young people occupy in our society. 

By labeling people under a certain age as "youth" we assign them particular roles to play. Adults tend to call young people youth instead of "young people" or as many youth prefer, "young adults," in the same way parents called their children "kids" instead of children. This type of assignment ripples in the treatment of young people: under the banner of "youth" people under a certain age, which varies according to situation, people are systematically, culturally and attitudinally discriminated against. They are subjected to routine stereotyping, mass alienation and indifference, and highly-subjective treatment that is patriarchial and adultist, to say the least. Youth are targeted by well-meaning adults for interventions; youth are targeted by sensationalist media outlets for profiteering; youth are targeted by politicians, educators, parents, business owners and so on...

So the politics of youth are complex, intricate and intense. I believe its the responsibility of ethical practitioners of Youth Voice and meaningful student involvement to actively identify these politics for themselves, and to work with the young poeple they work with to do the same. While this process can seem whelming, it doesn't exclude you from engaging the young people your class, program, organization or community in learning about it. That's right: bring young people themselves into critical conversations about the politics of youth, and watch their political identify unfold right in front of you. This is one of the most essential skills we can impart with young people. By helping them identify as political beings operating within a political world they can identify their own need for literacy, their own drive for engagement, and their own commitment to democracy. In this way formal and informal education can have a mutually-relevant and cohesive approach to student success. We should aspire to no other such goals.

14 Standards for Youth Voice

"Standardization" is a scary word. Community-based youth workers often see it as the bain of the personalized and human effect they have with young people. However, standards can allow programs to aspire to more than the norm, more than intuition. Standards for Youth Voice may allow programs and organizations to:

• Increase the effectiveness of their Youth Voice programs; 
• Allow evaluation, assessment and research data from Youth Voice programs to be used across different settings; 
• Expand choices for program planners
• Enable organizations with similar programs to align according to stated interests and  desired outcomes; 
• Encourage information-sharing among similarly-focused programs and organizations that otherwise compete for similar funding or young peoples' participation;
• Provides a benchmark for program and activity design;
• Allows organizational leaders to identify which skills and what knowledge currently exist and which are in need within an organization in order to meet standards.
  

There have been few standards proposed for Youth Voice. Past efforts have often glossed over specific issues that affect young people and their communities everyday by being too vague, or too specific. Maybe that is the fault of taking a standarized approach. Working with young people and adults across the country over the last 10 years I have had repeated conversations about what these standards can look like. Following are 14 Standards for Youth Voice I am proposing.

1. Youth Voice should be defined as the active, distinct, and concentrated ways young people represent themselves throughout society.
   
2. Engaging Youth Voice requires being aware, acknowledging, and infusing diversity throughout every activity.
   
3. First and foremost, Youth Voice is a tool to build democracy; learning, empowerment, engagement, and other outcomes are consequences of that focus.
   
4. Not engaging Youth Voice is active discrimination against youth  and is not always a wrong, bad, or incorrect thing to do.
   
5. Community problems should be addressed by communities, and not foisted on the shoulders of young people working alone.
   
6. It is essential to engage Youth Voice in issues broader than those that only affect young people.
   
7. Youth Voice already addresses a broad range of issues throughout our communities, and it is vital to acknowledge those current contributions.
   
8. Young people have the same rights as adults to make their hopes, fears, dreams, and realities known to society.
   
9. Youth Voice is the one bond that unites all young people throughout our society and around the world.
   
10. The transience of youth is a foundation to be built upon, not a whim to be dismissed.
    
11. Communities have different needs that can and should be addressed by and through Youth Voice.
    
12. Young people and adults must build their personal capacity to engage and sustain Youth Voice.
    
13. Every public institution in society is morally responsible for developing their structural capacity to engage and sustain Youth Voice.
    
14. Youth Voice is an action that requires young people to speak by doing, and adults to speak by listening.
    

Standards can allow us to create more than a movement for Youth Voice; instead, they give us a foundation for establishing an entire field of practice. What do you think?

Free Book: Engaging the Whole Child

After all this work I've done in the inter-related, yet disparate topics related to the roles of young people throughout society, I believe I have come to deeply understand the nature of needing to engage the whole young person. I've written about it, trained on it, and helped many other people understand this concept in a variety of ways. However, only in the last year of working with the Washington State Department of Health have I begun to see exactly how that whole young person is more than the brain, the interests, the actions or the ideas of children and youth. Its also their physical, mental, social and emotional health. 

For the last several years the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development has led a national call to awareness and action that resonates with what I've learned, giving educators and administrators, community workers and parents practical tools designed to engaged the whole community in a whole conversation about young people throughout society. I appreciate their leadership in this area for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that they had the gravatis to introduce Meaningful Student Involvement to its first national audience via their November 2008 edition of Educational Leadership magazine.

That is why I'm excited to introduce this awesome new publication from the organization. Engaging the Whole Child is the first in a series of Whole Child ebooks available from ASCD. According to a recent phone meeting I had with ASCD, its a limited-time only offering that is only good from April 15 to May 6. 

Do students really want to learn? Can schools and classrooms become joyful? Are there natural links between standard curriculum and what motivates students to learn? Explore these and other questions in this e-book collection of articles from Educational Leadership by renowned authors such as Carol Ann Tomlinson, Richard Sagor, Nel Noddings, Thomas R. Guskey, and Allison Zmuda.

This is a huge file, and registering to recieve it is a little cumbersome - but its worth it. You'll find a section on empowering students, including an article by Sylvia Martinez and Dennis Harper at Generation YES. Download it here free, let me know what you think, and share this link with your friends. Remember to do it now, because the link is only good until May 6.

The Roots of Meaningful Student Involvement

"Meaningful student involvement" is my theory that when young people participate in equitable student/adult partnerships that are substantive and engaging for learners, the education system will more effectively meet its myriad goals. I first explored this concept in 2003 in my Meaningful Student Involvement Idea Guide for the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. In 2005 I wrote the Meaningful Student Involvement Guide to Students as Partners in School Change at the request of the HumanLinks Foundation. In it I explained that, "Meaningful student involvement is the process of engaging students as partners in every facet of school change for the purpose of strengthening their commitment to education, community and democracy." 

At the beginning of my work in 2000 it was difficult to identify a cohesive body of work around the roles of students in schools. Research on student engagement had been growing over the previous 20 years, and is still highlighted by the findings of Fred Newmann. He found that student engagement occurs when, "students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success (grades), but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives." His 1992 book, Student Engagement and Achievement in American Secondary Schools examines several schools' responses to the nature of student involvement and participation in classroom curriculum everyday. Later Newmann developed a set of standards based off this study he called "Authentic Instruction." Check out the criteria he proposed:

1. Students construct meaning and produce knowledge,
   
2. Students use disciplined inquiry to construct meaning, and 
   
3. Students aim their work toward production of discourse, products, and performances that have value or meaning beyond success in school.
   

I immediately found Newmann's findings provided an essential contextualization for the question of why meaningful student involvement matters in school change efforts. At the same time I was studying critical pedagogy extensively while finishing my bachelor's degree at The Evergreen State College, heavily influenced by the work of Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, bell hooks and Peter McLaren, among others. I was also footed in the pioneering work of organizations like Youth On Board and people like Wendy Lesko, as well as the experiences of the 1000s of students I'd worked with in schools and community settings across the country.

All this in mind, I began to apply Newmann's criteria to the question of how students themselves views the different roles they occupy in schools, as well as how adults view those roles, their possibilities and their limitations. 

Examining other literature I began to identify emergent patterns in their findings about what students said about schools. My desk became covered with sticky notes as I gathered accounts of student involvement in schools across United States and around the world. These stories came from What Kids Can Do, the Youth Activism Project, and my own gathering activities where I culled items from newspapers, interviewed students and teachers across the country, and went to schools where I was told great things were happening. I was also working at the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction as their first Student Engagement Specialist, a position created for me to workshop with K-12 teachers and students focused on student voice and promote student involvement throughout school decision-making. Along the way I was head-checked on every wrong assumption I made, and grew exponentially from the exposure I had to administrators, teachers, and students reacting to the early implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act.

From all this I began to identify trends and patterns emerge. They grabbed me and urged me to call them out. First I saw Roger Hart's Ladder of Children's Participation echo inside schools. Then I identied my frameworks for meaningful student involvement: First the typology, then the Cycle of Engagement, and eventually enough emerged to write my Meaningful Student Involvement series. While reception of meaningful student involvement hasn't led to a particularly exuberant national movement as I'd originally hoped for, since 1995 dozens of districts, local schools, independent school improvement organizations, and colleges of education have used my work to inform their school reform activities. Along with several state departments of education the U.S. Department of Education has used meaningful student involvement to promote school connectedness. This work has taken hold in several different places across the country. Additionally, I've connected with practitioners around the world, particularly in Australia and England.

These are the roots of meaningful student involvement. At some point in the near future I'll explore some of the future growth I'm plotting, including some of the essential partners who are coming forward and some of the ideal situations I'd like to be positioned in the future.

Youth Development, Youth Service and Youth Rights

Somewhere out there in the Ether there is an tussle among youth workers. In this battle of wills and ego, its youth development versus youth service versus youth rights. I was historically engaged in this discussion; however, over the last few years I've come to seen this non-dialogue as passé and even trite. It now seems almost silly to me to contrast the three; now I have a different vision.

Let's compare definitions:

• Youth development is "...the ongoing growth process in which all youth are engaged in attempting to (1) meet their basic personal and social needs to be safe, feel cared for, be valued, be useful, and be spiritually grounded, and (2) to build skills and competencies that allow them to function and contribute in their daily lives."*
  
• "Youth service refers to non-military, intensive engagement of young people in organized activity that contributes to the local, national, or world community. Youth service is widely recognized and valued by society, with minimal or no compensation to the server. Youth service also provides opportunities for youth development, youth voice and reflection."*
• "Youth rights usually refers to a philosophical stance that focuses on the civil rights of the young. This is counter to the more traditional perspective held by child rights' advocates that emphasizes youth entitlements, a viewpoint that usually rests on a paternalistic foundation... [Y]outh rights organizers seek equal rights with adults by having young people play central roles in crafting their own strategies and campaigns to change their status."*

All that said, I've come to see the three of these as part of the same continuum of action. Without youth development, youth rights become the same pedantic conversation that only benefits those young people who already a lot of rights and access and authority and involvement. Without youth service, youth development represents a vertical and didactic relationship between youth and adults that is neither mutually beneficial nor arguably wholly beneficial for young people themselves. Closing that loop, youth service provides a "responsibility mechanism" for advocating more effectively for youth rights. It provides a logical "a+b=c" argument for folks who maintain that with rights comes responsibility, and given today's generation's proclivity for service, the conversation should be easy.

The interplay and entrainment of those issues among one another is not a complex analysis; more so, its rather simplistic in the grand scheme of things. However, it does allude to the more intricate nature of my own philosophy today, and why I've moved away from the competitive stance assumed among many advocates. Somewhere within these issues and actions, and the myriad others I've identified over the last nine years of my study in this field, there is a deep connectivity that transcends and enlaces all different perspectives into one spectacular phenomenon. I have been working for years to crystalize this vision into a thesis, and it is coming.

These ideas and inspirations are pouring forth lately, and I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on any of these ideas. Thanks.

Enabling Optimism Towards Youth

Michelle Obama is my hero of the week. For the last twenty years, including much of my teens and all my adult life, the general attitude of society towards young people has been one of fear and loathing: I grew up in the age of zero tolerance, anti-cruising laws, youth-being-tried-as-adults, and the generally crass demonization and stigmatization of young people. Based in ambivalence, malaise and intrasigence towards youth, adultism firmly footed itself throughout our national psyche, and all young people and all adults suffered for it.

In one fell swoop Michelle Obama has begun to unravel the comfort of adultists: as the First Lady, her bold declaration of the power of young people rallies forth a tremendous optimism and hope for children and youth today. Within the week the tide has begun turning: the New York Times is lauding youth for shunning consumerism; youth in Pittsburgh are curing cancer, and; Steve Culbertson of Youth Service America got bold and did his job. This new youth boosterism is even going global: in South Africa young people are being hailed as a powerful voting bloc that will change the country, and indigineous youth are saving the planet.

This isn't to say that one editorial can change the world, no matter who writes it. Chuck Schumer is enshrining adultism in legislation by wanting to further limit the financial power of young people; ally to youth everywhere Peter Levine has revealed that youth volunteerism rates have dropped; youth are being portrayed as moochers on President Obama's dole, and; African American youth in Los Angeles who get shot are still being portrayed as gang members without due cause.

Depending on how that article written. If Michelle Obama used deliberative wording that veered away from typecasting youth as the future - instead of the present - would be useful. Instead of framing the relationship between young people and adults in a top/down relationship Michelle could change the perspective towards one of equity between youth and adults. (Learn more about that concept from this pdf.) But for making meaningful gestures, the First Lady definitely wins my respect for the week.

(Oh, and what differs between Laura Bush's preaching and Michelle Obama's advocacy? Michelle put her energy where her mouth is and co-founded Public Allies a long time ago. She's from within the ranks.)

Challenging Internalized Adultism

The tendency of being dismissive or disregarding of adultism by both young people and adults reflects one of the core, unspoken strategies inherent in the dominant relationships between children, youth and adults in our society. Taking in that discrimination so deeply that it silences a child or youth is one effect; encouraging a young person to lambast themselves or their peers or younger people is another. This internalization disables young people from being able to form a positive identity based in their age, and further promotes the inability of young people to become effective agents for social change throughout our society.

Much needs to be written about identifying internalized adultism and drawing out its causes and effects on their lives of both young people and adults. I have found very little literature that does this in a sophisticated enough way to warrant response. In the meantime, I would suggest the following questions can be essential for challenging internalized adultism. They are good for any age, and only need to be adjusted for each individual's usage.

• What has been or is good about being a young person?
  
• What makes me proud of being young?
  
• What are children and youth people really like?
  
• What has been difficult about being young?
  
• What do I want other young people to know about me?
  
• Specifically, how have I been hurt by other young people?
  
• When do I remember standing up against the mistreatment of one young person by another?
  
• When do I remember being strongly supported by another young person?
  
• When do I remember that another child or youth (unrelated) really stood up for me?
  
• When do I remember acting on some feeling of internalized adultism?
  
• When do I remember resisting and refusing to act on this basis?
  

We must examine these questions for their outcomes in our own lives and the lives of those around us, simply because they begin to allow us to go further. If you want to learn more about adultism I would encourage you to explore my ally Margaret Pevec's blog, as well as John Bell's essential article on the topic. I have a resource page on The Freechild Project website, too, and my friends at Youth On Board address the issue extensively, as well.

In order to effectively challenge adultism we each have to examine its effects throughout our own lives. This is one attempt to encourage each of us to do that.

Education is All About Relationships

When I was in junior and senior high school I had little motivation for achieving anything resembling "academic success," either internally or externally. I routinely failed to turn in homework, didn't complete a lot of in-class assignments on time, and found copying and faking it to suffice for their purposes. I was also disruptive in class, although not all the time: when not engaged in shenanigans I was doodling or debating. Oh yes, I was that student: the one who challenged the American history teacher with Native American perspectives on history, and the one who made the debate teacher take him on mono-et-mono (and was happily trounced). That was me.

The only way I made it through school was relationships. Luckily I had an academic counselor who saw the need for me to get through, a teacher who ensured I was engaged in at least one class, and for their lack of interest in me getting A grades, I had parents who were committed to me not getting in trouble. My personal educational experience added to my commitment to working with young people for the last 20 years.

My experience working in dozens of different types of formal and informal learning environments has led me to come to believe that education is all about relationships. Now, I don't want to underestimate the myriad complexities and depth of the learning process, and I understand that the value of the academic experience shouldn't be distilled or boiled down in the name of easy consumption. However, the teachers who impacted me were those who I had a relationship with, positive or otherwise. Of all the people whose names I have forgotten or the classes I took that I couldn't repeat what they were about, I am among the masses who feel that the experience of relationship is at the core of all learning.

My frameworks for meaningful student involvement have been situated in that premise, and for more than nine years I've been working with schools across the country to help them understand that the way every student relates to their peers and the adults in the educational settings in which they learn determines the entire course of their educative experiences. And I am not speaking with exception: even the autodidact's tendency to shun person-to-person interactions reflects their experiences of relationship. The academic achiever has relationships with their peers, their families or their communities that encourage their performance. The student athlete thrives on relationship, either with their teammates, their coaches, or their crowds. And even the quiet students the withdrawn students have relationships that define their educative experiences - positive or otherwise.

The center of every single student's experience in schools is their relationship to learning as embodied by their relationships to their peers and the adults in their lives. This should be the emphasis of all school reform today. Meaningful student involvement positions the relationship of young people to adults as the central learning experience of all people throughout schools, including students themselves and adults throughout the education system. That should be the purpose and power of schools today, and nothing less.

Adults Fighting Adultism Part Three

Adultism is often a major problem in schools and youth programs. Young people often hear hurtful remarks about their age, and adult allies often have to go on defence when their peers are adultist. Keep in mind these are two different approaches: when children and youth hear hurtful remarks from their peers it can be parroting; when they hear it from adults it can obviously or inadvertently be meant to encourage young people to internalize adultism. When adults hear it from other adults it reinforces the cultural and social constructs that impose adultism on young people in the first place.

These are some tips for adults to fight adultism throughout society:

• Get Honest With Yourself. From childhood onward adults in our society are compelled to value their dominance, power and control over children and youth. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, adults in our society are being conditioned to one-up young people in countless ways, everyday. 
• Change Your Mind. Stop thinking of children and youth as incapable. Catch yourself thinking about young people as lesser-than simply because of their age, and stop thinking of adults as able to do anything just because they are old enough. 
• Broaden Your Perspective. Watch a movie that you like that doesn’t have adults as all the main characters, or a token youth in adult clothes, or where a youth doesn’t have to act weak. Imagine what TV shows or movies would be like if all the young people were treated as full humans instead of as lesser-than-human. Attend programs; take courses, watch films, and read articles and books by young people and about youth voice or involvement and exploring the roots of youth action. Educate yourself and others about how larger social forces affect the conflicts between young people and adults.
  
• Learn To Identify And Oppose Adultism. Don’t let comments or actions slide with your friends or co-workers when they make adultist comments or think of young people solely in terms of their age or how much "trouble" they will be. Examples are myriad. You can oppose adultism by naming it and making clear your expectation that it stop: “We are discriminating against young people and I expect us to stop.” Adultism in the workplace or school violates the basic human rights of children and youth, and it is our responsibility to bring it to the attention of supervisors at work, administration in schools, and politicians in the public sphere and parents at home.
  
• Let Young People Speak. Don’t interrupt young people when they speak - you may miss something important.  Numerically, people under 21 comprise more than half of the human population. Yet our adultist culture teaches us to believe that young peoples' voices shouldn’t be listened to as seriously adults'. Young people and adults all have contributions to make to the world; we must listen and learn from each other in order to do that.
  
• Its Not Either/Or. Don’t assume that youth activists hate adults, and try not to be defensive when a young person tries to open a conversation about "youth issues." Issues concerning adultism are not something that can be relegated to a day or an article in a newspaper - they should be addressed everyday.
  
• Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is. "Youth issues" don't belong to youth alone - they belong to everyone. Don’t fund adultism. Refuse to purchase any magazine, rent any video, subscribe to any website, or buy any music that portrays young people in a adultist, degrading or abusive manner. Protest adultism in the media. As an adult, boycott companies that discriminate against young people - there are a lot! Become aware of adultism in commercials and as a selling point. Seek youth-led businesses online or in your local community. 
  
• Communicate About Age. We have a cultural myth that "good youth work/teaching/parenting is intuitive." The reality is that any good relationships with young people are based on communication, and that is a learned practice. Stop assuming young people are less able just because of their age. Our culture pressures young people to think, behave and treat their peers, younger people and adults certain ways simply because of their identities as young people. Listen to children and youth and engage them in powerful communitcation.
  
• Stop Tokenism. Try to stop objectifying or tokenizing young people throughout our society. This is hard because it’s so ingrained - but being aware is the first step we can take.
  
• Speak By Listening. Know that language is powerful. Words that dehumanize young people are common. When we describe someone as an object meant to be acted upon, then discarded, it gets easier to treat her that way. Constantly refering to young people as kids or children, despite their age or capability, objectifies them. Use humane and respectful language, and challenge the people around you to do the same. Talk with young people you and learn what it feels like to be a young person in their shoes today. Find out how young people around you like to be supported. Ask what they would like you to do to challenge adultism. Really listen. Talk with adults and find out how adultism has impacted their lives. Find out how much adults lose by being seen as potential adversaries to young people. Find out what other adults have to say about how to change that reality. Find out how to support young people. Really listen.
• Take Action. Join or work with young people to start a group that is fighting to end adultism. Choose this group wisely, and support it as much as you can. Create a adult movement against adultism: start a dialogue group to examine cultural attitudes about young people, start an adults' anti-adultism group, bring workshops and trainings into schools and workplaces throughout your community. Check in with your local youth center for resources and support.
• Explore Youth Studies. Explore how adultism-free societies have worked (pre-Victorian Europe).
• Recognize That Adultism Affects Everyone. Adultism is culture’s insistence that people have to follow certain "rules" about how they should act, based on their age. (Children are "supposed" be ignorant about politics and youth are "supposed" to act "rebellious.") Adultism also tells us how both young people and adults should think and feel.
• Give Your Time. Volunteer for organizations working to adultism. Get further training on how to be an effective adult ally. Know that most youth centers and community organizations are funded exclusively through grants and donations. Support their work in whatever ways you can. 
  
• Be An Ally. Don’t be afraid to call yourself ally of youth - but let them call you that first. We are all adultist (and sexist and racist and homophobic) even if we are oppressed. If you think your colleagues or friends will ridicule you for saying that you are a youth ally then maybe you should educate them next. 
  
• Stop Your Discrimination. Don’t listen to adultist music or read adultist literature anymore - its just not okay. If you’re not sure if the words are adultist or think that maybe it is “just a joke” try imagining that all the references to age are references to race or gender, and see if the song would be racist or sexist, or try imagining the age roles reversed in the lyrics.
  
• Look In The Mirror. Realize that if you are an adult you have privilege in this society. All of your opinions are based on the life you have lived as an adult. Young people do not have the privileges we do. Approach adultism as an adult issue involving adults of all ages and socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. View adults as empowered bystanders who can confront adultist peers. Have the courage to look inward. Question your own attitudes. Don’t be defensive when something you do or say ends up hurting a young person. Try hard to understand how your own attitudes and actions might inadvertently perpetuate adultism and work toward changing them.
  
• Acknowledge Your Role. Say you’re sorry when you realize that you’ve been acting adultist. Be sensitive to young people when they tell you that they is afraid or hurt or enraged because of all the adultism in the world. Don’t tell them that they are acting like victims or just "looking for it." Young people know when they are the object of hate or ridicule because of their age - they aren't stupid. Assume the best of young people.
  
• Speak out. You may or may not ever have noticed adultism in progress before, but now you will. There are many, many opportunities to challenge the attitudes and behaviors that are part of the larger adultist culture. When you see discrimination, intervene. When you hear jokes about adultism don’t laugh, and explain why it's not funny. Write letters to magazines that promote images of young people as incapable or less-than-human objects. Support laws that protect young people from discrimination and help them successfully address adultism. If a co-worker, friend, classmate, or teammate is adultist don’t look the other way. If you feel comfortable doing so, try to talk to her about it. Or if you don’t know what to do, consult a friend, a parent, a professor, or a counselor. Silence = Complicity.
  
• Challenge and Interrupt Adultist Remarks and Jokes. Simply saying, "That’s adultist and I don’t think it’s funny," or, "I think those words are really hurtful," or not laughing when we’re “expected” to, are both effective confrontations. Daring to speak out takes courage and becomes easier with practice. 
• Work Against All Forms of Oppression. Adultism, discrimination against women, sexism, racism, heterosexism, and homophobia - all forms of oppression are linked, and we cannot end one without challenging them all. Challenge yourself to grow every day, and know that every prejudice we hold injures others and limits our experience.
  
• Create A New Adulthood. Be brave enough to openly value equity between young people and adults. Use your strength and privilege in the service of justice. Live your potential without harming others. Celebrate the construction of a new adulthood that does not depend on the dehumanization of young people. Find others who share your vision. You are not alone.
  
• Teach Your Children Well. Mentor and teach children and youth about how adults can behave in ways that don’t involve discriminating against or degrading young people. Lead by example.
• Organize Or Join A Group Of Adults Fighting Adultism. Organize or join a group of adults dedicated to the above. One adult, alone, won’t end the adultism that permeates our society. But there is strength in numbers, and when we put our voices and energies together, we become a group truly able to make change.

These are just the first steps that I have identified tonight. What would you add to this list?

Adults Fighting Adultism Part Two

A lot of people I've discussed adultism with are quick to dismiss it as the whining of privileged teens. However, there are many, many adults (including many regular commenters on this blog) who readily see this phenomenom in the schools, youth centers, homes, businesses and other spaces young people and adults occupy everyday. We are concerned with the disengaging reality of adultism, and the fact that it drives away young people from the very spaces where we intend to bring them together with us. However, what can we do when we see and experience adultism in our work, in our communities or even in our homes? 

This is what adults can do to fight adultism:

1. Understand what Adultism is. Webster's doesn't define adultism. In my 2006 Washington Youth Voice Handbook I defined adultism as "a predisposition towards adults, which some see as biased against children, youth, and all young people who are not addressed or viewed as adults." You can find this echoed on Wikipedia.
   
2. Think before you speak. Words can hurt, whether you mean them to or not. When describing a person, think if mentioning their age is important to the story. Everyone has an age, not just children and youth. Don't call someone "special" - it is often demeaning.
3. Use considerate language. Do your refer to everyone under 30 as a kid? If you don't know someone's age don't assume. Some people prefer teen or young adult, while others like youth. Some prefer young person, others like child. If you're unsure which to use, ask.
   
4. Don't Assume. Do you assume that young people are more ignorant or incapable than adults? That all black youth like Hip-Hop or that Asian youth are good at math? Stereotypes hurt everyone - including young people. Examine what your prejudices are.
   
5. Support Youth Space. Just like adults like time away from young people, where we can dance and be ourselves, youth need time away from adults where they can feel free to act like themselves, without fear of hearing an inadvertently adultist comment. If you're an adult try and understand it's not personal. If an event is advertised for "Youth Only" only attend if your age is younger than adults.
   
6. Interrupt adultist jokes or assumptions. You can do so with out being rude. Don't let your silence speak for you. Simply say, "I don't find that funny," or "I don't appreciate jokes like that."
   
7. Donate time or money to youth organizations. Shannon Stewart's spectacular All-Ages Movement Project tracks creative youth spaces that create safe spaces that challenge adultism everyday; Freechild has long been committed to doing the same for the larger youth movement.
   
8. Join in an activity to celebrate Global Youth Service Day. Join in a Youth Rights Sit-In or service activity to honor the work and wisdom of young people today.
   
9. Make a friend. Get to know, as a real friend, a young person. Not a work colleague or a neighbor you share casual conversations with, but to push past your comfort zone and make friends enough so that you can ask and be asked those direct questions about age in an environment of trust.
   
10. Learn about youth in history. The newsboys, Mother Jones, the American Youth Congress, Students for a Democratic Society and the 26th Amendment are all legacies of youth activism throughout American history. Do you know of others?
    
11. Join or start an organization dealing with youth rights. Many groups are also fighting discrimination of any kind, including homophobia and sexism.
    
12. Write a letter to the editor of a city paper. Encourage them to cover more events and stories about young people in your community or to give the paper praise if they have done a particularly good job.
    
13. Reach out beyond your community. If you work with young people everyday think about joining forces with other human rights groups in your community around issues such as police brutality, profiling, job discrimination, unequal education or any other human rights issue.
    
14. Volunteer With Nontraditional Youth Engagement Orgs. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans youth, homeless, young people who have dropped out of school, innercity youth and rural youth all need adult allies who step forward as allies. Find an organization in your town that works with these populations and spend some time giving back.
    
15. Organize With Youth. Support young people as an ally as they plan a youth rally, conference, protest or other action with their peers, for their communities.
    
16. Expose Yourself. Try to learn about a youth culture - there are many, all different from every other. If you're an adult attend a concert, dance or film created by young people. Youth film festivals, concerts or community dialogues are powerful venues for fighting adultism.
17. Grow Your Understanding. Read a website or a book about fighting adultism. Work with young people to understand connections between adultism, racism, sexism and homophobia. Free your mind, grow your thoughts and get some wisdom with youth as allies.

Tips:

• Keep an open mind and you will learn something.
  
• Everyone is different. What I say here may not apply to every situation.
  
• Know that adultism is part of our culture - don't be ashamed if you mess up. Everyone makes mistakes. That's how we learn.

Adults Fighting Adultism Part One

Whether we choose to see it or not, young people are routinely discriminated against throughout our society. Examples of this range from the hyper-personal to the vastly social: either its the parent barking at their kid, "You are to be seen and not heard!" or its the town law banning Saturday night cruising because of its intrusiveness on the lives of adults. This discrimination is called adultism. 

Let me say that we're all adultist, and adultism affects everyone - no matter how old we are. The lingering effects go on... Confused? Feeling like you don’t understand how to execute or evade some of these maneuvers? Feel free to ask for help in the comments.

The Bootstrap Myth "There is no such thing as adultism… this is a free country, and kids can do whatever they want. If they work hard and prove themselves they can be leaders and really help our communities."

The Backtrack "Hey, wait a second, that’s not what I meant… I mean… you took my words out of context, don’t make it try to sound like I’m adultist!"

The Remove the Right To Be Angry "You’re too sensitive… if they weren’t so aggressive, vocal, hostile, angry, or upset, adults would listen to youth and they wouldn’t get in trouble!"

The Utopian Eye-Gouger "I'm a youth ally myself… why can’t we all just ignore race, it’s not like it’s even real… it’s not like I tangibly benefit from being white every day or anything! Can’t we all just get along?"

Turning the Tables "You’re just discriminating against adults, you know. You’re discriminating against me right now, you hypocrite!"

The Good Adults (not like those obvious adultists!) "Whoa, that guy over there is SUCH an adultist, unlike me… I know exactly the right things to say and I’m never adultist. By which I mean overtly offensive about it. Hold on, I think I’m going to go spit on that adult. I hate him."

The Bending Over Backwards (makes you look flexible, but accomplishes little else) "You kids are so right! I agree with everything you say. Because you’re right, of course… not just because I’m guilty and adultist and wrong!"

The Personal Justification "But a youth cut in front of me in line at the grocery store last night, said something stupid, mugged me, or took my hubcaps! So as far as I’m concerned, they proved all of my prejudices!”

The Loophole of Escape "I can’t possibly be an adultist… I’m part of the oppressed due to the fact that I’m a woman!" (or gay, poor, young, trans, etc.)

The Culture Appropriator "Damn, dude! I listen to emo and rock out at the shows, and you know I’m down with the homies. Did you see the last edition of that graphic novel?"

The Lean On You When I’m Not Strong "Teach me, help me. I’m just an adult, so I need your wisdom as a youth to show me how not to be adultist. Wait, is what I said earlier adultist? How about this shirt I’m wearing? Can you come with me to this meeting, so they know I’m not adultist?"

The Pause for Applause "Unlike all those other adults out there, I’m an anti-adultist." "I do anti-adultist work and I try to educate other adults about adultism." "Wait, did you hear me?"

The Smoke and Mirrors "I totally agree. Adultism is one system of oppression among many interlocking ones that specifically awards more privilege and power to all adults whether they like it or not and serves to keep the existing power structure in place. Oh… what? You want me to volunteer in a community organization, contribute money, do security for your protest march? Uh… yeah maybe next time, I've got to wash my hair tonight. And walk my dog, see the latest episode of Lost, manage my stock portfolio…"

The Penitent Paralysis (will not truly absolve you) "Oh my god… that is so awful. I’m so sorry. Sorry. I can’t imagine what it must be like… I’m sorry. That’s so awful. I feel so bad for you. Sorry."

Whipping Out Your Best Friends

Adult: "Hey, I’m not a adultist, OK? Some of my best friends are youth. See?" 

Youth: "Yeah, I’ve known her since I was a kid, and she’s never said anything adultist to me!"

…and one bonus one for all youth out there.

It Doesn’t Matter What Comes Out of My Mouth, Just Look at My Skin "What? I can’t possibly be adultist - I AM a youth. How can I be adultist against myself, huh? No, I haven’t heard of internalized adultism, and I still think youth involvement is reverse discrimination!”

Adults and Youth as Equals?

Earlier today on the anti-adultism Facebook group I was asked, "is your goal to have children and young adults (which I believe you define as 13 to 19) treated exactly as we would treat adults?"

My answer is absolutely not.

I believe that all young people - all children and youth - are unique and powerful as young people, and because of all the different representations they carry, including their race, gender, socio-economic class, educational levels and everything. They have value because of their age and their voices and involvement of all kinds.

Acknowledging the ideas, perspectives, knowledge and experiences of young people is *not* equality - its equity. Equity calls for acknowledging the uniqueness and difference between people, and then creating the spaces, relationships and cultures needed to foster positive, meaningful relationships that embrace that uniqueness and difference and allows them to be utilized for the individual and collective good of those who participate.

Fighting adultism requires nothing less than each of us taking personal responsibility for the bias and discrimination we feel against young people and towards adults. Let me restate that: I believe that we favor adults at the expense of listening/engaging/empowering young people. I believe we have to create new relationships - partnerships and allyships - that re-envision the roles young people occupy throughout society.

So long story short, my own goal is not to have children and youth treated exactly as we would treat adults. Instead, its to engage young people and adults in working together to create new roles for young people throughout society.

That's what I'm all about - I would love to hear what anyone else thinks!

The REAL New Media

The future of mass media in the United States is a bright and positive one. Now, I know that flies in the face of all the mainstream reports about the death of newspapers (long live the P-I) and the absence of popularity for television news. But folks, I'm here to say that there is a great hope mingling among us. This morning I was reading an article in last month's Fast Company mag called "Will NPR Save the News? " It easily extolled the virtues of NPR's "digital smarts, nonprofit structure, and good old-fashioned shoe leather" and their hyper-successful podcast, blog, an open platform that allows listeners to mix their own podcasts, and an iPhone app. All this had led NPR to become the leading media outlet in the US, and they're growing rapidly. Goody - because I'm a fan.

But there's something else happening here that I don't hear being talked about. Out there across America today there is a raging underground energy running frenetically throughout the media/activist community, and that energy is the power of youth voice. 100s of organizations across the country host youth-led media making programs today. I have found a few . These programs are actively engaging young people in creating newspapers, websites, podcasts, television programs and all sorts of new media. They are reporting on issues affecting their communities, their world and themselves. 

Embedded within these programs is a notion of connectivity: when young people become media makers they most certainly become more effective media consumers, and in turn tie in closer with their neighborhoods, cities and cultures. What does that mean for NPR? Well, a major differentiating factor between NPR and other forms of mainstream media is the profit motive: where others are driven by pumping dividends back to their boards, NPR is striving to make enough money to sustain and re-invest their programs. Mainstream media clearly lost that motivation, and that's why they're dieing. Youth-led media programs are going to prove essential to New Media because youth-led media represents both "new" and "media" - interactive, responsive, and personalized. To a lesser extent, because of their exposure to nonprofit organizations through these programs, young people will also be better mentally prepared to donate their time and money to supporting the delivery of quality media in the future.

Programmers and youth workers alike need to recognize the awesome burden on the shoulders of media today as it goes through its transition. While their model is dieing traditional media needs to realize that young people are more than the future of their business: they are the present, creating massively important, massively relevant and massively poignant media that will shape, encourage, and drive the future of democracy in the United States.

Education Northwest Interview with Adam Fletcher

Students As Partners In Learning: Adam Fletcher Talks About Meaningful Student Involvement

©2008 Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Originally published in the Spring/Summer 2008 edition of Education Northwest and online at http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu/13-03/features/partners.php.

Adam Fletcher knows what it's like to have his "voice" stifled. As a high school student from the wrong side of the tracks in Omaha, he tried to convince his principal and teachers to let him organize a schoolwide Earth Day recycling effort. Repeatedly rebuffed, he did it anyway and was rewarded with a two-day suspension. Fletcher, who admits he had a "challenging" secondary school career, later channeled his activism into founding a series of nonprofits—SoundOut, The Freechild Project, and the now-defunct Common Action. From Seattle to New York to Boston, he coaches schools and districts on how to partner with students for school change. Over a cup of herbal tea at an Olympia, Washington, cafe, Fletcher talked to Northwest Education about meaningful student involvement and engagement.

Q: First of all, how do you differentiate student involvement from student engagement?

Involvement is a mechanism for learning, instead of an emotional reaction like engagement. I can involve you, but I cannot make you feel engaged—that's your choice. "Meaningful" is the key word here: Meaningful involvement leads to that engagement, without assuming the student already feels that way. [Involvement] is an avenue rather than an outcome itself.

When you think of meaningful student involvement, what does it look like?

Meaningful, effective, and successful student involvement has to be authentic in the same way we talk about authentic curriculum or assessment. It's relevant, has tangible outcomes, and foreseeable needs. I generally break it down to six key characteristics:

• A schoolwide approach, in which student voice isn't just limited to one activity, one day, one time. It's seen as being part of the entire school environment.
• High levels of student authority, meaning students have the opportunity to not only say what they feel, but adults validate their ideas and authorize them to act.
• Interrelated strategies, which goes back to schoolwide approaches; students are part of ongoing school improvement through learning, teaching, and leadership activities.
• Sustainable structures of support, so student involvement isn't just a flash in the pan; also, sustainability is all about reaching beyond the student body and bringing in the whole community.
• Personal commitment, which means educators and students aren't just involved because it's an academic requirement or because their friends do it; there's an internal drive or motivation.
• Strong learning connections, which build a learning component into student involvement.

How much of this depends on having strong leadership and how do you get over the fact that—as with many school reforms—when the leader leaves, the program dies?

I'll be really frank with you. One of the dilemmas of student involvement is that it's about culture change as much as structure change. Those two have to happen in sync. The other dilemma is that schools aren't isolated—they don't exist in a vacuum. So, no matter how we're treating a student inside one classroom, for one period, we still have a community where young people are often excluded. That much said, one of the keys to sustainability is that student involvement does require a change agent to get started. And, the champion has to be an adult, working with young people. That's because the role of the adult is inherently longer lasting than the role of any single student. The places where I've seen long-term meaningful involvement is where it's become as systematized as possible. It's not just a singular event, but part of the policy of the school.

If it's not possible to embed student involvement long-term in the structure and culture of the school, what can an individual do right now?

For teachers, curriculum is a great place to start. You can build meaningfulness into your curricular approach so it embodies what you're looking for from student involvement as a whole and so it reflects your students' daily personal lives and connects to real-world outcomes. Classroom management is another great opportunity. Meaningful involvement there can be taken from a constructivist bent. So, rather than assuming your students have never experienced meaningfulness, you can help them plumb their school experience by saying, "Hey, where has geography ever meant anything to you? When has math ever meant anything to you? What has that looked like for you, and how can we incorporate those ways into our class?"

If you're a building administrator or a school counselor, it becomes a different picture. You have to build in that cycle of listen, validate, authorize, mobilize, and reflect. If we build that into all the different school roles, that's how school culture changes. The most important thing anyone in schools can do is to envision students as partners, and then act that way.

Obviously school improvement is a big issue today under No Child Left Behind. What do you see as the student's role in helping to design and implement school improvement efforts?

The student has to be a full partner, and I'm not just speaking about this in a theoretical way. One of the things research does show, emphatically, is that the success of school improvement has to be borne out on the shoulders of students. Students have to illustrate school success: We know schools are improving when students demonstrate the outcomes we seek, particularly when academic achievement turns around. The other thing we know—from Fred Newmann's research on engagement—is that the student has to be engaged in learning for that academic achievement to come to fruition. So, the ultimate role of the student in school improvement is as the partner.

Currently, some schools talk about students as consumers. I think addressing the role of student as consumer is really cynical because it reduces the learning to consumption: You come to the store, buy what you need, and leave. Meaningful involvement calls for a higher purpose for schools. Let's see students as generators of knowledge, co-makers of culture, and co-facilitators of learning. These are the roles students need to have in school improvement, and we need to see them as full partners throughout the process.

Ironic Exposure

A person studying the Sunday morning comics for adultism and forms of anti-youth discrimination could die a thousand deaths from over-exposure. Somewhere between "For Better or For Worse" and "Sally Forth" it's laid on heavy. Even my childhood favorite Garfield gets in on it on occasion.

That's why today's "Family Circus" is a little relieving. For all the slanderous things artist Bil Keane ever writes that grossly oversimplifies, patronizes and offends youth, today's strip helps pull back the curtain on adult hypocrisy in a really soft, easy-to-digest way.

It's made of a large dimmed blue panel with images of the kids devouring their Easter finds, and goodies scattered around the panel. In the center is a bright, full color circle with an image of the family's holiday dinner table, packed with a bountiful Easter meal. But here the kids are all slumped over and lethargic, and the father is wagging his finger at them for not eating their dinner.

By pointing out the failures of many traditional American parents, artist Keane acknowledges the discriminatory practice inherent in much parenting practice. We're a hypocritical bunch who often feel like we're crawling around on our hands and knees in the dark looking for a clue to do this "right". Thanks Bil Keane for giving us a little tool to help find our way.

--

Engaging the Whole, Entire, 100% Young Person

I often ask groups to explore different parts of the lives of children and youth. "Schools," "video games," "home," "church," "friends," "downtown," "families," and on they list. Its funny how we conscript young people to the places they belong and the things they do, rather than who they are. There are different activities used in my workshops to get at that question in different ways, and I like to think that eventually participants leaving thinking about young people as people first; that is, complex, multi-faceted and broad human beings who, like themselves, are unfinished, and who will hopefully never think of themselves as finished (and who we should never think of as such). 

In that image of the "whole young person" I find that as adults, and even as young people, we're unable to envision the whole life of children and youth. We don't easily identify the interplay between health and service and family and government and learning and friendship and culture and all those dynamics that enliven, enrich and otherwise make us who we are. Instead, because of our programmatic thinking, we tend to see young people as a singular phenomenom. This youth acts that way, as if it were that simple. In reality, this youth acts this way when they are with us in this setting at this particular moment with these particular peers present that that particular song playing the background. In another moment *poof* they may literally become a completely different person.

What does this mean for programs that attempt to foster engagement throughout the lives of young people? Highly adaptive, totally personalized approaches. There are more programs and resources attempting to address this today than ever before. I have reviewed and seen employed the ASCD's Whole Child model, which takes multiple perspectives - including students' - into account. Yesterday a colleague at the Washington State Department of Health also shared this important paper by Joseph Grady and Axel Aubrun of Cultural Logic LLC. My allies at the Innovation Center also offer a dynamic resource from a meeting they held in 2005 about youth engagement across cultures. A First Nations-serving organization in Canada developed a landmark agenda for Ethical Youth Engagement a few years ago, and Jessica Bynoe of the Academy for Educational Development released a paper this year called "Confronting the Glass Ceiling of Youth Engagement." Each of these resources digs into the reality that no matter what our best intentions it takes more than simple gestures towards engagement for every young person to make meaning from their life everyday.

As youth voice receives more attention in our programming, as youth involvement becomes more of a normative trait throughout our communities, and as engagement is more clearly defined as a desired outcome throughout life, it becomes more imperative to look at all the factors affecting each of these areas. We must begin by considering how we engage the whole, entire, 100% young person - and move forward from there.

Drum Majors are Our Only Hope

"We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. ... And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. It is a good instinct if you don't distort it and pervert it. Don't give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity." 

- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the "Drum Major Instinct Speech", February 4, 1968.

I have a soft spot for ambition, especially among young people who for all intents and purposes should not have any. In my experience I have found an overwhelming tendency in society towards giving up on young people from disparate situations: youth in "the hood", children who are hungry, families without health insurance, and neighborhoods with bad schools all suffer a kind of common neglect. We're coming out of a gilded age when money ruled the day. Well, it still does. But this neglect of everyday needs is starting to affect more and more people, and the suffering once confined to the few is becoming widespread. Jobs are being lost right now. Homes are being taken right now. Families are being broken apart, neighborhoods are being decimated, and social networks are being obliterated. 

There are young people out there right now who are challenging this reality. Some are attempting to combat the marketplace by joining it as entreprenuers; some are fighting it by becoming social change agents. Either way, I want to identify them and call their works forward, and challenge all adults to do the same. We must give these drum majors the platforms they need to be heard, and support them as best we can. Our only hope are young people. Our only hope.

Rev. Dr. King, I owe you a debt of gratitude, conscience, and hope. For all times I work in rememberance of your labor. 

R.I.P. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968.

Getting In Trouble

When I was a kid one of the mothers in my neighborhood always referred to me as Trouble, as in "Here comes Trouble," and "That one is Trouble." I wasn't. While I had the incredible propensity for causing strife in my own life and the lives of folks around me, I generally didn't. I lived in a rough neighborhood and didn't have the best peer role models around me. Sure, I got in some fights and stole some things and got kicked out of school more than once and participated in some vandalism. While that may sound like a heinous list to some readers, for those familiar with low-income communities you'll know that I rate pretty low on the "trouble" list.

However, as an adult I've come to understand that as a young person, getting in trouble was often a way of expressing myself, particularly in times when I felt as if my voice was repressed, oppressed or otherwise held back. That's not to say that it was okay, but it is to say that getting in trouble was often a form of inconvenient youth voice. I think the same is true for a lot of young people a lot of the time. Sometimes that voice is more than inconvenient; it can also be malicious, hurtful or destructive. But "getting in trouble" is still a form of youth voice.

Its becoming more apparent to me that as ethically responsible adults we have to take more responsibility for the whole young person, rather than simply the parts we agree with. That means that instead of simply applauding ourselves for actively participating in the development of the compelling youth who makes a great speech in front of the town council, we also need to acknowledge our roles in fostering those expressions of inconvenient youth voice - good, bad or otherwise. That means that so many of those times when the children and youth around us scream, or rung, or hit, carve, mark, cut, punch, steal, throw, yell, paint, demolish, careen, and all that - each one of those times there was an adult who was not responsible, not capable, not able or otherwise inable to positively engage that young person's voice.

That isn't meant to foist all the trouble the world's children and youth get into on the shoulders of adults. But can we actually claim to be allies of young people if we don't accept our roles in the lives of the young people around us? I don't think so. As an ethically aware and socially conscious adult ally of young people I believe I have an awesome burden and responsibility to do the work I do. I think you do, too.

Youth Voice & the Federal Government

My first work with the federal government was in 1997 when I joined AmeriCorps in Lincoln, Nebraska. After that I worked in two other AmeriCorps programs and subcontracted with a national training organization for the Corporation for National Service. When I worked at the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction I was in the US Department of Education-funded Title 5 program office. Over the last year I've been working with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention-funded Coordinated School Health Program in Washington State. All along I have worked as a private contractor and nonprofit organization executive director, providing training and technical assistance directly to dozens of federally-funded education, AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve, and other federally-funded efforts around the country. Needless to say, I am invested in the idea that the federal government has a role in engaging and promoting Youth Voice throughout the U.S.

Today I had the privilege of listening to Washington State Health Officer Dr. Maxine Hayes discuss the central role of women in public health. She spoke a great deal about the role of the federal government in guiding public health practice nationally, and it inspired me to consider my belief and advocacy a little more. Here is what I think about the federal government's responsibility in engaging, promoting and sustaining Youth Voice throughout our community. I credit Dr. Hayes for inspiring and directing parts of the following.

We need the federal government to create a cohesive Youth Voice agenda that centers on a unified federal strategy that addresses the needs of young people today. It should be based on what we already know through existing data and practice focused on youth voice, youth involvement and youth engagement. Currently policy addressing children and youth is fragmented and spread out across the federal governement. Because of that our Youth Voice strategies are, too.

The federal government needs to invovle states in figuring out the structures needed to support and sustain them in involving young people. The plan should address young people holistically throughout the communities they live in. The most priority should be given to engaging young people who are historically disengaged throughout our society, including low-income youth and young people of color. Additionally the federal government should create some national performance measures for Youth Voice. Let's use data we already have and measure Youth Voice in every program, every town, every state and answer questions like:

• Who are the young people in our program/town or state?
  
• What do I know about those young people? 
  
• What have those young people told me indirectly? Directly?
  
• What ways does our community engage their voices?
  
• What issues are these young people addressing?
  
• What are the disparaties they face in Youth Voice?
  
• What resources does our program/town/state have to address those disparities?
  

We must embrace Youth Voice from all parts of our society. My experience has shown me that the federal government can provide essential leadership in that effort. The President's office should take leadership, but any agency should step up. "Yes we can."