Re-post: Stop Seeing Youth! Start Seeing People

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.

Political Power is NOT Youth Power

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.

Killing The Future of Youth

"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. 

Look Back to Move Forward

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.

The Conundrums of Working in Systems.

I a systems worker who currently operates and has operated in a variety of systems for a number of years. Today its mainly the state health department here in Washington, in addition to growing work in the mental arena and community development. Historically, these systems have included education, national service and youth development. Recently I have become acutely aware of the conundrum presented by youth involvement. There are ethical, social, educational and cultural challenges that each must be called out for what they are.

I am faced with an ethical imperative to do this work that I have spent my lifetime doing, not simply because of my own history, but rather because I know from personal and professional experience the effectiveness and potential inherent in youth involvement. On its surface, youth involvement does not appear to be at odds with any of the design of the state's government, this particular agency, or public health as a whole. However, scratch underneath the surface as I have done and you'll discover underlying tensions reflecting adultism, along with racial, class, socio-economic and cultural barriers. The presumption that youth involvement is enough simply isn't enough in many of these settings; rather, in order to conduct any sustainable, deep work designed to accomplish the lofty task of personalizing public health (or whichever system you operate in) youth involvement advocates must come to understand their work as a logical extension of their duties. 

The acknowledgment of the social implications of youth involvement doesn't come lightly to me. I readily acknowledge that at times I can be a "joiner". So working in a gigantic state agency attempting to build a social network which can support me as a person within the system can be challenging, particularly when your logical allies are other youth-oriented program workers. The reality of being a youth involvement advocate in relationship to those allies has been challenging, particularly when working in lateral relationships which I value. There's a particular conscientiousness that I haven't always been attuned to.

Educational backgrounds often factor into one's understanding of youth involvement, as they do with most forms of involvement, whether parent, family, client or constituent. Working hard and reflecting often can lead to intense learning that grows on its own; however, it can also set in stone negative patterns that promote adultism and undermine youth involvement. If a person lacks a higher education, they may be devoid the language to vocalize what they inherently grasp; additionally, the may lack the skills or knowledge necessary to develop the steps needed to successfully involve young people. However, the presence of a college degree does not equate to knowledge, or concurance; rather, a person's educational field likely affects how they go about their work. A state worker with a CHES certification will have a different perspective than someone who has a degree in experiential education; similar to the differences between curriculum design majors and educational policy majors. Each of those folks will see youth involvement differently according to their discipline, and similar to the first person who'd reflected on their experiences, all have their own understandings of what, how, who, when, where and why youth involvement matters. Note: As an autodidact I am sensative to the implication that those who've spent a lot of time in school know more than those who haven't. The power of self-education can't be underestimated.

Finally, there are a lot of cultural considerations with youth involvement. Two of the most poignant documents I've read addressing the different cultural perspectives towards young people and youth involvement come from different areas of the United Nations: first is UNICEF Innocenti Centre's The Evolving Capacities of the Child [pdf] by Gerison Lansdown, and the second is Eliminating Corporal Punishment, which is an imprint of UNESCO. Both pay particularly poignant attention to how culture factors into a young person's involvement in both systems and throughout their personal lives. In my systems work I have come to discover there are some very real cultural undertones within the agencies I've operated. In schools I have found there is a broad acceptance for normative assumptions about the necessary power of adults over students. In public health I have discovered a propensity towards social justice and the necessary requirement of the government to be reponsive to the disparities throughout society.

All of that is to say that we must be deliberate and practical about youth involvement no matter where we're working, but particularly when we're working inside to change the inside. At some point in the near future I will explore how these conundrums play out inside systems; in the meantime I would love to hear about your experience, no matter what the size of your organization or community.

Youth Involvement as a Kludge

A kludge, pronounced klooj, is a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem or difficulty. As they stand, creating youth advisory boards, hosting youth forums, and engaging youth as evaluators often serve as a klooj for engaging youth.

The reality is that somewhere along the way adultism factors in too heavily in many adults' imaginations. Our personal capacities to relate to young people become compromised by a lifetime of conditioning where we are subjected to the intricacies of age-oriented oppression. At first we grow accustomed to the discrimination all young people rountinely face: 

• At home, where parents use corporal punishment to ensure their predominance over young minds
  
• At school, where educators rely on compulsory attendance to ensure young peoples' compliance with their will
• By businesses, where owners alternately rely on consumerist insecurities or "nobody under 18" signs to ensure their success
• By the government, where officials deny the voices of non-voting constuencies, and
• By community leaders, whose independence is largely questionable when they are routinely responsible for ensuring one of the previous roles.

As we grow older those intricacies continue to obliterate any conceptions we may have held over from childhood, as the burdens of adulthood ensure its difference and indifference to children and youth (for most young people). Bills and jobs and healthcare and cars and banking and relationships are among the many differences; Schools and policing and youth work and relationships are among the many indifferences that adults feel towards young people. 

All of this is to explain why we, as adults, feel we must create systemic efforts to engage youth. We create training programs for youth workers; design action planning to encourage effectiveness; implement programs and make adaptations along the way; systematically evaluate youth involvement, and; re-envision the program for next time or end it. How natural is any of that? How authentic is any of that? 

In reality, as adults and as a society, we are largely inept at youth engagement. We end up of creating these kludges that are neither familiar to young people nor particularly responsive to their needs. Instead, they are familiar and responsive to our needs as adults! How perposterous is it to claim that in order to more effectively meet the needs of young people adults are going to have them more effectively meet our supposed need for their validation of our programs and organizations? 

We must whittle our intentions down to their most genuine responsiveness to the needs of children and youth in order to name them accordingly and then react accordingly. Those according acts must be real - not otherwise. That may mean an end to the convenient activities we have come to know and so easily engage in. That may mean that we come to know and seek to actually understand the young people we work with as equals, or even partners. This type of realistic and authentic approach to engaging young people can help move our work beyond the kludge youth involvement has become.

(And yes, the image is supposed to allude to what youth involvement can be: A kludge.)

Humanizing Youth Involvement

In the early part of this decade I worked for a national nonprofit organization promoting youth involvement. They had whittled youth involvement into a handfull of nutshell-type experiences and wanted us, their on-the-ground promoters, to share those nutshells with the field. You are likely familiar with those nutshells: Youth councils, youth evaluators, youth trainers, youth forums. You probably know about the different ways people promote those ideals, couching them in popular methods such as service learning and participatory action research.

Talking with my new comrade Stephanie Cayot Serriere today I was reminded that buried inside of all these nutshell-type experiences is what Lilia Bartolome refers to as a "method fetish": we want a particular way to do this work of youth involvement. We want special models or proven methods or replicable practices that we can just pick up and roll with. I have dones this before, and would suggest that my own work has fallen prey to this fetish, too. The dilemma of this approach is the temptation to generalize all youth and to mechanize youth involvement. Somehow we believe that if we just follow somebody else's lead we'll be successful, and when we're not successful we can just blame our inability to respond on them rather than shoulder the burden of responsibility ourselves. The simple fact is that youth involvement must change, meld, transform and be re-invented anew in each community. Rather than relying on models youth workers must learn to be comfortable with the need, and ultimately their responsibility, to respond directly to needs of the young people they work with.

In my thinking the alternative is to begin seeing youth involvement for its nuansces: woven within each of these activities, inside of all of these practices is an emergent set of principles and designs that pulled together form a broader framework for youth involvement. This is what we must explore, together, and what will lead us towards humanizing youth involvement.

Entry Points

The story might go like this: there was a once a young person, a youth, who belonged to a church, went to school, and played a neighborhood sport. Once a month this youth went to the town hall for youth council, and they participated in a youth leadership development program sponsored by the local Urban League.

This youth wasn't particularly successful in school, despite trying - but teachers lent a hand, and their foster parents were supportive. Friends laid on both sides of the engagement spectrum, and there were distractions and obstacles to academic and social acheivement everyday.

One day this youth learns about youth voice, and after researching on the Internet on their own they learn about youth rights and civic engagement, too.

Where should this youth begin in their advocacy? What should they do or say and to whom should they do or say those things?

I have found more than one scenario in the work I've done, and will share the responses I've seen later. First I want to know what you think.

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

I Need Your Ideas

After 5 years of teaching students across the US about student voice, in 2006 I sat down to write a curriculum for teachers and youth workers to use. With support from the HumanLinks Foundation, I drafted a 26-lesson plan curriculum in 8 modules that explores every element of meaningful student involvement. It was piloted in 10 schools across the country, and reviewed by several major student voice researchers and advocates in the US, the UK and Australia. After receiving encouragement and edits from my friend and colleague John Loflin, in the last month I have completed another round of edits on the piece, and it is ready to take wings.

The dilemma is that I don't know what to do with it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Reply to this post or send an email to adam@bicyclingfish.com.

Thanks.

Democratic Education: Form or Function?

Yesterday I had the spectacular opportunity to sit down in State College, Pennsylvania with a group of heroes and allies, old and new, and I want to share a slice of a super wide-ranging conversation that was really exciting to me. Pulling us together was Dana Mitra, an internationally-recognized researcher and professor at Penn State University whose work includes focusing engaging student voice in school reform. She brought along her colleague Stephanie Cayot Serriere, an assistant professor who has an interest in questions of voice among the youngest of students, in pre-kindergarten through fourth grade. Jackie Hook, the Executive Director of an organization called Child Friendly Initiatives in Pennsylvania, joined us. Jackie and I have communicated several times, with her serving as a muse for my blogging more than once. Our conversation was rounded out by Donnan Stoicovy, the principal of Park Forest Elementary School in State College. Her school is a highly-democratized environment, and is a member of the League for Democratic Schools, which is a program of John Goodlad's Institute for Educational Inquiry.

Between the five of us sitting in a cool tea shop called East West Crossings, the conversation volleyed around a multitude of topics, challenging my grand assumptions and propelling my imagination to spectacular new places. It was exhilerating. One of the many topics we breezed through was the notion of where action should be situated in relationship to conceptualizing democratic education. 

My friend and colleague Dana Bennis of the newly-formed Institute for Democratic Education in America has written about different parts of this conversation in many forms over many years, as have many others. However (as usual), I'm not satisfied with where the conversation is right now. I have found educators frequent rely simply "doing" democratic education without actually teaching democratic education, or moreover, creating democratic environments where young people learn democracy as a behavior of mind as well as a function of the body.

This brings the subject of this entry: Should democratic education focus on function or form? The form of democratic education includes the activities and processes used to teach students democratic habits such as voting, dialog and "voting with your feet." The function of democratic education answers the questions: Why should democracy exist? Where should democracy exist? Who should democracy benefit? How does democracy detract? What is great about democracy? What fails democracy? But it does more than that, too: the function of democracy education in a democratic society is not to merely examine democracy; rather, the function is to enable individual actors within that society to challenge, critique, recreate and rexamine democracy and the functions of democracy, which beyond voting or protesting include schooling, policing, media, religion or the absence therein, and so forth.

I believe that students should be engaged in these larger pursuits focused on the utopian vision of democracy from the first days they enter schools, and from my conversation in State College I take hope that this is happening, even with some frequency, in more corners of this country than I know about. I've explored this idea frequently, and if you've read my blog before you might be familiar with  some of my many reflections.

Let's think about and engage in a conversation about the form or function or utopian idealism of democracy, democratic education and beyond.

Taking Charge: Going to Pennsylvania

Last fall I started learning more about the exciting realm of youth involvement in mental health services. I first learned about the practice from the California Adolescent Health Collaborative back in 2004, later spending time training folks at Olympia's Community Youth Services agency. A few years later began volunteering with Partners in Prevention Education, and in each of these settings I met committed youth workers who focus on the idea that young people who are engaged in these "systems of care" shouldn't just be subjected to adults making decisions about their lives without them; instead they should be completely engaged as partners and allies throughout the process.

For years local, regional and national organizations and the federal government have been promoting this practice, with folks like Lorrin Gehring [pdf] leading the way. The leadership of the Technical Assistance Partnership (TAP) at the American Institutes for Research brought me to Georgetown in January to help a group of 100 local practitioners from across the country move to the next level in their thinking and  practice. It was there that I learned about Lorrin's powerful book, Youth Involvement in Systems of Care, which carefully lays out a detailed agenda and guide to young people moving to the forefront of this work. 

There has been a lot of local work in the area of youth involvement in Systems of Care. Communities like Westchestire County, New York [pdf], Aurora, Colorado [doc], and Seattle, Washington have had thriving programs. Find more examples here. Resources can be found on the HRWT National Resource Center website, as well as at the TAP website above. Also, Youth MOVE National is a youth-led organization "devoted to improving services and systems that support positive growth and development by uniting the voices of individuals who have lived experience in various systems including mental health, juvenile justice, education, and child welfare." 

In Georgetown I met many committed and wonderful people, including Dan DeLucey of Allegheny County (Pennsylvania)'s Youth Development Project. Dan connected me with the Youth and Family Training Institute, who invited me out for their youth leadership development conference whose theme is "Developing Youth-Professional Partnerships: From Tokenism to Meaningful Youth Participation." Very exciting! So on Wednesday I'll be presenting an extensive work session there for youth and adult professionals that examines youth involvement throughout our communities. I'm really excited to learn about Pennsylvania, as my research has shown me some spectacular activities that are happening there. Another exciting highlight of the trip includes meeting with Dana Mitra, a faculty and student voice researcher at Penn State University, and a group of local youth voice practitioners, as well. Good times.

In all of my workshops I strive to learn as much as I can from the participants. I am sure this group will prove a powerful muse, and I'm excited to soak it up and help it along. Wish me luck!

Remembering Augusto Boal

"Somos todos espect-atores." - Augusto Boal (1931-2009) 

Declaring that "We are all spectators-actors" was one of many powerful statements that Brazilian educator Augusto Boal made throughout his life. The author of Theatre of the Oppressed, Boal was a contemporary of Paulo Freire, often citing Freire as a major influence on his works. His work painted the early years of my own career, as I worked in a program based on Boal's teaching. 

After college at Columbia University in New York City, Boal returned to Brazil. Eventually the military dictatorship imprisoned him, tortured him and kept him from practicing his radical approach to engaging audience, actors, directors and community members mutually in performance. Reflecting on that experience in 2001, Boal wrote that, "In stable countries, artists know where they stand - serene and unperturbed. They know what they want and what is expected of them. In a Brazil cast adrift, everything was and is possible: we were asked where we were, who we were, where we wanted to go." Over the eight years of the Bush administration in the U.S. I repeatedly heard this type of sentiment from activist friends and colleagues. I find this is also echoed in the voices of many young people when they reflect on, examine and critique the institutions they operate in throughout our society everyday, as well. With so many adults in constant survelliance, parents conditioned to preventative punishments and teachers promoting zero tolerance, that perception is difficult to contradict.

Explaining his revolutionary work in Brazil during this time, Boal wrote, "You would be involved in a furtive conversation and before you knew it you had slipped into the armed struggle. A meeting, a secret, and soon the person already felt committed: [...] you had already become a militant before you noticed how it had happened." This is often how post-Hitler Youth members described their recruitment experiences, as well. Boal was exposed to Pedagogy of the Oppressed during this time, as well. According to Frances Babbage, Boal was committed to the idea that the in the same way Freire believed the teacher needs to learn from their students, the audience can perform in the place of the actors. I believe this type of trust is exactly what needs to inform our work with Youth Voice. In this same way Boal's ideas about internalized oppression, summarized neatly in his adage about "the cops in the head," inform much of my understanding about adultism. Its these cops who police our every interaction with young people, as parents, teachers, youth workers, and in any role. 

All of this is to say that when Boal died today our world lost another teacher. In writing about the significance of Freire's death Boal remarked that he'd lost his final parent, and that now he only had brothers and sisters. With the loss of Boal we face another momentous change, one where we must learn how to move on. Maybe this quote from his World Theatre Day message [PDF] this year actually tells us how to do just that:

Weddings and funerals are “spectacles”, but so, also, are daily rituals so familiar that we are not conscious of this. Occasions of pomp and circumstance, but also the morning coffee, the exchanged good-mornings, timid love and storms of passion, a senate session or a diplomatic meeting - all is theatre. 

Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life! 

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

Let's keep changing society and celebrating this theatre of living, and in doing so honor the life of Boal as best we can.