Hope in the Youngest Youth Voice

Last week my daughter turned six. She had a nice party at a local blueberry patch with seven of her friends, picking berries, playing games, relaxing on blankets and just enjoying themselves all the way around. I enjoyed myself too, and I think many of the other adults there did, too. Tonight was another exceptional time, as I was surrounded by young kids who were running, playing, enjoying music in the park downtown, and just relaxing in their way and in the world around them.

I don't remember a lot of this type of frivolity from when I was growing up. Sure, there were days when pushing a toy truck around the block or watching steer roping captured my imagination, but for the most part I think that the pressures of extreme poverty, familial homelessness and constant community disconnection limited my experience of unbridled enthusiasm for my community and the people in it. That's not to say I didn't have that at all: I know and honor that my parents struggled for my happiness and that of my siblings. But I also know that the simplicity of joy escaped me.

Today I work with educators and youth workers across the country to encourage them to find those experiences of enthusiasm and joy in their daily work with young people. I think that embedded in those times are the keys to self-actualization and the simple side of Youth Voice. Self-actualization in the sense Mazlow talked about it: a person is spontaneous, works to actively problem-solve and accept themselves and others and don't make prejudgments. The simple side of Youth Voice in the sense that without romanticizing it, there is an adulturated exuberance and enthusiasm when young people can simply connect with their place and time and still be themselves.

Without trying to create an idealistic image that is neither culturally or socially aware, I want to acknowledge that there is a utopian possibility for Youth Voice, one that can embrace all realities and possibilities. Whether growing up in public housing projects, suburban sprawl or the backseat of a Chrysler K-Car, there is hope for Youth Voice in all communities. This is what I'm working for - what about you?

Being The Change...

I grew up in a low income community in the Midwest that was predominately African American with a few scattered white, Hispanic, and American Indian families. My immediate neighborhood was surrounded by old factories, highways and upper-low income and middle class neighborhoods. Our community was filled with folks experiencing generational poverty, which is the experience of being poor handed down from generation-to-generation, and situational poverty, which is an interuption thrust upon a generation of a family that can either go on and on or be interupted itself. There was also talk of collective depression, the product of wide-ranging alcoholism, drug addiction, parental incarceration, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other challenging experiences affecting many of the families where I lived, including my own. All these factors were made worse by terrible schools, weak social support structures and distressing patterns of policing and economic imbalance throughout our community.

When I was young my family started attending a church where the minister was a former radical black activist in the 1960s and early 70s. By the age of 12 I had a firm understanding of who Malcolm X was, and how his role was important to my life as a white kid growing up in my neighborhood. Later when I started attending a more mainline congregation in my neighborhood I learned from former hippies and young idealists whose visions for social change were a little more subdued, but no less intense. It was also there that I met the city's most important black actor and director, the man who helped me understand my life's desire to work with young people in empowering and engaging ways. He was no less radical than my first minister, and taught me lessons about white flight, community organizing and race relations when I was a teen wrestling with the racial tension in my high school and the apparent ignorance of the adults who worked in that environment.

In response to this stimulus, and many other experiences that included violence and crime, activism and protest, police harrassment and educational neglect, and parental support and community values, I found my commitment to social justice growing into a powerful force in my early 20s. All these experiences helped form my understanding of Youth Voice, civic engagement, community organizing, radical democracy and educational progress. Traveling and living across the United States and in Canada I have found that these same experiences, as well as many others lived by black, brown and white kids in urban, rural and suburban communities all over, form all of our understandings of Youth Voice, civic engagement, community organizing, radical democracy and educational process.

Each of us must explore where our roots in this work are, and how those roots affect our efforts to create change. With that consciousness we can move forward in a deliberate and intentional relationship to ourselves and the world around us. Only then can we meet Gandhi's charge to, "Be the change you wish to be in the world."

Why Do We Care?

Yesterday I was scheming with a friend about what I'd do if I won the Nobel Prize for literature. Don't get me wrong - I haven't written anything worth awarding. But if I did I'd like to go the high road, the way of the righteous who hang their win on causes like saving whales or fighting racism. My cause would be engaging youth.

Why do I care? It's been more than a decade since I've worn the title of youth. I haven't had a full-time job as a youth advocate for more than a year. Legislation I've fought for has failed, programs I started have folded and funding I relied on has vaporized. These decades of professional work with and for young people have taught me a lot, and one of the things I've learned is that this heart of mine beats stronger than any of those apparatti.

I care because when I see the news I don't feel a choice. When I hear the statistics I hear the unending possibilities. When I look at the world I see a place that without hope in children and youth has no hope at all; luckily, hope is all around. It's the kid who's audacious enough to speak at the city hall meeting. It's the homeless girl who made a video about her friends' lives on the street. It the club that evaluated their classes and the young city planners who rated youth-friendliness of local businesses. It's also the academic who wrote the paper to make the case that all this deepens civic engagement. It's the tweeter who keeps giving heads-up about discrimination. It's my little sister, who as a mom of 4 at the age of 31 signed up for the anti-adultism group on facebook, and knows exactly what that means.

I am niave enough, or bold enough, or whatever to think we should all care. I believe that and adult who interacts with young people in any respect and is concsiencous enough to read this blog has an an ethical imperative to respond to the crisis status facing young people in our society today. That is why I care. What about you?


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

Whose Voice Is It Anyway?

Last week on Twitter I asked, "How much of what we call Youth Voice is really just manipulating youth to say what we want them to in their own words?"

franziskaseel replied that it "depends on the 'we'. I don't think you can speak of manipulation if the org/group is youth-run itself." I agree with her in many ways. Can young people manipulate other young people? Sure, and they, like we adults, do all the time. And point taken: any youth voice, even when manipulated, driven, or otherwise wrought by youth, is still youth voice. By way of clarification, let me say that when I shared the question I intended it for the primarily adult audience on Twitter (http://u.nu/39qr).

Clarification stated, I think it's important to reach into the heart of the question: I have experienced a lot of adults who intentionally and unintentionally steer youth voice the directions they want or need it to go. In my Twitter conversation dmmenthol wrote, "Not unlike vaudeville puppet shows and ventriloquist acts-adults pulling strings and throwing their voices - it's changing." I don't like the way that children and youth are painted as inanimate, but unfortunately I think that the point here is more profound than that. Adults are ultimately responsible for engaging, listening to, and most of the time responding to youth voice. This is true in institutions throughout our society, and whether young people are portrayed as powerful or pathetic, they are still privvy to the passing fancy of adults. That is a terrible truth. Luckily, as dmmenthol's post states, there is change and the situation is beginning to transform so that young people have more authentic relationships with adults. chollingsworth wrote, "that's something all youth leadership groups should keep in mind. Important point." As always I believe in the most expansive definition of "youth leadership groups" should be used, and not limited to youth, leadership, or groups. Parents, pastors, teachers, politicians, government workers and all others who work with young people should consider this, too.

The final post from DJ777 concurs with my assumption, with the author stating that "I'd say a large portion of that community is guilty of it. A good follow up question is how much is done unconsciously." How much manipulation of youth voice is done unconsciously? And is there a difference between being "unconcious" versus well-intended and ill-informed? Think about it, respond, and let me know what you think!

Intro to Youth Rights

A million years ago somebody wrote something about the "inalienable rights of humans", meaning that there are just certain things that everyone should be able to experience, do and have in their lives. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the first international statement to use the term "human rights", and has been adopted by the Human Rights movement as a charter. It is short, and worth reading in its entirety -- a summary would be about as long as the document itself. The European Convention on Human Rights is the first international document that gives individuals the right to take governments to court based on human rights abuses. Human rights in the United States are protected by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the United States judicial system.

Somewhere along the way somebody got the idea that children and youth weren't protected by these documents; or worse still, they were protected but since those rights are routinely violated there needs to be specific statements that address their rights. A few years ago when I created a Wikipedia article about children's rights I found that the literature about these rights was all over the place; however, I agree that children's rights generally boils down to wanting to do three things:

1. Protect young peoples' access to particular things like food, clothes, shelter, education, etc. These are usually called provision rights.
2. Make sure that young people are safe from abuses, including physical, mental, and psychological abuse. These are protection rights.
3. Give young people the opportunity to make, direct, evaluate and critique decisions that affect them throughout society. These are participation rights.

This is a big, broad definition, and a pretty modern one. Probably at the very beginning of it this conversation was narrowed down to exclude any idea of actually expanding the rights of young people. Zoomed in on protecting the basic human needs of children, this children's rights movement - seeing all young people as in need of protection from discriminatory and abusive treatment - came to dominate advocacy for young people.

In the 1960s and 70s that came to be seen as not enough. A youth liberation movement emerged around the idea that young people of any age could and should have the full and complete rights of all adults, and not just the limited ideas that were pushed around by well-meaning adults. According to those youth rights activists, children and youth of all ages should be allowed to vote, work, drive, own property, travel, have legal and financial responsibility, control their own learning, and have a guaranteed income. There were even more far-out elements of this platform that called for all young people to be able to use drugs and have sex without restraint. Some of these radical ideas were clearly differentiated from the youth rights movement, although some of the platform continues to influence individuals and organizations today.

In the mid-1990s a youth rights movement emerged on the Internet calling for society to pay attention to several parts of this platform. Today the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) has emerged as the most influential and effective organization promoting this platform, and their positions on age discrimination, curfews, behavior modification camps, the drinking age, driving age, economics, education, emancipation, entertainment, free speech, status offenses and the voting age have been sought out in a lot of different public and media venues over the last 10 years.

Today the youth rights movement continues with varying agendas and purposes. There are dozens of organizations and programs committed to convictions that young people have the right to free speech, sexual education and safety, foster youth rights, youth involvement, and much, much more. At least one annual conference heralds youth rights exclusively, and more areas than ever are concerned with youth rights than ever before. Activists around the United States are challenging discrimination against youth by holding protests, producing publications, going to court, and creating pro-youth climates in a variety of communities and institutions.

The gulf between the intent and activities of the youth rights movement and the children's rights movement continues to grow. Traditional children's rights advocacy organizations continue adult-driven, adult-centric change focused on benefiting children's basic human rights; youth rights organizations are generally focused on expanding the current civil rights of youth and challenging discrimination against youth. Young people themselves, as well as adults who were youth rights activists, are winning court cases, taking influential jobs, and serving their communities in a variety of ways that continue to promote youth rights agendas, all without the multi-million dollar budgets and high influence of the people involved in the children's rights movement.

As the youth rights movement reaches into the future, I think it's important to ask if it is healthier to have a single, unified movement, or a movement coming from many directions asking different things. Is there a new agenda for youth rights in this millennium, or is the agenda set 40 years ago still useful? Do the factors of race, class, culture and education influence youth rights and youth activists? Is there a wider alliance beyond youth that the youth rights movement can find allegiance with? Having answered many of these questions for themselves, I believe many youth rights activists can continue to influence and steer legislative, judicial and cultural change into the future.

What Makes Involvement Meaningful?

What makes involvement meaningful? Context, self-determination and purpose.

In this case, context is a state of consciousness about who I am as an individual, where I am in relationships to the people and world around me, and why my actions as an individual affect the larger communities that I am a member of. Self-determination is the ability a person has to drive their own existence; in context, self-determination can help people understand what, when, who and how I can impact those around me, and allow me to make informed, candid and comprehensive decisions in acknowledgment of the world I live in. Purpose is necessary for all notions of success or accomplishment, and while those notions motivate people in different ways, having purpose is central for all life. It can be grandiose or mundane; self-centered or globally-aware. These three characteristics are largely what makes involvement meaningful.

I contend that this question has similar answers across the age spectrum, and that what I've learned about young people can be attributed to anyone of any age. I learned all of this over the last 10 years, working with folks across the country and around the world as they make meaning of the jobs, tasks and goals they have taken on, generally regarding young people, sometimes including the larger community around them.

Almost ten years ago I learned about "meaningful youth involvement" from Cyndy Scherer, Pam and Jim Toole, and others involved in the Points of Light Foundation's YES Ambassador program. I learned about the tools they believed fostered meaningfulness, including service learning and youth forums, and was exposed to an initial set of ideas and experiences designed to increase my awareness of the concept of meaningful youth involvement.

My own learning about meaningfulness has extended far beyond that initial exposure, as I've had many experiences, read and studied a lot, and critically examined my own assumptions and the assumptions of others. Today I move forward in my work, continuing to peel the fruit that is meaningfulness, and inviting you to come along with me.

Meaningful Student Involvement: Not Just a Concept

Almost ten years ago I sat down in a room in Washington State's education agency with a small group of colleagues to wrestle through "it" - these obtuse idea we all shared regarding how the roles of students in schools needed to change. We didn't necessarily agree on why it needed to change, or even what the outcomes of that change should be. All the same, our discussion, and many, many subsequent conversations with students and educators across the country, led to the formation of my thesis about meaningful student involvement.

Since then, the entire time I was training and evaluating the hundreds of schools and districts I've worked with around meaningful student involvement, I have become distinctly aware that I don't want to simply paint this out as a good idea. Instead, I want educators and students and administrators and community members to understand meaningful student involvement as a practical, pragmatic framework through which they can make powerful decisions about schools. The following is a breakdown of the different roles I've identified in the research supporting meaningful student involvement, and how those roles can realistically be integrated into the curriculum, administration and climate of everyday schools. Each title links to examples in that given role.

Opportunities to Make Meaning in Schools

Student as researchers

• Curriculum - Students can examine student, teacher, and district decision-makers' interest in a given subject; or student engagement in class, or; the efficacy of a particular way of teaching.
• Administration - Students can analyze current student involvement practices in a school; district policies regarding the active engagement of current school partners such as nonprofits, parents, or businesses; or activities of designed to meet school improvement goals.
• Climate - Students can compare student/administrator/teacher/parent perceptions of student voice; the effects of training on students; or student/teacher/administrator/parent attitudes towards student achievement.

Students as planners

• Curriculum - Students co-design curriculum with teachers; create project-based learning opportunities for themselves and their peers; and set personal learning goals.
• Administration - Students develop policy development or adjustment recommendations; students participate as full members in the formal school improvement process.
• Climate - Teachers and students co-create classroom behavior standards; teachers participate in professional development settings to learn student/teacher partnership activities

Students as teachers

• Curriculum - Student/adult co-teaching teams are used; student-centered methods are integrated throughout a classroom; multiple intelligences are honored throughout the class.
• Administration - Teachers participate in professional development focused on student voice and meaningful student involvement, student-led training for teachers
• Climate - Model student-driven learning throughout education and engage students as co-learners and co-facilitators of staff professional development activities.

Students as evaluators

• Curriculum - Students assess theirselves, their peers, teachers, curricula, and classes, recommending changes and acknowledging expectations on teachers and administrators.
• Administration - Students are engaged with administrators in evaluating the effects and outcomes of meaningfully involving students throughout school decision-making.
• Climate - Students compare student/teacher relationships and perceptions of respect throughout school.

Students as decision-makers

• Curriculum - Students participate in classroom management and resource allocation. They are taught consensus skills and encouraged to participate in decisions affecting themselves, their peers, their families and their communities.
• Administration - Positions are created for students to participate as full members of all school committees; training and cultural awareness activities are taught to all new students and adults in the school; there are committees for students only to make decisions, as well.
• Climate - Students are authorized to mediate decisions; spaces are created for student decision-making; student forums are facilitated by and for students throughout the school environment.

Students as advocates

• Curriculum - Student interests and identities are engaged throughout the process of curriculum decisions.
• Administration - Nontraditionally engaged students are encouraged to participate throughout the school environment with deliberate steps towards meaningful involvement.
• Climate - “Safe spaces” and reception for self- and group-advocacy are fostered throughotu the learning environment.

These are some of the specific ways students can be engaged as partners throughout school buildings. You can find examples of each of these in my publication Stories of Meaningful Student Involvement.