Last year, in celebration of the launch of the Institute for Democratic Education in America, I wrote a blog post for them focused on individuals taking action. Just over a year later, here is that article, "10 Things YOU Can Do To Promote Democratic Education," reposted on the CommonAction blog. How would you expand it?
1. Learn more about Democratic Education. Did you know that democratic education “or Dem Ed” is more than classes voting or school-wide meetings? Learn about Dem Ed on the IDEA website, through Wikipedia, or through a number of books.
2. Brainstorm what your school can do to change. The power of your imagination is a terrible thing to waste! Brainstorm different ways your school could become more democratic, and make a list.
3. Talk to others about Dem Ed. Ask your friends if they know about Dem Ed. Share your ideas about which changes your school or program can make, and ask if they have any ideas themselves. Challenge them to ask you hard questions, and see if you can answer them, or tell them you’ll get back to them after your learn more.
4. Find an adult ally. Create a learning partnership with an adult to help your efforts. Engaging an adult ally can make planning more effective and connections with other adults easier.
5. Create a Dem Ed plan for your school or community organization. Maybe your school or the neighborhood nonprofit needs more Dem Ed. Work with your friends to make a plan for who, what, when, where and how Dem Ed can be used.
6. Hold a Dem Ed workshop. Invite other youth and adults in your community to learn about Dem Ed by facilitating a hands-on demonstration workshop. Research Dem Ed learning activities and use them to help participants learn by experiencing democracy in education.
7. Present your plan to school decision-makers. Who makes decisions about how teachers should teach in your school? Teachers, principals, assistant principals, district administrators and district board of education members can all effect Dem Ed. Share your plan to them one-on-one or make a presentation to the school board.
8. Present your plan to community decision-makers. Who chooses which nonprofit organizations get government funding? Present your plan to them, as well as neighborhood association presidents, local businesspeople and youth organization leaders.
9. Organize! If your efforts to work with the education system aren’t working, organize. Find other people who care about Dem Ed by sharing the idea every chance you get, and ask them to join you in promoting the concept in your school or community. Then determine a goal and take action to put Dem Ed into action for everyone!
10. Find allies online. Having a hard time finding other youth and adults who care? Look online through websites like IDEA’s. People you can partner with are everywhere, and sometimes it’s just a matter of asking!
Good luck, and remember to share your story with IDEA today!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Value Changes, Not Regime Changes
Two weeks ago Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest after spending almost two decades locked up for promoting democracy in Burma. She has been on a furious campaign to continue her movement as the visible and singular leader for real democracy, setting an example for the West in ways we're only beginning to understand.
I'm reading and listening to as much of her direct words as I can find. This morning I found this video from Foriegn Policy magazine, in which she awakened an understanding in my mind that I want to elaborate on here. I recommend that you watch the video and draw your own conclusions; here's what I'm thinking.
For too long, youth involvement advocates have sought to change the structures of our society in order to accommodate young people. We have believed that in order to promote civic engagement or cultural awareness, educational efficacy or familial bonds, all we need to do is create youth councils, youth forums, youth newspapers, youth websites, and other youth-specific outlets for youth voice. This thinking maintains that mechanisms and structures give youth a particular position and specific opportunities through which they can become involved in the health and well-being of the communities, organizations, issues, and activities they care about.
One of the main challenges with this thinking is that it relies on difference rather than similarities. It dichotomizes children and youth from adults, segregating each from the other, seemingly in order to connect the two better. Ironically, frequently this does nothing but pits them further against each other. Without appropriate opportunities to interact and relate to one another, young people come to see adults as alienating and differential, and adults often deepen their perspectives of children and youth as pitiful and incapable.
Another challenge is that this type of structural change, when done without context, presents youth voice in a vacuum. Young people end up only being challenged by each other, rather than the larger communities they are parts of. This encourages young people to see their actions in a myopic and exclusionary bubble that fails to reveal and emphasize the interrelated nature of society and community.
It can be said that these approaches generally reinforce the anti-democratic nature of many institutions throughout our society today. Ironically, by trying to change the adultist regimes in our society, these activities reinforce adultism and adultcentrism. Rather than interact with adults as a collective or in a connected sense, these structural activities extinguish the truly revolutionary nature of youth voice by presenting it solo and without context in the larger world around children and youth. In order to change society, we don't need regime change; we need value changes.
By focusing on value changes, individual advocates, programs, and organizations that support youth voice can focus on core skill building, knowledge sharing, and movement making. We promote communication, connection, and collaboration directly between adults and young people. We develop new opportunities to challenge oppressive mechanisms between adults, children, and youth, and we identify and challenge discrimination against children and youth whenever, whenever, and however they surface.
Chuck D once rapped that, "The real revolution is the evolution of the mind." I want to suggest that Suu Kyi wants to expand that, and I want to support her through our movement. The REAL revolution is the evolution of the heart - let's get busy evolving!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
The "Free Child" Demands Radical Changes
Society needs a radically different vision for how we view children and youth.
Over these years of working with young people in all the ways I have, one pattern consistently emerges more than any other: The very nature of how we view children and youth in our different cultures seems poorly envisioned, malconstructed, and at the least, misinformed. At the worst it seems oppressive and alienating, only serving to further damage the fabrics of the society we share.
For too long well-meaning adults have said, "youth are the future", without seeing that they're the present, too. Recently, it's become vogue to view children and youth as too far gone, or too disconnected, or too apathetic. We have constructed school systems that are sub-par, allowing only those students whose learning styles readily conform to succeed. Our social networks, including families, technologies, and communities, segregate young people from adults, and from one another, disconnecting potential from reality, and hope from action. And it gets worse.
The great experiment in democracy that made America an ideal to nations and revolutionaries worldwide has become a cloak for corporatism propagated through crass consumption, with oppressions of all sorts used to deepen the pockets of the hyper-wealthy, while middle- and working class Americans are mired in the prospects of a darker tomorrow everyday. The structures that used to support upward mobility are now used to reinforce class differentiation, including the education system that engages so many of our young people. Youth programs reinforce entrenched views of young people as incapable recipients of adults' so-called good intentions, which are often thinly veiled reinforcements of adultism and adultcentrism.
We must radically re-envision the roles of young people throughout society, and reposition them as complete humans who are evolving in respect to the society they're part of. This is essential to any work that truly seeks to engage young people as social change agents, and should inform every single adult ally's perspective and actions with, for, and towards children and youth. Democracy demands that we find the essence and potential of every human every single day, and children and youth are people, not puppies. They are fully able to be democrats who are fully engaged throughout society.
The radical changes at the core of these actions must include...
The end of all age-based segregation in our society
Over these years of working with young people in all the ways I have, one pattern consistently emerges more than any other: The very nature of how we view children and youth in our different cultures seems poorly envisioned, malconstructed, and at the least, misinformed. At the worst it seems oppressive and alienating, only serving to further damage the fabrics of the society we share.
For too long well-meaning adults have said, "youth are the future", without seeing that they're the present, too. Recently, it's become vogue to view children and youth as too far gone, or too disconnected, or too apathetic. We have constructed school systems that are sub-par, allowing only those students whose learning styles readily conform to succeed. Our social networks, including families, technologies, and communities, segregate young people from adults, and from one another, disconnecting potential from reality, and hope from action. And it gets worse.
The great experiment in democracy that made America an ideal to nations and revolutionaries worldwide has become a cloak for corporatism propagated through crass consumption, with oppressions of all sorts used to deepen the pockets of the hyper-wealthy, while middle- and working class Americans are mired in the prospects of a darker tomorrow everyday. The structures that used to support upward mobility are now used to reinforce class differentiation, including the education system that engages so many of our young people. Youth programs reinforce entrenched views of young people as incapable recipients of adults' so-called good intentions, which are often thinly veiled reinforcements of adultism and adultcentrism.
We must radically re-envision the roles of young people throughout society, and reposition them as complete humans who are evolving in respect to the society they're part of. This is essential to any work that truly seeks to engage young people as social change agents, and should inform every single adult ally's perspective and actions with, for, and towards children and youth. Democracy demands that we find the essence and potential of every human every single day, and children and youth are people, not puppies. They are fully able to be democrats who are fully engaged throughout society.
The radical changes at the core of these actions must include...
The end of all age-based segregation in our society
- Eliminating voting ages
- End of compulsory education for under-14 year-olds
- Routine appointments for children and youth to governmental positions
- Eliminating national service age requirements
- Ending economic age segregation, including banking requirements
- Ending public age discrimination, including age restrictions in stores
The promotion of full engagement for every member of society
- Fully actualization citizenship for every child and youth in society
- Making voting an obligation of every citizen
- Making every resident "legal", and the elimination of non-citizen discrimination
- Promoting full civic responsibilities and opportunities for every member of society
- Acknowledging the full taxation of young people with the full political representation of young people in all levels of governance
- Fully-funded, free, public education for every member of society of any age in any area
These are just the beginning of the radical changes necessary to engage all members of society, particularly children and youth. Each must be challenged, advocated, re-envisioned, and reconstituted by every succeeding generation of society. All must be seen as essential to begin with.
It is only when we begin this conversation in earnest that programs and projects promoting any form of civic engagement will be valid, valuable, and fully authentic. It is only then that we can begin thinking about what the Free Child actually is.
Monday, November 22, 2010
A New Vision for Students in School Reform
The following is a vision for schools, written in response to the National Day of Blogging for Real Education Reform, a project of the American Association of School Administrators and ASCD. After 10 years of working with K-12 schools, districts, state agencies, and national education organizations across the US and Canada focused on Meaningful Student Involvement, I am confident in saying the following vision is absolutely essential for school improvement. Here's why:
The essential partner in school reform- students- are not routinely, systemically, or systematically engaged in the process of school reform; more so, their role is continuously relegated to that of "recipient." Their roles must change in order for ANY school reform to be effective. The change that is required is the fostering of Meaningful Student Involvement.
The greatest challenge facing schools today is not the literacy deficit or even the achievement gap, as tragic and real as both those are. The single problem plaguing all students in all schools everywhere is the crisis of disconnection. It is disconnection from learning, from curriculum, from peers, from adults; it is disconnection from relevance, rigor, and relationships; it is disconnection from self and community; it is simple disconnection. While it doesn't only affect schools, is does plague schools in a special way.
The cure to disconnection is meaningfulness. Meaningful Student Involvement happens when the roles of students are actively re-aligned from being the passive recipients of schools to becoming active partners throughout the educational process. Meaningful Student Involvement can happen in any location throughout education, including the classroom, the counselor's office, hallways, after school programs, district board of education offices, at the state or federal levels, and in other places that directly affect the students' experience of education. Real learning and real purpose take form through Meaningful Student Involvement, often showing immediate impacts on the lives of students by actively authorizing each of them to have powerful, purposeful opportunities to impact their own learning and the lives of others.
As we see increased interest in the entwined topics of student engagement and student voice throughout schools, it becomes easy to misunderstand the relationships between these topics and Meaningful Student Involvement. Student voice is any verbal, visual, or other expression learners make regarding education. This can include students sharing their life stories in class, or graffiting on the hallway wall. Student engagement is the outcome of learners' emotional, social, cultural, psychological, or other bonds towards school; it is a feeling. 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. It can be said, then, that Meaningful Student Involvement strengthens, supports, and sustains student voice in order to foster student engagement for every student in every grade in every school.
Over the last 10 years more than 350 K-12 schools in dozens of districts across the US and Canada have used my Frameworks for Meaningful Student Involvement to reconsider their approaches to learning, teaching, and leadership in schools. Following are six hallmarks of Meaningful Student Involvement that form my new vision for students in school reform.
Hallmark #1: School-wide Approaches to Meaningful Student Involvement. All school reform measures include opportunities for all students in all grades to become engaged in education through system-wide planning, research, teaching, evaluation, decision-making, and advocacy, starting in kindergarten and extending through graduation. This includes a variety of opportunities throughout each students' individual learning experience as well as those of their peers; within their school building; throughout their districts, and; across their states.
Hallmark #2: High levels of Student Authority through Meaningful Student Involvement. Students' ideas, knowledge, opinions and experiences in schools and regarding education are actively sought and substantiated by educators, administrators, and other adults within the educational system. Adults' acknowledgment of students' ability to improve schools is validated and authorized through deliberate teaching focused on learning about learning, learning about the education system, learning about student voice and Meaningful Student Involvement, and learning about school improvement.
Hallmark #3: Interrelated Strategies Integrate Meaningful Student Involvement. Students are incorporated into ongoing, sustainable school reform activities through deliberate opportunities for learning, teaching, and leadership throughout the educational system. In individual classrooms this can mean integrating student voice into classroom management practices; giving students opportunities to design, facilitate, and evaluate curriculum; or facilitating student learning about school systems. In the Principal's office it can mean students' having equitable opportunities to participate with adults in formal school improvement activities. On the state school board of education it can mean students having full voting rights, and equal representation to adults. Whatever the opportunities are, ultimately it means they are all tied together with the intention of improving schools for all learners all the time.
Hallmark #4: Sustainable Structures of Support for Implementing Meaningful Student Involvement. Policies and procedures are created and amended to promote Meaningful Student Involvement throughout schools. This includes creating specific funding opportunities that support student voice and student engagement; facilitating ongoing professional development for educators focused on Meaningful Student Involvement; and integrating this new vision for students into classroom practice, building procedures, district/state/federal policy, and ultimately engendering new cultures throughout education that constantly focus on students by constantly having students on board.
Hallmark #5: Personal Commitment to Meaningful Student Involvement. Students and adults acknowledge their mutual investment, dedication, and benefit, visible in learning, relationships, practices, policies, school culture, and many other ways. Meaningful Student Involvement is not just about students themselves; rather, it insists that from the time of their pre-service education, teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, counselors, and others see students as substantive, powerful, and significant partners in all the different machinations of schools. When they have this commitment every person will actively seek nothing other than to fully integrate students at every turn.
Hallmark #6: Strong Learning Connections Within Meaningful Student Involvement. Classroom learning and student involvement are connected by classroom learning and credit, ensuring relevancy for educators and significance to students. This deliberate connection ties together the roles for students with the purpose of education, thoroughly substantiating student/adult partnerships and signifying the intention of adults to continue transforming learning as learners themselves evolve.
This new vision for students provides all people in schools, young and adult, with opportunities to collaborate in exciting new ways while securing powerful new outcomes for everyone involved, most importantly students themselves. The impacts Meaningful Student Involvement has are only beginning to be shown; with time, expanded practice, and investment, I am convinced that this vision will fully demonstrate not only the efficacy of the practice, but ultimately, of education, community, and democracy itself. There can be no lesser goal for any school, nor should their be.
- Learn more about Meaningful Student Involvement, including how to receive a copy of the Meaningful Student Involvement Guide to Students as Partners in School Change, by contacting Adam Fletcher at 360-489-9680, or email him at adam@commonaction.org.
- Learn more about Adam's "Frameworks for Meaningful Student Involvement" from the US Department of Education website at http://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/training/connect/school_pg21.html
- Discover more of Adam Fletcher's writing about Meaningful Student Involvement at http://commonaction.blogspot.com/search/label/Meaningful%20Student%20Involvement
Crowdsourcing Youth Engagement
I just stumbled across this and wanted to plant a seed in our thinking about youth engagement: The band Weezer hosted a series of concerts (Hootenany Tour) where they invited folks to bring their instruments and sing along with the band. Now, Weezer is a mildly huge band, replete with MTV videos and everything, right? Why would they do this?
In the technology world they call it "crowdsourcing", and it's intended to create and build a brand's image by putting the power into the hands of the consumer. Weezer's brand grows and remains strong through direct contact with the band. Fans loyalty only strengthens, and everyone wins.
How does this relate to youth engagement, youth voice, and youth involvement? I think that all youth engagement activities, which inherently rely on young people connecting with a given topic, activity, place, or outcome, should be crowdsourced. That means that rather than having children and youth come and passively receive adult-driven programming, young people and adults should co-create knowledge and experiences with each other towards inspiring practical action and real outcomes in their lives.
This, in turn, fosters authenticity, which leads to deep youth engagement, and real outcomes that can be directly correlated to youth engagement. CommonAction Consulting specializes in helping organizations make these connections - contact our office for more information by emailing info@commonaction.org or calling 360-489-9680.
In the technology world they call it "crowdsourcing", and it's intended to create and build a brand's image by putting the power into the hands of the consumer. Weezer's brand grows and remains strong through direct contact with the band. Fans loyalty only strengthens, and everyone wins.
How does this relate to youth engagement, youth voice, and youth involvement? I think that all youth engagement activities, which inherently rely on young people connecting with a given topic, activity, place, or outcome, should be crowdsourced. That means that rather than having children and youth come and passively receive adult-driven programming, young people and adults should co-create knowledge and experiences with each other towards inspiring practical action and real outcomes in their lives.
This, in turn, fosters authenticity, which leads to deep youth engagement, and real outcomes that can be directly correlated to youth engagement. CommonAction Consulting specializes in helping organizations make these connections - contact our office for more information by emailing info@commonaction.org or calling 360-489-9680.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Seattle Youth Engagement Zone
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Evolving Roles for Young People in Democracy
I originally wrote this for the spectacular Paul Roc's local rag, The Journal of Natural Learning.
In the early 1800s it was common for non-enslaved Blacks in the United States to take the last name “Freeman” as a testimony to their freedom. Since that time young people have become bound by the ongoing structuring of society, through school, afterschool programs, church activities, and family life. These shared legacies led a group of Olympia-based youth activists and allies to create a new youth empowerment resource organization called The Freechild Project in April 2001. Today, Freechild is an internationally-renowned advocacy organization.
Freechild’s mission is to advocate, inform, and celebrate social change led by and with young people around the world. The organization serves as a not-for-profit learning space, think tank, resource center, and advocacy group that facilitates networking, training, resource-sharing, and technical assistance for young people and youth-serving organizations around the world.
By establishing a network of local and national organizations that includes Gateways for Incarcerated Youth at Evergreen, Fremont Public Association in Seattle, National Youth Rights Association in Washington, DC, and the United Nations Development Programme in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Freechild has reached tens of thousands of young people and their adult allies around the world. We have created dozens of unique publications, resource databases, and popular education workshops that promote children, youth, and adults working as equal partners in democratic social change.
Freechild believes that as a collective body within a global community, children and youth around the world are subject to segregation, alienation, and injustice without parallel. Further, as members of distinct ethnic, racial, and socio-economic groups, many young people suffer unequalled oppression as the targets of genocide, hunger, and war. It is no wonder that in these times when the health of democracy is sacrificed for commercial gain and familial vendetta, many people find it hard to have hope. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the “World House,” it is almost certain that he didn’t intend for children and youth to inherit a decrepit house, slipped from its foundation, stripped of its siding, plastered with billboards, and crumbling apart inside.
What is that slipped foundation upon which the World House is built? Is it a higher authority charged with morality and righteousness, or a man-made composite of economy and education, government and military? The Freechild Project believes that it is Community, that common connection of diverse people for a collective purpose. The citizens of modern communities tend to neglect or deny that collective purpose; worse still, many people deny that young people have any purpose at all.
Popular culture seems to exacerbate this situation repeatedly by constantly railing against youth. While corporate marketing to children and youth infiltrates every facet of our culture, movies simultaneously glamorize and degrade the collective image of young people today. Two recent books summarize young people today as “The Scapegoat Generation,” and as “The Abandoned Generation,” while a popular website portrays them as a shapeless, placeless, and an unknowable “Fluid Generation.”
Other culprits to perpetuating negative stereotypes about youth include politicians and government officials who continually attempt to pin vandalism, loitering, and other crime on young people. It is ironic that this demonization actually benefits, and is sometimes perpetuated by, the very nonprofit agencies that purport to provide prevention and intervention programs for young people. Finally, in this period of federally-mandated and locally-supported standardized testing, it is of little surprise that children and youth themselves are often blamed for the failures of the education system. This, despite the reality that most students never have the actual opportunity to make significant decisions or advocate for what is important to themselves in schools.
Demonstrating the wisdom of youth, one young leader recently said, “I’ve never met an apathetic young person, [but] I’ve met a lot of hopeless and discouraged young people, who think that they are not big enough to change things.” This assessment summarizes the raison d'etre of dozens of youth-driven groups in Washington today. Benefiting communities across the state, young people and their adult allies are working together to engage children and youth as social justice activists, action researchers, community planners, popular educators, democratic decision-makers, and as empowered advocates as never before. They are calling for the knowledge, experience, ideas and opinions of young people to get heard now, for their own benefit and for the benefit of democracy.
The issues that young people are addressing across today are as diverse as the children and youth who are engaged. Coming from every walk in society, young people are addressing issues of economic injustice, racism, education reform, sustainable agriculture, disproportionate incarceration, affordable housing, gay youth rights, lowering the voting age, homelessness, among hundreds of topics. Their action is sophisticated, appropriate, and increasingly sustainable; by creating media, joining community boards, distributing foundation funding, creating global technology networks, activating the hip hop community, and politicizing traditional youth programs, young social change agents are radically transforming two pillars of society’s treatment of children and youth: namely, adults’ expectations and the role of young people in democracy.
It is said two different people will rarely interpret a master’s art the same way. Social change led by and with young people usually has the same effect. Some adults scoff at children and youth who lead action, declaring their actions idealistic and simplistic, while many others maintain the standard of ignoring their contributions totally. Some see young social change agents as anarchists and rebels, while others see them as peons and kiss-ups. Fortunately for our society as a whole, still other adults proclaim that engaging young people is a matter of effectiveness, civil rights, youth development, and ultimately, ensuring democracy. The following examples from Washington can provide a proving ground for readers to decide for themselves what this action really is.
The Olympia Youth/Teen New Media Fest seeks to foster the vitality of the Olympia community by providing a venue for vivacious and creative youth. This festival is a weekend long celebration of youth-teen culture; showcasing films, videos, comic books and zines, websites, spoken word and bands made and performed by folks 21 and younger. Young people express their opinions, ideas, knowledge and experience by becoming the creators of media that reflects their true beliefs.
Anak Bayan is a collective founded in 2000 by Filipino and Filipino American youth and students who are concerned about the global oppression of their people. According to their website they study and educate others about the culture and heritage of the Filipino people. They also study, expose, and oppose US imperialist intervention in the Philippines. Through this action, the young people in Anak Bayan are engaged as teachers and advocates, and are driving social change that can enrich our state’s cultural heritage and promote social justice for all people.
A nonprofit organization in Kent, Washington is engaging young people as advocates for democracy through poetry/nonviolence workshops. The Institute for Community Leadership (ICL) works to empower children and youth to create a vision of a more just nation and world. Their website, www.icleadership.org, features stories of programs that develop and sustain strength, hope, leadership, and relationships for young people and adults in schools, community organizations, and governmental programs.
A variety of communities across the state have opportunities for young people to engage in government decision-making activities. Cities including Lacey, Colville, Kirkland, Vancouver, and Spokane have youth councils that engage diverse young people in making important and meaningful decisions affecting youth throughout their communities. Several American Indian tribes in Washington also have opportunities for youth to participate in decision-making activities, including Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe, Yakama Nation, and Muckleshoot tribe.
The Seattle Young Peoples Project (SYPP) is perhaps the most vibrant organization in Washington state providing opportunities for young people to lead social change. Their fifteen-year-old organization has provided resources and support to youth-led initiatives throughout the city that have engaged thousands of young people, including conferences, workshops, concerts, and more. Their activities reflect the diversity of Seattle’s youth: whether focusing on queer youth rights, African immigrant youth solidarity, or young womens’ empowerment, SYPP continues to be a powerful example of the effectiveness and ability of youth-led social action across Washington.
The benefits to democracy in Washington, across the United States, and around the world are innumerable. Social change led by and with young people provides individual children and youth with important opportunities to experience and impact democracy first-hand; allows adults the chance to relax and learn from young people by working with them, instead of for them; and it gives our communities hope by developing lifelong expectations and opportunities for everyone. One of those expectations is that there are communities worth living in for everyone, including youth. One of those opportunities is that democracy needs to be constantly reinvigorated through social change.
In his last book before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote,
Activists, educators, youth workers, young people, and all people across Washington must stay awake and vigilant to the challenges facing society today. The need to strengthen democracy has never been greater, and the resources have never been so limited. Communities can no longer afford to ignore the power of children and youth, either morally or fiscally. As Henry Giroux writes, “The stakes have never been so high and the future so dark.” Young people provide light in that darkness – let’s encourage their flames to grow.
“Education should not be the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a flame.” – William Butler Yates
In the early 1800s it was common for non-enslaved Blacks in the United States to take the last name “Freeman” as a testimony to their freedom. Since that time young people have become bound by the ongoing structuring of society, through school, afterschool programs, church activities, and family life. These shared legacies led a group of Olympia-based youth activists and allies to create a new youth empowerment resource organization called The Freechild Project in April 2001. Today, Freechild is an internationally-renowned advocacy organization.
Freechild’s mission is to advocate, inform, and celebrate social change led by and with young people around the world. The organization serves as a not-for-profit learning space, think tank, resource center, and advocacy group that facilitates networking, training, resource-sharing, and technical assistance for young people and youth-serving organizations around the world.
By establishing a network of local and national organizations that includes Gateways for Incarcerated Youth at Evergreen, Fremont Public Association in Seattle, National Youth Rights Association in Washington, DC, and the United Nations Development Programme in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Freechild has reached tens of thousands of young people and their adult allies around the world. We have created dozens of unique publications, resource databases, and popular education workshops that promote children, youth, and adults working as equal partners in democratic social change.
Freechild believes that as a collective body within a global community, children and youth around the world are subject to segregation, alienation, and injustice without parallel. Further, as members of distinct ethnic, racial, and socio-economic groups, many young people suffer unequalled oppression as the targets of genocide, hunger, and war. It is no wonder that in these times when the health of democracy is sacrificed for commercial gain and familial vendetta, many people find it hard to have hope. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the “World House,” it is almost certain that he didn’t intend for children and youth to inherit a decrepit house, slipped from its foundation, stripped of its siding, plastered with billboards, and crumbling apart inside.
What is that slipped foundation upon which the World House is built? Is it a higher authority charged with morality and righteousness, or a man-made composite of economy and education, government and military? The Freechild Project believes that it is Community, that common connection of diverse people for a collective purpose. The citizens of modern communities tend to neglect or deny that collective purpose; worse still, many people deny that young people have any purpose at all.
Popular culture seems to exacerbate this situation repeatedly by constantly railing against youth. While corporate marketing to children and youth infiltrates every facet of our culture, movies simultaneously glamorize and degrade the collective image of young people today. Two recent books summarize young people today as “The Scapegoat Generation,” and as “The Abandoned Generation,” while a popular website portrays them as a shapeless, placeless, and an unknowable “Fluid Generation.”
Other culprits to perpetuating negative stereotypes about youth include politicians and government officials who continually attempt to pin vandalism, loitering, and other crime on young people. It is ironic that this demonization actually benefits, and is sometimes perpetuated by, the very nonprofit agencies that purport to provide prevention and intervention programs for young people. Finally, in this period of federally-mandated and locally-supported standardized testing, it is of little surprise that children and youth themselves are often blamed for the failures of the education system. This, despite the reality that most students never have the actual opportunity to make significant decisions or advocate for what is important to themselves in schools.
Demonstrating the wisdom of youth, one young leader recently said, “I’ve never met an apathetic young person, [but] I’ve met a lot of hopeless and discouraged young people, who think that they are not big enough to change things.” This assessment summarizes the raison d'etre of dozens of youth-driven groups in Washington today. Benefiting communities across the state, young people and their adult allies are working together to engage children and youth as social justice activists, action researchers, community planners, popular educators, democratic decision-makers, and as empowered advocates as never before. They are calling for the knowledge, experience, ideas and opinions of young people to get heard now, for their own benefit and for the benefit of democracy.
The issues that young people are addressing across today are as diverse as the children and youth who are engaged. Coming from every walk in society, young people are addressing issues of economic injustice, racism, education reform, sustainable agriculture, disproportionate incarceration, affordable housing, gay youth rights, lowering the voting age, homelessness, among hundreds of topics. Their action is sophisticated, appropriate, and increasingly sustainable; by creating media, joining community boards, distributing foundation funding, creating global technology networks, activating the hip hop community, and politicizing traditional youth programs, young social change agents are radically transforming two pillars of society’s treatment of children and youth: namely, adults’ expectations and the role of young people in democracy.
It is said two different people will rarely interpret a master’s art the same way. Social change led by and with young people usually has the same effect. Some adults scoff at children and youth who lead action, declaring their actions idealistic and simplistic, while many others maintain the standard of ignoring their contributions totally. Some see young social change agents as anarchists and rebels, while others see them as peons and kiss-ups. Fortunately for our society as a whole, still other adults proclaim that engaging young people is a matter of effectiveness, civil rights, youth development, and ultimately, ensuring democracy. The following examples from Washington can provide a proving ground for readers to decide for themselves what this action really is.
The Olympia Youth/Teen New Media Fest seeks to foster the vitality of the Olympia community by providing a venue for vivacious and creative youth. This festival is a weekend long celebration of youth-teen culture; showcasing films, videos, comic books and zines, websites, spoken word and bands made and performed by folks 21 and younger. Young people express their opinions, ideas, knowledge and experience by becoming the creators of media that reflects their true beliefs.
Anak Bayan is a collective founded in 2000 by Filipino and Filipino American youth and students who are concerned about the global oppression of their people. According to their website they study and educate others about the culture and heritage of the Filipino people. They also study, expose, and oppose US imperialist intervention in the Philippines. Through this action, the young people in Anak Bayan are engaged as teachers and advocates, and are driving social change that can enrich our state’s cultural heritage and promote social justice for all people.
A nonprofit organization in Kent, Washington is engaging young people as advocates for democracy through poetry/nonviolence workshops. The Institute for Community Leadership (ICL) works to empower children and youth to create a vision of a more just nation and world. Their website, www.icleadership.org, features stories of programs that develop and sustain strength, hope, leadership, and relationships for young people and adults in schools, community organizations, and governmental programs.
A variety of communities across the state have opportunities for young people to engage in government decision-making activities. Cities including Lacey, Colville, Kirkland, Vancouver, and Spokane have youth councils that engage diverse young people in making important and meaningful decisions affecting youth throughout their communities. Several American Indian tribes in Washington also have opportunities for youth to participate in decision-making activities, including Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe, Yakama Nation, and Muckleshoot tribe.
The Seattle Young Peoples Project (SYPP) is perhaps the most vibrant organization in Washington state providing opportunities for young people to lead social change. Their fifteen-year-old organization has provided resources and support to youth-led initiatives throughout the city that have engaged thousands of young people, including conferences, workshops, concerts, and more. Their activities reflect the diversity of Seattle’s youth: whether focusing on queer youth rights, African immigrant youth solidarity, or young womens’ empowerment, SYPP continues to be a powerful example of the effectiveness and ability of youth-led social action across Washington.
The benefits to democracy in Washington, across the United States, and around the world are innumerable. Social change led by and with young people provides individual children and youth with important opportunities to experience and impact democracy first-hand; allows adults the chance to relax and learn from young people by working with them, instead of for them; and it gives our communities hope by developing lifelong expectations and opportunities for everyone. One of those expectations is that there are communities worth living in for everyone, including youth. One of those opportunities is that democracy needs to be constantly reinvigorated through social change.
In his last book before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote,
"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."
Activists, educators, youth workers, young people, and all people across Washington must stay awake and vigilant to the challenges facing society today. The need to strengthen democracy has never been greater, and the resources have never been so limited. Communities can no longer afford to ignore the power of children and youth, either morally or fiscally. As Henry Giroux writes, “The stakes have never been so high and the future so dark.” Young people provide light in that darkness – let’s encourage their flames to grow.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Defining Youth Discrimination
I have written this mini-glossary for terms that need to be understood in order to define youth discrimination throughout society. To learn more, visit The Freechild Project Glossary.
Learning the language is the first step to stopping discrimination against youth. Learn more throughout The Freechild Project website!
- Adultcentrism is the practice of regarding adult, including their opinions, interests and actions, above young peoples' opinions, interests and action.
- Adultization is the elimination of childhood and adolescence by schools, marketers and parents in order to promote order and eliminate the "inconvenience" of youth.
- Adultism is the practice of favoring adults before young people. This happens every where, all of the time: Schools, lawmaking, movies and music all reflect adults' interests and perceptions. Even young people can unconsciously share adults' perceptions of young people.
- Adultocracy is the collection of obvious and unobvious tools adults use to impose their authority, domination and superiority over children and youth.
- Commercialism is the manufacturing and distribution of objects and traits that were formerly free to young people, particularly in the forms of education and culture.
- Consumerism is the process of identifying, training and transforming young people into complacent consumers rather than dissatisfied citizens.
- Criminalization is the formal and informal process that makes young people or their specific actions illegal, particularly when young people or their actions were legal in the past.
- Decoration happens when young people are used to make a situation look sufficient, often without their consent or knowledge.
- Demonization is a process for making young people evil in order to justify attacking them in the forms of character assassination, legal action and to get rid of their civil liberties.
- Discrimination happens whenever someone makes a decision that does not include other people. Everyone discriminates all the time, and that is not always bad.
- Ephebiphobia is the fear of youth.
- Gerontocracy happens when older people control an institution or government at the expense of all other age groups in society.
- Gerontophobia is the fear of older people.
- Infantalization happens whenever a person is made unable or assumed to be incapable of something because of their age, presumed development, or education.
- Juenism is the favoring of children and youth over adults.
- Manipulation occurs when adults exert influence over young people in order to gain for themselves.
- Militarization is the process where young people and the procedures they participate in become overtly manipulated or controlled by the military or administered in a military fashion.
- Neoliberalism is the process of making private formerly public entities in order to introduce market values to young people at the expense of collective benefit.
- Paternalism describes the notion that by "protecting" children and youth, adults are preventing young people from harming themselves.
- Pediaphobia is the fear of children.
- Standardization is causing young people to conform to any standard or norm, particularly those administered by adults.
- Tokenism happens whenever young people are included in order to make it appear that young people are participating; occurs exclusive of meaningful participation.
Learning the language is the first step to stopping discrimination against youth. Learn more throughout The Freechild Project website!
Friday, November 05, 2010
Balancing Youth Voice
Among adults who work to support youth voice, there are a lot of questions that are wrestled with regularly.
In a great video from the UK, an East London school called the George Mitchell School is featured for their superb approaches to recognizing many of these questions, and others. I encourage everyone to watch it as soon as possible. The video identifies the successes of engaging youth voice throughout the learning environment for a lot of different reasons, and shows some of the ways young people can and should become engaged throughout our communities.
- How do we best prepare youth to be meaningfully involved?
- Do we select students to become involved by our judgment, or theirs?
- How much authority should young people have when they're involved?
- What happens if students think they have too much power?
- Can this make any different to their grades?
- Doesn't student voice take away from learning time?
- What happens to the students who aren't involved?
In a great video from the UK, an East London school called the George Mitchell School is featured for their superb approaches to recognizing many of these questions, and others. I encourage everyone to watch it as soon as possible. The video identifies the successes of engaging youth voice throughout the learning environment for a lot of different reasons, and shows some of the ways young people can and should become engaged throughout our communities.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Student Voice and Dropouts
Dropping out of school can be one of the most powerful forms of student voice. As inconvenient as it may be for educators, administrators, and frustrated parents, dropping out can be the ultimate vote of no-confidence from a young person about their education.
In the last few years, the topic of "dropout re-engagement" has become a vogue conversation in education circles as the feds funded it and foundations pushed money into the arena. In this conversation I have found a lot of people are using the language of "student engagement" without knowing exactly what they're talking about.
In a recent conversation with a colleague in Santa Barbara, I suggested that dropout re-engagement must revolve around one primary concern: Increase student ownership of learning. My own experience and research have made clear to me that the reasons why young people leave schools vary, but always hinge on students' psychological and social investment in schools. Research shows me that the ways to increase ownership are all over the map, but basically revolve around:
I suggested to him that any program that centers on those three areas is going to be successful. What do you think? What are the connections between student voice and dropouts? How can we use one to bridge the other?
In the last few years, the topic of "dropout re-engagement" has become a vogue conversation in education circles as the feds funded it and foundations pushed money into the arena. In this conversation I have found a lot of people are using the language of "student engagement" without knowing exactly what they're talking about.
In a recent conversation with a colleague in Santa Barbara, I suggested that dropout re-engagement must revolve around one primary concern: Increase student ownership of learning. My own experience and research have made clear to me that the reasons why young people leave schools vary, but always hinge on students' psychological and social investment in schools. Research shows me that the ways to increase ownership are all over the map, but basically revolve around:
- "Real world" learning connections
- Meaningful student involvement; and
- Direct connections between classroom learning on life beyond high school.
I suggested to him that any program that centers on those three areas is going to be successful. What do you think? What are the connections between student voice and dropouts? How can we use one to bridge the other?
Monday, November 01, 2010
Evaluating With Hart's Ladder
In 1993, Roger Hart, an environmental psychologist with UNICEF, published a book in which his now-popular "Hart's Ladder of Children's Participation" was included. I adapted it for the Freechild Project website in 2001. Since then I've heard Hart say he doesn't expect the Ladder to be an evaluation tool, per se. Alas, following I offer it as one. Enjoy!
Use the following chart to map current activities and their potential growth towards authentic meaningful youth involvement. The higher level, the more meaningful it is likely to be for youth. There are three steps:
- Name of youth involvement opportunity: ________________________
- Write a brief description of the opportunity in the box that best illustrates what the current opportunity is.
- Use the remaining boxes to explore potentially progressive and regressive opportunities for youth involvement are. For instance, if your opportunity is currently at level 7, use the remaining levels to project what youth involvement could be, both in higher and lower levels.
| | | Current description | Future possibilities |
| Levels of Meaningful Involvement | 8. Authentic Opportunities | | |
| 7. Youth-Initiated, Youth-Led | | | |
| 6. Adult-Initiated, Shared with Youth | | | |
| 5. Youth Consulted by Adults | | | |
| 4. Youth Assigned by Adults | | | |
| Non-Meaningful Involvement | 3. Token Involvement of Youth | | |
| 2. Youth Used as Decorations | | | |
| 1. Youth Manipulated | | |
Note that here I offer the bottom three rungs as "non-meaningful" involvement, meaning that there is no way they can help build investment in democracy, community, or education among young people. This is different from Harts' original assertion that these were merely forms of "non-participation."
For more information about how to implement youth involvement in meaningful ways visit The Freechild Project Youth Voice Toolbox.
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