Introducing Personal Engagement

Wanna change the world? Learn about yourself.

There is a missing piece in most civic engagement and community engagement initiatives. Most well-meaning practitioners come storming into programming intending to teach folks about issues, engage them in actions, and move forward to change the world.

• In schools, parent engagement coordinators focus on connecting parents with teachers or committees they can support. 
• In nonprofits, youth engagement workers dive into connecting young people with social change action. 
• In business, community engagement coordinators want to connecting consumers with their brands. 

While none of these are inherently wrong, they are all flawed.

Social engagement of any kind requires that people connect with something outside of themselves, true, and that's what all of these approaches focus on. But another key element is missing: Before connecting to something outside themselves, people need to connect to something within themselves. We all need to become personally engaged before we can become socially engaged.

My work with thousands of young people and adults over the last decade has shown me that personal engagement happens when people have a sustained connection to something inside of themselves.

This is different from social engagement, which is when people have a sustained connection to someone or something outside of themselves. Social engagement includes our campaigns for civic engagement, school engagement, voter engagement, worker engagement, and environmental engagement. However, all these forms of social engagement, no matter how effective they appear, are missing something:

I have to be engaged within myself in order to be engaged outside of myself.

That is true of everyone. Whenever we appear to succeed in engaging people outside of themselves without first making sure they're engaged within themselves, we actually fail. Every program for engagement needs to address the broader role of engagement in a person's life in order to create that sustaining factor of the connection. Without sustainable connections engagement does not happen.

How are you engaged in yourself?

Starting December 2011, CommonAction will provide training and consultation for organizations and coaching for individuals who are ready and willing to make meaning of the world around them by looking inside themselves. Contact us for more information!

10 Questions on Personal Engagement

We all have issues and activities that we'd like to engage others in doing. If you're running an afterschool program for kids, you might want to engage them in the activity of learning. If you're leading a protest at the school board meeting, you might want to engage students and parents in concept of school reform. If you're teaching a high school class in robotics, you might want to engage students in the topic of robotic engineering.

Before you can do that, though, people have to know they're capable of becoming engaged. While that sounds like a "duh" for some folks, a lot of us haven't considered that there are people who just don't know they can be- or currently are- engaged with anything. I define engagement as anything a person has sustained connection to outside of themselves. This definition isn't about commitment or consciousness or intention; it's simply about identifying the sustainability of connections.

Following are ten questions about personal engagement to ask folks before asking them to become engaged in your issue or activities.

1. What do you feel most strongly about in your life?
2. What do you like to do when you have time to do it?
3. Who do you like to spend the most time with?
4. When does your connection to other things feel the strongest?
5. What do you feel most connected to outside yourself?
6. How does it feel when you're connected to things outside you?
7. Who are the people you feel most connected to?
8. What are the topics or issues you feel most connected to?
9. What difference does your connection make to the world around you?
10. When do your connections feel strongest?

There are a lot of questions we could ask, and a lot of different directions they could go. To help people think critically about their engagement, you might ask, "When have you disengaged at the exact moment your engagement was needed?" To help people think positively about their engagement, you might ask, "How does your personal connection to other things connect with other peoples' connections to make a difference in the world?"

Asking questions is a great way to build ownership in the topic of engagement. What would you like to engage with today?

Publications By CommonAction

CommonAction Consulting has released a number of publications over the years that are focused on engaging young people in social change, community action, school reform, and more. The following is a list of our publications, most of which are available for free at the URLs listed. Contact us with any questions!

Freechild Project Youth Engagement Workshop Guide (Adam Fletcher, 2010, 71 pgs) The Freechild Project Youth Engagement Workshop Guide features 24 workshop outlines designed to help learning groups explore different aspects of Youth Engagement. All exercises are hands-on, interactive, and focused on practical applications. The workshops are designed for learners of all ages, including youth-only and adult-only groups. Available as a free PDF at http://www.freechild.org/FPYEWG.htm

Freechild Project Youth Voice Toolbox (Adam Fletcher, 2010, online) The Youth Voice Toolbox is an online resource comprised of a series of one-pagers on youth action, youth engagement, youth empowerment, and more. These tools identify a number of innovative practices, practical considerations and critical concepts related to youth voice, particularly among historically disengaged young people. Available as a free website at http://www.freechild.org/YouthVoice/ 

United We Serve: PTA Call to Service Toolkit (Adam Fletcher, 2009, 52 pgs) This Toolkit is designed specifically for PTA members and leaders to provide tips, techniques and ideas to plan your own service project. This Toolkit is a guide to create successful and thoughtful service projects. It can be used as a complete package, or can be used as needed to provide guidance on a specific aspect of the service project. The examples, sample timeline, and questions asked throughout this toolkit can provide guidance and a framework to brainstorm and keep track of your progress. Available as a free PDF at http://www.pta.org/3213.htm

Environmentalism: How You Can Make a Difference (Mary McIntyre Coley consulted by Adam Fletcher, 2009, 32 pgs) From animal rights to environmentalism, we all have the ability to make change, and these books show you how. Inspiring stories of real kids engaged in activism, plus concrete tips and strategies for getting involved, will start you on your way to making a difference in your world. Published by Capstone Press with ordering information available at http://www.capstonepub.com/product/9781429628006 

Political Activism: How You Can Make a Difference (Heather Schwartzconsulted by Adam Fletcher, 2009, 32 pgs) From animal rights to environmentalism, we all have the ability to make change, and these books show you how. Inspiring stories of real kids engaged in activism, plus concrete tips and strategies for getting involved, will start you on your way to making a difference in your world. Published by Capstone Press with ordering information available at http://www.capstonepub.com/product/9781429628006 

Animal Rights: How You Can Make a Difference (Rhonda Lucas Donald consulted by Adam Fletcher, 2009, 32 pgs) From animal rights to environmentalism, we all have the ability to make change, and these books show you how. Inspiring stories of real kids engaged in activism, plus concrete tips and strategies for getting involved, will start you on your way to making a difference in your world. Published by Capstone Press with ordering information available at http://www.capstonepub.com/product/9781429628006 

Social Justice: How You Can Make a Difference (Lynn Bogen Sanders consulted by Adam Fletcher, 2009, 32 pgs) From animal rights to environmentalism, we all have the ability to make change, and these books show you how. Inspiring stories of real kids engaged in activism, plus concrete tips and strategies for getting involved, will start you on your way to making a difference in your world. Published by Capstone Press with ordering information available at http://www.capstonepub.com/product/9781429628006

SoundOut Student Voice Curriculum (Adam Fletcher, 2007, 215 pgs) The SoundOut Student Voice Curriculum is a collection of 27 lesson plans, a facilitator's guide, a student handbook and a planning guide designed to teach high school students about how they can become partners in school improvement. A free module and ordering information available at http://www.soundout.org/curriculum.html

15 Points to Successfully Involving Young People in Decision-Making (Karen Young and Jenny Sazama with Adam Fletcher, 2007, 150 pgs) 15 Points collects the essentials of our knowledge in an easy-to-use format and aims to challenge and inspire your work with the young people and adults in your organization or school. Published by Youth On Board with ordering information available at http://tinyurl.com/YOB15points

Washington Youth Voice Handbook - (Adam Fletcher, 2006, 189 pgs) The first introductory guide to Youth Voice shares what, why, who, when, where, and how Youth Voice happens throughout our communities.Highlighting examples and lessons from across Washington State, CommonAction provides insights and ideas for young people, youth workers, teachers, and anyone else interested in truly empowering youth to make a difference. Available as a free PDF at http://www.freechild.org/WYVH.htm

Guide to Social Change Led By and With Young People - (Adam Fletcher with Joseph Vavrus, 2006, 16 pgs) This short guide looks at social change and progressively-oriented activities intended to build democracy by young people. The publication is split into four major sections: The Cycle of Youth Engagement is a tool that documents the trends that have been identified in successful youth engagement and can be used to plan, evaluate, or challenge any activity that seeks to engage you people in social change; issues addressed by social change led by and with young people; actions led by and with young people to create social change; other tools to develop, expand, and challenge the field. Available as a free PDF at http://www.freechild.org/socialchangeguide.htm

Guide to Cooperative Games for Social Change - (Adam Fletcher with Kari Kunst, 2006, 20 pgs) These activities provide a basic exploration of trust, teambuilding, communication, and social change by actively involving all participants. Young people, community youth workers, classroom teachers, and others are encouraged to use this tool to promote youth engagement, community improvement, and active participation. Available as a free PDF at http://freechild.org/gamesguide.htm

Meaningful Student Involvement Guide to Students as Partners in School Change - (Adam Fletcher, 2005, 28 pgs) This guide provides the theory, research, and numerous practical examples for working with students to take action together to improve schools, written by a leading practitioner in the field of youth voice and student involvement. Published with HumanLinks Foundation and available as a free PDF at http://www.soundout.org/series.html

Stories of Meaningful Student Involvement - (Adam Fletcher, 2005, 40 pgs) This booklet provides examples of several roles that uplift the aims of Meaningful Student Involvement. They include students as education planners, students as education researchers, students as classroom teachers, students as school evaluators, students as education decision-makers, and students as education advocates. Each example includes a description of the role, examples of students in action, and resources for readers to learn more. Published with HumanLinks Foundation and available as a free PDF at http://www.soundout.org/series.html

Meaningful Student Involvement Research Guide - (Adam Fletcher, 2004, 36 pgs) This publication reviews literature that broadly summarizes, examines, and accesses examples of Meaningful Student Involvement. The articles, journals, and books reviewed come from both scholarly researches that represent a scientific, theory-based approach; and applied research that employs case studies resulting in theories. The goal of this research guide is to identify what literature exists and evaluate its value in advocating for Meaningful Student Involvement. Published with HumanLinks Foundation and available as a free PDF at http://www.soundout.org/series.html

Meaningful Student Involvement Resource Guide - (Adam Fletcher, 2004, 34 pgs) This guide provides descriptions and annotations for dozens of publications, toolkits, organizations, and websites that support student voice throughout education. Published with HumanLinks Foundation and available as a free PDF at http://www.soundout.org/series.html

Firestarter Youth Power Curriculum (Adam Fletcher, 2005, online) Firestarter was created to provide young people, youth workers and teachers with accessible, powerful tools to engage young people. The collection of materials forms a loose curriculum that can be used to promote youth engagement, increase youth knowledge and ability, and develop group teamwork. Includes a facilitator's guide. Available as a free PDF at http://www.freechild.org/Firestarter/home.htm

Schools Change The World, For Better Or Worse

Adam's Note: A few weeks ago I was thinking about my daughter, school reform, the nascent Occupy Wall Street movement, and the Elizabeth Warren video where she ranted about Republicans so effectively. The following is what I arrived at after reflecting on it all for a while. By way of preparing you for the introduction, as anyone who knows me knows, my daughter is very important to me. She and I talk about monkeys a lot.

Part One: The Basics of Society

We’re all descendant from monkeys. Somewhere along the way someone got it into their head that, hey, let’s work together to make life easier for each other. The monkeys started handing each other twigs to pick their ants out of the ant hill, they nurtured each others’ offspring, and eventually, with some twists and turns, they evolved into homo sapien - humans, us. About 12,000 years ago we got together and started forming societies. Some societies moved towards towns and cities, and others stayed within loose knit communities. This is where society came from.

Before forming societies, humans were engaged in intrapersonal exchanges of confidence and cooperation. We began trading “this” for “that”, and “that” for “those”, until we had some of this, that, and those. These exchanges generally were not seen for what they were. It took until 1916 for a West Virginia educator named L.J. Hanifan to call these them social capital. This social capital, which requires “goodwill, fellowship, mutual sympathy, and social intercourse” (Hanifan’s words), was basic requirement for societies to develop and grow. Any fiscal capital exchange, i.e. personal services, or property, or cold, hard cash requires the exchange of social capital before hand.

Social capital is what is exchanged when you help the old lady cross the street, have a conversation with the mailman, or drop coins into the Salvation Army tin at Christmastime. Teachers grow social capital among students habitually as they teach manners, encourage kindness, and infuse community service into their curriculum. The wonder of teaching social capital is that teachers have actually served to underpin another essential component in society that is called the social contract.

The social contract is a generally unspoken exchange occurring beyond the immediacy of social capital. It is a swap, too. But this time it is a trade on a grander scale, one that considers trading personal rights for social abilities. When social capital is interested in exchanging personal pleasantries or doing favors for neighbors and strangers, the social contract is more concerned with trading our individual right to defend our interests (thus police and the military exist) for the social ability to leave relatively peaceably within our borders.  

Recently, the Democratic candidate for a Massachusetts United States Senate seat named Elizabeth Warren caused The Wave to go around the Liberal Stadium when she chastised Republicans for their indifference to the social contract. She said,

“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Here she was talking about the apparent indifference of Republicans towards the social contract and preserving social order. Given my political inclination and her vast experience as an attorney and law professor, I believe Warren knows exactly what she is talking about, which were the basics of society.

Part Two: Social Engineering

Throughout my own 20-year career as a community educator and advocate, I have come to understand that deepened connections among young people and adults throughout our communities are key to the survival of democracy. It is from this perspective that I am interested in social capital and the social contract. I believe both of these happen through social engagement, and that is why I am concerned about our society.

Evolution has often been painted as a competition: From a random starting point every species is aiming to propagate their own kind at the expense of all others. Sociologists, economists, and even politicians will at times insist that competition is the root of all progress, and that from the chaos of living in the woods with our monkey relatives we only progressed because of competition. Darwin’s theory of evolution, “survival of the fittest”, and all that.

This is where society collides with schools. In his 1932 primer on genuinely authentic democracy education called Dare the School Build a New Social Order, radical educationalist George Counts wrote, “All education contains a large element of imposition, a case which is inevitable and in the existence and evolution of society, educators have a major professional obligation.” This “major professional obligation” centers on more than simply imposing curriculum, although that is a component of it.

Counts was describing the ways that teachers teach society to students, because that is what teachers do. The ways teachers teach, the topics they teach, the ways they describe the topics they teach... all of these prescribe precisely how young people learn to attach to the world around them. Counts was suggesting that if teachers teach authoritarianism and consumerism, then children and youth will become oppressed consumers.

This negative reality played out long before Counts delivered the speeches that comprised his 1932 book. For more than 100 years of public schools, and massively so in the last 11 years of “school reform,” increasing pressure has been put on competition to become the predominant methodology used in teaching. By fetishizing competition in educational processes, as a society we have squeezed the enthusiasm, joy, and simple pleasure of learning from our schools.

This competitive pulse has led to the exhibition of public education as a liability dressed up for the public as a commodity, at best. At worst it is seen as somebody else’s problem, a NIMBY situation that doesn’t affect the students we are apparently so concerned with. The results of this false positioning are being felt throughout our marketplaces, our governments, and our communities. It becomes most apparent in our personal lives, where many of us feel no deep connection to ourselves, let alone the people closest to us.

The cost of integrating the competitive approach throughout learning, teaching, and leadership in schools is the end of authentic student engagement in learning. Competition single-handedly obliterates the inherent desire of young people to learn and grow—which all children and youth have, despite socio-economic, cultural, or other background. Schools today, which rely on competition, are killing students’ desire to learn.

In turn, absent their desire to learn and grow, young people are experiencing a declining exchange of social capital. They are not experiencing the invaluable, positive, and powerful interchange between cultures that schools once nurtured. They are not learning the deep, meaningful background that schools could be teaching. Do not mistake my analysis though: I have great hope that children and youth will persevere; I just do not believe that schools are doing what they can to assist in that effort. Instead, they are perpetuating the competition and further stifling the possibilities we need them to actualize.

As social capital continues to dwindle at school, we see teachers increasingly encouraging young people to withdraw from their investment in the social contract. This is the worst possible scenario. Absent the substantive social discourse schools could nurture, teachers inadvertently teach that the social contract is not effective.

Part Three: Social Change

This reality gives our society the possibility for two real futures full of social change. The first is the worst:

In this scenario, as social discourse continues to unravel, our politicians loose their capability to arrive at a rational point of debate. This becomes increasingly shadowed throughout mainstream society, as the media hyperbolizes all aspects of the news, and commerce is loosed of the tense arrangement between producers and consumers. In this scenario, every child, woman, and man must defend for themselves, and in no time we distinguish the social contract, those spoken and unspoken norms governing our every move. A type of social malaise is contracted throughout society, and the former agreements shared in the social contract become null and void. More than becoming irrelevant by maintaining status quo, institutions such as schools become negative catalysts that increasingly drive the devolution of society into the hearts and minds of the nation’s citizenry.

In the second scenario, there is a revolution. This is a revolution of intent, as it challenges many of the basic assumptions underlying our society. It demands that the rights of all people are honored and cherished, defended and demanded by all people, for all people. It sees that the equality of the rights of the planet and all it’s creatures by honored, too. It places top emphasis on the conscious creation of social capital among all people as it propels the social contract into the forefront of society for examination, deconstruction, re-examination, reconstruction, re-envisioning, redevelopment. The overall demise of complacent acceptance and passive receptivity becomes the norm throughout society as the exchange of social capital becomes hyperbolic. Uncountable people from every walk of society emerge as massively active, infinitely invested players on the local, national, and global scale. Heroes are not required, as the everyman becomes the everypersonthroughoutsociety, and all people everywhere activate in a radical demonstration of human potential.

It may seem as if we are already deep into the first future. Luckily, the second has become emergent, and is being led by young people themselves. As Westerners revel in the American Fall and it’s great potential for social upheaval, our young sisters and brothers in the Middle East have known that we are on our way since the Arab Spring of 2011. There is much more ahead, and young people will and should continue to lead the way. They are rebirthing the social contract and revitalizing social capital, creating a new exchange and embarking on a strange adventure that has it’s roots in the Civil Rights movement, the Labor Movement, the Women’s Suffrage movement, and further back still. Most importantly, young people taking action to reinvent their schools and society have their roots in authentic democracy, exactly where they belong.

In Dare the School..., Professor Counts got blunt about why teachers should endeavor to something more than capitalist competition:

“If we now assume that the child will be imposed upon in some fashion by the various elements in his environment, the real question is not whether the imposition will take place, but rather from what source it will come… That teachers should deliberately reach for power and then make the most of their conquest is my firm conviction… It is my observation that the men and women who have affected the course of human events are those who have not hesitated to use the power that has come to them.”

What Counts did not see was that young people have their own power, independent that of teachers. And while many youth—not all, but many—have given up their power, many have not. Succeeding generations have shown us that those young people will not give it up, either. They young people continue to assert their power and do their work regardless, with their peers join them eventually. That is what the Arab Spring proved, and the American Fall is demonstrating right now.
Today is the day that students and teachers step up and meet the demands of the future of democracy and start teaching the social contract with intent. Many teachers—not all, but many—have given up their power. Classrooms need to be environments that foster investment in the social contract. Social capital needs to be deliberately invested in and built. Authentic democracy needs to be lived. Authentic engagement needs to be the goal. And a new social order is what the schools need to build.

Our world—and our young people—demand nothing less.

Deseret News Interview with Adam Fletcher

Youth engagement opportunities abound to teach kids about activism, philanthropy, service
By Lois M. Collins, Deseret News
Published on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011 10:36 p.m. MDT at http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700188617/Youth-engagement-opportunities-abound-to-teach-kids-about-activism-philanthropy-service.html

SALT LAKE CITY — Cherise Udell is cooking pasta primavera for a few dozen strangers. Her daughter Sophia, 7, and Sophia's best friend Shae Sorenson, 8, are helping with simple tasks. In a little while, all three will haul the food down to Pioneer Park to feed the people staying in tents as part of the Occupy Salt Lake demonstration.

Sophia and her little sister Ella, 5, have been learning about social change and active participation since they were even smaller. Mom co-founded Utah Moms for Clean Air because she worries about pollution's effects on health, especially on children. Their dad, Kent Udell, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah, tackles global projects in a different way. Recently, he emailed photos home from Madagascar, where he'd gone as a volunteer with Engineers without Borders to bring clean water to communities that have none.

The Udells are civic-minded, interested in teaching their children to give and protest and work and volunteer in street-level pursuits. It's a great thing to donate money to a cause. But there's something special about touching the cause with your hands and solving a problem with your action.

It's called "youth engagement," and children and teens can make a big difference in their world through activism, philanthropy and voluntarism, says Adam Fletcher, who a decade ago founded the Freechild Project, based in Olympia, Wash., to celebrate the spectrum of ways in which youths promote social justice, change and caring across America and Canada.

"There are so many young people from different situations economically, educationally and socially who are doing cool, cool things focused on changing the world, from the very local to the international," he says. "I started Freechild to celebrate these things."

Over the course of a century, he notes that children have gone from being passive recipients to being active partners in world change, whether it's the smaller local world or the global playground. And there's never been a better time to harness their enthusiasm to take part.

"Our society is in crisis mode. More things are going wrong than ever before. The social situation, the education situation, the economy — a plethora of things are at a crisis point. The dilemma is that as a society we have ignored or denied (childrens' and teens') ability to solve anything. In reality, it will be them, whether now or in 10 or however many years as adults, who deal with many of the problems."

Schools, youth organizations, civic clubs, churches and others have discovered that they can design opportunities for the young to make a substantial difference, Fletcher says.

Children and teens in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and service clubs, church youth groups and others nationwide are volunteering, tutoring, mentoring other youths, raising money for causes and more. There's now even a public engagement office in the White House and the president has hosted two dozen youth forums.

You don't have to look far to see the variety of ways in which children, including some young ones, are participating. And there seems to be something to engage almost anyone.

San Francisco-based Generation Waking Up, for instance, focuses on helping youth lead a cultural effort to build sustainability. Its website seems to take the task very seriously: "A new generation of young people is waking up. We are the middle children of History, coming of age at the crossroads of civilization, a generation rising between an old world dying and a new world being born. We are the 'make-it or break-it' generation, the 'all-or-nothing' generation, the crucible through which civilization must pass or crash."

The Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA), out of New York City, is networking education organizations in a "youth-driven fashion."

Manateens, in Florida, are trying to save the manatees. Seattle has the Seattle Young People's Project that picks different activities and causes. The list is long.

It doesn't have to be altruistic to matter, notes Fletcher. He talks about a fifth-grade Utah class that lobbied the school board for a library and got it. They weren't the only beneficiaries. Actions can be self-interested and local or very global and gigantic. They can help kids starving in Somalia or provide company for a lonely senior. It all matters.

Activism is hard to quantify. Volunteer efforts are a little easier to count. Agencies that benefit from volunteers are accustomed to tracking volunteer hours. And even that misses a lot — like the families that play chess at a nursing home because they want to. Or the young man who routinely shovels snow for a neighbor because it needs doing. Or a church youth group that makes quilts for a children's hospital.

Still, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University (www.civicyouth.org) says voluntarism among Americans of high-school age peaked in 2005 at 33 percent, but then dropped to less than 29 percent for four years, when the most recent figures were calculated. That may be "a cause for some concern because it may mean that high schools may not be offering opportunities for students to serve at the same rate as they once did or that there are fewer places in the communities for youth to serve," CIRCLE said in a fact sheet about youth volunteering over the last decade.

"I take my sons, Jess, 14, and Eric, 9, with me when I teach literacy," says Julie Bellows of Wichita, Kan. "I am the volunteer of record, I guess. But I'm teaching a 32-year-old mom who can barely read and they are a huge help with her kids, who are 4 and 7. I think they contribute as much as I do. And I want them to see their mom doing, not just disappearing for a few hours each week. And I want them to do, as well.

"I believe they will remember that we reached out as a family. And when I'm gone, they'll still be doers, not just talkers."

Sophia and Ella Udell see mom cook for or do the laundry of the people sleeping in tents. They attend an occasional rally with her. And beforehand, she talks at the girls' levels about why they are doing whatever it is. They also as a family "foster" kittens, which is particularly appealing to Sophia and Ella.

Cherise Udell has taken them to feed the hungry and says she coaches them gently about making eye contact with homeless people and treating them like everyone else. She wants them to be compassionate — and willing to jump in when they see a need.

"It's extremely important to me," she says. "I do what I do because I am passionately inspired to do it."

She hopes they'll feel as passionate about whatever they choose as their own causes or programs throughout their lives.

Christian Post Interview with Adam Fletcher

"Study Shows Young People Prefer Traditional Values in Politics"
Originally posted at http://global.christianpost.com/news/study-shows-young-people-prefer-traditional-values-in-politics-57783/

By Gina E. Ryder, Christian Post Contributor
The Christian Post, Mon, Oct. 10 2011 10:25 PM EDT

A recent Gallup poll released last Thursday revealed a surge in the percentage of young adults who said the government should promote traditional values.

In an utter reversal of Gallup’s historical patterns, Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 are now more likely than older Americans to say government should promote traditional values.

“When young people say they are looking for traditional, they are really looking for familiarity,” Adam Fletcher, director of Free Child Project, a youth political advocacy group told The Christian Post.

In their most recent survey, Gallup asked 1,017 Americans age 18 and older this question: “Some people think the government should promote traditional values in our society. Others think the government should not favor any particular set of values. Which comes closer to your own view?”

The results said that 48 percent of Americans thought the government should promote traditional values and 46 percent responded saying they thought the government should not favor any particular set of values.

“Young people attach to the vision of what America is and not to what the political parties represent it to be,” said Fletcher who has worked with 10,000 young people a year for the last 12 years.

According to Fletcher, young people today wanted the American dream in an authentic democracy. They aren’t looking at political parties but rather the future-oriented issues that America stands for.

“Traditional values are fully inclusive, meaning that young people have roles in society as active partners not as passive recipients, “ said Fletcher who said his role as the group’s director was to reinvent roles for young people throughout society.

Because of the recent rise in the percentage of young adults who thought the government should promote traditional values, Gallup suggested that the overall trend in this view might be only temporary.

“The trends by age raise questions about how permanent the shift in the overall trend is, with younger adults showing a recent surge in preference for advancing traditional values,” said Gallup’s analysis. “Normally the views of young people are on the leading edge of social change.”

The Free Child Project provides training for schools, non-profits and government agencies interested in using engagement all around the country.

Fletcher told CP, “Young people want togetherness, acceptance and a real sense of belonging. They want to be engaged. The traditional values that they are looking for are values that really looks at the future as being promising.”

The percentage saying they thought the government should promote traditional values peaked twice at 59 percent, first in January 1996 and then again in October 2001.

Supporting Adults in Youth Work

There are a lot of reasons to support youth engagement, including it's affects on young people and the larger communities they're part of. Today I want to share an excellent opportunity to find out how youth engagement affects adults and to support them in the process.

Kyla Lackie of Seattle's SOAR (http://www.childrenandyouth.org/) and I are co-facilitating a brand-new Youth Engagement Practitioners Cadre starting next month. We are working together with Seattle Public Schools' Youth Engagement Zone to build a genuine learning community among Seattle's professionals who work with youth to engage youth. In the process we're going to cultivate the wisdom of the area, identifying what we know and what we want to learn. We're going to collaborate on community-building activities and promote real co-learning among different organizations.

This is an exciting project for me, and I want to encourage anyone in my Seattle network to consider applying today. We're offering good scholarships, and we're appealing only to experienced folks to join in.

Let me know if you have any questions, or of you'd be interested in hosting me facilitating a cadre in your city. I'm leading Student Voice Cadre in Pasco, Washington, and a Cadre in Miami. Now is time to maturate our approaches, and deepen our senses of belonging. The Youth Engagement Practitioner Cadre is one way to do that!

http://bit.ly/nvvBSA - PDF with basic info
http://svy.mk/r9B1OE - Application



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

Written by Adam Fletcher for CommonAction Consulting. It was originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Contact us for more information by emailing info@commonaction.org or calling +1 (360)489-9680.

Classroom Characteristics Supporting Youth Voice

This week I'm working with Catalyst Miami training facilitators to use my SoundOut Youth Action Curriculum. In Miami they're delivering the curriculum in 22 sessions. It is focused on engaging youth voice in action throughout the community, including schools, nonprofits, and other places. Catalyst Miami will be working with dozens of youth throughout the school year to teach the curriculum in their Youth Leadership Training Institute. It is revolutionary for many reasons.

The SoundOut Youth Action Curriculum engages learners in intentional roles that provide deep hands-on opportunities to develop sophisticated approaches to social change. A service learning program at heart, SoundOut uses real-world applications to encourage youth to continue in real world scenarios after the curriculum is completed.

In order to be successful in implementing an effective youth voice classroom, today I taught the facilitators about creating nontraditional learning environments within a school. Meeting in a teacher’s lounge or principal’s conference room is good; meeting in an open classroom or activity area is great. However, the space is not as important as the climate of the classroom.

The characteristics of a learning space supporting youth voice are…

• Focus – Instead of meandering through purposeless activities and focus-less personal activities, every lesson is designed to be a concise, deliberative engagement of multiple intelligences, broad perspectives, and varying experiences. Youth voice remains the central issue throughout the curriculum, and is the focus of every activity.
• Supportive – Youth and adults alike are committed to working together without fear of retribution or alienation. All youth are partners with each other and adults in the lessons, and work together for the common cause of engaging youth voice.
• Engaging – The experiences, knowledge, ideas, and opinions of youth are validated and substantiated with meaningful learning experiences that infuse youth interest with a new capacity to visualize, analyze, create, and engage youth voice.
• Critical – As co-learners within a community of learners, youth provide vital insight in the learning and teaching process for their peers and facilitators. These democratic interactions are actively encouraged and supported by all members.
• Transparent – There should be no mysteries about what the purpose of the SoundOut Youth Voice Curriculum is, or what the outcomes of the lesson will be. The curriculum offers numerous ways to make goals, outcomes, and activities fully understandable to youth.
• Decentralized – SoundOut Youth Voice Curriculum emphasizes the common experience of all participants as learners, and empowers youth to engage fully throughout the learning process.

These characteristics combine to create a powerful climate for learning about and engaging youth voice. What do you think?

Stop Beating Kids: Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act

• Spanking
• Slapping
• Smacking
• Pulling ears
• Pinching
• Shaking
• Hitting with rulers, belts, wooden spoons, extension cords, slippers, hairbrushes, pins, sticks, whips, rubber hoses, flyswatters, wire hangers, stones, bats, canes, or paddles
• Forcing a child to stand for a long time
• Forcing a child to stay in an uncomfortable position
• Forcing a child to stand motionless
• Forcing a child to kneel on rice, corn, floor grates, pencils or stones
• Forcing a child to retain body wastes
• Forcing a child to perform strenuous exersize
• Forcing a child to ingest soap, hot sauce, or lemon juice

THIS IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 20 states in the U.S. still allow corporal punishment in their schools. This must stop now.

"Bullying is enough of a problem among students; the teachers shouldn't be doing it, too. There's nothing positive or productive about corporal punishment and it should be discouraged everywhere." Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)

Anytime a young person is treated this way they are being abused. These forms of abuse are the cruelest, most unjust, and most ineffective treatment young people can receive. While including both, corporal punishment goes beyond adultism, beyond adultcentrism, and straight to child abuse. 

The most basic right of any person today is the right to live in peace. 

While that may sound simplistic or naive, violence is a daily reality for almost every young person in the world today. Physical violence—war, family abuse, bullying, and gang violence; mental abuse—parental abuse, teacher abuse, or verbal put-downs— and child neglect surround young people. These are all forms of violence. The institutions that are purportedly supposed to support our children and youth, places like schools, hospitals, and governments, abuse young people. In their homes young people face violence through popular media, like television shows, movies, pop music, and video games. And violence surrounds young people in many ways that we don't see, seeping into everyone's hearts and minds without us being aware of it: another bombing overseas, another vicious attack on public funding, another slander against youth in the news.

This abuse adds up. According to a United Nations study,

"Corporal punishment of adults is prohibited in well over half the world's countries, yet only 15 of the 190-plus nations have prohibited all corporal punishment of children, including in the family."

It's a statistic like this that leaves little wonder in my mind about why young people appear "apathetic" and "disenchanted" with a world so intent on numbing them to pain, hatred, cynicism and violence.

Luckily, our North American eyes are beginning to fully comprehend the imperative any ethical person faces when dealing with the situation of young people and violence today. We are beginning to stand with young people to change the situations that they face, and the situations our world faces. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) boldly declares that,

"Young people must be meaningfully involved in promoting and strategizing action on violence against children... Children... need to be well informed about their rights, and fully involved in the life of the [community and] school..."

This call situates corporal punishment as a fully-authorized premise for social action in 198 countries around the world—minus the US and Somalia, who are the only non-signatory countries. Canada and Mexico have signed on. There is no other convention, consensus, or constitution in the world that is more widely accepted than the CRC. So the vast majority of global governments agree that corporal punishment is a significant premise for social change, and we agree that young people should help lead anti-abuse efforts.

I believe that corporal punishment is the root of all discrimination in society. Premised on the hatred of young people, on adultism, on the self- and cultural repression of childhood, corporal punishment is made worse through dozens of other factors, including socio-economic class, gender, race, ethnicity, and more... Corporal punishment is at the heart of all this.

In 2010, Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat from New York, introduced a bill called "Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act". The bill would impose a ban on all public and private schools with students that receive federal services. Learn more about the bill, and support it. I do. 

Stop beating kids.

Resources on the Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act

• A good summary of the bill in the Washington Post blog.
• A tracker showing where the bill is in the House.
• A CRIN article about the bill.
• An ACLU petition to encourage Congress to pass the bill.