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Adam Fletcher
| February 24, 2007 | 1:02 AM |
| February 22, 2007 | 1:02 AM |
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Obstacles to Freechild
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Its funny, but I've never really thought logically about the obstacles Freechild has faced before. Then, a few days ago a student from University of Guelph in Ontario wrote and asked what they were. Without hesitating, I pounded out the following response in a matter of minutes. I guess these thoughts were just waiting in the wings... When I started The Freechild Project in 2001, it was done in the face of resistance: After working with a large U.S. foundation whose focus was promoting volunteerism, my job was to engage young people specifically. They didn't appreciate my analysis in terms of the breadth of youth action, so I took what I'd collected and created the earliest form of freechild.org. So the earliest obstacle was generating interest in the breadth of action led by and with young people.
The next obstacle was technology. Without funding and expertise, I was forced to build the earliest forms of freechild.org on my own. You can see different iterations of the website here.
In 2002 figuring our how to continue the work was an obstacle. How could Freechild continue without any kind of funding? I immediately devised a series of knowledge and skill-based workshops that I could provide on a fee-for-service basis, both to promote the website and to have money to operate the site.
That same year access became an obstacle, both in terms of (1) accessing the wide variety of youth engagement going on, and (2) accessing the information about that action. Regarding (1), without the funding circles that provide support to like-minded groups to network within, I was almost solely reliant on my personal network of friends who were doing the work to refer me to other cool stuff, and on the Internet. In 2001 the web was absent of social networking and anything that made it easy to find anything, so... that sucked. About (2), I didn't have the library research journals or subscriptions to the right publications or any of the tools I needed to substantiate the claim that "Yes, youth engagement does matter." So, I spent a lot of time in the local college library...
Around 2003 I recognized substantiality and the appearance of legitimacy as obstacles. About substance, so many people come to the Freechild website, and I really want to give folks what they are looking for. I do that by discerning through the conversations I have, trainings I lead and folks who I visit what the latest and greatest urgencies are, and I work to respond to those both in our online content and through our publications. Regarding legitimacy, in addition to being cut out of the networks of funders, Freechild is also cut off from the legitimacy of being funded: folks assume that if you get foundation dollars than a program is legit. We didn't have that leverage, so we had to establish our legitimacy in other ways - which I'm still not positive that we have succeeded in doing.
In 2003 I started bringing in volunteers to help out, and then I began hiring other folks to help do this work. In 2005 we recieved our government nonprofit status, starting CommonAction. So we're working our way backwards, in a sense: We got out there, kicked a lot of butt, and now we're going back and "earning our stripes" as an organization, so-to-speak.
As an organization, we anticipate our coming obstacles to be Growth, in terms of developing a staff and series of programs that fulfill our goals; Sustainability, in terms of finances and research/development, and; Reach, in terms of legitimizing and extending our international outreach efforts. You can read more of our timeline here.
I hope that answers your question - please don't hesitate to ask more. I guess that "mythologizing" this work will never be an obstacle for me. But I hear folks do it all the time. The best organizational leaders do it all the time, and it gets kinda old. The worst don't do it very well at all - see Wendy Kopp on Colbert Report a few weeks ago. I guess this is one of my first attempts - what do you think?
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| February 15, 2007 | 11:02 AM |
| February 12, 2007 | 1:02 AM |
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Blogging About Student Voice
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Regular readers know that I continuously cover 4-5 topics in this blog, one of which is student voice. To help me do that I try to keep my "finger on the pulse" of what's being said in the blogosphere. Every now and then I find a rash of postings, usually from a class somewhere, and this last week's was courtesy of students at Metropolitan State College in Denver.
Here are some of reflections in the "Introduction to Teacher Education" course there. I am taking the liberty of responding to each one - at the original post you can find their instructor's response, as well:"We expect our students to graduate high school and make good decisions when they turn eighteen, but up until then, children don't have the opportunity to make many decisions that affect their school or learning." - From Lisa's Blog When done from a constructivist perspective, engaging students as partners in schools can encourage students to apply learning in powerful ways from kindergarten through graduation. These powerful ways, including student-led evaluations of themselves, their peers, their classes and their teachers, can allow students to identify, construct, apply, critique, and reform their own perspectives - rather than having teachers feel like they need to continuously shove it down students' throats. "As long as students don't dictate every area of their education, I don't see why having them involved somewhere in their school will be a bad thing." - From Slick's Thoughts This perspective is what is called nobless oblige - From the kindness of their hearts, the nobility of old France was obliged to help the poor because that was the right thing to do (not just because the nobles were rich off their labor!) The quote above shows the same perspective - From the kindness of their hearts, teachers are obliged to engage the students from the kindness of their hearts - and not just because students are the whole reason they have jobs in the first place! Unforunately, this type of thinking pervades many teachers' minds, and while not terrible, it is misguided, and allows many teachers to resign from their student voice efforts when they don't go as planned without feeling bad. "...many of the students that choose to have this voice are the students that all ready have a voice." - From EDU 221 I thought this entire post was right on the mark - especially from the view of a mom with teenaged children. Awesome. Right at then end of her post she offers a little more insight that I think could be reflected on so much more: "My oldest(17) is the opposite. He pretends that he doesn't care. Truly, I struggle daily with him and having him believe that he has a say and his say matters. The only thing he says is 'let me drop out of school, if I have a say and it matters'. How do we reach these kinds of kids? They are the ones that NEED a voice." Well, Momma, it sounds like your kid is sharing their voice, and you just don't want to hear what he's saying. I do believe that his words mean something, but I am not convinced they can be taken at face value: Within the phrase "Let me drop out of school" there is a lot of meaning that can, and should, be explored with the student. Explore that together, give your child a sense of authority and responsibility, and expand from there.
"I think that letting the students have more say in their education is a good idea as long as they as a group agree on the topics and that the school has the last say." - From JillieBean This last phrase might bother me the most, because like so many young teachers, this student believes that there must be ONE student voice. That effectively reinforces the current structures that exist to engage student voice in schools by squelching the diversity of perspectives that students have. There is no room for dissention when everybody must agree on the same line. And that last part of the sentence, well, that's another topic for a different day. Thanks to students in the EDU 221 class at Metropolitan State College in Denver for providing more fodder for the cannon. Next week I'll take apart the Constitution of the United States of America...
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| February 11, 2007 | 10:02 AM |
| February 8, 2007 | 1:02 AM |
| February 4, 2007 | 1:02 AM |
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Well-Meaning, but Demeaning
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As they try to emphasize the declining condition of the world today, the media regularly infantalizes young people - meaning that for one reason or another, the media makes young people seem like babies. Unfortunately, the same media hugely influences the thinking of parents, youth workers, teachers, government officials, and politicians, all of whom exert almost total power over the lives of children and youth. Today's evidence comes from a report by ABC News, which is duly titled " Waiting for the World to Change." In an expose on Camden, New Jersey, the reporter uses the perspectives of three young people to illustrate the startling contrasts between their daily reality and the supposed bliss of middle-class America. The title itself implies that children and youth are simply passive recipients of whatever adults dish out, good or bad. The problem of this challenge is unfortunately made worse by headlines that highlight the Bush Administration's cuts to funding for programs that benefit young people, including education, health care and community programs. While its important to spread this word, its unforunate and ill-thought to position young people as helpless.
There are so many alternatives to this kind of posturing, and what is most frustrating is that while those alternatives exist, people are either not aware they exist, or in denial of their existence. Talking about that is another post for a different day.
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| February 3, 2007 | 10:02 AM |
| February 3, 2007 | 1:02 AM |
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The Problem of Service Learning
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I think exploring the meaning of the words we use in this work is important. Too often I hear cynical adults say that we're all talking about the same thing, doing the same thing. That must be like the feeling I get when I'm walking through the mall looking at the stores that all sell the same products, just with different imaging around them. However, I know that is not the case in hand. For example let's look at service learning. Service learning is connecting community action with stated learning goals within an educational context. It is almost solely focused on engaging children and youth as participants, as opposed to adults and seniors. The problem of service learning is that it actively teaches students and adults to rely on the economies of grading, social status and the education system to address "serious social problems." It is that kind of "economic thought" that created many of the problems in the first place. As Will Rogers once said, "If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" Let's examine why. Challenge # 1: Getting Good Grades
The first problem of service learning is that the inherent premise of service learning today teaches students that "serving" others is the only way they can earn credit towards good grades or graduate from a grade level. What this equation does is effectively dampens or even completely takes away the desire that all young people have to help other people. From the time that they are really young all children have the capacity to do good, and often express interest in helping others. I'm not unaware of the news stories of kids "gone wild"; I believe the behaviors of children are resultant of the behaviors exhibited in the environs around them. Regardless of that, all young people have the desire to help others. Service learning does not always accentuate that enthusiasm; instead, it often squelches it. That is one problem of service learning. Challenge #2: Neoliberal GradingProblem two might be even more dubious: The extended outcome of the associations service learning teaches students as they learn they can earn credit for helping others. This engrains a kind of neoliberalism within students, as they learn to seek constant affirmation of the value of their "service" to others, reaffirming the equation of labor = cash. In societies with extremely gross inequities, like ours, this is especially problematic because it dismantles our inherent goodness, robbing us of any sense of hope for the common good that came from our own unbridled ability to cause and affect change throughout our community life. By way of explanation, neoliberalism is the making private and profiteering off any activity that was, is, or could be conducted in the public domain for the common good of everyone throughout a community. There are more challenges, but this is an introduction to the conversation.
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| February 2, 2007 | 12:02 PM |
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