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Adam Fletcher
Adultism, or "Don't Trust Anyone UNDER 30"
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A million years ago there was a slogan that incanted youth to, "Don't trust anyone over 30." Well, a lot of people have been able to dismiss that call, especially as they've gotten older and their "anti-establishment" heroes have fallen. But this post isn't about that phenomenon.
Instead, today I'm writing about the reality that a lot of the people who ascribed to the ideal of assigning trust according to age are in power today. They've got the positions that lead our society as government officials, business titans, community agency heads, and thought leaders. Some of them are overt about their discrimination against youth; some are coy. But the most apparent lesson I've discovered is the gross abuse of these individuals who are biased in the worst kind of ways: Ironically, these faux-revolutionaries who chanted against older people are now leading the battering ram against youth. Now it seems like they're yelling , "Don't Trust Anyone UNDER 30!" Someone even wrote a book by that title.
So the age discrimination battle is alive and well. We need to take a much more assertive posture in order to teach adults and young people about age discrimination, adultism, and adultocracy, as well as the fear of children and the fear of youth. We need workshop outlines, a simple and accessible guide, and a website that will successfully drive people to the growing pile of information available about age discrimination. Next steps...
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REAL Democratic Education
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There is a belief out there in the world that democratic education is a white, gleaming ideal that belongs only on pedestals high up in the sky, or faraway on another coast. This image promotes the extreme models of democratic schools like Sudbury Valley and the Village Free School, inherently dismissing the good work of teachers, students, and school leaders who are attempting to integrate democracy in every day public schools. These are the folks, these are the places, and these are the practices that I think constitute REAL democratic education.
With all their shortcomings, the founders of the United States saw public education as the cornerstone of democracy, enshrining the responsibility for schools to the people who would benefit most from them: every day citizens. With that vision, though, there was not security that the people would take that responsibility. The dilemma that I see is that The People don't understand that they are responsible for the schools they learn in. They don't understand that the future of democracy is in democratic education. EVERYTHING in public schools is everyone's responsibility. That's why I developed the Frameworks for Meaningful Student Involvement.
The Frameworks use comprehensive research from across the education realm to demonstrate the effectiveness of REAL democracy in schools. Through them I propose that schools re-envision the roles of learners specifically, and all adults subsequently. I draw out the need for democratic education for every person in every place of learning throughout society, identifying that every child, youth, and adult needs to learn about learning as a goal, and education as a process towards learning. The entire system has to become transparent. Then, the Frameworks show how every child, youth, and adult should be engaged throughout education in many roles, including those of student, teacher, researcher, evaluator, planner, decision-maker, and advocate.
These are the core elements of REAL democratic education that can and should be everywhere. Only then can we actualize the hope for democracy that so many of us hold in our hearts. Only then can we be the country and world we know we're capable of being. Only then can schools truly succeed, and only then are students truly successful. Anything less is undermining hope.
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Social Stigmas
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I am not satisfied with simply dismissing adultism as "social stigma," nor do I believe that anytime a young person is discriminated against it is inherently adultism. Remember that I define adultism as the addiction our society has to the ideas, actions, and words of adults. Sitting in another airport somewhere in America, I just watched an instance involving several younger people being blatantly ignored then turned away by a gate worker, for no apparent reason. In the past I might've been tempted to label this adultism and turn away from it; today I know differently. I could break this down along from many angles, including thoughts along the lines of privilege and climate. Social class driven cultural norms, including clothing, speech, and manuerisms informed the communication between these parties. Perceptions of bias and discrimination are real for those experiencing them; however, prejudice needs to be named correctly in order to be addressed effectively. Naming oppressions and social stigmas effectively are the keys to successfully changing society. Let's use them to open the door to let everyone in. -- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com
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It's Too Different!
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A lot of people in our field of work are put off by military culture. The command and control structure of the armed forces are repelling to people who treasure autonomy, to say the least. Today I'm presenting some sessions at the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program, and I'm wrestling. This program reaches 1000s of youth nationwide who dropout of school and apparently don't have future plans. These are generally young men and women between 16 and 18 who don't have rapsheets, aren't drug-involved, and have left school before graduating. Many youth programs are set up for these youth by community-based nonprofits and churches; however, none are as well funded or culturally driven as ChalleNGe. 200,000 youth have participated in the last 20 years; 50% of them earn their diplomas. The culture of this space is rarified in positive youth development programs, which is one core value of ChalleNGe. Thoroughly quasi-militaristic, there's a high premium on machismo and strength. Young people participate in a regimented program for several months, and respond to a command structure echoing the military. What does this mean for youth engagement? With the roles of self-determination and full partnership factoring so heavily in youth engagement, is the work of ChalleNGe inherently antithetical to developing the emotional bonds necessary for engagement? My older brother felt an emotional bond towards the Marines after he dropped out of high school and joined. He was surely engaged. Right now I'm wondering whether there's a cultural norm at work here. Raised with the expectation that military culture can limit negative behaviors and liberate ones self from self-destructive actions, many youth don't see that they can be critical to their communities. This program imposes that upon it's participants, and for that I respect it. However, when Dr King called for an army of nonviolent soldiers he didn't have this in mind. Instead, he envisioned highly-disciplined, highly-capable young people committed not to themselves but to the communities they belong to and the families they come from. This is what we should each arrive for in our work, abs nothing less. I'm going to let the ChalleNGe program inspire me to engage more youth more effectively at this point in their lives, so as to provide a clear alternative to quasi-military activities, and get closer to that nonviolent army. -- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com
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In Defense of Public Schools
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I'm a product of public schools, and my daughter is attending them, too. The only child of four to graduate on-time, my schooling wasn't nearly adequate. The mostly white teachers in my high school were overworked, under-appreciated, and stressed from working in a low- and middle-class magnet school in the African American neighborhood I grew up in in the Midwest. My daughter attends a public school, though remarkably different from anything I ever attended.
It's a sad day when our society has effectively stigmatizes the very institutions we need to rely on in order to have a successful society. The fact is that the founding fathers intended for public schools to be the places where our kids grew into capable, complete citizens. I believe in that vision, expanded for everyone to have free and full access to learn, and to incubate the desire and capacity to learn for life. We have to have public schools, and without them, hope for our democracy is limited, at best.
Private schools are inherently limited in their ability to affect the greater society in which they operate. Those who have the ability to access their services (read: money) are generally responsible for how things have always gone in our society - that much is true. However, as conscientious parents we have to make a deliberate and intentional choice as to whether we are going to contribute to the continued skewering of the public good by subjecting our kids to the exclusivism, classism, and segregation inherent in all private schools. And I understand that in some situations that is apparently the only way to go. I get that! But I also get that every time a caring, concerned, conscious parent retracts from engaging their kids in the public school system, we loose an ally for social justice, student engagement, and equality in public education.
I would pose that rather than choosing not to subject our children to the inadequacies of public schools, we choose to actively engage in them starting right now. As members of a democratic society with the levers of democracy in our hands, we ALL have the opportunity and desire to learn, so do this: learn about the school system, learn about how to change public schools, and then do the opposite of putting your kids in private schools - actively, meaningfully, and fully engage yourself and your kids in promoting the health and well-being of democracy by getting parents, students, and other communities to work changing your local public schools. We have to take responsibility for schools, and there are examples to aspire to and follow.
Let's not shirk our responsibility any further. These public schools are one of the greatest hopes we have of ever realizing the full possibility of our democracy.
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All Relationships Are a Mirror
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So many different attitudes are projected onto young people, and always have been, positively and negatively. Speaking about young people during the classical era he lived in, Greek philosopher Socrates supposedly said,
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
Through my research on the sociology of youth I have found quotes and editorials from the 1600s lamenting lost youth, and that attitude generally continued onwards through the next century. Every generation seems to have been the downfall of society, and the rue of preceding generations. Young people have also represented hope, and have been the subject of cheery optimism, too. Their voices are romanticized and their culture is idealized, with entire industries built just to help adults acquire the seemingly unattainable glory of youth.
But all relationships are a mirror. What we see in other people is what is in ourselves, for better or worse. Youth are mirrors of adults, whether we like them or despise them. Adults tend to want to be around young people who have things about them we like but want more of in ourselves. We dislike young people - intensely - when we find traits in them that we dislike in ourselves.
A challenging activity for any adult is to spend time writing the qualities of young people they know who they actually like and enjoy being around. Then make a separate list of things about young people they don't like. From that point it's important to notice that that ambiguity - where all of those likes and dislikes are in others - are in ourselves, too. Then we can be more compassionate with the young people we're around, because we can see that all relationships are a mirror, and that in that mirror comes hope.
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10 Ways Adults Can Show They Care About Student Voice
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Just telling students you care about student voice isn't the way to engage students in schools. As a teacher, principal, counselor, or other adult in schools, you set the tone and create the climate for student voice to be an effective tool in the school improvement arsenal. Check out the following 10 Ways Adults Can Show They Care About Student Voice.
- Commit and follow through with the idea that student voice should be as student-driven as possible.
- Fun and laughter are requirements for successfully engaging student voice.
- Create awareness around different problems throughout the education system and seek to engage your students as active partners who can help solve these problems.
- Provide examples of ways that students have made a difference. See www.soundout.org, www.youthnoise.com, www.freechild.org, and www.takingitglobal.org for examples.
- Connect individually with your students about their thoughts about your class, school, or program as frequently as possible and demonstrate that you actually care about their specific thoughts and feelings about school.
- Encourage students and help them to find opportunities to engage in school that use their strengths, talents, interests or skills. Create those opportunities as often as you can.
- Make sure your students are using their friendship networks to find out what their friends think about schools.
- Promote student voice in happy, friendly and accessible ways when appropriate. When necessary, confront adults who are resistant, and challenge apathy or disregard for student voice.
- Promote the benefits of student voice to students – both personal benefits and the potential final results.
- Provide opportunities for students to socialize and just talk about student voice.
This isn't a deep prescription, but it does provide a place to start. Check out www.soundout.org for more useful info about student voice in schools!
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Creating a Supportive Environment for Youth Service
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Creating a safe and supportive environment is essential for engaging students in a community service program, organization, or throughout a community. The environment includes everything around youth, including the culture, structures, and climate of the organizations they volunteer in and learn from. The vast majority of programs, organizations or communities that seek to engage youth as volunteers are adult-driven, which makes it vital for adults to work with youth to create these environments, rather than assume that they must do all the work.
· Climate is the way people behave, their attitudes and feelings within a program, organization or throughout a community. · Structure includes the responsibilities, systems, authority and relations that allow a program, organization or community to perform its functions. · Culture includes the attitudes, values, beliefs, and typical patterns of relationships, behavior, and performance that characterize the program, organization, or community.
The following are essential elements in creating a safe and supportive environment for youth community service.
Climate
- There is a general sentiment among the majority of adults and youth that engaging youth is a key to success.
- Adults in believe that engaging youth in a variety of roles is important and possible.
- Youth and adults acknowledge their mutual investment, dedication, and benefit, and it is made visible in relationships, practices, policies, and organizational culture.
- Adults do not talk about youth in the third person or otherwise act as if youth are not present, when in fact they are.
- Student volunteerism is validated and authorized through adults' regular acknowledgement of their ability to improve programs, organizations and schools.
Structure
- The voices, strengths, talents, actions and achievements of youth are continuously focused on in our program, organization or community, and are infused throughout all components of all activities.
- Important activities focused on youth are done with youth, including research, planning, teaching, evaluation, decision-making and advocacy.
- Before any activities in which they're engaged youth have opportunities to learn about the issues, agendas, politics and processes they are going to participate in.
- Programs and organizations have made youth part of plans, activities and evaluations, and young people have contributed throughout the process.
- Student volunteers incorporated into ongoing, sustainable activities throughout the group, organization or community.
- Student volunteers are encouraged and supported to invite other young people or adult allies to support them.
- The voices of youth of all ages are engaged throughout the program, organization or community.
Culture
- Youth feel comfortable asking for clarification of acronyms, definitions, concepts, or asking critical questions about assumptions, activities and other components.
- Youth are never lectured about their behavior, attitudes, input or other perceptions adults may have of them. Instead, adults and youth are treated as equal partners, each with valuable contributions to make to the program, organization or community.
- Issues addressed by student volunteers are not limited to so-called "youth issues"; instead, youth are seen and treated as members of the entire community. "Their" issues are the community's issues, and the communities issues are theirs.
Let me know what you think! And for more information about support environments see the Freechild Project Youth Voice Toolkit at http://www.freechild.org/YouthVoice.
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Youth Volunteerism Links
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Want to learn more about what children and youth are doing to make a different in the world around them? Check out the following websites! Every program here is part of a broad international movement promoting youth volunteering, action, and empowerment.
Child Friendly Cities (CFC) – A UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre initiative that focuses on youth involvement throughout communities. The website is a tool for exchanging information, sharing data and networking among communities around the world. Users can access information about the activities, objectives and methodologies of CFC projects, links with CFC partners and examples. www.childfriendlycities.org
The Freechild Project – Seeks to connect young people to social change efforts around the world. Freechild highlights thousands of organizations, publications, websites, and resources from hundreds of topic areas focused on youth involvement. www.freechild.org
McCreary Center – Their youth participation and youth action initiatives provide a variety of resources. Located in McCreary, British Columbia, the Center features unique tools and more. www.mcs.bc.ca/ya_base.htm
SoundOut – Promotes student voice in schools through an online portal that provides examples, research, publications, discussion forums, and organizations to students, educators, and others. www.soundout.org
TakingITGlobal – An online community made of more than 100,000 young people around the world. These youth collaborate on projects, express themselves, and participate in vibrant discussions about technology, involvement, and democracy online. www.takingitglobal.org
Teens as Community Builders – Highlights accomplishments of young people across the United States by telling stories of youth who are doing positive things to improve their communities. www.pps.org/tcb Voices of Youth – A UNICEF project that encourages young people around the world to become positively involved in their communities. www.unicef.org/voy
What Kids Can Do – Features stories from students across the United States who are leading community and school change projects. www.whatkidscando.org
Youth Voice and Engagement – This comprehensive web portal is a collaboration of several partnerships and agencies in New York State, including the NYS Partnership for Children, the ACT for Youth Upstate Center of Excellence (UCE), and the ACT Downstate Center for Excellence. There are hundreds of publications, programs and other tools for Youth Voice practitioners. www.youthengagementandvoice.org
Find more links about youth volunteerism at www.freechild.org
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