For the last few days I've been on the road with my youthhood friend Jimmy. Just like good friends do, we covered the range of topics, eventually stumbling onto youth work. He's done a bit in the past, and served on CommonAction's board.

Talking about things Jimmy reminded me that sometimes in life we try to force the future. It's like that with youth work, parenting and school. As well-meaning adults we try to force the future of young people all the time. Rather than focus on where youth are at and what youth are doing right now we try to see into an idyllic future that we have ultimately prescribed for them. Our high schools give teens the ability to choose which classes to take, but we've already decided which they can choose from and why we offer them. At home we tell our kids to behave their manners, but haven't taught why manners matter and when they don't serve us well. In our communitities we make young people responible for completing community service but haven't shown the rights and respect that should come accordingly.

As ethically response-able adults we should do more than force the future onto youth. There are no inevitabilities in life, and we shouldn't behave that way, no matter how well-intended we are. There is another way.

There is the cheesey adage that if you love someone you should let it go; if it was meant to be they will come back to you. I misunderstood that for a long time, thinking it was talking exclusively about long term relationships. Today Jimmy helped me understand this can apply to the immediate, too; rather than trying to force youth into convenient boxes we can help them set goals for themselves. Instead of making them write scripts for their lives we can encourage them to learn the skills and habits needed to navigate the changes that invariably come in life.

If the youth we work with choose our program, our school or our community then we should honor and appreciate that choice. And then be excited! We have things to do - together. I want to thank everyone who has ever chosen to do things with me - you rawk. Wohoo!


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

Over at the National Youth Rights Association forums there is a conversation bubbling about school-mandated community service. I couldn't help but enter the fray this morning as the convo drifted from labeling service as socialist to promoting the idea with caveats. The following is adapted from a response I shared there:

Continung on my writing spree of late focused on youth work, I want to explore the notion of "these people", and how that idea is antithetical to meaningful youth involvement.

Sitting in the Washington State Service Summit today I heard a speaker talk about "these people" in response to the folks who need the services their community provides. Well, I must say that "these people" are US, and we need to recognize their problems are our problems. Noblese oblige doesn't make patriarchial attitudes okay, no matter how high-minded or well-intended they are. These beliefs can poison or sully otherwise good folks' perspectives and actions, particularly when working with children and youth - they can often see right through the myth into the realities of the situation.

This belief is the premise behind much of the work surrounding meaningful youth involvement, in two ways:
1. Young people are members of every conmunity and need to be treated as such.
2. Don't do for people what they can and should do for themselves.

I am not the first to say this either: Ivan Illich, bell hooks, Paulo Freire and Eduardo Galeano have all influenced me. I challenge that while we must consider all oppressed people, it's those young people who've been historically disengaged that are most affected by this mentality of "The Other."

There's an assumption among many well-meaning adults who work with children and youth that young people are inherently in need of our assistance. Let me say that while it's true all young people are in need of adults throughout their lives, the simple fact of the matter is that they might not need YOU specifically.

Identify your motivation for this work and explore whether you are doing your work *with* or *for* young people; look at who you see as "The Other" and identify your connections and disconnections with them; then tell me about how you're going to help "those people." Or not.


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

There are a lot of reasons people get into youth work. It's often pragmatic: people need jobs, and youth-serving orgs get funding from government agencies and foundations that support hiring people. It can also be opportunistic: youth work can be a convenient bridge into nonprofit careers for people who want to spend their lives helping people, and only need a place to start.

For me and many others I've had the privelege of knowing over the years, different from or in combination with the above reasons, this work is deeply personal. Our motivation stems from experiences we had as young people, shaping our practice, informing our politics and driving our actions as we teach, mentor, train, tutor, counsel or otherwise assist young people.

I believe it's vital for anyone who does this work to explore their motivations for their jobs. With that understanding clearly on the table we can each individually better "choose our own adventure", and when we're clear with the orgs and individuals we work with we can better serve them, too!


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

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