Youth In Action (a youth-led nonprofit organization)
Providence, RI
You can find this article here
Youth in Action (YIA) is an example of an organization which truly seeks to empower young people. They are inherently challenging the status quo of youth mostly everywhere in the world. Overwhelmingly youth input and participation in the larger systems is given little value. They are generally discredited in large policy or agenda stetting decisions, and conditioned to follow the rules as they are, without question.
YIA is shaking this power dynamic. They are proving that not only should youth be obviously involved in decisions that effect them, but also that they in fact, have the specific expertise to initiate positive change. In an organization like this, their voice is given value and influence.
The self-fulfilling prophecy comes to mind when I read personal stories like these. It is unfortunate that youth are consistently, directly or indirectly, treated as if they are powerless to the environment around them. Social systems teach obedience, not critical thinking. Curiosity never killed the cat, why do you suppose they have nine lives then? Even when a student speaks out about something they feel is not righteous, nobody is there to listen, only to remind them that's just the way things are. "It is what it is"-- No, lets change what it is. When authority figures throughout a youth's childhood, tell them what they are capable of, they tend to internalize this notion. This is detrimental in the way it limits the potential in youth, the community, and the future in general.
I emphasize with many of these stories, as I spent my childhood in timeout, being grounded, or reprimanded for doing/saying things children "aren't supposed to say". My grandmother signed me up for CCD, unwillingly I went, but by class three I was asked to leave the program. During class, mostly conservative Christian views were taught and reinforced, with no room for debate. Well, little twelve year old me just didn't agree with half of what this lady was telling me, practically forcing me to believe. For starters, where were all the powerful female role models? I think I was a feminist by the time I was five years old, before I really understood what that meant. Either way, I questioned her teachings, over and over, I disagreed with her. Her responses always told me to just accept and not question. Wrong place for me to be. All my childhood I challenged adults and authority, I demanded explanations, I asked why. Very little positive feedback ever came from it, and in fact I actually began to resent my elders instead of respect them. School to me wasn't difficult, truly the most challenging part was sitting still in a chair for six hours. I eventually sort of just told myself, well they won't listen to you, so just memorize these facts and play their game, so you can get out of here. It's a discouraging feeling. I had so much to say, but everyone brushed me off.
As an adult, I started working in childcare and afterschool programs. I wasn't surprised to find nothing much had changed in terms of adult and youth power dynamics. Adults make the rules, and as a child you follow them without question, whether you like them or not. This is the first moment in my life where I truly saw the incredible outcome of shifting this dynamic. I worked hard to gain their trust and their respect (that wasn't easy). I treated them like equals. I gave them power and say in everything we learned. Everyone could share how they felt at anytime, as long as it wasn't harmful to a peer. By far the most important and ground shaking thing I did was LISTEN. I cannot even put into words how important that skill is in general, but especially with youth. They are brilliant little people, more so than most adults I know, they are unbiased, imaginative, innovative, insightful human beings, but this is stifled because no one is listening.
By the end of the year, the activities, games, and classroom rules I invented had been totally transformed by the students themselves and their recommendations. I was blown away, I think about the youth all over the world, sitting somewhere in a classroom being silenced, while all these brilliant thoughts are trapped inside their head, unable to take root and grow, because their voice is not valued.
When you allow youth to shape their environments, they become owners of it, and by nature they generally feel proud in having a hand in that. They are more likely to excel and more likely to engage. We need to foster this kind of thinking and integrate it everywhere. We as youth workers need to create space where children feel they have a voice, that they are happening to things, not things are happening to them. Provide them with tools of power, responsibility, debate, and skills to communicate and think critically, so that they will continue to be powerful forces in their adult lives.
On page 53, Adeola Oredola writes, "....access my power as a leader."
These words struck me the hardest through the entire article. It explains the situation perfectly. It is not as though we are giving youth power, because they have been powerful all along, we are simply helping them access and express that personal power, to help manifest what's already deeply rooted in their being!
It is long overdue that we integrate this youth-driven learning environment model and let go of false perceptions about youth potential.
Amazing and well-written and fitting for such an amazing organization!
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