By Adam Fletcher
It is great to sit in a room of allies and people who “get it”, but most people work in high pressure environments where Youth Voice seems quaint or non-essential. Following are some myths and realities for people who want to think “outside the box”.
MYTH #1: Youth Voice sounds good on paper, but my school/program/ organization/community/region/ agency/situation is different.
REALITY: While it is true that each community is different, Youth Voice is always present, whether or not it is utilized. It is important to remember that what works immediately and effectively in one may not have the same results in another; however, that is why every community needs to make its own space for Youth Voice. By recognizing the desperate necessity of engaging young people, all kinds of communities can benefit. Community groups, organizations, schools, and neighborhoods across Washington are relying on Youth Voice because young people are relying on them. Start by engaging young people in small and doable tasks, and work your way into larger projects over time. Eventually your community will have a successfully customized strategy for Youth Voice.
MYTH #2: Youth Voice is all about youth.
REALITY: Youth Voice cannot ever be “all about youth.” Without recognizing a larger community around them, young people and adult allies cannot call for Youth Voice. By specifically engaging young people, communities recognize Youth Voice as being about more than young people. Youth Voice is about children, youth, and adults working in common - together. Youth Voice is about communities and democracy, and other people.
MYTH #3: We only need to focus on Youth Voice when there are problems to deal with.
REALITY: Anyone who works with communities needs Youth Voice everyday to keep them honest, connected, effective, and realistic. And let’s face it – our communities have never existed without challenges – perhaps that is because we keep waiting to engage young people. Young people can contribute to everyday projects as well as crisis intervention.
MYTH #4: It is too hard to engage young people when I can just do the work myself.
REALITY: Any seasoned Youth Voice practitioner will tell you that it is an everyday challenge to engage young people. However, there are everyday rewards as well: adults feel more satisfaction about their jobs, that organizations become more successful meeting their missions, and that youth feel more connected to the world around them. Young people are also resources in and of themselves: our communities cannot afford to deny the abilities they possess any longer, and with their seemingly boundless capacity to contribute, children and youth may be our state’s most sustainable, renewable energy source!
The role of a teacher is evolving. As industries, technologies, and the needs in the world change, so does our approach to preparing the next generation for their lives ahead of them.
In the past, teachers presented information in an organized and…
On this episode of TTT we invite you to go to IncitED to learn more about these projects and support them if you can:
- Imagining Learning - Creating a National Collective Voice through Listening
- Open Road Learning Community for Teens: Learning Without School (It’s Natural)
- Youth Voices Summer Program: Connected Learning with the NYC Writing Project
- Look for the Spokes campaign on Kickstarter.
Whether or not you plan to or can not make a contribution to one of these campaigns, please join us for a conversation about crowdfunding on this episode of TTT.
We are joined by the following on this episode of TTT:
Jaime R. Wood
and Peter Lindberg
from IncitED
IncitED is the crowdfunding community for education where ed supporters can fund, share, and replicate important education initiatives worldwide. http://incited.org
David Loitz
and Charles Kouns
from Imagining Learning
Imagining Learning is working to create a national collective voice on the wisdom of young people on how they would reinvent education. http://bit.ly/15IE8P6
http://www.facebook.com/imagininglearning
http://www.twitter.com/imaginingl
http://www.imagininglearning.us
Charlie’s Ted Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDQd04BfkpI
What is a Listening session? video http://youtu.be/GhTZ58I495wAlan Burnce
from Open Road
Providing individualized, non-coercive education that empowers teens to direct their own learning and fulfill their potential.
openroadteens.org http://www.incited.org/projects/9Turner Bohlen
and Claire O’Connell from Spokes talk about their plan to ride bikes across America to work for passion-based education for high school students and to find a mentor for every high school student in America!
We’re people who love what we do. And we all love teaching!
http://www.spokesamerica.orgKaren Fasimpaur
and Paul Oh
to help us talk about a Youth Voices Summer Program that will be part of The National Writing Project’s Educator Innovator Initiative http://blog.nwp.org/educatorinnovator/ this summer.
Youth Voices is a site where students share, distribute & discuss their digital work online.
http://youthvoices.net
More info at http://www.youthvoices.net/summer2013
Imagining Learning: Asking Young People How They Would Change Education! (by cwk4328)
- You can help us reach over 50 communities in the next year by donating.
- You can help amplify and activate young people’s visions of education by donating a few dollars.
- You can help bring a major exhibition of Youth Voice and Vision to Washington DC in 2015!
- You can be part of a documentary film showcases what young people are experiencing in school and how they are creating changing it.
You can do all this and more by just donating 5-10 dollars! We have had over 50 donors pledge money to our campaign in the first week. Our goal is to reach 1000 donors by June 13th!
I know we can do it, I have see tumblr do some amazing things. At the moment I have 39,000 followers. I just need 1000 of you to step up to the plate! Be part of the change!
If you enjoy all the content I post on Adventures in Learning, think of this as a small way to give back. I know my supporters are generous! I seen it over and over again! Take 5 minutes and go donate now. Message me and tell me you donated. I have special AIL gifts for everyone that donates and messages me.
3 steps to helping:
2. Reblog this post!
3. Message me
Thank you in advance!
-Adventures in Learning
Imagining Learning is working to create a national collective voice on the wisdom of young people on how they would reinvent education.MissionPlant a new educational seed that nourishes the life force of every young person.DescriptionImagining Learning is a research and creative journey seeking to answer the question, “How do we educate young people to thrive in a world of possibility?” Through Listening Sessions we are focused on creating a national collective voice of teens (ages 13 - 19), as to how they would answer this question.
There is an innate wisdom in young people about the educational process that combined with their creativity and passion for changing their education, makes them a powerful resource in the search for new answers. Unfortunately, they are not being invited to the table. Our intention with the Listening Sessions we are conducting is to create a collective voice of young people whose wisdom and creativity awaken adults into action.
We are currently conducting Listening Sessions with teens all across America. We also are presenting our findings at various speaking venues, workshops and educational conferences.
The Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards is a global challenge that invites youth to creatively express their vision for driving change in local communities and to present potential solutions through visual storytelling.People of tumblr, please share your powers with me.
I am one of the finalist in adobe’s youth voice film contest for animation, and I would love to win the audience favorite award, which would boost my college application to become a film major significantly.
The audience favorite is decided through social media score which is apparently gauged through twitter and facebook.
So please, like and share this video and help me win the audience favorite award.
Boston Magazine has a great feature this month on why Americans are questioning the tenet of owning something.
After defining ourselves for generations by our possessions—cars, houses, books, music—a dramatic cultural shift is under way. In the wake of a collapsed economy and a warming planet, what matters to a growing number of Americans is not so much ownership as access. And that has made Boston ground zero for a powerful new force in modern life: The sharing economy.
Can anyone point to any place (school, community, state) where testing has had a long term effect on the deepening of learning? Where is the study that states testing has positively effected the community around the schools where they are used?
I would love to see data not driven by raises in test scores, but instead by practical signs of real system change. Did testing help to increase the student engagement, the community involvement, Teacher satisfaction with their professional lives? How about positively effecting the local economy, or the rate of hope among students that they had access to good jobs and future learning opportunities?
Why don’t we ask for this data? Why is it only math scores and reading scores? I think we don’t have these types of conversations because the testing industry has made us believe that testing will create the change we seek. We fight against the testing companies and testing, but instead we should be asking them to prove their worth.
We don’t create change by testing. We create change by supporting teachers, by providing funding to education, by solving poverty, by empowering students to have a voice in how learning happens, by encouraging and providing the freedom for teachers to develop learning that is relevant, place based, real world, connective and that can only happen if others learn together.
It is not even that testing sucks, it is just bad science and a waste of money, time and effort. It had a role to play at first, but it now being used to punish teachers, students and communities instead of shining a light on the injustices and racism of our economic and educational system. The idea that testings is in any way helping learning is outdated at best and pure propaganda at worst.
Testing is a distraction, it is like trying to heal a dying tree by cutting off one of the branches. The roots of our current system are rotten. We need to let it die, and plant a new tree. Tree seed organically and so too will schools where learning is happening
-Adventures in Learning
In response to this thread on Facebook
On the passage of a few people through a rather brief moment in Time: The Situationist International 1957-1972
(Source: tensetrips)
High School Training Ground by Malcolm London (by malcolm london)
If you have not seen @MalcolmLondon video High School Training Ground! It is a must, even before coffee! #stuvoice at its best! Truth spoken
