Resonances/ Questions/Critiques (Shall We Play? )

Shall We Play?

When reading the article Shall We Play? I thought of how students in school have many times where teachers have to teach to the test. Some ways teachers try to get students to learn some material they have to sit at a desk why the teacher spits information on them. Many studies show the students don't really learn this way and it is ineffective for hitting them to maintain skills that would be lifelong.

When students, or youth, are given the opportunity to learn through play they learn more than one skill at a time. One example of this is having students create a project like to create a bridge that will hold so many pennies. By giving this challenge to a group of youth they have to mathematically figure out how much pennies weigh to design a bridge that is stable and work together a team. Doing this activity through play students will have to use problem solving skills, communicate with each other, and use math skills to create a bridge. This activity will have them using cause and effect and exploring different options on how they can make a bridge to hold so many pennies. This is not a one-step project or activity where the students can do this by trial and error and by having the opportunity to use play through learning to help them develop many other skills that the youth can use in other classes and teaching these skills to other youth. Sports are another way for youth to do through play. When the youth are playing sports they are learning how to play a game but other skills like teamwork and stronger leadership. 

When you are teaching youth through play they learn to use their voice and positive way to learn through other youth. Leadership, problem solving skills and so many other skills are not something you can just teach in a textbook. The more we use these skills the better these skills will become no matter the age someone is. A lot of the time youth can teach these skills to adults.

SYSTEMS of Maine for Me

School and Community

When I was in my sophomore year of high school, that was when I learned my last living parent had passed away. The school was the one that told me that my mother passed away and I feel my school was very supportive, in how the school community gave me options so I could stay in the school system I had been part of since I started my education journal. The faculty and staff at the school were very supportive in many different ways. The community and school systems supported me to make sure I had food, housing and continued a successful educational experience. Many of the different educators and community members supported me and socially, emotionally and physically. 

One big thing that I continued to do was play sports. My coaches and other parents helped me get to and from the practices and games. When I was watching the video for this week, when they were breaking down the systems and how they have to have all the different parks, it made me think of how the community and school system helped me finish school. If it was not for them I would have dropped out of school and who knows where my life would be today. The state of Maine would have not put me through the full faster system because of my age. When you are 16 years old the state looks at youth at this age as an adult and the likelihood of someone taking them into their own home is very low. A member of the community took me in and helped me finish my high school years.  

I would say one system that did fail me was the state of Maine. When I was 16 they looked at youth as an adult and didn't give them the resources to finish out what they needed to get their education or support to help process the trauma that the youth has experienced. This is where the systems are broken and this is a state program. I am very thankful of growing up in the community I did to help push me and the most positive direction they could.

Social Justice

 Youth that are able to learn can grow a Community

Courts and Laws with Youth

In the article it started off by talking about courts and laws that affect juveniles. I decided to go do some research to see if I can find out more information about laws that affect juveniles in different states. Some states, like stated in the article, try juveniles as adults as young as 14. One state I found online, tried juveniles as young as 12 years old as adults. This to me is so hard to believe considering we have science  paste evidence that shows children's brains aren't developed till sometimes over the age of 18. How can youth make the right decisions and learn from their mistakes if their brain is not fully developed yet? 

Then when reading some of the laws that were created for juveniles specifically it made me think how that lot even came into effect.  Many of the laws that are written for juveniles have a lot of gray areas. It seemed to me that the judge could weigh in very heavily on which way the verdicts went for the juvenile. The judge is able to make the decision on where the juvenile will be placed or what would be the sentence or punishment for those juveniles.

When reading, some states used restorative justice methods to help implement the law they had to. Other states had stricter laws and did not have any restorative justice methods to help juveniles get back on track or  learn from their mistakes. These “juveniles”  just made a mistake that needs to learn from it. Everyone makes mistakes and learning how it affects them and others around them is so much more important. We know that the Juvenile systems and prisons in the United States are not working for people. Incarceration is not something that stops someone from doing something again. If a juvenile is convicted they are more likely to end up in prison or back in juvie. This shows that it's not fixing anything and knowing what is learning anything. It's just our easy way of putting people behind bars and  showing people how they can be doing community-based projects and service learning projects to help them be better citizens in their own communities.

Service Learning Projects

Service-learning is a great opportunity for you to be able to explore and learn how to do different opportunities. In service learning it gives them an opportunity to use their voice and learn how different things work. Service-learning does take a lot more work in figuring out how to create a lesson in a way that users are able to use the Hands-On skills and go step by step to figure out how to get to their end product. In service learning projects students learn a lot more going through the process of  learning something new. In many court systems this is not a process that courts will go down because it is so time-consuming and does cost more money in that one. Of time that use is in the juvenile system. Over the long-term the service learning project costs less because you start to understand the steps on how to fix something in the community. If you are able to make a positive change to their community and figure out why they might have made the mistake, they won't end up back in the juvenile systems again. Which then in the long-term would save more money. It is much easier to give someone a punitive punishment. When giving punitive punishment, users are unable to walk away learning how or why what they did hurt someone or something. In a service learning project give youth the power and understanding on how to solve different problems that come their way all through life. By youth being able to learn problem solving skills they are life skills . Service learning projects will make it so the youth would be able to give back to the community and help  be a positive influence in the impression that they're having in the community.

Youth's Voice

In the video, I liked hearing how youth are telling us that they need more then school because they are "more then a letter grade".

DOMINANT ideology

Youth and a Voice...What will they use it for?

In the article written: I Know What I Believe: Using Theory to Prepare Youth Workers I found a quote that I related to my beliefs and is empowering me in youth work. In this quote is how we see the voice of a youth. Why do they feel this way and let them tell you why they are feeling this way...giving them time, give them space, give them a voice and hear it.

The first quote was..

"In this frame, young people are situated as individuals with emotional, physical, academic, moral, and social potential (Walker et. al, 2011)"

Youth are humans and they have many different needs just like adults. When making programs and hearing what they have to say we have to hear them. They are speaking to us as youth works because events are hitting them physical, moral and emotional. How do we help change their words in to actions that will help support them.

Positive YD

When doing my ideology I got the lowest number in letter B.  When I looked at the different groups and organizations that were linked to letter B. I was not shocked in having some relations in the link of B. Some organizations came back to school departments and after-school programs, which I am a huge advocate for having for youth.  I feel you should always have a place to go no matter what during school or after school. Giving them an area or an outlet to go to with other uses to problem solve and spend their time in a positive environment is very important. It is wonderful to have a youth space where they can have their own minds and structure how they want to spend their time. Empowering youth you need to give them the space to change and create their world that they will be soon taking over as us adults get older. Youth’s invoices are important and we should hear them.

Positive YD

PASA

FabNewport

New Urban Arts

When is comes to language and we feeling the same way, it was right on!!!!!!

Providence After School Alliance Missing Statement-

PASA’s mission is to help close persistent opportunity gaps by expanding and improving quality after school, summer and other out of school time learning opportunities for all the youth of Providence by organizing a sustainable public-private partnership that contributes to student success and serves as a national model.

Letting all youth have a space is so imported this way they can get their voice out their. Youth are always learning and everyone should get the best education so it doesn't matter the zip code.

Hands-on learning is at the core of PASA’s expanded learning strategy and this is the best way I learned. Test did not do anything for me.

It was also fun to learn about some new project that are out there. The FabNewport was a program I have not herd before. The language they used in their statement I could relate to in why I do youth work.

How I want to teach Youth from some ideas that I have been through

When I love learning in a group setting with youth because I feel that I am part of a team not that I am adult in power. When working with youth I try my hardest to make sure we work in a group setting and not me in the front of the room. As a person, I am able to work together to solve a problem and learn more on how we worked it out. If someone just tells me how to do something, I am unable to work out any questions I might have and recall the information better. I try to use this same understand when I am breaking down a problem with youth. When youth have gotten in trouble at school it is better to work on when they might have done and why they might have done that. Adults should never be like "you should know better" If the youth know better they problem would have not done what they did. Knowing where everyone is coming from is the best way to come to a concussion of solving something. I had two teachers in my educational history that set their classroom up so that we were all in a circle and worked together with other classmates to answer questions. When I had finished taking the two classes, I didn’t just learn about the topic but also, how to work in a group setting and learn about myself.  I took in a lot of information that helped me in everyday life skills.

Youth Space and their VOICE, NOT white voice

At this time my school is working on being an anti-racism space that is awareness and Agency in Access. To do this they started by having all administration take anti-racism classes and working with an outside company to look at everything that we are doing at the school. From the application to work in the school to different programs that we are running for families. They have created goals and different steps to complete to get to different steps. We have created classes for staff to take and assignments to make sure everyone understands how race is, how it is to live in. 

I feel when making a youth space, it's very important that their voices are heard. Creating policies and guidelines of how the program goes should all be coming from the youths' voice. It also helps for them to break down how they want things to be seen. It also gives them a chance to reflect on anything that might have happened in their life that they thought was unfair because of their skin color. 

Having just my white voice heard and creating all policies and procedures and guidelines for a youth program to run would not be fair and equal to the use that is part of the program. Helping them with guidance and understanding on how programming should work is how I should help them. When I say guidelines and understanding I'm talking about the laws and regulations that need to be abided by to have the program open and running. I need to make sure the youth have their awareness know in the Agency and have the Access to make the space.

The space for the youth has to imagine themselves to truly understand, integrate and accept the diversity that exists in our world as it was told up in the TEDTalk.

Not a bad youth, Just a bad system

Decolonizing Youth Development

This article I started to think about all the faith-based  organizations that were started for you. I know one was mentioned of the YMCA throughout the article and then the another one that I was thinking of was the Boys Scouts.   These clubs work through youth by their basis of religion which has built-in to their program. A lot of these programs were the Norms for youth to take part in. As time has gone through I know both of these organizations have had a shift in their ideas on how their programs run. It has taken a long time for  these clubs to change their “norms”. For the YMCA they have changed their name to the Y and the boy scouts have changed to Scouts. 

People have created stereotypes of the years that some people don’t even know that have been created from all the images and groups that people have taken part of. It is important that people see the ones they have created. Each person does it but knowing how you believe something is good to know.

Another reflection is the schools have started to change their mascots along with professional teams. This is something that has just started to change in the last couple of years. So it shows how long it takes to change the norm of what is going on and how it can reflect on Youth and pushed them down. This also puts in our minds the reflection of how people see certain things and how we reflect on privilege.

On Being Good

In this reading I really enjoyed how you could see and feel the different angles of everyone in it. How each use had a different movement in the room. He gave a clear picture on how students were engaging and understanding what was happening. Like when 1  student was playing with their shoelaces but still being an active listener. Some teachers would look at this as if you're not listening, you're not paying attention. But this was how this youth understands and takes in information. 

As I continued reading there were different moments where I was understanding different Power struggles going on between the teacher and the students. At one point even threatened to call the office if the student didn't want to have a conversation with them. Sometimes threatening does get them to have a conversation with the teacher but it does not form a  trusting relationship so the student we'll have a better understanding of learning and build a community setting. 

One line I took a lot away with when it comes to teaching is “People never listen to people!’

When I think of this I think  of students giving us a lot of different information but not always verbally, sometimes it is in body language also. And when you use the word people I think everyone is equal in the situation. A counselor, teachers, students, a principal, they're all on the same playing field. They're all people. There's no hierarchy, we're all on the same wavelength. We're listening to one another and what they're trying to tell us. We are not pushed into having people be threatened or pushed into believing certain things or  acting certain ways.

A Letter to Teachers

Reading this article some things came to mind. The first is that we were always trying to fit all youth in one type of box instead of exploring where they're at.  When you say the word ``Norms” in a classroom, are these Norms that the students are thinking of or are these the Norms the teachers are trying to put back on youth to act this way. These could be the teachers' Norm's on what they want the children to do and how they want them to act in class. But not all youth act the same way, their bodies are not set up that way. Not all youth can learn the same way. Having them have a voice and understanding of their own education is important. The youth feeling that their classroom is their community and how they look back on their Community is also important. Letting them have the ability to look back on actions that they might have done is important. Their learning from behaviors that might have hurt others, will help them understand how to become better leaders of their own communities. Lecturing and telling them how to behave is not them actually experiencing how they should behave in their community I, being the learning environment or in society. 

One other questions Of these books is who is writing these books? Whose voices are coming through in these important or highly recommended books? In any of these books is there a used voice on hey this is how this works for me or this is how I learn best? 

Why are we always trying to think for the youth, why can't they write their own story!

              

Rules, Norms, Behave this Way!!!

Youth Development? Where did this come from?

   Giving the Power back to the Community Programs  

      Public Education = Sharing Community Base Programs

Out with the old...give the Youth a Voice, let them show themselves !

Schools and Community's coming together to impower youth with using their voice around them.

Boards can be overpowering and not give power to the Youth for the path needing to be made.

What is this you say?........21st Century Community Learning Centers

List of after school programs that are under the 21st Century Community Learning in Rhode Island

Youth working along side adults...Adults being above youth