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.