We've talked about kids working for $$. What about kids work that adds value to the community?
Too often, kids aren't included in adult work because adults don't think they have anything worth contributing. But kids need to see adults at work: they need to be included in adult work.
It's not easy; we are afraid that they will break equipment, or not do things well enough for our liking. Sometimes the work we are doing -especially on the computer- is not something we can include them in.
I try to find ways to if not include my girls, at least let them know what I am working on.
At my job as a project manager for an environmental organization, my daughters will sometimes help flyer, staff booths, educate people etc.One of my daughter's (14) is a strong writer and she has helped edit my writing.
They also have their own work which is meaningful to them. The girls volunteer where they can whether it is joining us in cleaning a creek from the trash that has been thrown into it, or creating documents for an event, or making buttons to promote a cause. Another daughter (12) plays violin and volunteers to help beginner students of the orchestra she is a part of.
My 14 year old keeps her own blog about how she views the world.
All this I call 'adding value' to the community; contributing to the world they live in as opposed to just taking or consuming. What they are doing is work that is well and truly needed-not some busy work designed to keep them off the streets.
When we had our radio project, we were privileged to meet people from all kinds of jobs and occupations who loved what they do (you can still listen to past radio shows by following the links).
Now I am mindful of the need to continue seeking out opportunities for my kids to not only learn about all kinds of work but also to learn from other in the community people.
I asked my youngest today what she wants to be when she grows up. Interestingly she answered, "Self employed as a psychiatrist or a dog whisperer. Or both." Plus she wants to own her own bakery-because she loves to bake.
With unschooling, kids get more of an opportunity to explore their interests which often do lead into self employment as they grew older.
Showing posts with label empowering youth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label empowering youth. Show all posts
Monday, May 10, 2010
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Robert Epstein:Taking Teens Seriously
I always have at least 30 books on the go at any given moment and one of the books that I'd like to suggest here is Robert Epstein's newest book Teen 2.0: Saving our children and Families from the Torment of Adolescence. The landmark Program for Awakening the Inner Adult in Every Teen (2010, Quill Driver Books).
The title is an eye full for sure- but reflects much of what you'll find within its pages.
Reinforcing the work in his first book,The Case Against Adolescence), the new book is about the urgent need to stop infantilizing teens and start treating them as we would adults.
It's obvious that teens today have more money then any other generation before them, are better dressed, have unlimited access to the Internet, seem to be born knowing how to work technology and are generally allowed to enjoy their youth to lengths of time reaching into their 20s and beyond.
But according to researchers like Epstein, teens today, treated like incompetent children in maturing bodies are more rebellious, angry and depressed then ever before.
The thing I find interesting is that even when our kids are unschooled, there are still not enough 'adult' opportunities (like work) out there to meet their growing needs.
And being respected, being taken seriously is far from automatic outside the context of 'unschooled' situations.
It's tough growing up in this culture. One of my daughters attends grade 9 at a local high school. She is a proficient writer (years of lying on the bed reading, reading and more reading) and in one of her classes (geography), she was given a writing assignment.
But when she completed the assignment the teacher called her up to question her about the work. It was so well written, he thought she had plagarized it and was very hesitant to give her a deserving mark. A few other classmates who are good writers also received similar treatment. They had to call on her enriched English teacher to have her convince the geography teacher!!!
This is just a minor example of the way teens are held in suspicion. Guilty until proven innocent. Worse, they are not valued as a necessary and contributing part of our daily landscape- to the detriment of society.
In fact,teens as a group have more restrictions that prisoners or the mentally sick according to Epstein's research.
It will be interesting to hear the views of unschooled teens/grown unschoolers;
how the adult world perceives/perceived them; how they've dealt with an in-grained hostility towards teens. How they have overcome this prejudice.
"The time has come to end the isolation{from adults}. Young and old, we will all benefit by restoring the child-adult continuum that existed through most of human history in industrialized nations and that still exists in preindustrial societies today. The teen years need to be what they used to be: a time not just of learning, but of learning to be responsible adults," concludes Epstein.
Definitely worth a read.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
More on John Holt and Real Work
You know I'm always writing and thinking about creating opportunities for young folks to work with adults -out in the community. In the continuation of John Holt's essay in the Growing without School (GWS #3, 1978 issue) he talks about how a great many of the people doing serious work in the world (as opposed to just making money) are very overworked and short of help.
"If a person young or not so young, came to them and said, "I believe in the work you are doing and want to help you do it in any and every way I can, will do any kind of work you ask me to do or that I can find to do, for very little pay or even none at all," I suspect that many or most of them would say, "Sure, come right ahead."
Working with them, the new comer would gradually learn more and more about what they were doing, would find or be given more interesting and important things to do, might before long become so valuable that they would find a way to pay her/him. In any case, s/he would learn far more from working with them and being around them than s/he could have learned in any school or college."
"If a person young or not so young, came to them and said, "I believe in the work you are doing and want to help you do it in any and every way I can, will do any kind of work you ask me to do or that I can find to do, for very little pay or even none at all," I suspect that many or most of them would say, "Sure, come right ahead."
Working with them, the new comer would gradually learn more and more about what they were doing, would find or be given more interesting and important things to do, might before long become so valuable that they would find a way to pay her/him. In any case, s/he would learn far more from working with them and being around them than s/he could have learned in any school or college."
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Youth Can and Do!
Here is an excerpt from an article in Life Learning Magazine, Jan/Feb 2005 issue. The article,"Nurturing Everyday Genius" is written by John Taylor Gatto.
Still an older way of coming to maturity, of taking an education for oneself,managed to survive and perpetuate itself without fanfare. In 1989 a school dropout from Brooklyn, a teenage girl named Tania Aebi, with no nautical experience than I have, sailed around the world alone-first women know to do so in history.
A few years ago, an elementary school dropout--George Meeghan,took the longest walk in human history, entirely on his own hook, un-sponsored, to prove to himself he could do it.--the man who gave us popcorn in movie theaters,an idea which made him a billionaire, was selling flags on the street at the age of nine.. and filling vending machines at 12. Lew Wasserman, recently deceased head of the largest entertainment conglomerate on earth, cut school to be a movie usher at age 12;by age 18 he had figured out how to sign a string of movie stars like Fred Astaire to his contracts. Michelle Wie, Hawaiian golfing sensation, multimillionaire by age 14 reached the enviable pinnacle because her father and mother understood what really mattered;the tennis playing Williams sisters, daughters fo a black mailman who couldn't afford tennis lessons, were worth 1000 million each at age 21 because their non-tennis playing parents taught them the game from books and videos when they were five. The head of the most prestigious scientific project on the earth (Francis S. Collins),the human genome project was homeschooled on a remote sheep ranch in Virginia by his mother using this intriguing methodology:he studied whatever interested him for exactly as long as it held his interest!
Gatto goes on to ask,"Shouldn't every body passed through a forced schooling meat grinder be made intensely ware of these models of the possible, and many more bedsides?..And if a college degree is wanted, shouldn't kids understand that hundreds of first class universities will allow candidates to earn one inexpensively through correspondence-same degree as sit-down students get, except much, much,cheaper and much more convenient?"
Still an older way of coming to maturity, of taking an education for oneself,managed to survive and perpetuate itself without fanfare. In 1989 a school dropout from Brooklyn, a teenage girl named Tania Aebi, with no nautical experience than I have, sailed around the world alone-first women know to do so in history.
A few years ago, an elementary school dropout--George Meeghan,took the longest walk in human history, entirely on his own hook, un-sponsored, to prove to himself he could do it.--the man who gave us popcorn in movie theaters,an idea which made him a billionaire, was selling flags on the street at the age of nine.. and filling vending machines at 12. Lew Wasserman, recently deceased head of the largest entertainment conglomerate on earth, cut school to be a movie usher at age 12;by age 18 he had figured out how to sign a string of movie stars like Fred Astaire to his contracts. Michelle Wie, Hawaiian golfing sensation, multimillionaire by age 14 reached the enviable pinnacle because her father and mother understood what really mattered;the tennis playing Williams sisters, daughters fo a black mailman who couldn't afford tennis lessons, were worth 1000 million each at age 21 because their non-tennis playing parents taught them the game from books and videos when they were five. The head of the most prestigious scientific project on the earth (Francis S. Collins),the human genome project was homeschooled on a remote sheep ranch in Virginia by his mother using this intriguing methodology:he studied whatever interested him for exactly as long as it held his interest!
Gatto goes on to ask,"Shouldn't every body passed through a forced schooling meat grinder be made intensely ware of these models of the possible, and many more bedsides?..And if a college degree is wanted, shouldn't kids understand that hundreds of first class universities will allow candidates to earn one inexpensively through correspondence-same degree as sit-down students get, except much, much,cheaper and much more convenient?"
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Creation of Adolescence?
That turbulent, hormone driven,'devil may care' period of human development is something people made up?
Hard to believe, right? But Epstein presents a convincing case as to how adolescence and the artificial extension of childhood came about since the mid 1800s in western culture at least:
*Nurturing tendencies by women (and some men) to protect the millions of young people toiling long hours in the new factories or getting into trouble on the streets
*The elevated status of women, which gave them a powerful new voice in policy making
*The widespread adoption of the new view that young people are tender, helpless and incompetent (reminds me of how people thought of women in the Victorian era!)
*Determined efforts by the new labour unions to protect the jobs and wages of older workers by pushing young people out of the work force
*The desire of leading industrialists to sweep the streets free of troublesome youths and to prepare new generations of skilled laborers through mass education
*The desire of leaders in the upper and middle classes to impose their moral standards on poor and working class youths
The emergence of new businesses and industries that catered to the young and helped to create a "youth culture."
Says Epstein,"Before these forces emerged, the troubled teen was a rarity in human history. With these forces in play, teens rapidly became isolated from adults and increasingly unhappy about their peculiar place in society;adults in body and mind, toddlers in status."
Here's what John Taylor Gatto says,in an interview with Jerry Brown about the lively America before the industrialists took hold of it: "Independent livelihood was where it was at! You know, back in the 1840's - 1850's it was impossible to assemble an American work force over 40, because people would only work for you long enough to get a little stake, and then cut off and go off on their own. When we look at the history of New England factories, that they're going to concerts, and dances and libraries for the young girls who worked there for just a couple of years until they could bring a little stake to their marriage. That was the American dream, that you could write the script to your own life! And very , very gradually, that dream was converted, and this is quite easy to track, not by evil people, but by people who understood that wealth depends on your ability to command labor. And unless you can assemble large groups of labor, you were never going to be wealthy as the Europeans reckoned wealth, or the English reckoned wealth."
Taylor Gatto places a strong emphasis on the individual, on the entrepreneur in control of himself and his livelihood. Gatto details the lives of archetypal Americans like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Edison, who were independent, free-thinking leaders, none of whom spent more than two years in any kind of school, and yet all were leading productive, fulfilled lives by the time they were in their teens.
Write in and tell us what you think!
Hard to believe, right? But Epstein presents a convincing case as to how adolescence and the artificial extension of childhood came about since the mid 1800s in western culture at least:
*Nurturing tendencies by women (and some men) to protect the millions of young people toiling long hours in the new factories or getting into trouble on the streets
*The elevated status of women, which gave them a powerful new voice in policy making
*The widespread adoption of the new view that young people are tender, helpless and incompetent (reminds me of how people thought of women in the Victorian era!)
*Determined efforts by the new labour unions to protect the jobs and wages of older workers by pushing young people out of the work force
*The desire of leading industrialists to sweep the streets free of troublesome youths and to prepare new generations of skilled laborers through mass education
*The desire of leaders in the upper and middle classes to impose their moral standards on poor and working class youths
The emergence of new businesses and industries that catered to the young and helped to create a "youth culture."
Says Epstein,"Before these forces emerged, the troubled teen was a rarity in human history. With these forces in play, teens rapidly became isolated from adults and increasingly unhappy about their peculiar place in society;adults in body and mind, toddlers in status."
Here's what John Taylor Gatto says,in an interview with Jerry Brown about the lively America before the industrialists took hold of it: "Independent livelihood was where it was at! You know, back in the 1840's - 1850's it was impossible to assemble an American work force over 40, because people would only work for you long enough to get a little stake, and then cut off and go off on their own. When we look at the history of New England factories, that they're going to concerts, and dances and libraries for the young girls who worked there for just a couple of years until they could bring a little stake to their marriage. That was the American dream, that you could write the script to your own life! And very , very gradually, that dream was converted, and this is quite easy to track, not by evil people, but by people who understood that wealth depends on your ability to command labor. And unless you can assemble large groups of labor, you were never going to be wealthy as the Europeans reckoned wealth, or the English reckoned wealth."
Taylor Gatto places a strong emphasis on the individual, on the entrepreneur in control of himself and his livelihood. Gatto details the lives of archetypal Americans like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Edison, who were independent, free-thinking leaders, none of whom spent more than two years in any kind of school, and yet all were leading productive, fulfilled lives by the time they were in their teens.
Write in and tell us what you think!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Children no longer
Teens have a champion!
The Case Against Adolescence-Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen by Robert Epstein is a must read for anyone with young people in their lives. Adolescence exists mainly because of ignorance on the part of adults-according to the author. Crazy teens, badly behaved youth, are a result of artificially extending childhood.
I am so impressed by the book that I will be writing a short series covering some of its chapters.
I understand from the author that the new addition of the book comes out in a couple of months at amazon.com so stay tuned!
Now to the series:
why am excited about the book? Well as you know I follow an unschool philosophy as much as I can with the goal of raising competent, creative, self directed, useful young people. As they grow older and they start entering into their teens, I want my daughters to have opportunities to expand on what I've helped establish. But I can see that society is not ready for this.
For example,my 13 year old is as competent as most adults in many ways and yet the only job available to her right now is babysitting. Kids her age are not allowed to work more challenging fields- they are basically held back.
Can we find ways to create more meaningful opportunities for young people?
You might be surprised to hear that rather than tightening restrictions on young people we need to be loosening them. Teens as a group have more restrictions that prisoners or the mentally sick according to Epstein's research. In an interview with Psychology Today (Trashing Teens), Epstein reports,"in recent surveys I've found that American teens are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults, twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and even twice as many as incarcerated felons. Psychologist Diane Dumas and I also found a correlation between infantilization and psychological dysfunction. The more young people are infantilized, the more psychopathology they show."
Can this explains some of the brutality and violence we're witnessing in public schools across North America?
Next blog posting: The Creation of Adolescence
The Case Against Adolescence-Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen by Robert Epstein is a must read for anyone with young people in their lives. Adolescence exists mainly because of ignorance on the part of adults-according to the author. Crazy teens, badly behaved youth, are a result of artificially extending childhood.
I am so impressed by the book that I will be writing a short series covering some of its chapters.
I understand from the author that the new addition of the book comes out in a couple of months at amazon.com so stay tuned!
Now to the series:
why am excited about the book? Well as you know I follow an unschool philosophy as much as I can with the goal of raising competent, creative, self directed, useful young people. As they grow older and they start entering into their teens, I want my daughters to have opportunities to expand on what I've helped establish. But I can see that society is not ready for this.
For example,my 13 year old is as competent as most adults in many ways and yet the only job available to her right now is babysitting. Kids her age are not allowed to work more challenging fields- they are basically held back.
Can we find ways to create more meaningful opportunities for young people?
You might be surprised to hear that rather than tightening restrictions on young people we need to be loosening them. Teens as a group have more restrictions that prisoners or the mentally sick according to Epstein's research. In an interview with Psychology Today (Trashing Teens), Epstein reports,"in recent surveys I've found that American teens are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults, twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and even twice as many as incarcerated felons. Psychologist Diane Dumas and I also found a correlation between infantilization and psychological dysfunction. The more young people are infantilized, the more psychopathology they show."
Can this explains some of the brutality and violence we're witnessing in public schools across North America?
Next blog posting: The Creation of Adolescence
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