Pass the Mic Series: Amplifying Youth Voices in Politics, Organizing, & Civic Engagement

By: Isabel, a first year at UVA

Highlights:

  • Youth-Nex recently hosted their 8th conference entitled Pass the Mic: Amplifying Youth Voice & Agency, co-chaired by Drs. Wintre Foxworth Johnson and Nancy Deutsch.
  • In this Pass the Mic blog series, we are highlighting each of the sessions from the conference, sharing videos, and uplifting youth voices to summarize and reflect on what was discussed.
  • Isabel, a first year at UVA, summarizes the 5th session about “Politics, Organizing, & Civic Engagement,” highlighting important take-home points about empowering youth voices, engagement, activism and education.

Joined by experts and professionals including, Dr. Edward Scott, Dr. Josefina Bañales, Aaron Azelton, and Dr. Johari Harris, this panel focused on the importance of young voices in political engagement. Public policy and politics are often fields where youth voices can be overlooked for a plethora of reasons, however the leaders on this panel address this issue while simultaneously advocating for the increased involvement of young people, especially those who belong to marginalized groups, within the political atmosphere.

Youth Voices & Civic Engagement

Right off the bat, moderator, Dr. Scott, sets up the discussion by asking a question that focuses on the importance of youth voices when it comes to political and civic engagement. Dr. Bañales jumps in by highlighting the framework that women of color have built to support “youth using their voice[s] to challenge oppression and whiteness” within society. For Black and Brown youth, civic engagement has always been a major aspect of their lives due to the intertwined relationship between politics and racial justice. Coincidentally, young people who are part of minority groups are often hurt most by oppression but are on the front lines of fighting oppression as well. To create more individuals who will fight for democracy and equity, it is important to support young people, especially those who belong to marginalized groups, who are interested in politics, and also encourage more youth to engage with policy-making and government, both locally and nationally.

Diverting the conversation, Dr. Scott asks the panelists to speak on the level of engagement that young people have in different scopes of government, whether that be internationally, nationally, or locally. Aaron Azelton starts off this discussion with a strong statement: “young people are inherently political.” Regardless of their future career plans or goals, youth are very politically aware and oftentimes are extremely involved with local politics that address issues affecting them in their communities. Additionally, it is very important to understand that young people’s political awareness and engagement show up in various ways that may not be as visible or as public as a protest or social media campaign. Many times political engagement for young people is happening in their day-to-day lives through conversations they have with one another, or even adults as well. Also, especially for youth who are first-generation Americans, their form of political engagement may look like translating legal documents and navigating the political landscape of this nation to help their immigrant parents. Supporting adolescents’ involvement in civic engagement means understanding the different ways that each young person displays activism and political organization, depending on their strengths and individual backgrounds.

Youth Activism & Education

The panelists also focused on where and how young people can build crucial activism skills that they need in civic engagement. Schools become a major aspect of this conversation with two panelists (Dr. Bañales and Dr. Harris). They had different opinions on the ways schools can be used as a place to create more activists:

  • Dr. Bañales highlights that, historically, we would focus on building activists in schools because young people spent most of their time there. However, we are moving away from schools due to the sensitivity around conversations that focus on race and oppression; additionally, many teachers don’t have the capacity to educate students on these matters in addition to completing their workload. Due to this, most opportunities for advocacy are moving out of schools and utilizing media to encourage more youth political engagement.
  • Dr. Harris acknowledges the issues highlighted by Dr. Bañales, however she explains that schools can be the perfect place to encourage activism, especially in public schools where there are typically diverse students with different backgrounds. Schools can resemble micro democracies where students can negotiate and learn how to navigate simple issues like sharing pencils or combat larger problems like changing unjust and oppressive structures.

Despite the two contradicting opinions, both panelists agreed that it is important to move away from traditional and historical ways of encouraging civic engagement.

Moderator, Dr. Scott, continues the panel by asking a highly anticipated question about the impact of CRT (critical race theory) bans on youth political awareness and education. Panelist, Dr. Harris, begins that conversation by stating that laws like the CRT bans are not new. All throughout American history, there has always been pushback against progress; educators who have always been teaching content that is similar to CRT will continue to do so, while educators who have not been teaching CRT content will continue avoiding the topic regardless of the CRT ban being passed or not. Therefore, attempts to overanalyze and break down this ban may not be as impactful as people imagine. Dr. Bañales emphasizes that “the work will continue”; conversations about race will still occur outside of school, in homes, amongst friends, and via social media. Although school is a very important place to have these conversations, we can still continue to educate youth outside of school and ensure that they continue to be politically aware.

How To Support Youth Civic Engagement

The panelists divert towards another discussion about the support that youth need from adults to be more politically engaged. The intergeneration approach is the best way to really encourage youth advocacy; collaborating with adults and learning from them can greatly contribute to the growing political voice of a young person. Dr. Harris brings up a great example of the civil rights movement and how the partnership between adults and young people led to an immense amount of success. Additionally, adults, especially adults who mentor young people of color, need to recognize that oftentimes youth advocacy has many Eurocentric features. However, a young Black person cannot speak up in the same ways that a young White person can speak up, so it is important to teach Black and Brown youth to be an advocate in their own way and not force them to emulate the actions of young White activists.

As the panel comes to an end, panelists are asked about the resources to promote youth well-being as they navigate their political voice and civic engagement. They highlight some resources that adults working with youth activist should take into consideration:

  • Money is the first resource identified by panelists that youth need in order to continue leading and speaking up. Coincidentally, this is not the first time that the subject of money has come up during this conference, and the panelists in this discussion emphasize the impact money has on youth engagement. Money can be used as an incentive to engage more youth and persuade more adults to listen to youth; additionally, youth need to be adequately compensated for their time and efforts, and money is one of the many ways to show appreciation.
  • Community and compassion are other ways to support youth in civic engagements. Activism can be very heavy because oftentimes youth are dealing with various forms of oppressive systems. It is important to encourage youth to take time in order to heal and do things that bring joy. Essentially, even though young people may be activists, they are still young and they deserve to be able to participate in hobbies and activities that have absolutely nothing to do with activism.
  • Lastly, understanding that young people play different roles in activism. Oftentimes, adults create rigid definitions of political engagement and expect all youth to fit into these stiff roles. However, it is important that youth have various opportunities that appeal to their different personalities. Not every single youth has to be on the front lines or at every single rally/protest, so it is crucial to find roles where youth with different interests can thrive.
Source: Youth-Nex

Stay tuned to this Pass the Mic blog series to learn more about:

  • Programs that Elevate Youth Voice & Agency.

Missed the earlier posts in this series? Check out:

  1. A Dialogue Among Young People
  2. Social & Justice Systems
  3. Youth Voice & Agency in Schools
  4. Health & Well-Being

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Originally from Nigeria, Isabel Ohakamma was raised in Houston, Texas. She currently attends the University of Virginia as one of a handful of Posse Scholars selected from Texas and given a full tuition scholarship to UVA. She is currently a first-year student and plans to double major in Psychology and Youth & Social Innovation. Isabel is passionate about amplifying the voices of youth. In high school, she led conferences where she facilitated discussions with leaders of school districts about the importance of diversifying curriculums in K-12 public schools in Texas. In 2021, her advocacy and dedication to highlighting the voices of young people in her community led her to be recognized as one of twelve Bezos Scholars in the nation. Isabel is also a member of UCLA’s Youth National Scientific Council on Adolescence where she is able to actively represent adolescents and their views. On UVA Grounds, she is a member of the Student Council Legislative Committee and is a proud Echols Scholar. In the future, Isabel plans to complete a Ph.D. program and continue advocating for youth in her career!

Pass the Mic Series: Health & Well-Being

By: Kiara, a senior in High School

Highlights:

  • Youth-Nex recently hosted their 8th conference entitled Pass the Mic: Amplifying Youth Voice & Agency, co-chaired by Drs. Wintre Foxworth Johnson and Nancy Deutsch.
  • In this Pass the Mic blog series, we are highlighting each of the sessions from the conference, sharing videos, and uplifting youth voices to summarize and reflect on what was discussed.
  • Kiara (a senior in High School, youth panelist and conference attendee) summarizes and reflects on the fourth session about “Health & Well-Being.”
Source: Youth-Nex

As a High School student athlete who wants to pursue a health career, I know learning about health and well-being is essential. I truly enjoyed this panel discussion and the knowledge I obtained from these health professionals.

I felt so much inspiration when hearing from the youth about how they feel they can advocate for not only themselves but their families as well. Some of these aspects to advocate on is related to health and wellness systems, but also things like food, desserts or even being comfortable in the environment they live in.

Hearing the panelists’ ideas about having mental health professionals in schools to be able to speak with students about the things they may be experiencing in their communities was something I completely agree with.

Giving youth the opportunity to speak to someone about the things that they see everyday could be the first step to healing childhood trauma (that they would have to tackle one day in their adulthood).

I also enjoyed learning that different cultural backgrounds can have different health and well-being standards based on the history and traditions that are aligned. I definitely was able to learn different aspects of what health and well-being is, whether it is mental health resources or family resources, which truly resonated with me.

Source: Youth-Nex

Stay tuned to this Pass the Mic blog series to learn more about:

  • Politics, Organizing & Civic Engagement, and 
  • Programs that Elevate Youth Voice & Agency.

Missed the earlier posts in this series? Check out:

  1. A Dialogue Among Young People
  2. Social & Justice Systems
  3. Youth Voice & Agency in Schools

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Kiara A. is a senior at An Achievable Dream High School in Newport News, VA where she has been in the top 10% of her class all 4 years. She is currently ranked 4th in her school graduation class of 2023. Kiara currently serves her school as An Achievable Dream HS Senior Class President and President of the An Achievable Dream Middle and High School National Honor Society. Kiara is also a member of NNPS Emerging Leader Institute, Newport News Mayors Youth Commission, An Achievable Dream HS 3.0 Club, An Achievable Dream HS Principal’s Advisory Board, SCA, NNPS Flourish Youth Empowerment Club, Heritage HS Girls Varsity Volleyball team, Captain of the Heritage HS Girls Varsity Tennis team, CNU Community Captains, National Society of High School Scholars and Hampton University Upward Bound. Kiara has participated in various panels representing her school system Newport News Public Schools and her Newport News community. She has served as a student panelist on the Aim for Impact Summer Leadership Institute and the NNPS Innovate Conference, both sponsored through Newport News Public Schools. In addition, she recently participated in a local community panel sponsored by WHRO Public Media and iHeart Radio for a community conversation on safety and school security in September 2022, which was televised locally. Kiara plans to attend college where she will be majoring in Kinesiology with a concentration in Exercise Science, where she aspires to be an athletic trainer for the NFL or a major league sports franchise.

Pass the Mic Series: Youth Voice & Agency in Schools, How to Empower Youth Voice in Schools

By: Maya R. Johnson

Highlights:

  • Youth are experts on what they need and do not need in schools, so their voice needs to be heard in discussions on changes and innovations.
  • Teachers and administrators play a vital role in empowering youth voices in schools.
  • In this blog as part of the Pass the Mic series, read about the strategies panelists mentioned that schools can implement to empower youth voice from the third session about “Youth Voice and Agency in Schools” during the 8th Youth-Nex conference entitled Pass the Mic: Amplifying Youth Voice & Agency.
Source: Youth-Nex

“Students are the experts on what they are learning,” says Dr. Graves. Heads nod around the room, with mine being one of them. In education-related decisions, it is common for youth, who will be impacted by these decisions, to be left out of the conversation. A shared sentiment amongst the panelists was that youth voices should be empowered and that these voices should be heard in school spaces where decisions are made. The purpose of this panel was to address the question: How can youth voices be empowered by schools?

How to Empower Youth Inside Schools

School is where youth spend most of their time, meaning that students know what they need and what will work. The following strategies were suggested by panelists on how to empower youth in schools:

  • Principal advisory committee: Students meet with their principal and share suggestions on how to make their school a place they want to attend.
  • Student-community partnerships: Students and community partners are brought together in conversation on areas that need improvement.
  • Challenging projects in the classroom: Students complete individual multi-step projects that target challenges that youth see and allow them to create steps to solve those challenges.
  • Skill-building opportunities: Students have opportunities to practice skills needed to engage in actions and changes.
  • Create intentional spaces: Youth have access to spaces where they can practice self-governance.

How Teachers Can Help

Teachers can help empower youth voices by implementing strategies that avoid regression. Such strategies are building a personal relationship with each individual student, creating an environment of freedom of expression in the classroom, embracing the role of facilitator, and having “be real” moments during which teachers make sure that their students understand and retain the information taught. Through these strategies, not only will regression be avoided, but youth voices will be empowered because students will feel supported by their teachers and have the space necessary to grow confident and comfortable using their voice.

How Administrators Can Help

Administrators can help empower youth voices by making sure that young people feel safe when using their voice. Through consulting youth directly on what the word “safety” means to them and creating spaces where students feel comfortable sharing how they feel and what affects them without judgment, youth will know that their voice is acknowledged by leaders in their school. A key to administrators contributing to the empowerment of youth voice effectively is that they must be open and ready to hear feedback, rather than taking student feedback personally.

My Thoughts

Students know their experiences in schools. They know what innovations and systems work and do not work. They know what they need and do not need.

Students’ voices should and need to be not only heard, but also given genuine space during the school decision making process.

Once schools begin to empower and listen to youth voices, strong leaders will be developed, and schools will be transformed to effectively impact the lives of youth.

Source: Youth-Nex

Stay tuned to this Pass the Mic blog series to learn more about:

  • Health & Well-being, 
  • Politics, Organizing & Civic Engagement, and 
  • Programs that Elevate Youth Voice & Agency.

Missed the earlier posts in this series? Check out:

  1. A Dialogue Among Young People
  2. Social & Justice Systems

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Maya Johnson is a second year at the University of Virginia majoring in Youth & Social Innovation and minoring in Religious Studies. She is a member of the Education Council, member of the leadership team for SEEDS4Change, co-event chair for the Youth & Social Innovation Executive Board, and a volunteer for Virginia Ambassadors.

Pass the Mic Series: Social & Justice Systems

By: Zaharra, a 13-year-old

Highlights: 

  • Youth-Nex recently hosted their 8th conference entitled Pass the Mic: Amplifying Youth Voice & Agency, co-chaired by Drs. Wintre Foxworth Johnson and Nancy Deutsch.
  • In this Pass the Mic blog series, we are highlighting each of the sessions from the conference, sharing videos, and uplifting youth voices to summarize and reflect on what was discussed.
  • Zaharra, a 13-year old youth panelist and conference attendee, summarizes and reflects on the second session about “Social and Justice Systems.”
Source: Youth-Nex

During session 2 at the conference, we heard from moderator Joanna Lee Williams, Ph.D, and panelists Chidi Jenkins, Renee Spencer, Andy Block, and Sage Williams. This panel focused on child well-being and how to respond to the needs of youth in our community. I feel so honored to have had the opportunity to watch and listen to this panel live. 

The Panelists

Sage Williams talks about his unique experience at the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center and how he worked as the president of the Student Government Association. Briefly after, a new community treatment model was implemented and it helped to foster rapport. Andy Block was the one who came up with the idea, and it is a unique perspective to see them both successful and on a panel together. Renee Spencer is a youth mentor, previous social worker, and is focused on building youth relationships; she is passionate about the Youth Initiative Mentoring program. Lastly, Chidi Jenkins works with Youth-Nex as well as a policy program that focuses on child well-being; she has helped to lead discussions around what is being talked about on this panel. 

Their Discussion

Sage Williams has the unique perspective of someone that has experienced what it was like on both sides of the spectrum–knowing what it felt like to be isolated and then the change of the policy within the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center. He represents the positive effects of engaging with youth and building relationships. 

Andy Block is an exact representation of what it means to break out a box that shouldn’t be there. What I mean by that is people get stuck in their ways, which is understandable, but what he had to do was challenge that. By taking a risk he changed the system and helped to save lives; this is what educators and other people should be doing when building relationships. 

Renee Spencer talks about the institutional structures that we have created that devalue or denigrate youth relationships. Being human to children and not isolating them is considered “soft” is really perpetuating toxic relationships. She reminds us of something she learned in graduate school about resilience.

Young people who have safe, supportive, nurturing relationships are bound to succeed.

This is a privilege. Even having this type of relationship allows youth to re-approach negative experiences in a positive way. 

Source: Youth-Nex

Stay tuned to this Pass the Mic blog series to learn more about:

  • Youth Voice & Agency in Schools, 
  • Health & Well-being, 
  • Politics, Organizing & Civic Engagement, and 
  • Programs that Elevate Youth Voice & Agency.

Missed the earlier posts in this series? Check out:

  1. A Dialogue Among Young People

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Zaharra is a thirteen-year-old attending Renaissance School. She is an activist, musician, athlete, artist, and writer. As an Ethiopian-Italian-American, Zaharra has learned to embrace her culture. Throughout her life in Charlottesville, she has experienced microaggressions and racism; this has helped her to acquire the skills to educate those who are uneducated, and fighting against bias inside and out of the school systems is her focus. Zaharra’s recent involvements include having two films, that she collaborated on, shown in the Youth Film Festival ’22, one of them winning the Audience Choice Award. During the ’21-’22 Renaissance School awards ceremony she was awarded the Doc Wilbur as an Eighth-grader, and she has also participated in numerous endeavors such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Teen Stylin’ Event in 2022 and being a Panelist at a Virginia Humanities conference in 2022.

Pass the Mic Series: A Dialogue Among Young People

By: Wintre Foxworth Johnson

Highlights

  • Youth-Nex recently hosted their 8th conference entitled Pass the Mic: Amplifying Youth Voice & Agency, co-chaired by Drs. Wintre Foxworth Johnson and Nancy Deutsch.
  • In this Pass the Mic blog series, we are highlighting each of the sessions from the conference and in future posts including youth voices to summarize and reflect on what was discussed.
  • In this first blog, co-chair Dr. Johnson introduces this blog series and shares our first session on “Youth Voice and Agency in the 21st Century: A Dialogue Among Young People.”
Source: Youth-Nex

Adults often talk about youth as “the future.” That, however, is a partial truth. Many of the issues that adults debate and the policies that we create affect young people’s day-to-day lives, arguably more than they do our own. Young people are the present as much as they are the future, and we need their ideas. They should have a say in how we think about social issues and what we do to address them. 

At Youth-Nex, we take a strengths-based approach to youth development. And every day we are amazed by the ingenuity, energy, and hope of youth as they tackle the problems they see in the world. Part of being an adolescent is forming an identity that includes a sense of meaning and purpose. We see young people enacting that meaning and purpose, often within systems that do not value their voices or expertise. 

Youth voice and agency were central to the recent convening. Throughout Youth-Nex’s 8th conference, we heard from young people and adults who are actively working to amplify the voices of youth across the systems that shape their lives. Our goal is for everyone to approach the issues affecting youth with new eyes because they are complex and require all our experiences, expertise, and ideas. We want adults to not only see but also engage youth as true partners in working for change!

The first session of the conference grounded us in youth voices. This panel was moderated by Zyahna Bryant, an activist and community organizer, and included all youth panelists. We asked: Are young people ready to lead and if so, in what ways? How do we center and uplift youth voices in the 21st century? What are action-oriented steps to support youth? Listen to this session and learn more.

Source: Youth-Nex

In this blog series, we will share each of the sessions from the conference with an accompanying young person’s perspective who attended the conference. Listen to these sessions, hear these youth voices, and consider how you can “pass the mic”!

Stay tuned to this Pass the Mic blog series to learn more about:

  • Social & Justice Systems, 
  • Youth Voice & Agency in Schools, 
  • Health & Well-being, 
  • Politics, Organizing & Civic Engagement, and 
  • Programs that Elevate Youth Voice & Agency.

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Dr. Wintre Foxworth Johnson’s scholarship lies at the nexus of sociocultural literacy studies, critical race scholarship, and critical pedagogies for and with young children. Her research has two primary aims: to examine the relationship between literacy teaching and learning in race-conscious and social justice-oriented elementary educational contexts; to investigate the sociopolitical development of children from historically marginalized communities, with a particular focus on Black children’s educational experiences, racial awareness, and experiential knowledge.

How Will We Address the Social-Emotional Learning Loss from COVID-19? Lessons from Camp Common Ground

By Zach Bell

This blog post is the second in a two-part series from Zach Bell reflecting on the Youth-Nex 2019 conference and SEL loss from COVID-19. If you want to learn more about the other researchers and practitioners who inspired this post, read the first post here.

Highlights:

  • Zach Bell is the Co-Founder of Camp Common Ground and a Physical Education and Social-Emotional Learning Teacher in the Oakland Unified School District in California.
  • With COVID-19 and distance learning, students are experiencing more social-emotional learning loss than ever before. 
  • In the second and final post of this series, I further explore the “Four Factors for Youth Moral Development”: (1) safe-environment, (2) well-trained facilitators, (3) experiential pedagogy/youth power, and (4) accessible to most students. I use this framework to evaluate different interventions for doing social-emotional learning work in our current education environment.
Source: Color War Simulation from Zach Bell & Camp Common Ground

“I don’t know if my school is really a safe place to do this work,” I admitted to the 2019 Youth-Nex conference chamber, referring to the Color War simulation we run at Camp Common Ground.

In this simulation, campers experience inequality in an embodied way through a day-long competition where students hold positional privilege or disadvantage based on their assigned color team. Youth must navigate their emotional reactions towards their peers, and towards the authority figures (me and the other staff members) who are enforcing this inequitable system – and make hard choices whether to “rebel” and face consequences. For the full talk about Color War, watch the video here.

What I didn’t realize at the time of the conference was that school might be the only place in 2020 to do “this work” of developing our youth’s social-emotional skills, moral development, and dialogical abilities because in-person programming for Camp Common Ground (and so many other related programs) were cancelled this year due to COVID-19.

Camp Common Ground, is a two-week overnight summer camp for a diverse cohort of Bay Area middle schoolers, was co-founded by myself and current Executive Director Ron Towns, both Oakland educators. The camp includes carefully scaffolded skill-building workshops that lead up to integrative simulations, like Color War. Our program has led to statistically significant boosts in empathy, perspective-taking, self-esteem, and cross-cultural friendships. To learn more about the organization and our impact, click here.

As a middle school math teacher at an experimental bilingual public school in Oakland Unified School District during distance learning, I found that even the “normal” social-emotional learning this year was largely disrupted. I tried to engage students with “virtual restorative justice circles” and daily check-ins, but it simply was not the same. I found that the students who were most active over Zoom and Google Classroom were more likely to be affluent and with a quiet space in their home, and not necessarily the students who were in the greatest need of social-emotional support (though, all students need social and emotional support and development).

So how can we address this social-emotional learning loss from “distance learning” and cancelled summer and after school programs?

Can we use the disruption of COVID-19 as an opportunity to think more broadly about how to reorient our “education system” (or perhaps “holistic child development system”) to prioritize non-academic skills?

If so, where, when, and how do we implement this “re-prioritization”?

What I learned from the 2019 Youth-Nex conference is that for moral development, dialogue, and social justice education to be effective we need the following in place. I’ll refer to these as the Four Factors going forward.

  1. Safe environment with bonds of community, belonging, and trust, so that youth can be vulnerable.
  2. Well-trained adult facilitators who can responsively adapt their work to the developmental and identity intersections of their youth. 
  3. Experiential pedagogy and power structures that share authority with youth so that there is authentic co-construction of rule-based systems with meaningful stakes (e.g. hiring staff) and space for critical reflection and praxis.
  4. Accessibility to most students. In hopes of being realistic given the often under-resourced state of public schools and structural inequity that exist in our systems, I want to add one “realism-check” category so that we’re not just finding solutions for affluent youth.

Below are avenues I see to explore options for doing social-emotional learning work, and admittedly cursory evaluations of each option’s potential:

To read more about the pros and cons of each of these venues please see this downloadable PDF.

At the end of the day, a diversity of tactics is likely the approach we’ll need to take to address this overwhelming need – now more than ever – to teach our youth to be moral actors with a strong foundation of social-emotional and dialogical skills.

The gaps can be daunting; when I recently searched for “gender education nonprofits” there was not a single hit on the first page of Google that mentioned boys or men, so we have a long way to go on providing truly holistic identity development for all of our kids.

But as many of us take a step back during the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate our current systems, it may be time to think imaginatively and critically of concrete ways that we can support all students in becoming moral actors, in whatever context they are in.

Let’s look at our educational practices with that lens. Rather than just asking “can they score a point?”, let’s ask, “are they grappling with what’s a fair rule?” and “are they deciding how to score the points, and if they even want to?” May we approach these challenging tasks with playfulness and a love of learning (see the Calvin & Hobbes comic in the downloadable PDF).


If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Zach Bell is a public middle school P.E. and social-emotional learning teacher in Oakland, California. In 2015, he co-founded Camp Common Ground, an inter-cultural overnight summer camp, where he co-designed and facilitated a curriculum about empathy-building, conflict resolution, and gender norms. Earlier in his career, he was a freelance writer and co-founder of an online magazine for youth activists, before working in business development at an ed-tech start up. More recently, he has deepened his work as a gender educator, including as a middle school basketball coach, running a boy’s group, and founding Real Men Share, an online magazine for men to share vulnerably. He is also writing a film about masculinity, listening to a lot of Ram Dass, and going to the beach.

1-Year Later, Reflecting on Dialoging for Democracy and Teaching in a Pandemic

By Zach Bell

This blog post is the first in a two-part series from Zach Bell reflecting on the Youth-Nex 2019 conference and SEL loss from COVID-19. Read more about how to address the social-emotional learning loss from COVID-19 in the second blog post here.

Highlights:

  • Zach Bell is the Co-Founder of Camp Common Ground and a Physical Education and Social-Emotional Learning Teacher in the Oakland Unified School District in California.
  • In the first post of this series, I examine the content from the 2019 Youth-Nex Conference on “Dialoging for Democracy: Youth Moral Reasoning and Social Justice” and consider what it means for the future of social-emotional learning in public schools.
  • Reflecting on the presentations and panels from youth performances, practitioners and researchers, I provide a foundation for Four Factors I will refer to later (safe-environment, well-trained facilitators, experiential pedagogy/youth power, and accessible to most students).
Zach Bell presents at the 2019 Youth-Nex Conference.

One year ago in November 2019, I attended and presented at the Youth-Nex 2019 conference on “Dialoging for Democracy: Youth Moral Reasoning and Social Justice.” Since then, the world for teachers and after-school programs has changed dramatically. In this short series, I reflect on what I learned at the conference on moral development, dialogue, and social justice education, and then apply this to my experience as a P.E. and Social-Emotional Learning Teacher.

What’s required of the setting for youth to develop as moral actors?

Social and emotional growth requires vulnerability, and the opening panelists at the conference discussed the need for creating an environment of safety and trust for youth to be open to vulnerability. Similarly, the power dynamics in the space need to actually trust youth with authority if we expect them to practice being moral actors, not just rule-followers.

Shawn Brown, at Teen Empowerment Rochester, said it “Takes real time, and effort, and trust…young people come to us because they’re needed, not because they’re needy.” At TE-Rochester, the ten young people in their program had a 50% vote on adult staff hiring decisions. Emma Yackso, Director of the Side-by-Side Youth Leadership Council, an LGBTQ “youth led, adult supported” center in Virginia gives the youth council a say in all decisions each week, from the design of the space to curricular choices, from the date for prom to the strategic priorities for the organization.

How can these models of “youth led, adult supported” learning be applied in a school setting? Is that even possible without totally reimagining school?

Further panelists discussed the need for not just safe environments, but well-trained educators who have done their own internal work and can provide developmentally appropriate curricula. For example, Larry Nucci, PhD, Professor of Education at UC Berkeley, discussed the “Moral Development Curve,” in which 8-year olds and 19-year olds are more likely to have similar responses than 11 to 16-year olds to a situation where they see someone drop a $20 bill.

Gutsavo Carlo, PhD, Professor of Human Development at University of Missouri, explained the necessity of layering in cultural identity when cultivating moral development. For example, he found that understanding the concept of familismo, the family unit, was important in predicting prosocial behavior in Latinx communities. Emma Yackso, from the youth-led Side-by-Side center mentioned above, noted that she needed to “prep the adults in the board meeting about what it’s like to have kids there.”

It’s hard enough to find qualified educators amidst a national teacher shortage. How can we find, or train, educators with these complex identity and moral-development skills?

My panel was tasked with speaking to the actual pedagogical practices to cultivate these skills. This included elevating youth voices, like the Mikva Challenge’s “Project Soapbox” that supports youth in engaging in civic participation on issues they’re passionate about. Similarly, it included resourcing youth artistic creation, like A King’s Story, a play by Joshua St. Hill, a high school student, about police violence. 

In my talk, I shared about simulation and game-based pedagogy for moral development, looking at the co-construction of rule-based systems like in John Hunter’s famous “World Peace Game”, and Jane Elliott’’s famous 1968 blue-eyes brown-eyes experiment to process Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination with her third graders.

That sounds “cool”, but seriously, how can any of these pedagogical practices find their way into 48-minute academic period-packed school days?

Well, the truth is I don’t know. But I want to explore that with educators and collaborators at a distance. Using these experiences, I created Four Factors to evaluate possible routes to democratizing these critical moral and social-emotional skills in the context of the U.S. education system. These Four Factors are:

  1. Safe-environment,
  2. Well-trained facilitators,
  3. Pedagogy/youth power, and
  4. Accessibility to most students.

To learn more about these factors and an evaluation of different routes for addressing the social-emotional learning loss from COVID-19, please read the second blog posted here


If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Zach Bell is a public middle school P.E. and social-emotional learning teacher in Oakland, California. In 2015, he co-founded Camp Common Ground, an inter-cultural overnight summer camp, where he co-designed and facilitated a curriculum about empathy-building, conflict resolution, and gender norms. Earlier in his career, he was a freelance writer and co-founder of an online magazine for youth activists, before working in business development at an ed-tech start up. More recently, he has deepened his work as a gender educator, including as a middle school basketball coach, running a boy’s group, and founding Real Men Share, an online magazine for men to share vulnerably. He is also writing a film about masculinity, listening to a lot of Ram Dass, and going to the beach.

Reflections on Youth Voice, this Historical Moment, and Dialoging for Democracy

By Symia Stigler & Kaitlin Nichols

Highlights:

  • After attending the Dialoging for Democracy conference, members of City Year national staff reflect on the last eight months.
  • Lifting up youth’s voices and allowing them to speak their truths is essential, especially in the Black Lives Matter movement.
  • Supporting young people’s voices leads to transformative citizenship, even in the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: City Year

In November of 2019, Youth-Nex hosted a conference on “Dialoging for Democracy: Youth Moral Reasoning and Social Justice” in Charlottesville, VA. I was thrilled to be attending with three City Year colleagues and looked forward to exploring how the topic might support and stretch our service ideas rooted in social justice and transformative citizenship. 

What we did not know when we entered the double doors of the UVA Alumni Hall is that in the subsequent 195 days, George Floyd would be killed and that killing would be recorded and replayed on television, social media and in the minds of every conscious human. The shock and horror after 8 minutes and 46 seconds and the last cries of “I can’t breathe” stunned the world. However, this time, in place of recurring silence and deliberately closed eyes, thundering masses of citizens across the globe raised their collective voices and loudly proclaimed, “Black Lives Matter!”  

Given our current social and physical reality, the conference topic from eight months earlier, “Dialoging for Democracy”, still resonates with me, as does the words of the organizers who spoke at the conference.  

During the welcome, Dr. Johari Harris, a Research Assistant Professor at the Curry School of Education and Human Development asked, “How do youth process complex moral and social issues?” She asked attendees to consider how that processing changes as young people grow and develop. Over the course of two days panelists, youth and community organizers shared examples from research, policy, and practice to address these grounding questions. At the conclusion, Dr. Harris reiterated that…

The best way to support positive youth development in African American adolescents is through a strength-based approach which builds on their cultural backgrounds, while keeping their powerful and unique voices at the forefront of the conversation.  

In my role as national director of student engagement at City Year, I design and pilot social-emotional learning and development (SEL/D) resources that our City Year AmeriCorps Members use every day in their work as near-peer mentors. AmeriCorps Members partners with teachers to co-create positive learning environments and customize small group tutoring sessions for students in systemically under-resourced schools. Our SEL/D supports are grounded in relationships, which I believe are the most powerful lever in K-12 education. The trust and connections built between students and AmeriCorps Members, over time, prove fertile soil for social-emotional and academic growth. Each day of the school year, City Year AmeriCorps members support students as they lift their voices and speak their truths. When young people engage as equal contributors in classrooms and communities, their voices are elevated, their courage is unveiled, and their perspective and perpetual energy create momentum, demanding positive change in our world.  

-Symia Stigler, National Director of Student Engagement, City Year


Source: City Year

Having served as a City Year AmeriCorps member, I have seen firsthand the amazing things that can come from young people’s voices being at the table.

  • I saw it when a group of 7th grade students had the great idea to host a city-wide toy drive for the local children’s hospital and had their City Year team help make it happen.
  • I saw it when we heard our students wanting to do lessons in the concrete courtyard by our classroom, so we led a service project with the students to plant flowers, paint benches, and beautify the courtyard.
  • I saw it when we created interactive bulletin boards outside our classroom that students could add their voices to connected with a monthly theme – anything from honoring a loved one impacted by breast cancer, to writing a valentine for a Black person in history who made a difference in our world, to sharing tips for self-care leading up to the next standardized test.
  • I saw it in the one-on-one relationships, when my teammate worked closely with one of her students to help him apply for summer jobs he was interested in, and when my other teammate intentionally gave special attention to her student suffering the recent loss of her younger brother.
  • I saw it when my students helped me understand how to best meet their learning needs: when one student shared that using different colors helped her concentrate, we worked on reading comprehension with lots of highlighters; and when another student shared he preferred to read over breakfast, we ate together before discussing what we read.

And I’ve been seeing it now – when schools closed abruptly in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, our City Year AmeriCorps members stepped up to creatively connect with their students in the virtual space. Our young adult leaders have continued supporting these near-peer relationships by replicating viral video dances, recording videos assuring their students that they are still thinking of them, and coming up with thoughtful prompts and activities for students to engage in distance learning.

Participating in the Dialoging for Democracy conference alongside my City Year colleagues was a rich learning experience, and it was affirming to be able to hear from researchers and practitioners about the evidence base for the activities our young adult leaders are doing with their students every day. Now more than ever, it is important it is to uplift, celebrate, and listen to the voices of our young people – and embrace all the good that can come from it.

-Kaitlin Nichols, Sr. Impact Services Operations Manager, City Year
City Year Alumni ‘13, ‘14


If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Symia Stigler brings over twenty years of field experience from education and youth-serving non-profits to her role as National Student Engagement Director at City Year Headquarters. In this position, Symia leads our work on upgrading or improving the network-wide Attendance, Social-Emotional/Youth Development, and After School tools and strategies. Symia is motivated by the power of relationships which are leveraged to forge new paths towards social justice in education.

Author Bio: Kaitlin Nichols currently serves as the Senior Impact Services Operations Manager at City Year Headquarters in Boston, managing operations and projects for our national group of program departments. Prior to joining City Year staff, Kaitlin completed two years of service with City Year Columbia as an AmeriCorps Member and Team Leader, serving middle and elementary school students across two school districts in South Carolina.  

Dialoging for Democracy, the 7th Youth-Nex Conference

By Johari Harris

Highlights:

  • Youth-Nex hosted their 7th conference in November 2019.
  • The title of the conference was “Dialoging for Democracy: Youth Moral Reasoning and Social Justice.”
  • Co-chair Dr. Johari Harris discusses why this conference was chosen and what participants got from attending.

The Unite the Right White Nationalist march that took place in Charlottesville on August 11 and 12th 2017 demonstrated the resiliency and inherent violence of White supremacy. In the time since, this nation has continued to see a rise in hate crimes directed at different, often marginalized, communities within the United States. These events run parallel to larger conversations about justice and human welfare happening both in the U.S. and abroad. From immigration to global warming, people are grappling with what solutions to these problems should look like. While these issues and subsequent conversations are often viewed as “best left to the adults,” events like March for Our Lives, the Global Climate Strike, and A Day Without Immigrants demonstrate the vested interest today’s youth have in these and other moral issues and the health of our overall democracy.

We at Youth-Nex wholeheartedly support these efforts. Further, we believe that, rather than overlooking the concerns of youth, our educational and policy systems should center youth in the process of understanding complex problems by paying attention to how youth think about these issues and how adults can support youth’s engagement in creating solutions to them. I had the wonderful opportunity to co-chair the 7th Youth-Nex conference on “Dialoging for Democracy: Youth Moral Reasoning and Social Justice” with Dr. Nancy Deutsch (Director of Youth-Nex) in November 2019. 

We realized during the planning of this, however, that there are key questions we must consider as we seek to support and collaborate with youth.

First, how does youth’s thinking about complex moral and social issues shift as they grow and change? What does the science of child and adolescent development tell us about how to best scaffold youth’s engagement with moral issues and how do we then engender civic engagement among youth? Second, what is the role of dialogue in this process? What are best practices for engaging youth in moral issues? Finally, how do we engage youth in moral issues in our current social and political climate? In particular, how do we do this work within K-13 spaces, both formal and informal educational settings?

To begin answering these questions, the conference looked closely at the developmental processes related to how youth think about moral issues, the power (and constraints) of dialogue, and the relationship of both of these constructs to democracy. Importantly and intentionally, we kept the structural issues youth face at the forefront of the conversation. There must be an understanding of macro-level forces, like systemic racism, that dictate the effectiveness and expression of individual agency. Therefore, we discussed how implicit and explicit issues of power cannot be divorced from the types of dialogue in which youth can engage. We unpacked the developmental process related to moral reasoning, empathy, civic engagement, and perspective taking, and provided examples of best practices of how to do this work in a range of spaces from classrooms to camps.

Our hope was that participants left the conference ready to return to their own spaces better equipped to amplify youth’s engagement with moral issues and social justice in ways that further their existing capacity as today’s change makers, and the future leaders of our democracy. You can watch video from all the sessions and many performances at the conference on the Youth-Nex youtube channel and our website.

_____

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email Youth-Nex@virginia.edu. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Author Bio: Dr. Johari Harris is an Assistant Research Professor at the Curry School of Education and Human Development. Her work examines how social identities, specifically race and gender, along with cultural values systems, like Afro-centric values, influence African American adolescents social-emotional competencies. Her research is grounded in intersectionality, developmental psychology, and social psychology theories.

An Inside Look at AERA 2015

Chicago – Site of 2015 AERA. “ChicagoOverheadTiltShift”. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Over the course of five days in mid April, thousands of researchers, teachers, and administrators came together to discuss current educational issues. Valerie Futch, Ph.D., gives us a look into the 2015 American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference held in Chicago this spring. aera jpeg

Futch_Valerie__1860

Valerie Futch, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor of Education, and Youth-Nex faculty member at the Curry School of Education. Her current work includes several projects that aim to improve understanding of youth experiences in the classroom, in after-school programs, and in relationship to adults. Futch is Program Chair for the American Educational Research Association Out-of-School Time (OST) SIG, American Educational Research Association, 2015 & 2016 Conferences. She was a Youth-Nex postdoctoral fellow from June 2011–August 2014.

Since I’m only one person and can’t be in multiple places at once, I followed a lot of the concurrent sessions on Twitter. If you want a great recap of the main points as well as links to lots of other resources, definitely check out the #AERA15 conversation.

The theme this year was “Toward Justice: Culture, Language, and Heritage in Education Research and Praxis” and many of the keynotes took up issues of achievement and opportunity gaps, disciplinary discrepancies, access to quality schools, and issues of education policy and reform. For a full listing of keynote speakers and information about their talks, visit the conference page.

AERA_Blyth_Noam_Vandell_3149

AERA OST-SIG Business Meeting Panel

I also had the opportunity to chair the program for the Out-of-School-Time Special Interest Group (OST-SIG). We had several roundtable and paper sessions, as well as a few posters. Some of the topics that were covered included discussions of what constitutes quality in after-school programs, how we can build collaborative opportunities in out-of-school-time settings, a full paper session documenting outcomes in these programs, and a look at global programs for youth. We also had a very productive business meeting with leading researchers in the OST field where we discussed the ESEA renewal debate in Congress and the importance of funding after-school programs. We are working on compiling all of the slides from our presenters and will post them on our SIG webpage for you to have access to in the next few weeks. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter to have access to these materials when we post them!

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Maxine Greene Memorial Program

There were somber moments as well, as several memorial sessions honored and mourned the loss of brilliant scholars. Two who were influential to me were Maxine Greene and Greg Dimitriadis. Both took up issues of art, aesthetics, justice, and philosophy of education. Their ideas fuel many educators and researchers and inspires us to create classrooms that spark creativity. The full rooms and heartfelt memories shared by former colleagues, students, and friends attests to their long-lasting influence on many in the education field.

The highlight of my trip was definitely the Saturday morning Youth Research Festival coordinated by AERA President Joyce King and Distinguished Professor Michelle Fine. Over ten teams of youth researchers from across the nation (and one group from South Africa!) presented their participatory research projects and highlighted the impact these projects had in their local communities. You can learn more about several of the projects by visiting the Public Science Project webpage. I’m looking forward to chairing the OST-SIG program again next year and encourage you to submit your work for presentation at the 2016 conference, to be held in Washington, DC.