True Story: Senior fights Gaggle Net

The following editorial written by a hero of mine, Adam King, who is a senior at A. C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, North Carolina. I don't call Adam a hero easily; he's earned it. Read the following screed and find out why student voice is alive in schools today.

"The Stupidity of Gaggle Net"
Letter to the Editor
November 6, 2008

Once again, despite the efforts of many teachers and students, the student voice at our school has been suppressed. After two years of debate, the county’s technology department has decided to carry through with the controversial decision to ban all personal email accounts for students and teachers alike. This decision has created a huge lapse in student rights; however, invasion of privacy and restriction of first amendment rights seems to be a common theme in schools across the country.

Over the past three years at Reynolds, I have responded to this growing crisis by talking to the administration and members of the school board, but my arguments have fallen on deaf ears. The school system believes that it is acting in our best interests, but they need to tone down their efforts. Like other students, I need to check my email daily for many different reasons. I use email to communicate with my employer, my senior project mentor, and my fellow state HOSA officers. I have enough maturity and common sense to know how to use email and the Internet safely. I realize that some students abuse their Internet privileges, but the county should not punish the entire student body for the actions of a select few. I am offended that the county believes it has the need to monitor all of my thoughts and actions. The school board clearly underestimates and undermines our intellect and duties as students.

I encourage you to protest the use of Gaggle Net. Gaggle Net is a big deception, which not only deprives us of our rights, but more importantly, it is not preparing the student body for reality or the workforce.

Barack Obama and American Youth

This is the sixth of six posts today celebrating the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. Congratulations to everyone out there who worked for Obama's election and had a role in this vote for change. I'll share my reflections at the end of this post.

Throughout the course of this election cycle the youth vote has been courted heavily. Now, "youth vote" is cliche and will become passe as young peoples' emerging power as a voting bloc becomes more apparent; they, too, will be carved into subcultures and demographic groups and their age bracket will likely become irrelevant - just like in marketing and consumerism! In the meantime, I want to address the role youth have played in the election of Barack Obama.

Way back in January 2008 national media outlets were wrangling over the role of young people in this election. They angled over his "youth movement" and celebrated the various organizations pulling for the youth vote. Millions of youth were registered early, and when election day finally came they actually showed up - for some reason surprising the media - but not researchers like Peter Levine at CIRCLE. But not Barack. Nope, he wasn't suprised.

In his election night speech Barack specifically acknowledged the young soldiers in Iraw and Afganistan, and young people who voted for the first time. He made a promise "every young American: If you commit to serving your community or our country, we will make sure you can afford a college education," and he said we must "provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair." Barack acknowledged there are a lot of students to teach in schools, and said he "will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance."

He also acknowledged his own daughters, Melia and Sasha, naming his pride in them.

I have done this analysis of Presidential acceptance speeches for three election cycles, and was never surpised that youth were never called out more than once or twice, even by Bill Clinton. Barack is naming his constituency, and I want to congratulate him for that. Barack does embody change I can believe in.

I am a Canadian citizen who has lived in the U.S. for the majority of his life; my green card lets me work and study here, and for that I'm grateful. It has been easy to be pleasantly detached from the electoral process, and if not totally turned off then mostly cynical. These last two years, and particularly this last six months, have been difficult to be either detached or cynical. After growing up with many African American heros in my own life and from history, and while spending much of my life wrestling with issues of race and white privelage, I walked cautiously into this election. That caution melted away today, and this is one way I'm celebrating. Another way will come in the morning when my daughter and I do a happy dance in honor of Barack's election. Thanks for reading, and let's keep this movement moving! Yes we can!

Risk Factors: New Pressures Facing Youth

This is the fifth of six posts today in honor of the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States.

In my current position in Washington's state health agency I am surrounding by alarmist pronouncements about youth today: peer pressure, depression, suicide, violence, alcohol and other drug use, anorexia, bulimia, antisocial behavior and alienation/delinquent beliefs/general delinquency involvement, drug dealing, gun possession/illegal gun ownership/carrying, teen parenthood, attitudes toward drug use, intellectual and/or development disabilities, victimization and exposure to violence, poor refusal skills, life stressors, early sexual involvement, mental disorder/mental health problems, low academic achievement, negative attitude toward school/low bonding/low school attachment/commitment to school, truancy/frequent absences, suspension, dropping out of school, inadequate school climate/poorly organized and functioning schools/negative labeling by teachers, identified as learning disabled, frequent school transitions, gang involvement/gang membership, peer alcohol, tobacco and other drug use, association with delinquent/aggressive peers and peer rejection are among some of the issues addressed in the public health field, and in my experience are among the predominant discussions among the professionals who make policies and decisions, provide training and technical assistance, conduct assessments and evaluations focused on children and youth every day.

There are a lot of challenges in that alone. However, I think the primary among them is the reality that they aren't really addressing the new pressures youth face today. Here are 10 emerging "risk factors" young people face right now:

• Education hegemony. Schools billing themselves as opening the doors to opportunity are actually determining what young people will do as adults, including attending college, going to prison, becoming parents and getting civically engaged. The education industry exerts enormous influence on the lives of young people, drowning out the voices of students themselves, as well as parents, community leaders and others who should be there.
  
• Cultural disenfranchisement. Where young people were once responsible for creating authentic cultural expressions, today they have been relegated to being sounding boards for youth marketers who want to sell a manufactured youth culture.
  
• Enforced alienation. With the increased fear of youth permeating society it comes as no surprise that children and youth are tucked away into child care, schools, after school programs, and other venues, away from adults and communities, more than ever before.
  
• Decimation of the Commons. "The Public" is a wonderful and nebulous body, making society real and tangible for all of us. What happens when The Public's best interests are determined by Private forces? Well, we're finding out in schools, on highways, in airports, and though out other Public services once accountable to the levers of Democracy, and now increasingly and exclusively in the hands of the Private sector. This is the world young people are growing up in today.
  
• Growing segregation. As young people are sent away, tucked away and otherwise alienated from their surrounding age groups, their communities, schools, youth programs, places of worship, parks and other connection points are becoming increasingly racially, economically and socially segregated.
  
• Transitioning communities. American communities are on the move, changing and transitioning into a different space than they've ever been before. In that transition, which is economic, cultural, and social, young people are being left out and forgotten. Economic crises are causing governments to eliminate funding for youth programs; changing social mores are transforming neighborhoods and neighborhood institutions right now. Children and youth today are directly affected by this movement.
  
• Increasing surveillance. For eight or nine hours a day young people are held accountable for every action, every word, and every expression they share to the people around them. Before and after school, parents are installing Internet monitors, in-home camera systems and voting for graduated drivers licences. More than ever before children and youth live in a surveillance society.
  
• Isolationism. In a time when they are routinely alienated and segregated within their own communities and throughout their own country, young people today are learning about isolationism and imperialism through the aggressive politics of the Presidential administration of the last eight years. Children and youth have grown up in that image, and it has influenced their politics now and will throughout their entire lives.
  
• Technological alienation. In a time when the world is thrusting forward and calling for unparalleled development in the technology field young people are receiving a converse message from their parents, the media and politicians. So many adults are calling for young people to stop using the very devices they are being forced to use that its no wonder young people are texting in languages adults don't understand, building websites with scripts they've never seen, and mobilizing social networks in ways adults can't imagine. That alienation is another factor.
  
• Ephebiphobia. The fear of youth is the bane of all young people, and affects every person.
  

These are the real pressures, the new risk factors. Not oppositional defiant disorder. Let's have honest, open and frank conversations that address the urgent realities of youth right now, rather than the possible risks of an unimaginable future.

Trends in Youth Voice

This is the forth of six posts today in honor of the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States.

As young people and their adult allies continue to expand and enliven the movement to integrate Youth Voice throughout society there are patterns and trends emerging. I began analyzing this development in 2001, when I worked with a group of friends and allies from across the US to develop The Freechild Project. Today our databases are widely acknowledged for their breadth and depth. I want to lay out three predictions for the future of Youth Voice, based on trends I'm identifying in current activities across the country and around the world.

Trend One: Youth are not content with being heard. In the past young people wanted to make their voices heard in decision-making; today that is just not enough. As I watch repeating patterns of youth engaging in politics, meaningful student involvement, youth involvement in government decision-making, and deepened youth/adult partnerships throughout nonprofit programs across the country I am seeing less contentment with a seat at the table; instead youth want to own the table, too.

Trend Two: Youth are progressive. The fractious and mostly arbitrary differentiation between Republicans and Democrats is divisive and derisive. However, there is a true and substantive difference between liberal and conservative thinking. Progressiveness is different - and the same - as both. To be progressive means to be committed to movement, either to the right or the left. In this way, and by way of generalization, I believe young people are largely progressive, as the inherent nature of life between the ages of birth and twenty-five (or older) is that of change. That makes their politics, their culture, their actions, their knowledge, their ideas and more progressive.

Trend Three: Youth can find equity in our society. Equity and equality are two different things, and I believe it is irresponsible to advocate for youth equality throughout society. However, equity is about fostering and engendering fairness and justice by deliberately making concessions, acknowledging mutual benefits, and creating partnerships that are sustainable and effective. Any adult who considers themselves an advocate and/or ally to young people has an ethical imperative to do nothing less.

These are patterns I've found - how about you? What do you see as the emerging, the next big thing?

Fearing the Power of Youth

This is the third of twelve posts today honoring the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States.

In the history of the U.S. There comes a time in the history of every major social movement, including feminism, African American civil rights, and gay rights, when the architects and leaders of these important movements had to identify the exact ills that stopped them from moving forward towards their goals of liberation, empowerment, integration and equality. I believe the youth movement is rapidly coming towards this juncture.

Let's begin by naming the foremost barrier to youth rights around the world today. Rather than blame ignorance or denial, I believe its vital to identify fear as the single greatest barrier affecting youth today. This is the fear of the unknown, the fear of the different, the fear of "the Other" that so many minority groups find themselves facing from their oppressors. When targeted at young people scientists and sociologists have labeled this as ephebiphobia, which I've written about before. This fear has more than manifested itself in recent times, which I became more sensitive to in 2003 after reading an article from the Christian Science Monitor quoting James Carville talking about George Bush's legislative tax schemes:

"This is not class warfare, this is generational warfare. This administration and old wealthy people have declared war on young people. That is the real war that is going on here. And that is the war we've got to talk about."

Along with Henry Giroux's hard-hitting analyses in his early 2000s books, Carville's words were a door-opening for my awareness, calling me to pay attention to the differing realities of youth today, versus the realities I'd faced as a young person. The power of youth today extends much deeper, much more sophisticatedly than young people in the 1980s and 1990s, when I was a teenager. Since then youth have actualized their power in the form of economic power, technological savviness, and cultural influence that has never been witnessed before.

Perhaps these elements individually wouldn't have constituted the threat that many adults percieve. However, I think this election cycle has given many entrenched adultists a more urgent reason to be fearful: Young people have shown their true power by bringing together the wieght and strength of their might, tying together their individual and collective economic, technologic, and cultural abilities with political will. By doing that young people have undisputably, clearly and forevermore demonstrated that not only do youth have the ability, but they have the fortitude to see through their intention, ideas, knowledge and actions to create change. In other words, Youth Voice has clearly shown itself to be a force to be reconded with.

That should give any young person hope, and if you are scared of youth, now you have a clear reason why. Let's work together to change those opinions, hearts and minds - because we can.

A Brief History of Youth Voice

This is the second of twelve posts today in honor of the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States of America.

One of the privileges of my work is that over the last 10 years I have been in this movement I have identified, studied, witnessed and promoted a transformation in the international movement promoting Youth Voice. As a distinct phenomenon, I have identified Youth Voice first emerging as a distinct movement in the 1890s when newsboys across the Eastern U.S. went on strike against William Randolph Hearst, effectively defeating one of the largest economic titans of their day.

After receding throughout the next 30 years, in the mid-1930s Youth Voice resurfaced in the form of the Declaration of the Rights of American Youth, which was delivered directly on the floor of the U.S. Congress by the American Youth Congress. There was a 20 year lull after the AYC was suppressed in the 1940s, with Youth Voice not coming up for a good breath until the 1961 Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society. This stepping out effectively led to the youth revolution of the 1960s and early 70s, birthing many, many radical attempts to thrust young people into the mainstream political of American society. A lot of that energy came to fruition with the passage of the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1971. And then the 1980s happened.

In the late 1970s Youth Voice moved began to go viral, seeping into the mainstream culture and "poisoning the Kool Aid" with its idealism, passion and enthusiasm. This became apparent in two once-dicotomous cultural backgrounds: Hip hop, embracing rap, DJing, graffiti writing, and breakdancing and infusing them with vigor and fervor; and so-called "Yuppies", defined as "young upwardly-mobile professionals" whose self-reliance and determination to be financially secure individualists secured their upper-middle class status to this day. I believe those two cultural backgrounds are still determining American social values today, as I have lived through their maturation into mainstream memes that defy the boundaries of race or class.

The determination of 1970s radical youth and 1980s self-serving youth was not lost into the air. In the 1990s their leadership led to the development of a variety of Youth Voice programs and initiatives across the U.S. and around the world. National nonprofits, foundations, and other organizations began beating the drums for youth involvement, and community-based organizations rose to the task and led the way, illustrating diverse, new ways to engage young people throughout society.

With the emergence of new technologies that are quickly adopted by young people the new millineum has brought a celebration of Youth Voice that has never been seen. Organizations such as Freechild, YouthNoise and TakingITGlobal came out quickly as national and international networking hubs focused on connecting divergent young people and moving forward. This has led me to call for youth integration and intergenerational equity at every corner, as we must continue to live up to the challenge of Youth Voice.

In that way we can live up to the hope, the expectation and the courage young people embody. Let's build society we want our young people to grow up in.

"Youth" is Political

This is the first of twelve posts I'm putting up today to celebrate the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. This is a historic time and we should all celebrate - and recommit ourselves to being the change we wish to see in the world.

Let's start by addressing politics: In this sense I am not discussing party politics and the artificial discrimination between Democrats and Republicans or the true distinctions between liberals and conservatives. Rather, I am looking at politics as the social relations that seek, enforce, collect or ensure authority or power throughout society. My analysis of youth is inherently political, as I am almost exclusively concerned with the power relations between young people and adults throughout society.

The very definition of the word "youth" is political because every way you can define the word enforces their relationships to power:

• Labeling someone a "youth" because of their age makes them different
• Categorizing a group of people as "youth" because of their age, knowledge, opinions or actions makes them the Other
• Routinely isolating groups of people because of their age segregates them and constitutes their relation to power for the rest of their lives
• Identifying someone who is immature or inexperienced as a "youth" reinforces powerlessness and dismisses any notion of self-efficacy
• Isolating the indiscretions or accidents human beings make throughout our lifelong development as "youthful" diminishes the responsibility all people share
• Relegating freshness and vitality as "youthful" as the last definition after each of the others is cynical, to say the least.
  

This definition needs to be acknowledged for being what it is - a political tool that identifies, influences, isolates and otherwise differentiates between young people and everyone else in society. That type of "otherness" is political, and that is that.

The Architecture of Ownership

This month my new article, Giving Students Ownership of Learning: The Architecture of Ownership, is appearing in the current online edition of Educational Leadership magazine.

"There are many reasons schools must live up to the challenge that students present, not the least of which being that students are more than the future: They are the present, urgently pressing teachers, administrators, and school leaders to respond to the challenges in our schools right now. Let's make meaningful student involvement a reality for every student in every school today."

You can find the article online, and if you're interested I can email you a copy. This magazine is one of the most popular publications for K-12 educators in the U.S. As my friend and ally Sylvia Martinez wrote about it, "Published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), every issue focuses on a single broad topic. The November 2008 issue is “Giving Students Ownership of Learning” and features some terrific articles about aspects of student-centered education from active learning, formative assessment, student voice, developing student expertise, the power of audience, and more." I would suggest you get a hold of a copy of this month's edition and read Sylvia and Dennis Harper's articles, along with that of my academic hero Dana Mitra, as well.

Components of Successful Youth Voice

So I'm finishing up edits on a few more sections of the Freechild Project Youth Voice Toolbox, and this new page on the Components of Successful Youth Voice programs has me very excited. In my research of Youth Voice programs across Washington, throughout the United States and around the world, I have found some repeating patterns that continuously emerge. These patterns include a number of components that will make a community-wide Youth Voice strategy successful. Here's an introduction to the six components.

• Equitable youth/adult partnerships - Meaningful, substantive relationships built on justice and fairness.
  
• Social networking - A group of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.
  
• Meaningful learning - Understanding learning through by applying learning to life instead of through force, aggression, or threats.
  
• Safe and supportive environments - Places, spaces and people surrounding young people that embody the ideals of equity, quality and meaning for all young people and adults.
  
• Lifelong service - Seeing oneself as part of the larger world is essential for building Youth Voice.
  
• Community-wide engagement - Connecting at home, in places of worship, at school, in community organizations, in government agencies and throughout society.

These are the most important components I have identified. I'd love to know what you think.

Barack Wins the Under-18 Vote

Well, I'm no fan of mock voting, and as a matter of fact I stand firmly in opposition to it. However, I do appreciate that at the very least it raises the visibility of Youth Voice. It seems that the preliminary estimates from the National Mock Election, held last week across the United States, show Presidential candidate Barack Obama winning 46 states.

Mock elections, mock voting and mock parliaments are an apparatus of ignorance that forces young people to internalize their powerlessness in the political process of the United States. Mock elections grind into young peoples' heads that their political voice is not worthy of full consideration until they are 18, at which point their minds will become suddenly capable of understanding politics and their votes will suddenly matter. Oh, and you'd better become politically active when you're 18 for fear of being a pariah. (Ever wonder why the voting rates for 18-25 year-olds weren't high after the national voting age was lowered in the 1972? Because youth were continuing to react to generations of systemic disenfranchisement. Young people are just beginning to emerge as significant political players, and as they begin to recognize their individual and collective power we are only going to see increased ephebiphobia throughout society.) A complicit component in these mock elections is the emphasis on the so-called "youth vote", which generally when spoken of by the mainstream media refers to actual voting by 18 to 25 year olds. What does that tell young people under 18? That they aren't youth and that they are still children. And since we, as a society, have infantalized children to the point of worthlessness to society, no one wants to be a kid.

All told, this situation makes the mock affairs nothing more than exercises in futility that frame children and youths' opinions as not worthy of real consideration. Further complicating the scenario are the well-meaning adults who propagate these activities in schools and youth-serving organizations. We mean to engage young people, we mean to hear their opinions, we mean to validate them by at least acknowledging what they think. These adults aren't bad people, and honestly I have been a promoter in the past. However, it ended for me the day a group of teens at a youth center scoffed at me when I suggested they participate. I asked them to tell me why, and they did, and now, well...

Now I see a different route to promoting civic engagement among young people. Rather than continue to perpetuate this egregious and immoral violation of citizenship and human rights, the United States should completely abolish the voting age. Germany has considered this as a serious legislative agenda, and we must follow this mode. Only then can we move from openly and unabashedly mocking Youth Voice to actually engaging, sustaining and integrating young people throughout society.

A Parent's Question about Punishment in Schools

I receive a lot of email and have a lot of conversations with concerned parents, people who know that their childrens' rights are being violated or that Youth Voice is being suppressed or any of a number of bad, bad things. Sometimes it is overwhelming; sometimes enlightening. Following is an email I received last night:

My daughter was "sentenced" to Saturday work detail (picking up garbage after a Friday night football game) for talking in class. This occurred without any due process. There were no warnings, no "in school" punishment handed out and the "dean" of discipline told my daughter that when he receives a complaint from a teacher (called a referral) he automatically believes the teacher and not the student. there are probably 25 or more of these a day handed out. In addition, the school that she attends (public school) has a "wall" labeled in BIG letters "THE WALL" where the students who had referrals must line up against to receive their assigned punishments. (in this case, my daughter contends she was one of many students talking during an in class "lab" type assignment where students are paired up to collect personal information from each other (by talking). There was no loud speaking during class, no swear language, nothing that should rise to this level of punishment. We recently moved here. My daughter has never had problems with discipline or otherwise, and is a 4.0 college bound senior. The dean who handed down the punishment suggested to my daughter that she should drop this class if she believes she is being unfairly singled out by the teacher. This is the second school official to tell her this. Doesn't she have the right to protect her transcripts that have already been sent to colleges (by not dropping out). Several issues here seem like a violation of her civil rights. am I right ? I have spoken to school officials who say this is how they handle these situations. what can I do?

The following is my response:

If your daughter is receiving the treatment that you described it is bordering child abuse, and according to the United Nations it is definitely corporal punishment. It is too bad that situations like this have to occur in order to bring light to the situation, but this country is too big and its schools are too big to bring light to every injustice at once. That said, the unfortunate reality is that long ago courts decided that schools operate in loco parentis, meaning that when you're not there they can act as parents. Furthermore, in 22 states schools retain the right to physically punish students at their own discretion and without consent of parents. The Supreme Court has continuously ruled that schools retain the right to limit the civil liberties of students in - and out - of schools. However, as your daughter's scenario shows, school discipline is generally in a pathetic situation, and one that we, as parents, should not and cannot continue to allow.

There are alternatives to the ways that schools treat students, including methods teachers and administrators can use to actually teach students. In big cities and small towns across the country, parents and students and teachers and school board members are actually doing good through student discipline. Not all programs are radical; some are subtle changes, and some are just wrong. But the common thread is that things are changing.

In your daughter's particular circumstance I'm not able to say what the next best steps are. I would encourage you to remember this: Schools are instruments in a democracy, and democracy CAN create change in schools. This requires you, as a parent and school community member, to DO something. If you have attempted to discuss this situation with your school's principal and other administration, and they have not responded, I would suggest that you attempt to identify the person in your local school district office who is responsible for discipline - every district has one. If that person is not responsive, then contact your district superintendent. If you do not get an answer to your satisfaction from that person, then I suggest that you contact your local school board member. That person is elected by the public to represent the public's interest in schools. If that person fails to answer your questions or meet your needs, you have several routes to take: There is a state-level official in every state in the nation who has the job of answering these types of concerns from parents. They may be an ombudsman or a state education agency official - but regardless of where they are, they are ultimately accountable to YOU as a parent. Their bosses are either a "chief state school officer" or the governor. Every state also has a state board of education that is generally elected by the public and generally accountable to the public.

If all those steps fail then you MUST run for school board and change this policy from the inside. The end run is that may be your only choice - to use the instruments of democracy to change a democratic institution. Good luck.

I don't know if this was the best response - but it is what I know and believe: Public schools are not going to behave more democratically until the public demands they behave more democratically. We - parents, students, concerned community members - have allowed them to be autocratic, dictatorial institutions for too long, and we must hold them accountable for that. Transparency: I am not blameless here. I work in a public agency and am responsible for including students, parents and concerned community members in my work, and I have not been particularly successful in each of those categories thus far. I know how challenging this is; however, it does not let us off the hook.

As usual, let me know what you think.