Injustice

There have only been a few times where I have felt injustice, but nothing bothers me more than the injustice in the work environment. At my current part time job, I am somewhat treated like a manager. I run the shift, I answer the phone/make calls, go to other stores if needed, and have been asked to do other duties such as going to the bank and training sessions. However, I am not payed as a manager. At my job there are three levels; these include crew member, trainer, and manager. After five years, I am just now becoming a certified trainer. Let me point out that there are people who have not been there as long as me and have been promoted multiple times. Yet, just because I know how to do my job and perform the tasks well, does not mean that I should be taken advantage of. 

It is unfair to me that there are people who came in after me getting promoted over and over again. Meanwhile as I previously stated, I have been there for five years and am just now getting my first promotion to trainer. It makes me feel unappreciated which causes me to not get along with most of the management team. I do a lot for the store and no one seems to notice or care. There are a few people on the management team that will stick up for me and notice how much I do for the store, but most just choose to ignore the fact that I do anything. These types of situations happen weekly. However, as much as I hate the treatment, I can do whatever I want and make my own schedule; So the flexibility is really why I stick it out week after week. When these situations happen, I try to just stay calm and not get worked up, especially because it occurs so often now that I'm used to it at this point. 

Mapping Interconnected Care

                          

In this piece, Victoria Restler meets and interviews various teachers from New York City who discuss the different ways that they care for their students. I found it interesting how each teacher had their own way that they presented themselves to their students, how they teach their students, and care for them and meet their needs.

• Sarah (A bat signal for LGBT students)
• Michelle (The $nack Factory)
• Lee (As I am at home, I am in my classroom)
• Eli (Looking at myself through the eyes of students)

Michelle: Also known as the teacher who supplies the snacks. When students were falling asleep in her class, she was under the impression that they thought that she was boring. However, after her first year of teaching, she looked deeper into why the students may actually be falling asleep. Maybe they were working until 2AM and got a limited amount of sleep. Maybe they skipped breakfast and their energy level is low. To show her students that she cares, she supplies snacks that may give them the energy boost they need to start their day. Some may see this as coddling the students. "Instead, she advances a view of her students as human beings coping with extraordinary challenges, and frames her own work in terms of creating a home-like safe space."

Lee: Clean Everything! As an educator, Lee feels as thought the children should have a clean and organized space to work in. This is for many different reasons. For starters, this is just the type of person that Lee is, as she states "I clean all the things". She believes a space that a child is learning should be clean. However, she doesn't just think about the cleanliness of her classroom, she thinks of the impact is has on her students.  For example, many students where she teaches come from an home where cleanliness does not always exist. So, she feels that providing them with a clean area is showing respect to them as students and as people. This also helps the students to become more organized themselves. Lee feels as though the students "deserve this" and wants them to view it as this way too.

Personally, I have also seen these reflected in some of the youth spaces I have volunteered in. Snacks have been present a lot of the time as well as cleanliness and dressing professionally. However, I don't know if teachers/youth workers that I have worked with bring the snacks, dress professionally and make sure the space is tidy for the same reasons that these New York educators say. It would be interesting to ask these same questions and go through the same process with educators and youth workers we know to see what results we would get. Would they say the same things as said in this article? Would they say they dress professionally and tidy up because it is part of their job? One would be interested to find out the answers to these questions.

Youth In Action: How do we "lead with" youth?

                       

Mission Statement: 

Youth In Action gives the space for youth share their stories, practice leadership, and create change in their communities.

                                             Vision Statement:
At YIA, we understand that those individuals most affected by a problem are in the best position to determine solutions. The problems that often hit youth of color the hardest – such as community violence, food insecurity, and entry into higher education or training – are structural problems with personal implications. Hence, YIA serves as an open and safe space where youth can voice their opinions and experiences, and are given the trust and respect to creatively apply their unique talents within their own lives and their communities. By building power, leadership and action amongst youth in frontline communities, we believe a more equitable and safe world is possible.


- Youth In Action is defined as a "youth leadership" after school organization, which is not the typical description that we see when talking about after school programming. When parents and youth think of participating in an after school program, they mainly think of youth taking part in the program while adults make the rules and lead the program. At Youth In Action, they describe leading with as building power and taking action amongst youth, as stated in their vision statement. Youth In Action focuses on creating various opportunities for youth to better themselves and address power imbalances. In addition, YIA addresses four various types of learning. These include project based learning (which is specific to practicing leadership skills), service learning, adventure learning, and cooperative learning. Each type of learning focuses on the youth and what they can do to help better themselves and their communities. 

Alyssa Dorr: My Youth Development Autobiography

        

My YDEV story starts around age five, but then restarts later as a third year college student. As a youth, I had high hopes of becoming a teacher. I loved playing school and always made sure that I played the role of the teacher. Throughout elementary school, I looked up to many teachers and the role that they played throughout my schooling. Fast forward to the Fall of 2012, my first year at RIC. When entering RIC, my declared major was Elementary Education with a concentration in Special Education. After completing two years at RIC, I still had yet to be accepted to the teaching program. I remember looking into the Youth Development program before entering my third year and feeling like it could potentially be a good match for me. However, I decided to give the teaching program one more chance. Sure enough, a third year goes by and I still was not in the program. This is when I took a year off from school and began my internship at Walt Disney World. Having this year off really gave me time to think about what I wanted to do. I definitely knew that I wanted to work with children. However, I also knew that I did not want to be limited to only being in the classroom for the rest of my career. In February 2016, I met with Lesley to learn more about the YDEV Program and the different career paths it could offer. It sounded like a great fit for me, a safe space where I could both bond and advocate with youth. In Fall 2016, I began my first year as a YDEV student and loved it. Now, only months away from graduation, I have learned so much through my YDEV community and am excited to take what I have learned out into my own community and future safe spaces. 

Play time!

As a youth worker: 

• I have been nannying for about five years for various different age groups
• Volunteered in a kindergarten classroom for three years where I helped lead in youth activities 
• Volunteered in first grade ESL classroom, facilitating reading and math activities in small group settings
• When working for Disney, was able to interact with children of all different ages from all over the world. As a youth worker, this helped me to learn about different cultures and it was cool that I got to learn about these cultures from the young people. 

As a youth:

• Role playing: loved playing "house" and "school"
• Playing pretend
• Dress up 
• Sports: Soccer, Gymnastics, Dance, Karate

As a young person, I feel as though we try to incorporate play into most things we do because that is what we enjoy. However, we soon realize that some settings are not meant for play. For example, we know that play is limited in the classroom and in order to receive play, you must work for it. Another idea is the concept of negative punishment on play. For example, if you do not complete your homework, you stayed in for recess and did it then, losing your playtime. However, there are many settings that are meant for play such as the playground and sports fields. As stated in Jenkins "Shall We Play?" article, the six P's factor into play no matter the space, specifically permission. Permission is needed in spaces that do not enable immediate play but play can be followed after work. The remaining six P's each individually contribute a part of playtime. 

Framing Youth

"We come to know youth as incomplete, in-transition, finding themselves, hormone-driven, emotional, inexperienced, and always in opposition to the adults in their lives."

"Youth are to be feared, controlled, contained, and as Nathan noted, "kept in".

"If adolescence is a socially constructed category through which young people are understood as defined by age, distinct from adults, and yet undifferentiated from each other, is there any “truth” to the experience of adolescence?"

These were just a few of the many quotes that stuck out to me while reading Framing Youth, a piece taken from Feed Your Mind: A Qualitative Study of Youth, Power and Privilege, written by Lesley Bogad. Bogad discusses the concepts of common sense and how this can limit our ability to see young people as future competent leaders. We believe in various stereotypes about youth because as stated in the article, "we were once young". We have these representations about youth and how it feels to be a young person because at one point we were all young. However, different people may have experienced different situations at different ages. For example, some of us, like myself, had my first job at just fifteen years old. Once in the workplace, I really started to feel like an adult. However, adults were there to remind me that I was still just an adolescent and did not have as much freedom as I thought. So even though I myself felt like I was transitioning from a adolescent to an adult, adults had a different perspective, especially my parents.

The media also plays a role in the distinction between an adult and adolescence. The example Bogad uses is a magazine cover of a famous actress who is celebrating her last day as a teen. She has a a young look to her but you can also see that the cover shows her "pissed off and sexy side". In addition to magazine covers, this is also true for televisions shows, music, and movies. Directors and song writers write about things that teens are believed to have their own private thoughts on such as drugs, sex, and and their parents.

These types of stereotypes can be dangerous for young people who wish to be future leaders. Whether your child wishes to be the future leader of the United States or maybe just the leader of a club at school, various obstacles can get in the way. In order to help conquer these obstacles, I believe it is important to use the characteristics of youth work that we discussed last week. Let us advocate for and with youth, allow the young people have a voice when possible, assist in educational, social and welfare practices, and continue to actively challenge inequality and fight for social justice.

Youth Work Characteristics

There are many different qualities and traits that make up a good youth worker. According to Youth Work: Preparation for practice, an book introduction written by Jason Wood, Sue Westwood, and Gill Thompson, there are seven key characteristics that define a youth worker. These characteristics include seeing youth work as an educational, social, and welfare practice, actively challenging inequalities and working towards social justice, choosing to involve the young people, seeking to strengthen young peoples voices and influences, and working holistically with young people. Each of these characteristics are unique and important for all youth workers to have.
Youth work is considered an educational practice. This is because youth workers are like teachers to young people. Educational practice includes youth workers engaging with young people in the form of formal or informal education. Most young people are aware when the education is formal since this is what is mainly used in their classroom setting. However, an example of informal education could include a youth worker creating some sort of ice breaker game, where the children are learning names, things about different cultures, etc like we will do when conducting our purposeful play activity. In addition to youth work being educational, it can also be a social practice. This means that the youth worker is using "case work approaches" when working with young people. This can include the youth worker giving advice and playing the role of a counselor. It is important in this practice that the young person has a good and trustworthy relationship with the youth worker because they may or may not be disclosing personal information to the youth worker that no one else knows. As a youth worker, it is also important to report anything if necessary. Lastly, youth work is a welfare practice. This means that the youth worker is promoting the safety and welfare of the young people. This can include working with young people who have greater needs and higher deprivation, which like social practice, may lead to the young person disclosing personal information to the youth worker. 
Another characteristic that makes an ideal youth worker is actively challenging inequalities and working towards social justice. This includes working with youth who may be "on the margins". This means these people that are "on the margins" are being excluded for race, ethnicity, class, and many more characteristics. The role of the youth worker in this case is to have an understanding of oppression and power and not to say/do something right based on the fact that they want to avoid law enforcement. One of my personal favorite characteristics that I feel as though youth workers should have is to involve the young people. Involve them in decision making processes, let them have a vote for what they believe in. A great example of this is when we put together our community norms for this class. Everyone got to contribute what they saw as important and no one was left out. Another important trait for a youth worker is to help the young people. Help the young people to strengthen their voices and show them how much of an influence they can have. Young people sometimes feel as though because they are young that their opinions don't matter and I think this goes back to decision making. If young people know they are heard and feel as though someone is listening to them, this will help them in the end. It will help them by knowing how and when to use their voice and it can help them to influence other young people. Lastly, it is important to work with young people holistically. Holistic can be defined as "characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole" (Dictionary.com). Youth workers will take into account each part about the young people: the social, the educational, welfare, etc. All of these characteristics make up a great youth worker that young people look up to and feel comfortable being around.