Week 5 Blog Post

Vocabulary Words

Tangential

Conscientious

While reading chapter one of the construction of adolescence I came across the words Tangential and Conscientious. When I looked up tangential it was defined as hardly touching a subject matter, like keeping it on the peripheral. While conscientious was defined as a person wishing to do what is right, relating to one’s work or duty they have.

Something that I did not understand

“Poor educational outcomes and constructions of self that are forged from negative associations

with formal schooling”

This quote came from page 8 of chapter one. In this paragraph the author talks about how questions are asked to figure out if teachers should hold the traditional idea of working with students to pass standardized tests or if their role as teacher should be different working with youth towards a relational terms. I do not understand if the author is talking about standardized teaching of youth to pass tests or something else. I could see it being used to talk about some of the shortcomings that our current school systems have in which tests are valued more so than creativity which could put some students off.  

Concepts important to reading

Cultural Capital: “The term cultural capital refers to non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic means. Examples can include education, intellect, style of speech, dress, or physical appearance.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital

Multi Authored: This concept challenged my idea that your life story is solely about you. This is concept is critical to understanding that youth adolescence growth is a story that comes from many different interactions with individuals throughout their lives.

 

Meeting of minds: This was an important concept when I was reading the section of Authoring Life Stories. Creating meaningful interactions and developing mental growth within youth should involve understanding how one thinks. It is talked about in this chapter as relating to how you teach youth about how you think and form ideas. By letting youth in on how you think will create dialogue about how they think and perceive their world versus your own.

Transparency: Throughout this chapter in order to have collaborative and meaningful mental engagement it seems like there needs to be transparency. Transparency at its core means that you do not hide things intentionally and that you seek to show everything that you can to someone. In order to have a positive relationship with youth it is important that they feel they understand who you are and why you are engaging with them in various activities.

Vygotsky and Scaffolding: I think these two concepts are very important in early childhood development and it is a topic was talked about in depth in Educational Psychology. Vygotsky laid down the primary theories on the social influences that shaped early childhood development. The term scaffolding introduced the idea of assisting youth rather than giving them the solution or no assistance at all. Rather using scaffolding you work with youth towards helping understand how they can come to a solution themselves with some assistance provided.  

Authoring Life Stories

Mother

Best Friend

Stephen Jenkins

God

Juste

Sister

High School Teacher

Father

David Mack

I have chosen to write about my best friend. My best friend has helped me write my story by being there to engage in complex thoughts, ideas and ramblings. Some of my best memories come from us just hanging out and talking about various topics on the news. These exchanges helped me to construct my ideas on certain issues and allow me to see another perspective on the matter. Being there as a friend as well to lend support has given me the resilience to continue during challenging times.

Blog Post 4

Yes, I have felt invisible but I have also been stared at so it sucks both ways. Hobson helped me think about the visibility of the color blind issue that is prevalent in the United States nowadays by defining it. Rather than being color blind Hobson urges us to be color brave which is the harder path to take because we have to confront the issues of race. This is the part where Hobson brings out statistical data about there only being seven minority CEOs out of all the Fortune 250 companies out there. Even more shocking was that while there are thousands of public traded companies within the United States there are only two that are chaired by black women. I can relate to Hobson’s story because as a minority there is a lot of truth to what she is saying. It is hard to change things when people are claiming they are colorblind and everything is okay. The truth is that things are not okay and it just makes it harder to have an honest conversation about race in the United States. This is one of the reasons why sometimes I just don't bother talking in classes like political science because this is something that gets brought up by students when issues of race come up.

“Currently, the most pervasive approach is known as colorblindness. Colorblindness is the racial ideology that posits the best way to end discrimination is by treating individuals as equally as possible, without regard to race, culture, or ethnicity.” (Dec 27, 2011)

With a space like YIA youth have the opportunity to expose themselves to people of different cultures and races due to the amount of diversity that is available in Providence, Rhode Island. Youth get to share their struggles together and see their strengths that they have and the similarities they share rather than the differences of race. This happens not because of coincidence but because YIA youth are exposed to each other on a daily basis and have meaningful interactions. Within YIA, youth are working to create a safe space where they can focus on bringing about meaning change in their communities. This is accomplished by utilizing project-based learning, cooperative learning and service learning with youth rather than traditional methods used in the classrooms. By training the youth of today we ensure that they will become future leaders who are color brave rather than color blind.

YOUTH WORK IS…. Leading With

The YIA model reminded me of similar experiences that I had in high school. It was in high school where I first began to work with nonprofits like the Rhode Island Children's Crusade and the Providence Public Library. These non-profit programs gave me my first opportunity to work with other youth within a professional setting. These non-profit organizations also gave me and other youth the opportunity to voice our thoughts and ideas in regards to how we worked within the organization to get their goals accomplished. They invested resources into us which created a sense of pride that someone was interested in what we were thinking and contributing. This made me feel personally invested in the work I was doing as I had begun to created a bond with the organization.

YIA models the notion of leading with by incorporating youth into all facets of their organization. No part of the organization that is involved with making any decision is off limits to youth participation. Youth are also allowed to create conversations with themselves and staff. Which can alter the way YIA responds to creating programs and initiatives to address their specific needs that come from these dialogues. The YIA model invests into its youth in order to create an atmosphere where they can build their social skills. These investments pay off dividends when YIA youth achieve active leadership roles within the YIA and their community. This is how in my opinion YIA is modeling the notion of “leading with” within their youth groups.  

Blog Post #1

This article describes the first characteristics of Youth Work is as an educational practice between youth workers that engage with youth in order to educate them. Education is an important topic to me but I also believe that informal education has a place within the development of people, especially youth. Not everything has to be learned within a school setting or school hours. These key interactions are valuable as information is passed on but it is often remembered because of the close interactions between youth workers and youth. The second characteristic of youth work is social practice. This entails working with youth as groups or working with existing peer groups. This is important as starting within groups is a good engage point towards getting to know young people. These interactions builds social skills that youth need to become well adjusted within their communities. Sometimes youth do not have a place in which to practice their social skills and these encounters serve to help them improve themselves.

This article describes the first characteristics of Youth Work is as an educational practice between youth workers that engage with youth in order to educate them. Education is an important topic to me but I also believe that informal education has a place within the development of people, especially youth. Not everything has to be learned within a school setting or school hours. These key interactions are valuable as information is passed on but it is often remembered because of the close interactions between youth workers and youth. The second characteristic of youth work is social practice. This entails working with youth as groups or working with existing peer groups. This is important as starting within groups is a good engage point towards getting to know young people. These interactions builds social skills that youth need to become well adjusted within their communities. Sometimes youth do not have a place in which to practice their social skills and these encounters serve to help them improve themselves.

The third characteristic is that youth workers actively challenge inequality and work towards social justice. In order to carry this out youth workers work with youth to figure out the inequalities that surround them and what they can do to overcome them. This joint project helps to establish trust within youth and their mentors as they begin to see what youth see as issues that make them feel vulnerable and what they can do to change that feeling. The fourth characteristic is wherever possible, young people choose to be involved. This is something that is often overlooked but cannot be stressed enough because if youth are not involved with something through its inception then they may not be fully on board.

The fifth characteristic of youth work is that it seeks to strengthen the voice and influence of young people. A belief that most youth workers have is that youth are underrepresented and seek to engage them to become active participants in society. This is important as growing up most teachers I had loved to just teach but rarely did they give us ‘students’ the opportunity to become fully engaged with the material we were learning through anything outside of lecturing. The sixth characteristic of youth work is a welfare practice. This entails promoting the welfare and safety of our young people through the use of education and behavior. In order to achieve this it is key to work with youth in a balanced role of educator and social worker whenever possible.

The last characteristic of youth work is working with youth ‘holistically’. This last characteristic is to take into account the full extent of the difficulties that youth encounter. Focusing on one part of the difficulties could result in limited impact for youth workers when engaging with youth. I remember that while working as a City Year corps member I worked with youth through various scenarios that they may encounter such as the importance of recycling to littering and being a good neighbor. These topics feel scattered but when taken into a community perspective you can see the value of learning these topics in building greater civic engagement of youth within their communities.   

Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Gustavo Rodriguez and I am a YDEV cohort four student at RIC.  This summer I decided to become a hermit and read. When I am not in class I like to hang out with my friends. I also enjoy playing video games and watching Netflix shows with my sister. My favorite foods to eat are sushi, pizza and cookies. 

(This was my lunch when I went to visit a friend and walked 10 miles to help them get in shape. While I do enjoy walking and running, my legs were destroyed after this walk. This dish was the bright side of the day.)

 

(This was taken in Providence duh, around the outskirts of the downtown financial district. I like how the city has a creative outlet for artists and performers.)

(My cat Luna has started to groom me recently I don't know if this is good or bad I have been getting mixed responses online as to why cats do this. What do you think?)

(Took this picture while passing through Boston South Station. I didn't know birds hanged out here and looked for food. The birds looked so adorable but I couldn't help but feel bad that they were inside and not outside.)

http://gar04.blogspot.com/2016/09/introduction_6.html