Youth Service: from Youth As Problems to Youth As Resources Bonnie Benard
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University of Nebraska Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO School K-12 Service Learning 1-1990 Youth Service: From Youth As Problems to Youth as Resources Bonnie Benard Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/slcek12 Part of the Service Learning Commons Recommended Citation Benard, Bonnie, "Youth Service: From Youth As Problems to Youth as Resources" (1990). School K-12. Paper 12. http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/slcek12/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Service Learning at DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in School K-12 by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. r ·. Youth Service: From Youth As Problems~at;~~~~n~~~·~'2~~~nter 1954B=Ai~RoomR290 T0 YOU th AS Resources 'J9H•. tn••"'""'"''"'"""'·,.,,, ''' St. Paui,I'{JN SS'ttl$-6197 By Bonnie Benard "People become house builders by According to Kurth-Schai, our failure everywhere adolescents have been building houses, harp players by playing to view youth as resources, "to neglected or maligned - or ridiculously the harp. We grow to be just by doing acknowledge the potential of young romanticized. Adolescents still do not things that are just." people to contribute to the social order, ·• have a place in most societies, and those - Aristotle as quoted in is based on the following three current who have offended the mores of a society Researching Out: School-Based conceptualizations of childhood: are frequently treated like concentration Community Service Programs 1) Children as oictims of adult society; camp inmates" (p. 546). And, of course, 2) Children as learners of adult we've all heard the diatribes against the Youth as Resources: society; and self-centered and materialistic youth of A New Paradigm 3) Children as threats to adult society today. However, as Joan Lipsitz, former "Youth as problems, or youth as (pp. 114-116). director of the Center for Early resources? Communities with problems According to the first view, children Adolescence, states, "The only thing or communities with resources?" These are vulnerable and need adult protection universal about adolescence is puhcrty ... opening sentences to Reaching Out. a in order to survive. In the second. Most of what else they are, we (adult recent book on establishing community children are incompetent and society - parents, teachers, business service programs for youth, encapsulate a problemmatic and need adult leaders, the media] help make" (in critical issue I see confronting anyone interoention in order to develop properly. Harrison. p. 6). Denied the opportunities relating to or working with young In the third perspective, children - to be useful contributing members of people, whether as parents, teachers, especially those in need of public support society, youth will continue to protest community folk, or prevention advocates - are a danger to the social order and their segregation through dropping out, and other helping professionals: the need adult control. alcohol and other drug abuse, teen framework or perspective from which we None of these perspectives ascribe to pregnancy, suicide, delinquency. In other view youth in our society today. Whether youth a useful role in society, and words, youth who are denied the we view youth as problems or as consequently the types of tasks assigned opportunity to be resources, will be resources detennines not only our to youth - usually focused only on problems. expectations for our youth and our academic achievement - indicate they're actions towards them, but also the type not expected to contribute to the welfare ParticlpaUon: The Key of programs we, as preventionists, design of the family or the community. Kurth· to PrevenUon to address youth issues. Furthermore, Schai is not alone in voicing her Those of us in substance abuse from research in social and educational conclusion that, "Children are excluded prevention as well as in education and in psychology, we know the critical role from active and meaningful participation other helping professions have often adult expectations have on the in human society" (p. 116). Over 50 operated according to a "pathology" subsequent thoughts and behavior of years ago anthropologist Ruth Benedict paradigm in which youth are viewed as children. A salient example is the noted that "American society provides problems to be fixed instead of as research demonstrating that high few meaningful role opportunities for resources to our communities. While parental and teacher expectations are youth, thereby preventing them from many substance abuse prevention perhaps the most significant variables assuming adult responsibilities; then programs now focus on creating correlating with a youth's academic society blames them for their environments that provide positive success. According to one scholar, "It is pugnaciousness and irresponsibility" lin alternatives for youth, several programs therefore essential that educational Langton and Miller, p. 30). Furthermore, still refiect the pathological model by policies and practices'' - and I would other contemporary social researchers their often exclusive focus on individual add, pnwention policies and practices - suggest that society still tells "teenagers change strategies. that is, on providing "are developed on the basis of they have no real place in the scheme of information or teaching personal and expectations that are both realistic and things, that their only responsibility is to social competency skills. While the non-limiting, thereby allowing young go to school and Jearn and grow up. information and life skills strategies do people to express their full potential in When they have learned and grown up, have a place in prevention efforts, supportive and safe environments" which is supposed to occur miraculously research on both the risk and protective (Kurth-Schai, p. 113). Just as Kurth at age 18, they can perhaps make some factors for substance abuse and other Schai claims most educational policies modest contribution as a citizen. The inter-related problem behaviors like and practices are based on negative young people, therefore, view themselves delinquency, dropping out of school, and expectations for youth - on youth as as strictly consumers, not as teen pregnancy does not support these problems instead of as resources - many contributors" (Hedin in Langton and strategies as the central components in prevention policies and practices Miller, p. 20). According to adolescent prevention programming. What is clear similarly reflect this negative underlying psychologist Gisela Konopka, "Almost continued paradigm, NSLC 6 Pretlf!ntion Forum, January 1990 c/o ETR Associates 4 Carbonero Way -----·-------·------ ... Youth Service: From Youth As young adolescents in the life of the capture their inherent need for an Problems To Youth As Resources community. These contributory roles ideology and group" (p. 4). We must have largely been replaced by autonomy create within our families, schools, and continued and leisure and frequently accompanied communities the opportunities for young from research on resilient youth - by no adult supervision. This time could people to meet their basic human needs youth who have become healthy adults be put to good use both in the home and of connecting to other people and to a in spite of adversity - is the significant in the community. The family or large meaning or purpose. We must role played by the opportunity to community that learns to direct the provide the opportunities for youth to be experience somewhere in their lives a energy, general good will, and potential the resources they truly are and not the caring, nurturing environment which of these young adolescents into problems we think them to be. encourages their active participation !i.e., community or individual improvement problem-solving, decision-making, projects may find that they benefit the Youth Service: A planning, goal-setting, helping others) in community as well as the individual" Posithle Alternative meaningful activities. The Perry (pp. 564-565). By way of this long introduction, we Preschool Project, which found inner• established a rationale for participation city black youth who had experienced The Antithesis of in meaningfuJ activities as a means of this empowering environment at ages Participation: Alienation encouraging young people to develop three and four half as involved in Another way to underscore their potential and as a consequence, problem behaviors at age I 9, as well as participation in socially valued tasks as discourage their involvement in problem the research of Michael Rutter on perhaps the most critical protective factor behaviors. schools which appeared to "protect" in preventing social problems like Let's now discuss what I see as an youth from becoming involved in alcohol suhstance abuse is to look at the major exciting prevention approach that not and other drugs, etc. provide two consequence of not participating: only is based on the premise that youth examples of solid research supporting a alienation. Alienation has consistently are resources but also is focused on reorienting of our prevention efforts from been identified in study after study as a providing opportunities for youth to individual change to environmental major risk factor for involvement in participate in socially meaningful and change efforts focused on providing alcohol and other drugs, delinquency, valued activities: the youth