Poverty impacts youth development because poverty creates a need for low cost youth development. Many workers who live at the poverty level cannot afford childcare or afterschool care because their wages are not even enough to live on. This creates a need for youth development because it provides children a place to learn and grow that is safe and stimulating to their young minds. Youth in poverty may not receive an education that is engaging and child focused, but a youth development group can truly focus on the youth and what they are interested in. Poverty creates a need for youth development because youth need a place where they can be heard, much like YIA, and this is something that students in areas of poverty do not have in schools. Schools do not focus on providing youth with agency, they focus on getting through the school year. Youth development allows youth to broaden their horizons and discover their unique skill sets.

            Blaming the victim is something that runs rampant through this article. Ullucci looks at the schools and how they view students of poverty as “charity cases”. Teachers react with sympathy and avoid challenging students in this position. Students can be oppressed by teachers without the intention of this. Teachers do not know that they are doing these things, but they happen regardless.

            

            The population that I am interested in working with is a college aged population. The interesting thing about this is, that I will not necessarily know the economic background of the students that I work with. These students will not receive things like discounted lunch, nor will they be attending an after school program focused on low-income students. This group will receive financial aid but that is not something that a student affairs professional would know. This knowledge may develop through interaction with the students but it will not be there at face value. But this could in some cases lead to major stereotyping. A student affairs worker could make assumptions based off of a person’s ethnicity, race, clothing, etc. that they are from a low-income family. But this would not always be true, but this assumption would foster a negative relationship. This simply makes me think that student affairs workers at a college level must by hyper-aware of not stereotyping because of how absolutely off their assumptions could be. Steretyping is never an appropriate thing to do, but I can see it being something that would be popular in this field because of the lack of prior knowledge of the students involved. The following image is not something that I support but it is something that I feel is poignant to the conversation. It presents a good question and one that student affairs deals heavily with: can stereotyping exist in our world? This may be satirical or it may be people asking for their freedom to stereotype...what does this say to you? 

Educational Disparity - Section 1 of Reading

This reading was fascinating from beginning to end. It was interesting to view how schools have developed over the years, and why these developments occurred. The reasoning behind mandatory schooling, school size, etc. are things that I have never learned about.  The real reasoning behind these policies has certainly provided insight into the policies, themselves.

Mandatory schooling was not originally designed with the sole purpose of universal education. There were two other major thoughts behind this development. Another major reason for this change was to ensure that school aged kids were not being rowdy throughout our cities. This is one of the more obvious reasons for mandatory schooling, but there was another reason that your average American would never think of. Students were forced to attend school in the wake of Child Labor Laws. This was done both to protect children from the harsh factory work and to prevent children from competing with adults for these jobs. (Costello 195)

The idea of larger schools was not intended to defer from the education of the students. This idea was designed with a focus on lowering costs and raising the number of resources each school could have. Instead this has lead to a lack of connection between teachers and students. As classrooms have grown larger students have been given less and less of a say in what occurs within these classrooms. It would take a dedicated group of administrators to ensure that a community can be built within these larger schools, and while this is possible it is improbable. The smaller schools are producing the largest number of active learners because the size of the school allows for students to be integrated in their learning.

School based management is an interesting idea that Costello writes about. This is an idea where instead of having large school departments make decisions for many schools, schools are able to focus on their own needs. This school centered management system is an amazing idea that could allow for individual schools to receive exactly what they need. This idea is great for students because they will receive the help that they need base don their school, not based on the general needs of a school district.  

One of Costello’s more interesting arguments is his look at segregation of schools base don age and ability. This is something that makes sense but also an idea that I struggle with. Costello argues that students would learn better by being more integrated based on ability and age in classrooms. But this is so contrary to the standard of our society that I cannot imagine actually seeing this in a school. Costello identifies peer mentoring and tutoring as related to this, but this is not truly what he is referring to. I wonder what other people think of this idea? 

Criticism within schools is typically reserved for teacher to student. But Costello believes strongly in the idea that students should be given an opportunity to work with teacher and administration to improve their educational experience. This is a very child centered approach to education because it allows for the honest input of students. Teacher and administrators can understand only a portion of the academic experience of their students. Students know what they and their fellow students need and are able to share this knowledge, but they need to be asked.  

Youth workers must understand the importance of providing youth an opportunity to be involved in the programs that they are involved in. Students have amazing insight into the interests of their fellow youth and they must be given a chance to aid in program planning. Those who work with youth are often constrained by the rules of administrators. But when able to operate individually youth organizations can do amazing things for the specific population that they work with. Every group of youth are different and therefore programs must be designed for the individual. Providing youth an opportunity to plan and criticize is absolutely necessary for their develop into adulthood. Having an opportunity to do these things will allow youth a unique opportunity to take charge of something that matters to them.

Danah Boyd's "It's Complicated" - PDF

CHECK IT!

http://www.danah.org/books/ItsComplicated.pdf

Techie Kids in a Non-Techie School System

Technology plays a huge role in my everyday life. I will almost never be without either my laptop or my tablet. I need to be able to connect to something larger than my phone, despite the fact that I have a current generation smart phone. My entire life is built on technology; it is how I communicate in a variety of different roles. I need to email some people regarding my RA responsibilities, then I have to post on Facebook about uniform ordering for the Ultimate Frisbee team, and next I must tweet an advertisement for an RSA event. I am looking at a screen at almost all times throughout a given day. My calendar is also something that I do entirely electronically. I utilize Google calendar a great deal. Every facet of my life is set using this resource; if that calendar service disappeared I would be utterly lost.

            The connection that can be forged between technologies can be incredible. People with an interest in technology and an understanding can easily engage one another in conversation. By being “tech-savvy” a youth worker can ensure that they are up to date on what is important to their youth. Having an understanding of what technologies and resources that youth use can help a youth worker to better understand what youth are doing and build a connection based off a common interest. This common interest can also ensure that youth use technology wisely because they understand that their youth workers will likely see anything that they do on social media or any other form of the Internet.

            Technology can be a tremendous aid in both classrooms and youth work. Student’s are fascinated by all things technology and are interested in using new technologies. It can be extremely useful to hide learning into some kind of technological game, whether it be a literal video game, social media based, or even research based. As was evidence by the experiment of teaching CAD to engineering students, it can often be difficult for educators to latch on to these ideas. Youth workers must be on the forefront of this change in education. The youth look to youth workers to be their outlet, away from the classroom. But if workers cannot provide an understanding of the interests of youth, then they are not providing a complete experience.

Youth workers have a special opportunity when it comes to technology because this section of educators must adapt to technology first. Technology is the way of youth and it is something deeply engrained in their everyday life. Educators are often difficult to change, but youth workers can be fluid in their technics. Those who work with youth, in settings other than the classroom, are often expected to be more understanding of student’s changing interests and learning styles. This is one of the most important aspect of youth development, being adaptable to the ever changing face of the YOUTH.