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pegkerrAt my church's educational hour for adults today, we had someone from the Search Institute come to speak to us about the work that they do. Search Institute is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. The heart of their mission is that they have identified 40 developmental assets which their research has shown helps children thrive. The more of these assets these children have, the healthier they are, the better they do at school, and the more leadership roles they take. Their research has clearly shown that the less assets children have, the more likely they are to get involved with violent confrontations, alcohol, drugs, and early sexual activity.
The Search Institute's research shows that children do best if they have at least 31 of the 40 assets, but that at best 9% of children do. They work to help families, schools and communities develop the assets so more children are supported. An example: one school in the St. Louis Park community (where the Search Institute is based) posted a computer printout with every student's name in the school, and they had the staff (other than teachers, i.e., cafeteria staff, custodians, librarians, teachers' aides) put a dot by every student's name that they knew well enough to know their name and start a conversation. About 25% of the student had 7 or 8 dots, about 25% had one or two dots, and all the rest had no dots. So they divided the students who had no dots and assigned them to the various staff people, who served as invisible mentors, going out of their way to strike up conversations and learn about them, to make them feel welcome at the school. They said that the improvement at the school was truly remarkable: less fights, more involvement in extracurricular activities, more school spirit and higher grades.
Take a look at the list of assets and tell me, what are you doing to mentor or look out for a child who is not your own kid? Lurkers, for once I would like you to speak up, too, for you, too, can make a difference in a kid's life!
[Note: I didn't have the survey to give her, but I did give the list of assets to Fiona. At a rough guess, she thought that she had 35 of the 40, so I was pleased.]
The Search Institute's research shows that children do best if they have at least 31 of the 40 assets, but that at best 9% of children do. They work to help families, schools and communities develop the assets so more children are supported. An example: one school in the St. Louis Park community (where the Search Institute is based) posted a computer printout with every student's name in the school, and they had the staff (other than teachers, i.e., cafeteria staff, custodians, librarians, teachers' aides) put a dot by every student's name that they knew well enough to know their name and start a conversation. About 25% of the student had 7 or 8 dots, about 25% had one or two dots, and all the rest had no dots. So they divided the students who had no dots and assigned them to the various staff people, who served as invisible mentors, going out of their way to strike up conversations and learn about them, to make them feel welcome at the school. They said that the improvement at the school was truly remarkable: less fights, more involvement in extracurricular activities, more school spirit and higher grades.
Take a look at the list of assets and tell me, what are you doing to mentor or look out for a child who is not your own kid? Lurkers, for once I would like you to speak up, too, for you, too, can make a difference in a kid's life!
[Note: I didn't have the survey to give her, but I did give the list of assets to Fiona. At a rough guess, she thought that she had 35 of the 40, so I was pleased.]
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-12 07:07 pm (UTC)I wrote an eleven page analysis of the girl's story, helping her see where she'd done particularly well and where she'd made errors, because her mom told me there's little support for her writing development in her school. It was a real pleasure to do it.
Today I got a letter from the daughter. She was very excited to write more, and hoped she could send her new work to me, too.
Since I don't know many kids in my daily life (okay, any), this was a precious chance that I'm grateful for.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-12 07:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-12 07:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-12 07:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-12 09:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-12 10:17 pm (UTC)What am I doing? Right now, not very much, which is why I'm not enjoying my work or world as much as I have for several years, despite the ups and downs. Right now, most of the contact I have and the chances I have to do anything useful and supportive are with adults. I interact with my neighborhood kids whenever I see them, and try to be a good random adult in the neighborhood, whether it's on the front steps or on the train, but it's not satisfying. I want to be back where I can help teach kids conflict management and problem solving, and self-reliance, where I can let kids understand that even though I'm not their parent and I'm not trying to be, I still care about them and think they're wonderful, even if other adults have told them they're bad kids so often that they've come to believe it themselves. I miss the jobs in which I help create stability and predictability and containment and structure and support for a handful of damaged kids every day, and just enjoy the kids and let them perceive that I want to know what they think and I want them to help decide the things that affect them, and I want to be around them because they're spiffy. I miss advocating for them with my colleagues, when my colleagues get a little too absorbed in some other aspect of making the environment work, and having colleagues who will bring me back on track and focussed on what's important if /I/ slip. I'll be going back to that work as soon as I can figure out how to manage it.
And you know, if we do the best job imaginable, in a setting like that, those kids still won't have even half of that list. But they'll have something. Something more than they had before we started.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-13 12:15 am (UTC)They also seem to be missing the whole section about healthy sex-roles.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-13 03:23 am (UTC)You obviously don't mean me, since I volunteer 3 days a week in a elementary school given underpriviledged children attention and academic assistance. I tutor math in Spanish, I teach the jokes and puzzles, and I listen to the things that bother them and give advice. I also pay for their field trips and other special opportunities around school. And I get books donated to their library, and other stuff too.
I have volnteered with the same kids for three years now.
K.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-13 04:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-13 08:42 am (UTC)Parent involvement in schooling-- Many people recommend that parents actually not be particularly active with the child's schoolwork; the child has to learn how to deal with it by him- or herself. This is only a positive thing to the extent that the child wants or needs it. (After all, there's no way my parents would be able to help me with most of my homework!)
Service to others (1+ hrs community service/wk)-- I don't do this myself because I really don't have that kind of time! And how can anyone arbitrarily put a number like that on something, and say that you're doing badly if you do below that number?
Creative activities (3+hrs/wk music, whatnot)-- Again, I wish I had that kind of time, but I really don't. And again, some people may do best doing far more than that (there have been plenty of times when I've practiced various instruments for more than 12 hrs/wk), but some people work best with different types of creative outlets, even some that may not be like painting or theater or whatever it is. You can't measure everyone with the same yardstick like this!
Youth programs (3+hrs/wk is sports or whatnot)-- If I were to try to do this, I'd have to give up on all my sleep; see comments above.
Religious community (1+hr at some religious thing per week)-- I don't do anything like this, because I simply don't find it valuable. On the other hand, my parents both generally spend at least 2 hours per week at them. Again, people are different, and it doesn't make sense to assume that everyone would benefit by trying to fit into this same pattern.
Time at home (being out with friends with no particular purpose no more than twice a week)-- Why is this thought of as so harmful, whereas time with some sports group or whatnot is thought of as so helpful? As long as the friends aren't doing anything harmful or unhealthy, I don't see why having friends to hang around with would be so bad!
Planning and decision making-- Do you honestly know any adult who you can say has mastered this?
Cultural competence-- I cannot say I have this, simply because the world is big, and I haven't gotten out much. I hardly know anything of any culture!
Personal power (Young person feels he or she has control over "things that happen to me.")-- It's very good if you really do have control over things that happen to you, and that you feel that control, but really, most people don't have all that much power over what happens to them, even when they're rich, and to think otherwise would be unhealthy in the extreme. I would not be surprised, though, that children from lucky enough backgrounds to be able to check this off would end up healthier and better adjusted that people who do not!
Self-esteem (Young person reports having a high self-esteem.)-- This is actually highly controversial right now; there have been a bunch of studies that show that people with high self-esteem tend to act more selfishly and carelessly.
And really, as for any longish list of things that can guarrantee some outcome, they're notoriously easy to make and just as unhelpful. For example, when in college, financial guru Jonathan Pond identified a list of some 50 conditions that, if were all filled, would guarrantee that a company's stock would go up. But he soon learned that there never has been such a company, and nowadays, if a company fills more than about 15 of them, it's thought of as worth looking out for. The truth is that the market is more unpredicatable than that! A long list of checkmarks just doesn't work. Likewise, I would use any list like the one you've posted the link to as a tool to help me get a general sense to how someone's doing and what I might do to improve it, not as a checklist. Peopel and their situations are just too variegated for that.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-13 01:23 pm (UTC)First, it's not clear to me whether you're considering yourself as the adolescent or as a potential adult supporter. A list of assets for young adults attending university would be interesting to read, but would almost certainly be different than one for adolescents. If one runs through this list for a typical university student, one may conclude that university is likely to be a very stressful time because the young person has lost much of his or her community, perspective, and previous sources of support and is not well equipped to find new ones. One would probably be correct in that conclusion. On the other hand, some university students are able to find adult mentors, write for campus newspapers, act as reading buddies to children at a nearby school, play intramural sports, etc, partly because they find such activities helpful in developing perspective and community. If you are feeling so overwhelmed by your studies that you couldn't do any of these things if you wanted to, then you might find it helpful to check in with someone on campus such as a counsellor or study-skills expert.
As well, for many people from small towns or other insular backgrounds, university offers them a wonderful chance to expand their cultural horizons. If this is not happening naturally for you, it might be worth exploring in a more intentional way. Ask your friends about their religious backgrounds and current practices - you might end up with an invitation to sabbath dinner or Quaker meeting or a Newman House discussion group. Find out whether the international students' centre is looking for English conversation partners. Invite classmates to your parents' home for a weekend, and listen to what they say about how things are different where they come from. Look for opportunities to get to know people of different sexualities. Take a course in history of a different country, in a language, in Women's Studies, in Black Studies. Consider spending a semester or a year studying in a different country, or attending graduate school elsewhere.
I agree with the list that parental involvement in schooling is more likely than not to be a positive factor for high school students. Quite possibly I have a different picture of age-appropriate parental involvement than you do. For high school students, mine involves very little direct contact between parent and teachers, very few conversations about schoolwork or study plans which are initiated by the parents, and not much advice, but a great deal of receptive listening and paying attention. As a university professor I agree with you that parents who take responsibility for a teenager's learning, who intervene in negotiations between teenager and high school teacher, or who encourage high school students to focus on marks can cause significant harm.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-13 08:32 pm (UTC)However, "my child" is not actually my child; he's my boyfriend's. I live with them and am helping raise him--the mother is not really in the picture. I'm sure plenty of people see this as ammoral, but....well, he's been doing a *lot* better since I've been there. He's bringing his homework home more often (c'mon, he's a little boy ;) ), he's gotten into higher level math and reading classes, and he has fewer meltdowns. He's generally happier, and deals with disappointment and conflict more constructively. When he does have a tantrum or get upset, he gets over it faster and with fewer fireworks. It's been fascinating to watch the transition.
The list...overall I liked it. I liked that it didn't impose a traditional family structure. I liked that it focused on security, routine, and community, though I was a little iffy about the neighborhood and religion questions. But then I remind myself that we're trying to move to a more secure neighborhood, where the kid (sorry, his dad is a stickler for not posting personal info about him online) can play outside. And that religion is an ongoing issue for us in general, related heavily to our disgust with the conservative movement.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-13 08:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-14 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-14 02:54 pm (UTC)St. Louis Park, the community where the Search Institute is based, is looking at what they can do as a community to implement the assets, to find different ways to get everybody involved. Here's the page at the St. Louis Park public schools, and here's the organization called Children First, which is the community's response to the 40 assets. The result is that St. Louis Park has been identified as one of the 100 best places for young people to live.