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•a new business for youth-elder mentorship and apprenticeships was formed
•a wilderness experience for elders and youth was designed
•non-violence training was held
•several educational lecture events were sponsored
•a community currency initiative was started
•a Peace and Reconciliation dialogue between local Hawks and Doves is being planning
•a variety of youth training initiatives are actively being considered
If this is happening in a town of 23,000 people, how many opportunities for training and community transformation are happening elsewhere in the US and abroad? Through the concerted power of groups of concerned citizens working in collaboration, these initiatives will open a multitude of opportunities for our children to manifest their visions and exercise authentic creativity and leadership. It is our responsibility as adults to prepare the way, and not put the onus on the backs of our children, expecting them to reverse our errors of omission and commission. It is time that we adults model the truth that education is a life-long endeavor, and to recognize that the challenges facing us today are calling us to the task of inner and outer transformation.
• Craft-based enterprises -- selling t-shirts or jewelry, for example
• Student banks
•Peer mediation training
•Conflict resolution training
•Elder-youth tutoring
•Peer tutoring
•Life skills training
•Apprenticeships and other business-sponsored enterprises
•Art projects and exhibits, music concerts, and other public events for community fundraising
•Coalitions with community organizations to create work and work-study opportunities for youth
•Youth-run crisis hotline and intervention center
•Youth-run credit union
•Youth-run recycling and neighborhood cleanup programs
•Expanding youth programs at churches
•Cultural organizations involving youth in diversity celebrations or educational events
•Youth creation or renovation of parks
•Youths involved in community centers, for example, organizing events, tournaments, and other activities
•Youth librarian programs
•Youth teacher programs, such as reading, preschoolers
•Youth-run programs in self-esteem and alternatives to drugs, crime, and gangs
•Police-youth advisory panels
•Youth theatre events
•Interactive theatre educational programs
•Latchkey-Seniors telephone program
•Youth helping those with disabilities
•Youth helping elderly with shopping and other chores
•Community Youth Councils that work with local government
To create the kinds of partnerships that make education relevant, communities need change agents who have the vision, time, and capacity to facilitate community-transforming meetings and events. Again, these change agents are anyone who is looking for a way to be of service in creating a more sustainable and just world for everyone. Emerging social and educational organizations can support the capacity of change agents by providing spiritually-based leadership trainings, coaching programs, and other educational opportunities that can help communities access more of their spiritual and social potential. By empowering citizen activists to manifest their visions for community encouragement outside of the traditional definitions of school, we can dissolve the counterfeit barrier that separates schools from the communities in which they exist.
Community is our shared culture. Community is comprised of the stories we tell each other -- whether “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” or “Small is Beautiful” – and how we identify ourselves in those stories, and the actions we take that either reinforce or contradict those stories. Education that purports to free the spirit and creative power of the learner must therefore not only work to heighten awareness of the stories that vie for the consciousness of our children, but to actively offer new stories that speak to and help them manifest their higher spiritual possibilities. These new stories must be articulated by the adults in all walks of life, because it is the adults in today’s word who hold the economic, voting, and intellectual power to validate the cultural story. We need therefore to work to transform the whole community in which we live so our children can find a place to plant and grow their spiritual visions. Failure to do this is to reinforce the false division between community and education, and to continue to doom our children to irrelevance, isolation, despair, and depression. This failure means dooming our communities as well, both because by failing to involve our youth in community development, we fail to appreciate and benefit from the idealism and energy of our youth, and because of the exodus of creative minds from our communities as they look elsewhere to satisfy their hunger for meaning and connectedness.
The kind of education that will be relevant for creating a life that works for everyone on the planet, involves a radically new vision. This vision recognizes that children are society’s “growing edge” – and that education should therefore be a hands-on laboratory for creating the best possible expression of ourselves and of living communities. To accomplish this, we need to empower adults who have the vision and the desire to offer children a connected community context for learning. These adults may be social or spiritual activists, teachers, social workers, ministers, farmers, retiring baby boomers, mid-lifers seeking more meaningful careers, parents who recognize that the mainstream cultural stories lack eternal values, or any of the estimated 50 million adults in this country identified as Cultural Creatives (http://www.culturalcreatives.org). Because community and education should be totally aligned, the movement to transform education should reach out to people from every profession, race, political and religious persuasion, and to the young and elderly alike. This growing subculture of adults are aware of or are now waking up to realize that the political and economic systems of today’s world are suicidal, and they are eager to make their contribution to the creation of a world that works for all.
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John-Michael Dumais
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