Focusing on the positive

By Jenny Wright, July guest blogger

When we challenge ourselves to take an approach to young people that builds on strengths and opportunities rather than focusing on problems and deficits, wonderful things can happen. Each year we take our Beacons youth from eight Minneapolis Public Schools out to a Citywide Youth Leadership Camp Retreat at YMCA Camp Iduhapi. Youth learn leadership skills, practice teamwork through high ropes course challenges, and plan service projects to complete back in their neighborhoods and schools. 

There is one story that we hear again and again. It goes something like this: 

The youth development workers from the Beacon Center always choose at least one young person for the Leadership Retreat who is not usually viewed as a “leader.”  These young people might struggle with academics and behavior in the classroom, but the Beacons staff has identified them as having leadership potential in the afterschool program setting.  Their teachers may ask, “Are you sure you want to bring that child up to a camp about leadership?” The Beacons staff insist that yes, they do, and the child attends the retreat. At camp the young person hears over an over again that they ARE a leader and they are given opportunities to practice. When the young person returns from camp, the teacher seeks out the Beacons staff days later to say, “What happened at that retreat? Something is totally different about the way this child is behaving in my classroom.”

We know from this annual experience that sometimes just the act of telling a child that they ARE a leader can open up a world of possibility. I believe the same is true of telling them that they can be learners. When I describe the work we do in our Beacon Centers in the Minneapolis Public Schools, I say we “engage youth as leaders and learners.” This is work that every one of us can contribute to. Young people need to have multiple people and places in their lives where these messages are reinforced and where they are given opportunities to practice and develop new skills. By setting high expectations for all young people starting with the belief that EVERY child has the capacity to lead and to learn, we can change the outcomes in our schools, neighborhoods, and society.