Youth Oppression, Youth Power

Workshop Number
45
Leader(s)
Matt
Sanderson
Zachary
Dutton
Audience
Who may register: 
High Schoolers Only
full-time attenders only
Time breakdown
Experiential Activities: 
10%
Lecture: 
20%
Worship/worship-sharing: 
20%
Discussion: 
50%
Description
Short Description: 

We will explore both subtle and overt cultural oppression towards youth. We will talk about mandatory schooling, curfews, ageist cultural pressure, historical battles involving youth. We will brainstorm new ways in which we as youth can empower ourselves to create the change we wish to see in the world.

Long Description: 

We will spend a full day brainstorming about the positives and negatives of being youth. We will discuss the continuing changes in the roles of youth throughout history, and where youth stand in today's culture.

We will spend a day talking more in depth about school including a discussion on Obama's recent statements that he believes we need to add more hours per day and days per year, to the school system.

We will explore the positives and negatives of the school system. We'll have readings from radical educational thinkers like Grace Llewellyn (the Teenage Liberation Handbook) Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of freedom), John Taylor Gatto (dumbing us down, the underground history of American Education).

We'll talk specifically about Quaker schools, and what would make an ideal Quaker school.

We will spend a day talking about Curfews, the legal obligations, or lack thereof, of youth, what exactly it means to be a minor, ect. We will talk about the changing role of youth throughout history, and what we think is the ideal role of youth in a progressive society.

We will conclude by spending a day discussing in what ways we as youth have the power to make change in the world, which changes we would like to make, and how we're going to do it.

Every day will include workshop sharing, discussion time, and a break.

Leader Experience: 

I co-founded a camp called the Young People's Empowerment Convergence, which was a week-long free camp in the Philadelphia area that consisted of a series of workshops, some of which I led.

I also taught at a k-7 school in Ecuador for three months in 2007.

I'm the assistant coordinator and an adviser for a camp called Not Back to School Camp. This is also an education-based camp where I've led several workshops, and many activities including the evening meetings every night.

I've attended the Gathering for the past 15 years, although I've never lead a workshop before.

I've been a clerk with the FGC high school program as well as the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Young Friends program, and FGC AYF program this coming year.

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