WWT's Youth Work
Quote
"Youth workers purposefully intervene in young people's lives, creating opportunities, activities and conversations that aim to enable young people to think, feel and act differently towards their social world."
New Ideas
1. Effective youth work avoids framing work as 'solving problems' and not making young people feel like they are apart of a 'problem.' I do not think that this is necessarily a new idea, but I love the wording the authors had for this. Although youth work is partly about social justice, it is important to not make young people feel like victims.
2. Youth work stimulates democratic thinking and behavior. I never thought of youth work of having democratic characteristics, but I find it fitting and I like that we want to help create future leaders.
Key Vocabulary
Local knowledge: developing an understanding of the community to relate to youth being worked with
VALUES!! This was mentioned in almost every paragraph. Youth work fosters our own values as well as the young people we work with.
Practice: necessary to keeping youth work background relevant and to make the services we provide stronger and more beneficial. No matter how much experience we all may have, we need to remain up to date on our practices.
Connection
This TikTok came on my feed last night, and I thought it was an amazing example of what youth work can look like in the classroom. This teacher is great at making education exciting and engaging for her students by including play in their learning. The first graders are understanding the stories that they read, while improving other academic skills at the same time.
