Kylie's Blog

            This week learning about Identity I felt as though I was really able to connect with. Before joining the Youth Development program at RIC I never pay much attention to my identity it was more along the lines of I identify as a girl and not much more than that. But after joining the YDEV program my identity became everything and part of who I am and who I am becoming as a person in my every day life.  After watching Jamila Lyiscott's ted talk "Why English Class is Silencing Students of Color" she made me think of a lot of things in a whole new perspective. Jamila makes a great point that schools and institutions don't value linguistics (Which Christa also mentions in her blog) which in my opinion is true. For as long as I can remember if a student's first language was/is not English teachers and schools tend to make those students speak English. Which isn't benefiting the child instead of working together with them. She also talks about...

  My thoughts prior      Prior to reading the article and watching the video care has always been an important word in my life and as a youth worker. Immediately when the word care was mentioned my mind would connect it to how I would care for others and make sure they were okay, such as talking to them or making sure everyone else had everything they needed. Caring is watching other people achieve their goals and making progress in their lives and you being happy for them is part of caring. I've been taught that what other people do for you is the meaning of caring.  After Thoughts     After watching the video and reading the article I came to realize that "Caring" is so much more. I feel that many of us tend to care for others so much we forget how to care for ourselves. While we should still care for others we shouldn't forget to take care of ourselves both physically as well as mentally. Caring is so much more than what others do for you. Caring me...

                                                     Quote #1: ...."theoretically-grounded curriculum and approach grows from our belief that youth are thoughtful, creative people who deserve opportunities to practice leadership with supportive, professional adults by their side."     I really enjoyed this quote because I feel as adults we forget to give the youth the opportunity to share their voice and This is part of what the Youth Development program is all about. It has also made me think about the opportunities I had been given compared to now and I noticed that while I was given the opportunities when I was younger to be creative and use my voice I was still never fully heard. I felt like the adults in my life listened but never fully heard my voice. But that changed for me when I entered the Youth Development Pr...

     Unfortunately Racism is still everywhere. I personally do not believe that we are taught about it enough in school and/or at home. Racism/Race is an uncomfortable topic for many people to discuss for a variety of reasons. I still struggle with myself to talk about it today even just in a general conversation because I am too afraid of offending someone or saying the wrong thing because I was educated enough about their race or racial identity. While my high school was in my opinion very diverse and I was able to learn a lot about others and educate myself to some degree it is still very difficult for me to talk about because if I did not come from where they do I feel as though sometimes I do not have a right to even talk about it because I am not educated enough. While it is and will continue to be a topic that needs to be taught more I fear it will not happen because we are too afraid of offending someone. We don't only need to discuss this inside of school but ou...

                                                         What's Wrong With You  This little story at the beginning of the article is about a drama teacher who loves her job and teaching teenage students. A father was not happy about the play production, Grease and wanted his son to be pulled from the play because he thought the person he was playing ' Kenicke' was sending the wrong message. The teacher had advised him that she was not going to do that, that his son has earned that part and was not going to take it away from him. The father didn't seem to happy about this. The father than asked the teacher "What's wrong with you," he didn't understand why the teacher enjoyed teenagers company so much. She would take her students on feel trips and out to dinners and plays. This conf...

 What did I already know?    To be honest I’ve only ever heard of the deficit approach. I’ve never been explained what it was and how it works. So this article was all knew to me cause I only had a small general concept about what and how the deficit approach is used.  What did I learn? I learned about what the  deficit approach was more in depth. I've learned that they focus in on programs targeted for specific problem behaviors. Some of the included focusing on preventing drug abuse, preventing teen pregnancy and reducing violence with adolescents. I learned that usually single-issued programs are very rare in being successful and/or reducing the problem behaviors overtime unfortunately. I also learned why deficit approaches often fail. Which is because we often have to focus so much on that one problem behavior that we forget about the person/people's basic developmental needs. The word resiliency I have also heard of before but never have I truly understood ...