To Whom It May Concern (or Interest):
For the past two years I have subscribed to this network and read many
exchanges without participating. The other day, however, it dawned on me
how this might be a good forum in which to make an inquiry related to my
work and ideas for the future.
I am currently with an organization called The Learning Web which, until
last January, had been affiliated with Cornell University through the
Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy. After twenty-four years,
we are now an independent agency. The Learning Web is a youth service
organization which offers experiential learning opportunities to local
middle and high school youth through a variety of programs. Our work is
rooted in the philosophies of Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich with a view
toward providing liberating and empowering education to young people. Our
self-directed apprenticeship program presents the opportunity for youth to
engage in hands-on exploration of different areas of interest with
community-based mentors. The reflective component of this program has
participants not only looking at what they are learning, but how they are
learning and how it all fits in to the bigger picture of life (and not
simply making a living). We see critical consciousness as an important
framework for skill development.
The program that I have been working on for the last year incorporates this
reflection component into a group setting as teams of young people engage
in taking action in their communties through participatory research and
service and/or activism. The program is called ImPACT (the Importance of
Participating, Acting, and Coming Together) and makes use of aspects of the
Training for Transformation methodology which I learned while working in
Zimbabwe a few years ago. Locally, I recruit teams of youth in high
schools and then guide them through a process of self and community
exploration, group building, decision-making, and action. Ultimately it is
the youth themselves that determine which projects are undertaken as they
are encouraged to develop their own definitions of service and community,
applying their experiences and interests, the input of other community
members, and perceived needs. Projects play themselves out in many
different forms and in the end, ideally each group has developed the
contacts and resources to keep themselves going if they so choose. The
individual and social transformation I have witnessed over the past three
years has been fascinating. Despite the recognized success of this
approach, there is always some tension with established institutions. Now
we find ourselves faced with a crisis as the program's main support, the
State Education Department, looks to move all funded programs under school
auspices. I am fearful that such a move might squash the potential of our
holistic approach. I feel that programs such as ImPACT should remain in
the community where they can maintain a certain kind of vitality and still
link up in various ways with schools. This leaves me with questions about
other interested parties in terms of potential funders, partners, and
kindred philosophers and practitioners. Very selfishly, what I am asking
for from anyone who is still reading this are suggestions of individuals
and organizations with whom I might connect to share ideas, visions,
experiences, etc. Is there a viable future for popular education with
youth in this country that is not strictly research-based or dependent on
seed money or pilot approaches? If you have any comments about any of
this, please send them along. Thank you for listening.
Curtis Ogden
The Learning Web
515 W. Seneca St.
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 275-0122