Youth Development Insight

By Kate Walker I recently attended the annual meeting for the Society for Research on Adolescence where my mentor Reed Larson was invited to reflect on his influential research career in youth development. Reed first got interested in adolescence because he saw it as a critical period of awakening. Yet he noticed that most research focused on problems more than development, and he discovered that youth programs were powerful spaces for this awakening and development to occur. These insights propelled an impressive body of research that has tremendous implications for our work with and on behalf of young people.  Young people’s daily experiences and emotions With his mentor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi , Reed began by studying adolescents’ daily experiences and emotions, pioneering the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) where young people were prompted (with beepers back then!) to report on their feelings and the dynamics of their experiences in different domains in their daily lives. He...

By Anne Stevenson I'd be much less wise, and far less effective as an educator, if I didn't hang out with kids. Those of us who work with, or on behalf of young people, must be intentional about doing so. And then we have to listen and pay attention. Young people of all ages have taught me many things in the past year. Here are five things I've learned (and re-learned!), and why they matter for all of us: 1. Wonder Kids are curious about everything and their willingness to ask questions makes them effective learners. Our job is to nurture and validate that sense of wonder and curiosity, and to actively cultivate our own sense of wonder. Abraham Heschel would remind us that "Wonder... is the root of all knowledge." In his book " Developing More Curious Minds ," John Barell offers a wealth of strategies for nurturing curiosity and why it is essential to do so. You might enjoy award-winning cinematographer and director Louie Schwartzberg...

At a recent event, I was inspired by the story of a high school principal who turned a failing school around by focusing on making the students happy. Poor achievement, low attendance, and general naughtiness caused by poverty, hunger, domestic violence, you name it, had resulted in high levels of stress in students, parents, teachers, administration. Quite simply, the kids were unhappy. But what to do -- More math class? Rather than hiring more reading and math specialists, this principal hired more art and gym teachers. He brought in partners and other resources that would to help provide a safe environment for youth to play, get dirty, and explore, through programs such as Extension's 4-H and Master Gardeners. Students liked it. They got more interested in school and test scores improved dramatically. This story reminded me what decades of research has confirmed--that play is essential to learning (for adults too, by the way). Classic psychologists such as Jean Piaget, Lev V...

By Jennifer Skuza Do you ever get involved in something so deeply that nothing else seems to matter, and you lose track of time? If you answered yes to that question, then you have experienced flow. Flow describes a sense of effortless spontaneous action that people feel in moments that stand out as some of the best in their lives. The concept stems from the seminal research of Mihály Csikszentmihalyi . He found that most people are happy when they are in that state of flow - a state of concentration or complete absorption in the activity at hand. Athletes call it "being in the zone." Artists and musicians describe it as being passionately focused on their creative work. Children experience it when they are fully engrossed in their play. What does flow have to do with learning? Well, the experience of flow can serve as a magnet for learning -- that is, a draw for developing new levels of challenges and abilities. The learning environments found in youth work can offe...