CRASH COURSE
PHASE 1 STEP 8 > YOUTH LEADERSHIP AT SCHOOL
You have seen young changemakers operating at schools.
Cassandra
Emma
Meghana
Meghana 3D-prints ...
… prosthetic hands.
She had always been fascinated by the technology, but never found reason to use it … until on a holiday in rural India, she saw children that had lost fingers, hands or feet through accidents.
In rural India, even adults cannot afford protheses, and surely not children who outgrow them within a year or two. It was shocking to see, and Meghana felt like from a different world. But this was exactly why she could help.
“I can print these myself”, she realized, and it took her only minutes on the internet to find templates, tutorials – easy. And it cost only $25€ a piece. Just some pocket money to change a child’s life. “What kind of person would she be if she didn’t act on this?”
Back home, she walked her talk. A common 3D-printer as enough, hit go, zip zap, go to sleep, and next morning assemble pieces with a few screws and rubber bands. Complete before breakfast.
Meghana served many children via partner organizations, but to top it off, she also explains what this truly is:
A rare opportunity to add real-life purpose to Maker Stuff and fablabs – especially at schools! You bet, teachers and students love it.
It’s now in your hands to tell makers, teachers and – what a cool mission – to start printing with a purpose.
Ana
Namaste Nepal
Lulu
Here is what they say about school.
Prick your ears. You’re now getting an education 😉
“One of the first things we ever did as a team was sit down and talk about our strengths and weaknesses (it’s harder than you would think!). Sometimes we have to turn down events if we have a conflicting schedule. We needed to learn time management, which is another life skill. We lead a rich and vibrant Life!
As cheesy as it sounds, I would not be the same person I am today if I hadn’t started TGIF. I’m a lot more confident in myself since starting this project, which has positively affected my relationships with my friends and family. My presentation skills and public speaking have dramatically improved as well! My teammates also have high self-respect and they carry this into their academic work.
Kids learn in so many different ways. You can learn so much by creating a video, or making a presentation to the class, or designing and making crafts. If you only allow teachers giving lectures in a classroom and that sort of thing, you’re really just limiting the kids and their potential.
The benefits of a student project go on and on. Along the way, you learn so many lessons that are going to stay for you for the rest of your life, like how to be a salesman (we sell our project to restaurant owners), engage with audiences, public speaking, and teamwork, to name a few. These things cannot be taught in a book or in a lesson. You have to be out there and experience it for yourself!”
“Teachers are so important. The best way they can help is get their students passionate about things like the environment and science and cool things in general. Where there is passion, people are willing to do something. Teachers can help start ecoclubs at school, and just get participation going by getting the kids educated about the environment and getting them involved.
Each school or state or country is different; the project leader needs to find the best way to maximize his or her resources. We set up our organization outside the school for the purpose of continuation of the project as well as so we don’t need to deal with issues such as school budget. There is no reason that a school can or will prevent you from starting a project with a good cause if you don’t ask for funding and follow the rules. And that’s how we change the world. Because we can.”
“Students need to have motivation before they start. Adults cannot push students to do community service. Youth Leader’s efforts to inspire students to do something are very important. Parents or entrepreneurs should be mentors to guide the students. They should only facilitate, not be in charge of the projects.
“Another important factor is project ownership. The students need to have ownership of the project so they are most likely to stick with it. They need to take pride in their work and be proud of their project.”
– Cassandra Lin, age 15, TGIF
In short:
“The idea (of education) is not to turn us into your kind of adults. But into better adults than you have been.”
Adora, age 12
View her 10-minute talk
Do YOU actually know the Purpose of Schooling?
Once again – it’s not what you think.
Law of Education, State of Berlin
§1 The Purpose of Schooling
The purpose of schooling is to unfold all of students’ precious talents, and to nurture an excellent degree of faculty of judgement, sound knowledge and skills. The goal has to be the education of personalities that are able to strongly counter the ideology of nazism and all political ideologies aiming at a rule of force, and to form societal life on the basis of democracy, peace, liberty, human dignity, gender equality, and in harmony with nature and the environment. These personalities must be aware of their responsibility towards the community, and their demeanor must be defined by the recognition of equal rights for all people, the respect of all honest conviction, the recognition of the necessity for continuous development of societal conditions, and peaceful agreement among peoples. In doing so, Antiquity, Christianity, and the essential societal movements that led to the development towards Humanism, to Liberty and to Democracy shall be outlined.
In short:
The purpose of schooling is to enable able, active, caring citizens of peaceful libertarian-democratic societies that are also sustainable in a harmoniously collaborating global family of nations.
That’s a VERY big deal, since any employee, professional, CEO or public servant, be it baker, hairdresser, doctor, nurse, firefighter, soldier, beach rescue etc. failing their job’s basic purpose is unfit for service and to get fired.
So here is the most important profession of all –
shaping the future of an entire generation, of a society, of humanity.
Craig Kielburger: “Never before in human history have teachers been this important. They decide whether we get a chance to learn to create a good world for all, or not.”
We’re pretty sure that your state’s Purpose Of Schooling is about the same. Go check it out and send it to us attached to your Reflection Form below.
Achieving The Purpose of Schooling
in short, activating the entire young generation to be co-creators and stewards
of peaceful, sustainable, thriving societies
… is now possible. It’s what we empower you for with YL, and it’s not a new thing.
A young man who started as age 12 has already made CREATING A GOOD WORLD FOR ALL
a reality at 20,000 schools, powered by students and backed by teachers.
This is where Craig’s story continues.
As Craig and his brother Marc went overseas to build schools, water programs, micro hospitals and alternative income programs, they were puzzled that these people that could afford no shoes, did not know what they would eat next week and sacrificed their last goat in their honor … were so happy!!! … while their peers in affluent Canada suffered from bullying, abuse, depression and suicide epidemics … and realized with astonishment that “it’s because they love so much, they give so much,” and decided “we need to bring this spirit back to Canada” … and so they complemented Free The Children’s classic development work overseas with domestic service and sustainability programs to bring peace and justice to their schools and communities … to end bullying, help the homeless and ally with First Nations communities. And so, ME TO WE was born. (Today, FTC and METOWE have merged in WE)
As WE teams sprung up at thousands of schools, they decided “we need to bring our teams together, for inspiration, to celebrate their achievements and kick off momentum for a new year of action” … and thus they founded WE DAY.
You cannot buy a ticket to WE DAY.
You earn it, through service – one local and one global action.
ACTIVE STUDENTS IN THIS HALL
This is almost a vintage clip, from 2009
Learn how it all began
“One morning at breakfast when I was flipping through the newspaper looking for comics, I noticed a photo of a young boy in a red jacket holding up his fist. You don’t usually see such photos, so I read the article about the boy Iqbal Masih who was sold into slavery at age 4 to pay for his family’s $10 dollar debt. He worked weaving carpets up to 16 hours a day, no week-ends off. After he tried to escape, he was chained to the workplace. When he was finally freed by an Indian child rights organization, he started speaking out against child labor and gained attention of the media. At age 12, he returned to his village. Weeks later, he got shot dead by an uncle.
I was also 12 years old at the time, I didn’t know there was child labor, or where Pakistan was on the map. All I knew was – I had to do something.
At school, that morning, I asked my teacher, Mr. Fedrigoni, whether I could speak to the class about an issue I was passionate about. He replied ‘You have three minutes’. I explained what I had learned to the class, finishing with ‘I don’t know what to do, but I know we have to do something. Who wants to help me?’ 11 hands went up, Free The Children was born.”
When we told our parents ...
… ‘we need to liberate children from slavery’, and adults replied ‘that’s hopeless, impossible’, we did not listen to the adults. Instead, we liberated many, changed laws and got child labor free carpet seals established on the global market. As we found out that some children fell back into labor, for lack of options, we realized that they needed an education.
When we said ‘we need to build schools for these children,’ and adults replied ‘that’s hopeless, impossible,’ we did not listen to the adults. Instead, we started building a new school every week, 750 to-date, plus health clinics, water and alternative income programs.
Banish the terms ‘hopeless’ and ‘impossible’ from your vocabulary. We CAN change the world, and WE teams at thousands of schools are proving it every single day.
SCHOOLS INVOLVED IN 2020
YOUTH ENGAGED IN WE SCHOOLS 2017
WE DAY ATTENDANTS BY 2020
ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORTED BY 2020
VOLUNTEERING HOURS BY YEAR 2020
$ RAISED AT WE SCHOOLS IN 2017
STUDENTS IN WE TEAMS
WE DAYS IN ALL CANADIAN CITIES + THE USA + BRITAIN
“If Mr. Fedrigoni had not given me those 3 minutes that day, I don’t know Free The Children would be today.”
“I am proud to know that as a teacher I played a small role in Craig’s beginnings.” – Mr. Fedrigoni
With the growing scope of activities and partners
a whole lot of new Free the Children + WE programs became possible.
Also for school.
The daily hangout of all young people. Priority number one.
It is simple enough, since global issues are part of many subjects nowadays and teachers need solution stories, hero*ine role models, action opportunities and partners.
Craig has pioneered and popularized a SERVICE LEARNING curriculum at many schools with the WE Schools program providing real life stories and resources on global issues like education, poverty, water, health, gender equality and human rights.
%
OF TEACHERS say they feel professionally more fulfilled
%
OF TEACHERS discover new leadership skills in their students
%
OF STUDENTS feel more self-confident
%
OF STUDENTS volunteer for favorite causes after school
%
OF STUDENTS feel a stronger connection to their local community
%
OF STUDENTS are more likely to stand up for others who are discriminated against
%
OF ALUMNI volunteer & donate to charity annually
%
OF ALUMNI eligible vote in elections
The story doesn’t end there.
The youth growing up in WE schools abroad grow up and pursue their path, backed by WE.
Indigenous youth run eco-social tourism and volunteer programs.
The Massaii youth enjoy the region’s first university, with focus on relevant disciplines like tourism, medicine, engineering … this photo with Kenya’s First Lady was taken at the opening ceremony.
100+ MILLION DOLLARS WORTH GENERATED
We are so grateful for the enormous service that Craig and Marc have delivered to humanity by proofing a lightweight large-scale Action Learning program embraced by 1000s of totally ordinary schools and the robust manifest HOPE that we CAN create large scale societal change.
We understand why they used the popular approach to break the ground, since it has laid the FOUNDATION for diverse youth leadership programs at school, and created the trust, support and demand for self-organized Changemaker Student Club activities.
We, and the world owe more to him for this epochal breakthrough and cultural shift than many understand. We do and we celebrate Craig and Marc as world champs, and continue to observe and learn from what they dream up and pull off.
With YL, we do not take a popular approach, nor do we include politicians and corporations. Ever. But we understand why Craig did it, and we refer to his large-scale functional model to show to caring teachers, youth and their Adult Allies – including YL Coaches – what exists, works, how it is embraced by 1,000s at schools, how it benefits learning culture – you’ve read the testimonials above – and equip you to kick off something less formal, more flexible, more multi-faceted, more independent, backed by teachers but 90+% driven by students. Anywhere.
Compared to WE’s service learning curriculum, we add
full spectrum of causes
100+ hero*ine role models
400+ activities
social entrepreneurship
planetary campaigns
individual coaching
adult training + certification
project partners
creative coaches
resources for action
100% self-organization
youth + hero*ines community
adult allies + coaches + project partners community
badges
certification
LearnSpaces
magazine
music
youth exchange
co-organized summer camps
+ we collaborate creatively to realize your good dreams for people and planet
REFLECTION
FORM
add field to attach their state’s PURPOSE OF EDUCATION
Essential Insight # 6
School is the only space and time in our life
- where all young people meet
- almost daily, for their 10 forming years
to learn how to create a good world for all
- to agree on common priorities and goals for their next 70 years on Earth together
- to take action, experience their agency and develop skills and trust in themselves and in others
with
- macro community
- good infrastructure
- support on demand
in a place meant to fulfill the maybe most important and sacred function in our society enshrined in the Law Of Education §1 THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOLING :
“to enable able, active, caring citizens of a peaceful, sustainable, thriving libertarian-democratic society, in harmonious collaboration with a global family of nations”
- which is a model of citizen yet unachieved by adult generations but masterfully embodied by today’s teen and twen changemakers
- young people that achieve to create a good world for all, which is universally recognized as #1 priority of our century
- recognized with our society’s highest awards, celebrated as hero*ines in media, their stories read at bedtime and invited as role models to speak at school
which means that ALL youth have the moral and legal RIGHT to learn to be like them, by growing up like them, be living life at school like they do – in Changemaker Student Clubs – and to be respected like them, like Our New Highly Gifted, actively involved by teachers to co-shape learning culture.
Extended
< FOR PROPER UNDERSTANDING >
70 years of subject teaching have not achieved to make them able, active, caring citizens. You can tell from countries with 100 years of universal schooling for all, like the USA.
You see your society today, with 20% child sex abuse, 50% cancer rates, the mob marching in the streets. compared to the values that all your fellow citizens say they live by, that’s a mighty rotten society of people that don’t have the HEART to do anything with relevant good impact on lives and land, and so-called experts, organizations, government and elite school graduates in your temples of science and business have zero clue how to really make anything better.
It’s okay. ADULT GENERATIONS were born into monarchies, fascism, infantile democracies, half of the population behind a plough in muddy fields or slaving away in merciless dirty industries. So, their job was to create a life in dignity for the laborers and farmers. Compared to the 1930s, that’s been achieved. (We are speaking of the centres driving the spiral of innovation, Europe and the USA that now upgrade with children’s, womens, LGBTQ, animal rights. Many others are still at pre-1920 monarchy and dictatorship stage.) But now that their dirty industries and obscene consumption are dissolving the web of life, it’s about the next UPGRADE and adult generations *suck* and will never get that right enough. They lack the HEART to do, and they don’t have the TIME at relevant scale, even if they wanted to. Forget it.
They must give all their support to YOUTH to UPGRADE to the new Operating System. But pay sharp attention :
- Not a proprietary OS defined by centralized monarchist mindset people owning dirty industries, okayyyy?!
- But an open source OS co-created by distributed sovereign citizens that protect the land and people they love, lead the lives they love, create the cities and countryside they love by learning and implementing humanity’s finest people-powered solutions for peace, joy and abundance for all from today’s Einsteins via internet like they do with world’s best eye shade, green smoothies, okayyyy? That’s what the internet was invented for.
You have seen that
1. No conventional learning path (no academia, no religion, no football, no tv shows, no watching royals, gilded celebrity butts, TED Talks, twitch or Netflix, no marihuana, no porn, no cheering for hillary or donald etc) makes able, active, caring citizens OR today’s adult generations would be over the mountain awesome.
2. Teen hero*ines embody this able citizen to the max and CHANGEMAKER STUDENT CLUBS backed by CARING TEACHERS do cultivate the new able citizen model with rich benefits for learning culture. Hence, we need to be very clear.
THIS YOUNG GENERATION CAN ONLY UPGRADE – learn to be BETTER ADULTS than today’s failing adult generations have been – if they all get to experience today’s finest young hero*ine role models with immediate action opportunities and world class globla and local support. If it does not happen at school it can never happen. Then today’s youth can never learn to become able, active, caring citizens at relevant scale.
AFTER GRADUATION, it’s job training, studies, relationships, worries … and then, it’s up at 6, pretty up, work all day, home, make dinner, bring kids to bed, tv, cuddle, sleep, week-end exhale – for 16 to 25 years! YL Coaches hear all the time from their adult friends “wow, I don’t know how you do this, to volunteer on evenings and week-ends, I am sooo tired.” In short, adult generations are lost for relevant change in terms of implementing projects. That’s why we provide the BOOST CLUB with swift actions to support youth.
YOUTH AGE 8 TO 18 HAVE THE SPIRIT, COMMUNITY AND TIME. Kids age 8 to 18 spend 6+ hours every day with gaming, sports, music, reading, watching idiot tv, playing games with friends … 20+ hours on week-ends. And now they can spend 1 to 10 hours daily for the Sport of Changemaking, having great fun, like their hero*ine peers. But the place where they meet, organize most – and influence all their peers – is SCHOOL.
You gotta realize that. If you dare dream of a good future, forget protests and stuff. It’s youth leadership at School! School! School! cascading into town from there.
The only chance for an upgrade of society and the only chance for rapid robust tangible changes for people and planet is through kids and teens en masse. Self-organized, as you have seen.
This is what YL enables them to do. You’ve seen it.
There is no need for government permission or millionaire sponsors. You have seen it.
You can learn much more in Phases 2 to 5, and it’s all simple and common sense. You have seen it.
A word for those with the HEART to shape a GOOD Future
You have seen what such stories, films and actions do to kids en masse, at school.
What if these stories, films and actions had been made omni-present in all schools on your continent 10 or 20 years ago?
What if you decide NOT to make them available for another 10 years?
Oh, you know the answer and it hurts real bad. FEAR.
What if you take simple, swift steps to make them omni-present at all schools in your region?
You don’t know exactly, but you can deduct that many allies like teachers, youth, citizens will respond positively and new ones appear. And the youth will self-organize their choice of 400 actions. You need just seed the info, and preferably guide quick Crash Courses, which is simple, fun and incredibly rewarding.
What will the world look like in 10 years from now?
That is literally YOUR CHOICE now.
And your responsibility. Not the government’s. Not the corporations’. You have seen that those are entirely absent in high impact stories. And even in the worst corporate controlled society of the USA … youth leadership works and also wins BOSS BATTLES against dirty industry. The next page shows you more of those!
I tell you from my experience:
- When I don’t act on this POWER, it hangs like a Damocles Sword over my head that will cut my throat with 16 tons of guilt and regret on my death bed.
- When I wield this POWER, it turns into a feather-light blizzard of Light that gives me winged feet, balls and backbone like no one else around. And it just keeps growing.
I know for sure that your own satisfaction with the state of the world and your own performance is grossly suboptimal. You know that the Great Grief and regret are coming for you.
I have no regret, no grief, no fear. And if you look at the youth and their adult allies, they don’t have either. How about that?
It’s a natural law that this comes with taking high impact action!
I say you better do the whole Crash Course and get a TASTE of what it’s like to #BeMoreAwesome because with that also comes redemption.
It’s true for youth as well as adults. We help you unfold your Inner Hero*ine – fast, fun and fireworks style.
ONWARDS!
Eric, YL
