New Horizons for Learning: Student Voices

Kidz America TV Show: Giving Youth a Voice

by Gary Goldman

Our youth need a new vision for becoming our future leaders and positive contributors to our communities. As the coauthor of Empowering Students to Transform Schools, and involved in youth development for 25 years, I have experienced first-hand the "cry in the wilderness" of our children. There is a deep desire for them to have a sense of belonging and a caring community that listens to them and involves them as contributors. Today's youth represent an enormous untapped resource. Their enthusiasm, creativity and insight offer critical solutions to many pressing problems – ranging from how to create better classroom learning to what is needed to create a peaceful world. The inclusion of their voices in the solutions has not only been overlooked, but we also believe youth voices have been ignored.

Many young people express that they are living in a fearful world and find it increasingly difficult to dream of a bright and better future. They feel that adults do not listen to them and are rarely asked how the educational system or other public institutions could better serve or involve them. The Institute believes that at the core of most social problems is a sense of disconnection between youth and their communities.

Kidz America has taken up this challenge by saying, the time is now to change the way we view and involve our children. Our young people must be at the very center of our communities as active partners in bringing unity to our communities. To this end, the International Quality Leadership Institute, a nonprofit organization, in collaboration with ICAN Vision Production studios, is producing the Kidz America TV Show. The show will provide a voice and forum for all kids across Illinois and nationally to engage in candid and dynamic dialogue with community leaders about critical issues such as drugs, violence, hazing, dropouts, and generating promising solutions.

Community representation will include education, healthcare, business, social service, criminal justice, and religious community, as well as parents. The goal is to move away from our current crisis orientation toward a culture of shared vision, unity and accountability. Common ground and ideas between youth and adults will be dramatically enhanced through the building of trust and relationships and thus, improve the quality of life in our communities. The Kidz America show is intended to facilitate the development of an informed, youth-centered citywide and nationwide consensus on the issues of the day and to become the public forum of choice for our cities across America.

The program will be a fully interactive process in which students identify issues which are important to them. The emphasis will be on generating promising solutions. The facilitators will engage the participants in a "Town Hall" style and use individual, small and large group dialogue and exercises to empower the youth and the viewing audience. We will challenge the youth to take risks in a positive and safe environment. It is intended to capture the heart and spirit of our American youth.

In a survey of a diverse group of youth they were asked if they believe that adults know "how you really feel" about your position in society, 82 percent said "no", regarding adults in general and 79 percent said "no" with respect to their teachers. Furthermore, when asked if youth were given a true opportunity to come up with ideas about how they might deal with some of the problems facing them in modern society, as well as the resources to address these issues and assume the responsibilities that come with trying to solve such problems – 86 percent of the youth responded "yes." Significantly 100 percent also responded "yes" when asked, if given the opportunity and the vehicle – like youth-adult partnerships – could youth of different backgrounds come together to solve some of the problems they share.

Kidz America TV Show (KATV) has started production in several Chicago communities to begin building youth-adult dialogues and partnerships to address this communication gap. The youth from ages 8 to 17 were very enthusiastic and clearly voiced their ideas of the issues in their communities and viable solutions. Kidz America will be a weekly series starting on several Chicago and Illinois cable stations and eventually all across America.

Youth Comments

(Ages 9-15)

"I learned that us kids can make a difference."
"I liked the show because it actually listened to what we thought."
"I learned that I didn't have to be afraid to speak."
"It shows that children can do almost as much as grown-ups."
"I learned that our community has a lot of work that needs to be done."
" I will go home and do my best to make a difference."

(Ages 14-17)

"Youth need to be heard because we have a lot to say and it will bring all people together as one."
"It gave me a chance to express myself and it feels great!"
"I think youth need to be heard because this is our time.
Things have changed a lot since the adults were kids and they need to know that."
"If we can convince adults to listen to youth we can change the world."
"I can do more than I thought. One voice can really make a difference."

Goals of the show are:

To identify key community issues and solutions through interactive dialogue between youth and adults

To give youth a voice and have a way of being heard

To facilitate open dialogue and give equal opportunity to youth of all ages, cultures, achievement, and socioeconomic levels

To educate adults to how our children can contribute in real and meaningful ways to society

To role model a "new paradigm" for schools and communities across Illinois and the nation that includes youth as problem-solvers and leaders in improving our communities

To build a national and international network of young people positively impacting our world

Far too often our schools operate in a vacuum, far removed from the real world.-- Gary Chico, former president of the Chicago Board of Education

There is a gap between what business wants and how education is preparing students for the workforce.To help build bridges between youth, education and business, Kidz America videotaped a show at the City of Chicago's 2005 City Treasurer's Small Business Expo. We were invited to showcase Kidz America to the business community. We interviewed numerous financial institutions, small business and youth about preparing youth for their future and the workforce. We must provide a voice and forum for kids to exchange ideas about job readiness, community issues and viable solutions with business and community leaders. It is imperative to build strong future leaders and lifelong learners who will face societal changes and be prepared for the 21st century workforce. The time is now for business to become a more active partner in enhancing the quality of education and supporting our youth and future leaders.

To help sustain the Kidz America show, we are creating an integrated multi-media youth-centered community initiative by working with Northwestern University's The Collaboratory Project, and Rico Enterprises. It is intended to provide a forum for continued communication and collaboration before, during and after Kidz America televised Forums. The Collaboratory Project provides consulting, training, technical support, and information services to educators interested in using the Collaboratory to improve student learning and achievement. Communication services include: messaging, conferencing, discussion forums, invitations, announcements, and calendars to support collaboration among teachers and students.

Community leaders will be responsible for creating and maintaining a project with activities in the Collaboratory to enhance the continued networking, managing and mentoring of youth members. They will also create a Kidz America Nexus Community (see below). The purpose is to support communications and collaborations among Kidz America show participants in their own community and among other communities.

Town meeting discussions could be extended to other print and electronic media that would be shared and sustained in the Collaboratory. Video, audio, and written records of the dialogues in these town meetings will be shared in the Collaboratory Nexus Community for continued discussion and review with permission of participants.

To enhance sustainability of the Kidz America TV show forums in diverse communities, a variety of Collaboratory tools will be utilized:

Video streaming of Kidz America TV show segments will be linked inside the Kids America Collaboratory Nexus Community.

Project/topics will be sustained via collaboration and communication through the use of web-based document templates in the Nexus Community—a place where people with common interests come together to create interactive on-line communities. Participants create, share and review information using web-based multimedia document templates Overtime, the Nexus Community becomes a rich archive of knowledge and a valuable resource for current and future members.

Changes in skills and behaviors of participants will be documented via student ePortfolios, reflections, information exchanges, and published work in galleries to provide authentic assessment evaluation

Shared community projects and dialogues

Founded in 1985, Rico Enterprises is a Chicago based company that specializes in technology consulting, software training and infrastructure support. They are committed to implementing user friendly technology that enables real-time multi-media interaction. Some of our clients that include the Chicago Public Schools utilize Rico's expertise to create distance learning infrastructure to expand student learning, parent participation and community involvement.

As a part of their "integrated multi-media" approach to youth empowerment and leadership, Rico Enterprises will:

Provide technical support for the infrastructure development of the Kidz America Collaboratory.

Provide e-learning technology that will enhance audience participation

Ensure adequate connections to the Internet and create digitized video to run off servers

Support appropriate software for personalized menus to address the uniqueness of communities

In conclusion, IQLI and its Kidz America has the following four overall objectives for creating sustainable process for youth and community empowerment:

Facilitate televised youth-centered community forums where youth can confront local, national, and global issues and experiment with real world dialogue and decision-making in partnership with adults.

Bring adults and youth together through community outreach with organizations and schools to create a caring learning environment where young people can develop and build critical life, problem solving and decision making skills.

Build trust and open dialogue between youth and adults, through leadership activities, that reflects individual and community values, resulting in more caring, safe and sustainable communities.

Cultivate youth's creativity in real-life problem solving through joint planning and implementation of community betterment projects.

The vast untouched potential of our young people needs to be recognized and utilized to create a better world. This shift in thinking must start with all of us in making this vision a reality. I invite you to share your ideas and or resources to make Kidz America a national model for enhancing our world.

About the author

Gary Goldman is President and Founder of the non-profit International Quality Leadership Institute (IQLI) in Chicago, Illinois, which is an outgrowth of his for-profit's 25 years of pioneering work in diverse urban, suburban and rural communities. He is a nationally recognized leader in education reform and youth empowerment and is the coauthor of the book, Empowering Students to Transform Schools. Mr. Goldman has published articles nationally on his innovative work and has guest lectured at major universities.

He is the Creator and Executive Producer for the Kidz America TV show which is intended to facilitate the development of an informed, youth-centered citywide and nationwide consensus on the issues of the day and to become the public forum of choice for our cities across America. The show time contributes to the awareness of youth and adults as partners in discussing issues and solutions for community problems.

See his Website for more information www.iqli.com

Contact Gary Goldman: 773-761-2698 , email: gargoldman@aol.com

©September 2005 New Horizons for Learning
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