Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Putnam Robert D. & Feldstein Lewis

Author:Putnam, Robert D. & Feldstein, Lewis [Putnam, Robert D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2009-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

Wisconsin Dells: Training and Connecting Coaches

“Let young people lead” is the mantra repeated again and again at the two-day Community Coach training session in Wisconsin Dells. Educators and community members from Milwaukee, Greendale, Waupun, Antigo, and Shawano—some already experienced coaches, some new to Do Something—have come to be trained as coaches and to learn techniques for a new pilot initiative: infusing the Do Something model of youth leadership and activism into the classroom curriculum. From the introductory session through the days of training, session leaders from national headquarters in New York urge participants to say it with them: “Let young people lead.” The slogan is like the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation’s Iron Rule: “Never do anything for anybody that they can do for themselves.” Getting things done in schools and communities is important, but it is secondary to the aim of developing the skills and the habits of leadership and participation among young people. A coach intervening to direct students toward a “better” project or to correct flawed planning would be putting the service goal ahead of the developmental one. In many cases, the intervention would not necessarily be an improvement, if the quality of student choices in Waupun is any guide. Take the railroad crossing project. As Cam Dary’s remarks suggest, a “helpful” adult probably could have told them that they were unlikely to get the automated gate and flashing lights they wanted. The equipment was expensive; the road was not a main route and carried what would be considered light traffic in most towns and cities. The letter they received from the railroad commissioner made exactly those points. But their efforts paid off. The railroad cleared away the brush and mounds of soil that blocked the tracks from view, and it put up a series of signs on the approaches to the crossing to replace the single “RR Crossing” sign that had been there, cemented in a bucket that was often tipped over. So a project that more experienced adults might have dismissed as hopeless achieved useful results. Sometimes not knowing that something can’t be done is an advantage. The kids learned, too, that community action can be successful even when the outcome is not the one you sought.

A roomful of mainly teachers—forty or so at this training session—has a particularly lively quality, a feeling of being let out of school that is also literally true. Most people are casually dressed; there is a lot of laughter and friendly teasing, some gossip, plenty of stories swapped about life in the classroom. But when the session leaders ask them to develop brief presentations in small groups, they get right to work, and you realize that most of them were once eager students. They are here, giving up a good part of their weekend, to find new ways to help students they care deeply about. A lot of their conversation is shoptalk, comparing notes about teaching. They complain about a statewide cap on teacher compensation increases that, because of rising insurance costs, means that their take-home pay has been going down.

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