A Silenced but Disruptive Youth
The Silenced Youth
Walking through a village on the outskirts of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, we were looking out for young people hanging out on the streets. We are a team of 3 Youth Workers, two men and a woman, with the goal to make contact with young people and bring them the message that life is a network of endless possibility. All they need to do is speak up and be heard, let it be know how they believe the future should look and use the connections we have in the 'adult world' to make their ideas reality.
It is usually quite easy to find young people hanging out on the street, at the skate park or at the local bus stop, although starting a conversation can be a challenge.
Local adults usually steer clear from the teenagers. Seeing them hanging out in groups can be intimidating. Even though most of these adults would have been doing the same when they were younger, the stigma attached to the youth of today is all about violence, theft and drugs. Therefore, the young people do not feel safe when adults approach them. In their collective mindset these adults are coming to 'get them' in some way, shape or form.
It is common for the young people to run off or become defensive, either way the adult doesn't get to hear the young persons story. We adults are quick to judge and disregard objective thinking. This leaves the youth without role models because if we, the people who keep the cogs of this system turning, are not brave enough to stand and listen to the young people, how can they build trust with us?
It is the ideas within the minds of our youth which will eventually shape future society. If we adults want to live out our senior years in peace and quiet then we need to let the youth of today be heard.
Trying to be heard
That day back in Huddersfield we found a group of young people playing at the basketball court. We gave each other the nod, to say let's get involved, and we walked onto the court. At first the young people stopped playing, a couple of them started walking off, however the young person with the ball passed it to my colleague. Without hesitation he took a shot and the ball fell almost silently through the hoop. Instant rapport achieved! We had a short game with the group as we explained who we were and what our intentions were. Slowly the game came to a stop and we had the groups full attention. We listened to them talk about their experience in the village, and through listening we were able to offer them a foundation to build from.
The result of a silenced youth is a culture of young people who need to be heard. Mature adults are still learning how to communicate with one another. Communication, like any other skill, is one that can never be perfected and young people are at the very start of learning this skill.
Imagine been brought up around adults who are conflicted about society, imagine following elders who are quick to label themselves and everyone around them. Imagine been labelled and told you are the reason society is going to fall apart. Then imagine you have no where else to go. Where will you find good role models? What even is a good role model? How will you find your place in the community, or what is left of community?
It isn't like post war, the previous crisis, where we all came together to work towards building our country back up. Society is fractured, there are too many opposing view points and conflicts. Due to this, youth culture has been forgotten and the young people's voice has been drowned out by the noise. This gives space for opportunists to pounce, or predators to catch their pray. Does a lion try take down the aged and experienced Bull? No! the bull will fight back and the odds are the lion will get injured before the kill is achieved. Therefore, the lion's goal is the young and less experienced animal in the herd. The lion confuses the smaller animal, diverting it away from the herd and then it pounces. There is little risk to the lion but great reward. Now put this model of thinking onto society today, look at your own community. We are fractured and confused which leaves our youth vulnerable to predators.
Next time you see a young person making a bad choice why not offer guidance? they are trying to find their guides in this fickle tribe and most of the adults who have the experience to guide pretend to turn a blind eye. I say pretend because once they get home to their warm comfy couch they get on social media and use words to continue the victim mentality demonising our young people.
When we look at this clearly it is obvious that those adults demonising our youth are the problem. It is those adults who speak but do nothing. it is those adults who fracture our human tribe and leave our young people vulnerable to exploitation. It is about time we listen to our youth. If you see a young person making a mistake, confront them calmly and connect with them, offer guidance at least try and show them that we adults care, show we are capable of listening.
A gap between generations
While listening to the young people on the basket ball court we found a connection. They talked about tagging on the streets and how that young people from another post code would come into the village and tag the places where they hang out. This is a sign of disrespect. We now had something to work with. Street art was something our team had experience with and this gave us a connection. Even though we are the last generation and somewhat disconnected to these young people because of our lifestyles, there remained some things we can agree on, and street art was a win.
The gap between generations appears somewhere at the point when one generation ends and another begins. There is a fantastic book 'The Fourth Turning' which explains the theory of generations and how each generation has a role or purpose. Generations, or 'turnings', as described in the book, are a part of an 80 year time block. The time block of 80 years is split into four 20 year blocks called ‘turnings’ or, as we call them, generations. This means there are 4 generations in each time block. Each time block of 80 years ends with a crisis and the next time block starts when the crisis is over.
Our current time block started at the end of the Second World War in 1945 and is due to finish around 2025. Look at the global situation over the past 20 years or so. It all started with 911 in 2001, war in the Middle East, bombings in London, the pandemic, Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine. There are also conflicts overseas that we do not hear about in the mainstream media. We do not hear about the horrendous county lines drug trade in the UK where young people are exploited and killed every day. We have been experiencing a crisis for almost a full turning, a generation, 20 years.
As this turning, the 'crisis' comes to an end, the next generation will take over. This generation, those born and brought up within the current crisis will lead us through the next turning, the 'High'.
A ‘high’, is a time of discipline and development, a time to rebuild and renew what what destroyed in the crisis. The last high was from 1945 to 1965.
After the High comes the awakening a time of spirituality moving away from the hard line discipline of the 'high' and nurturing focus on community spirit and morals, a time to question what was built during the high, a time to come together and fight for change through religion and spirituality. The last awakening was from 1965 to 1985.
Then comes the unravelling, a time where institutions become weak and the structures that were built in the high begin to crumble. The last unraveling was from 1985 to 2005.
Then comes the crisis which we are in now and this completes the cycle.
At this point in time, 2024, we are coming to the end of a 20 year global crisis
The parents and adults working with young people through youth work projects, schools and care services have seen the crisis from start to, hopefully, the imminent end.
The young people of today will not fully understand the crisis we have lived through because they were born during it. They will not fully understand our decision making process, or why most of us look bewildered at the choices they make.
Us adults who have experienced the turmoil of this global crisis have observed the worst possible leadership. We have seen the corruption that comes hand in hand with greedy leadership and felt the backlash from it in our day to day lives. We know, we are wise to it, or at least we should be?
Therefore, we have a duty to guide our youth wisely.
If we continue to criminalise and ignore young peoples shouts for help. If we dismiss their views and wrong their actions then we can expect, that when they come to power, we will be disregarded too.
It is our job as adults to bridge the gab and guide the youth of today. Although we may see the world differently because of the life we experienced. We need to let the youth know we trust that they will carry us forward through the high of the next 20 years.
Searching for identity
The conversation on the basket ball court developed into an exciting exchange. The young people talked about covering the village in colourful art. They expressed how dull the area felt and that apart from the skate park and basketball court they had little else in the community. There was a football team and a cricket club but nothing to suggest that young people are apart of the community. They felt silenced and like their group identity was unwanted. This is why they went tagging the neighbouring village, because at least with this show of arrogance they would be noticed. By using street art we had a the opportunity to help change this arrogance into confidence for their own village.
We develop a sense of identity as we learn and grow. The environment we are brought up in, the friends our parents chose to socialise with, the clothes we are made to wear and the language used by the adults that surround us. All these small pieces of information stick with us and as we grow we become what we experienced previously. When we reach adolescence we begin to seek individuality and rebel against what we were told is 'the right way' to think and behave. We feel like there is a better way, we question authority and push back against the rules. This is essential for humans to survive. If our youth did not question our advise and simply conformed, we adults would never feel the need to think deeply about our decisions.
"A good leader builds a great team that counterbalances their weaknesses" (Joko Wilink)
The youth of today will build our future. The single worst thing we can do is ignore their disagreeable nature. They are pushing back against our limited thinking and engrained habits in order to move us forward. If we adults can humble ourselves and admit that our weakness is listening, then we can begin practicing how to listen more effectively.
When we listen to our youth we begin to understand what they are experiencing and why they feel the need to push back. Once we know why they disagree with what is currently in practice, we can guide them with morals, allowing individuals and groups to grow and thrive. It is our job to create a foundation for young people to build from, let them influence our culture give them carefully guided ownership over their identity and belief about what the future looks like.
What is a Youth and Community Worker?
Now we had a project! The next step for us as a team was to arrange to meet the young people again and provide consent forms for their parents / carers to read and sign. This also gave us the opportunity to see how many and who would come back and show interest. The consent form had details for an initial session at the community centre in the town. Since leaving the group we had requested funds for a street art project, created risk assessments, made sure we could staff the project and then created the consent forms. After handing the forms out we crossed our fingers and got everything set up for the initial day at the community centre. The attendance was amazing. There were young people we hadn't made contact with that arrived with written consent from their parents. We had to make phone calls but in the end everyone got stuck in and we had a great day. This lead onto another session back in the village near the basket ball court where we took plywood boards onto the park and got a well known street artist to teach the young people how to create impactful street art.
This story about a small village on the outskirts of Huddersfield is an example of how a detached youth and community work project might look. This particular experience was a successful project. A successful youth and community project starts with spontaneity. Yes, we had the intention to meet and chat with the young people but the connection was unknown. It was only once we had found common ground that we were able to establish that connection, and randomly this was street art something we could make happen quick.
The connection provides the opportunity to begin offering learning through action. The activity is a shared experience which we all enjoy and offers time and freedom to talk. Through listening we can help to safeguard the young people. We are able to offer further activities, and the opportunity to connect with organisations which can help them. The young people bring their unique experience and inspired thinking to the community, it is our job as youth workers to capture their experience and ideas and then celebrate it through brining the ideas to reality.
The term 'Youth Worker' could be assigned to anyone working with young people. However, Youth and Community workers follow the principles of informal education.
"Informal education is the wise, respectful and spontaneous process of cultivating learning. It works through conversation, and the exploration and enlargement of experience" (Jeffs, T. and Smith, M. K. (1997, 2005, 2011). ‘What is informal education?’, The encyclopaedia of pedagogy and informal education. [https://infed.org/mobi/what-is-informal-education/. Retrieved: 11.03.2024].
Culture
Over a decade later I found my self running through that village on the outskirts of Huddersfield. I was visiting family and decided to go for a long run. As I ran through the village I spotted the park where we held the street art session and the basketball court. Not much seemed to have changed, but then I was greeted with something that stopped me in my tracks. The side of the building and some of the surrounding buildings were covered in colourful street art. All the memories of the sessions we held came flooding back and I smiled. What ever we did back then had obviously made an impact on the young people in the area. They took what we had offered and made it their own, and not just the street art, but the confidence to stand up and be heard within their community.
Youth culture never leaves our community, but it changes from generation to generation. If we do not encourage young people to speak up and have their then they will move through the shadows and make their mark on the community through other avenues.
Some young people will stay home, out of sight, out of mind playing on their computer games. Others will head out onto the streets and create their own adrenaline, or be groomed into behaviours which result in them been criminalised. This is why we see a rise in crime committed by young people today. It is also why we see more and more young people choosing to seclude themselves in their room on the games console.
Encouraging Young people to be proactive within the community is the third option, however this takes effort from the adults. As discussed above, by turning away from our youth, criminalising them or giving them little inspiration other than the safety of a games console in their bedroom, we are creating a gap between generations.
The culture we adults have created through this crisis is going to change whether we like it or not. We should stop pretending we know how the future will look and begin asking the youth how we can support them to make their mark on our community and guide them in a positive direction.