BOOST Collaborative

Although it is cliché, as the end of the year approaches, it is a time to think about closing out the old year and bringing in the new year. As your programs and schools wind down for the holiday season, this allows us an opportune time to reflect upon the accomplishments of our students, our staff, and ourselves. It’s also a time to think about what we did not accomplish in 2011 but what we hope to do in 2012. These may be seemingly minor things like not cleaning out the supply closet, or it may be something more major, such as our students are not where we would like them to be academically. So, I invite each of you for a few minutes to take a breath, forget about the baking and shopping and card sending, grab a hot cup of coffee or tea, and sit down and reflect upon the following questions.

As afterschool professionals, we give a lot of lip service to the phrase “voice and choice”. Theoretically, we understand that students feel more ownership of their afterschool programs when they are able to voice their opinions and provide input into the program. Sounds easy, right?  Like most good ideas, however, implementation is much more difficult than it sounds.

Students are most likely not going to gather and discuss collaboratively what they want the program to be. There is also a good chance that their ideas may not fit within the program’s budget or be logistically possible, especially for smaller programs that may have limited monetary budgets, staff, and students. And, let’s face it, it’s easier for staff to make a schedule and expect youth to follow it. It takes time for both staff and students to become used to the idea of students having significant input. Staff needs to learn to shift authority to the students, and students need to take the responsibility seriously. Depending on what the students experience during the school day, the concept of voice and choice may be a new concept to them as well.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a copy of a Newsweek.com story on one of the multiple listservs I receive.  I confess, I don’t usually read everything that I receive through a listserv, and often, I will save an article or link “to read when I have time.” This article, however, caught my eye, and I am really grateful I took a further look. Titled The Creativity Crisis: For the First Time, Research Shows that American Creativity is Declining. What Went Wrong—And How We Can Fix It (July 19, 2010), this article summarizes research that has been conducted on creativity and the fact that students in the United States are demonstrating a decline in creativity, particularly in grades kindergarten through sixth.

The authors define creativity as the “production of something original and useful” and “requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result)” p. 45. The article goes on to say that creativity can be taught, and that creativity requires practice, as much as any other well-honed skill.

Sue, an afterschool staff member, races into the school at 2:30 p.m. She came from a school across town where she has been a substitute all day. Sue gives a hurried “hello” to the school administrative assistant as she signs in for the day. Now, Sue runs down to the cafeteria, grabs the snacks, gets the attendance sheets to put on the tables, and figures out what activities are going to be offered to students once they finish homework help and tutoring. She finds some crayons and butcher paper for “Arts & Crafts” and some basketballs for “Sports”. The dismissal bell rings at 2:50 p.m. Within two minutes, students are already coming into the cafeteria.

Does this scenario sound familiar to anyone or is it a recurring nightmare that some of you may have? Despite the empathy we may have for Sue who is trying to do her best to meet her responsibilities, we must ask how are students benefitting from being in this program? Sure, the students have a safe place to be and are given time and support to complete their homework. But, is that what we really want for our afterschool programs? To say that they help students get their homework done and then give them some “busy work” to fill the rest of the time. I hope not. Afterschool programs can be so much more and truly give students experiences that they may not receive during the school day or with their own families.