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STUDENT EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
"STUDENTS
WANTED FOR A VALUES BASED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
BASED ON OUR
CONSTITUTION"
8.
YOU THE PEOPLE CITIZENSHIP SKILL RESULTS
Using
the YTP Citizenship Skills is equally important to learning
political action in this program. Since you the PEOPLE
(plural) have real power in this form of government, it
is necessary for you to learn the interaction skills required
to make good group decisions. These skills are fundamental
skills in any democratic society, but particularly this
one where the People are the rulers. The following anecdotes
illustrate actual events in “You the PEOPLE” Student
Action Groups. The names and locations have been left out
to protect their privacy.
One young man had a long history of physical communication. Since he didn’t
have much of a way with words, he used his fists instead. The group to which
he was assigned was well aware of his tendencies and attacked the problem without
coaching. They told him up front in the first meeting that he would have to follow
the rules. They then volunteered to help him learn to use other communication
skills. The group continued this regular attention, both positive and negative
(he spent a lot of time early in the “time out corner”), for the whole
semester. By the time they were through he had become a regular, if rough, participant
in group discussions and his overall grades improved dramatically.
Another group contained some gang members. It also contained one little physically
unfit and socially shy kid. The group deadlocked for the first two sessions primarily
because the gang members said it was a “stupid” class. The teacher
then asked them to focus their discussion on themselves and their inability to
function during the regular Citizenship Skill discussion portion of the meeting.
She told them to keep doing it until they came up with a solution. The two gang
members decreed immediately that it was the teacher’s fault for having them
do “stupid stuff like this”. After not saying a word in the first sessions
the little fat kid said, “No, it’s you two”. A shocked silence
was broken when another group member said, “Yeah, it’s you two”,
and the rest of the group agreed. The group then went to work on their political
agenda and worked well together the rest of the year. Additionally the gang members
started treating the kid that spoke up with a new found respect.
These kinds of interpersonal skill improvements are typical of the “You
the PEOPLE” process. People who use this program can expect these kind of
improvements in their classrooms as well.
©2000. You The People,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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