Involving school students in social action in America

Abstract

The following article describes the work and vision of the Youth Dreamers group in Baltimore, which evolved as a result of young people’s involvement in the social action process as part of a school community action course run by teacher Kristina Berdan. In the first part, student members of the group, Chekana Reid and Cierra Cary, describe how they identified their key issue, the need for a youth-run youth centre where young people could go after school to take part in a range of constructive activities. Youth Dreamers started to take action to achieve their goals and have been successful in fund-raising and gaining political support and community support for the venture. In the second part, their teacher Kristina Berdan reflects at length on her experience of the social action process, its educational impact on her students, the contrast between the achievements of the Youth Dreamers group and her regular English class and the differences and sometimes contradictions inherent in her two roles of teacher and social action worker.