8.27.2008

PSA: Rosalind Wiseman

Today's PSA is for the Owning Up curriculum by Rosalind Wiseman. You might recognize the name from the book, Queen Bees and Wannabes or from the very popular, Mean Girls. A girlfriend of mine (from middle school-- wow) teaches this curriculum to students. She's been really excited by the results and relationships she's seen come out of it. Here's a little description from Ms. Wiseman's website:

The Owning Up™ program is based on the premise that social cruelty, degradation,and violence can be deconstructed and understood by examining how our culture teaches boys to be men and girls to be women. Further, the curriculum teaches
children the skills to speak out against injustice and recognize that they have
a responsibility to treat themselves and others with dignity.

I'm sharing this with a mostly church-y readership because there are so many houses of worship that talk about youth ministry as something we do to kids, rather than for kids (and certainly not by kids). Kids don't have it easy. Being a teenager is actually pretty hard. Wouldn't it be great if we respected that, and helped provide some support? I'm the last person to suggest coddling anyone, but I'd love to teach kids how to empower themselves and others. And frankly, I don't think it's a big leap from there, to teaching them about how God empowers all of us.

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to God from generation to generation in the church, and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.
-BCP

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the link. I am not only feeling swamped at work, I am also feeling ineffectual. So, while this adds to the former, it helps with the latter - and isn't vocation all about building energy rather than feeling it used up?

    Where did you find the BCP prayer? I LOVE it.

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  2. This is a brilliant link. I am shocked by the way young people are referred to in our church. Kind of a problem to be managed or a resource to be used/exploited in managing the younger children. This helps me to articulate my concern (which is usually met with blank stares) and to indicate a path forward. Thanks!

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"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."
-Saint Molly Ivins