Submission - Last term!

Your research question:

How can young people be encouraged to develop their personal identities through creative critical reflection?

A progress summary (650 maximum):

Firstly I am very pleased with the momentum I have kept over the summer.  As I didn’t break for 2 weeks until the end of September, I have been able to power through my work during August and the start of September.

August saw a further 2 or 3 iterations of my workshop with feedback from young people, youth group leaders and teachers.  The process is a very fluid one, and in fact each workshop differs greatly because of the young people involved.  Sometimes I find an activity isn't really working and so I just move onto to the next, each group has an extremely different dynamic.

A very big event over the summer was the London Riots.  This has really helped bring attention to what my project is about, engaging with young people to help them understand the decisions they can make in their own lives, what they really want, and how they can achieve it.  There has been some interesting research over the month on why this happened, who was involved, and how they feel.  I have been observing everything unfold and taking from the events what learnings I can.  I think this has helped me secure 3 further workshops with the Girl Guides.It's strange but I really feel that this period of unrest has helped open doors, gatekeepers now seem more intereested in what I am trying to do.  I am not sure why, whether it's because they have complete a certain quota of activities with young people to show that they are engaging with the community, I don't know...

I now have a bank of information collated during the workshops, this details what young people want for themselves, what they love, how they feel about their communities and societies and how the process of creative reflection has really helped them develop their personal identities, with a very visual finally, the Identi-tee.

I have started to prepare my final synopsis, it's a working document, I was initially very worried about how I could write up so much of my hard work in so few words, but you can see a summary of what I have so far, below, also not sure how much it needs to explain what I did and why, or my findings?  I have printed my blog book from last year, and so will be well prepared when I need to print this years record as my reflective journal. I can bring this to the next tutorial, I understand there are concerns about printed reflective journals, so would love your feedback on this when you see what I have from the first year of the course.

WHAT

By developing creative, positive and enjoyable workshops, young people can discuss society, culture, values, hopes, dreams and aspirations and engage with their personal identities and communities in a constructive way.

WHY

The physical, psychological and social changes experienced by adolescents are such that psychologists generally regard adolescence as a critical period for self and identity development (Erikson, 1968; Marcia, 1987). These workshops could encourage young people to be confident individuals, enjoy learning, progress, achieve, and become responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society. They could also be used to help reduce the youth gang culture mentality that can evolve from family breakdown (which leads to crisis in cultural and personal identity). The looting in the UK in the summer of 2011 was a very real and graphic demonstration of the number of young people who are currently in crisis within our communities.

Personal wellbeing is currently a non-statutory part of the National Curriculum for 11-16 years olds, it includes elements such as personal identities, healthy lifestyles, relationships and diversity. These are key to helping young people develop their personal identities, to feel confident, embrace change, recognize and manage risk, take responsibility for themselves and contribute in a positive nature to their communities. We need to ensure that all young people in our society get the help and guidance they need to develop their personal wellbeing.

We must also consider that many students’ cultural, ethnic, linguistic, racial and social class backgrounds differ from their homogeneous teaching population (mostly white, female, and middle class), young people need to be provided with relevant social and cultural realities (Howard, 2003) to give them the tools to deal with the physical, psychological and social changes they are experiencing.

Dewey (1933) talked about the value of reflection in education: critical reflection ‘gives attention to one’s experiences and behaviours, and meanings are interpreted from them to inform future decision-making. Once cognitive processing is complete, reflective action is an extremely useful tool for addressing social and emotional issues, especially those relating to race and culture.

HOW

During the workshops, young people collaborate to discuss themselves, their relationship, their society and their environment, and how all these components affect sense of self. The key themes of personal wellbeing are developed and explored through creativity and reflection:

CREATIVITY Producing artefacts, experimenting with ideas, materials,

tools and techniques, taking risks and learning from mistakes.

REFLECTION Exploring the visual, tactile and other sensory qualities of

their own and others’ work, identifying how values and meanings are

conveyed, developing views and expressing reasoned judgment, analyzing

and reflecting on their work and the work of others.

IF

These workshops could lead to developments in the field of personal identity in adolescences, its importance, and change it from a non-statutory component of the national curriculum, which could lead to widespread use of the workshops in schools and youth groups.

Next Steps

I still have 3 more sessions booked in to carry out workshops with the Girl Guides in October, so there may be further iterations of the workshops during this time and obviously there will be further findings.

I have also been thinking about ways to dimensionalise the workshop for the purposes of the final exhibition, and will need to formalise these further, but I hope to demonstrate a variety of exercises carried out and the responses from the young people to these.

I will need to print my blog book for this year (2011 January to date).

I will keep trying get sponsorship (have had some very positive chats with an advertising agency about getting some booze for the private view) for the exhibition and continue with daily twitter and facebook updates, as well as develop relationships with appropriate PR contacts.

Your bibliography and resource list.: 

 http://madsjourney.blogspot.com/search/label/References

Your role in the Degree Show project and your input to date (40 words max):

-       Co-lead role in the marketing team, preparing the marketing/PR plan with Bushra, viral idea, organising meetings and distributing tasks

-       weekly news coverage report

-       website framework

-       set up the twitter and facebook accounts, (there is now a team of helpers updating these with me)

-       built a database of PR contacts for the 6 week PR campaign prior to the exhibition, and have already discussed our exhibition with the Guardian’s Alex Needham

-       secured over £3000 worth of advertising with Creative Review (with the help of the Central Illustration Agency), which will run for 6 weeks before the exhibition and will be designed by the graphic designers Staziker Jones.

-       actively taken part in all group meetings

-       continuing to seek further exhibition sponsors