...Youth In Action
The Finding the Good semester program is about much more than studying what it mens to live in a sustainable manner. Our ultimate goal is to empower our students with knowledge, energy, and the skills that they need to share their educational stories with the rest of the world. Finding the Good is committed to serving our students by helping them develop their academic prowess in order to step into their adult lives as strong leaders with great vision and an unstoppable work ethic.
Students will become adept public speakers. They will begin to master radio broadcast, podcast, and documentary film technologies. As a team we will create comprehensive and cohesive presentation materials which we will share in a variety of public venues during the lecture tour near the end of the semester. We will seek to reach as wide and diverse an audience possible with stories of our travels, investigations, and findings of good work happening right in our own communities. In addition, these media projects and lecture stops become part of our students’ working portfolios, a collection of high-level work that can be shared with a college admissions administrator or a future employer.
At Finding the Good, we have seen that, time after time, something happens across the generational divide when youth are given a position of leadership, and speaking out to others both young and old. Older people see the youth in their ideals, intelligence, and passion and are heartened by the knowledge that teenagers will soon be taking the reins and leading the world. Younger people see these students and are inspired by them for a different reason: one is never too young to make a difference. And they inspire their peers, because things can get discouraging, and we all need each other to remind us that we can take action, work together, and take our rightful place.
Putting It All Together
Our Documentary Media Venture
Finding the Good students have the chance to participate in this nationally-recognized Nevada City, California-based film festival each January. The documentary films that students create throughout their semester with Finding the Good - whether it is in the fall or the spring - may be submitted as entries in the festival. Students in the past have attended the event for educational purposes, both as spectators and as filmmakers seeking to capture the spirit of the festival on film.
Youth today face a barrage of media influences – some good, some bad. Parents are concerned at the amount of time and attention that their children are spending on electronics and technology, from the internet to iPod use to “entertainment centers.” Young people are growing up with contradictions just as every generation has – the irresistible pull of “forbidden fruit” in the form of exciting new innovations, juxtaposed with parental concern, authority and disapproval. And in this case, the physical wellbeing of young people today is at risk.
How confusing for them. The messages they receive over their use and overuse of technology are so often negative and mixed. And yet, it is their technology. A colleague once said to me, “Imagine that you were born into water. It was your medium, and you knew it intimately, and then you were told that water is bad.”
Teaching youth to use media as a positive force for change and education means that their inherent affinity for and talent with technology are put to good use. A right relationship to technology is possible. Youth can act on their ideals in a positive way, using technology as a tool for their own self-growth.
Despite the high-tech aspects of life today, many of the applications and much of the allure still boils down to an ancient source: story.
Story is a part of being human. Human and cultural survival once depended on (and in many places still does depend on) the oral tradition – passing knowledge from one generation to the next. And we’re still hooked – movies are stories, history is made up of stories, video games often follow intricate storylines. For recent confirmation, you need look no further than the Harry Potter phenomenon to know that people, despite our high-tech world, are still captivated by story. Using story and technology to reach people and to educate them on vital issues, events, and to pass on knowledge is a big part of what we do at Finding the Good.
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