EMPOWERING YOUTH: Accessing Positive Peer Power offers an opportunity for adults to grow as enablers of interactive teaching/learning for youth. This instructional strategy involves, for example, peers solving problems and thinking critically together.
Low-income pre-teens and teenagers as well as affluent pre-teens and teenagers increase their motivation to participate when they are interacting with peers. Motivation to participate is true for peers of any age who interact with other peers.
We need our youth of today, the leaders of tomorrow, to embrace understandings of leadership traits and to practice leadership skills working with peers. These traits and skills are available both to learn and to practice using our book, EMPOWERING YOUTH: Accessing Positive Peer Power.
Enabling youth to grow into understandings and practices of leadership traits and skills with peers would give us all more hope for a better tomorrow.
Interactive teaching/learning as presented in EMPOWERING YOUTH: Accessing Positive Peer Power will put another tool into the instructional “toolbox” of any adult working to educate youth. Peers enjoy interacting with one another. Motivation to participate goes up.
Organizations or adults dedicated to educating youth can grow into interactive teaching/learning. Small peer group work, for example, might start with use once or twice a week. As skills grow doing small peer groups, the desire to increase its use also grows.
Over many years, education reform efforts have done precious little to lift low achieving schools. This is especially true for students in low economic areas. In the main, schools continue to be controlling environments that put a premium on quiet classrooms and minimal student interactions. They are environments that feature mostly lecture and worksheets. Motivating youth to set high expectations and to participate fully remain at a low ebb.
Our book, EMPOWERING YOUTH: Accessing Positive Peer Power seeks to integrate interactive teaching/learning. Peers become active problem solvers with opportunities to work in small groups. Adults continue to teach but they also become enablers and guides who promote active student involvement.
Our book explains for adults the basic strategy for involving youth. what, why and how to integrate interactive teaching/learning with youth. It provides a rationale for why it is important to involve youth and demonstrates how to integrate interactive teaching/learning with youth. Youth then cease to become like sponges soaking up knowledge that is “poured” into them from mainly one-way teaching. Active youth involvement, especially working with peers, spurs motivation to participate and to learn. The result is higher achievement and performance gains for individuals and the organization.
