Helping Kids Succeed Alaskan Style!
Practical Suggestions for Building Assets in Your Child
Asset # 27- Equality and Social Justice
Youth places high value on promoting equality and reducing
hunger and poverty. I remember growing up in Petersburg there were always plenty
of opportunities to give to others.
There were often canned food drives at school, the individual
classes would compete against the other classes to see who could bring in
the most food. The church I grew up
in also had a food bank and I remember my mom bringing food in
regularly. In high school I remember one particular world event that
planted an idea in a teachers mind.
I can't remember the specific event but there were a lot of people
without clothing. She asked all the
high school students to bring in their used clothing, and specifically
asked the girls to bring in their used prom dresses. The commons area filled up within days,
bag after bag of clothing. The
spirit of giving was contagious in the school. I remember getting goose bumps when I saw
the results of that one idea. Chances are if you plant a good idea in a student's mind they
will run with it and it will spread like wild fire through the school. Can you think of suggestions you could
make to a student? Some ideas are; a food drive, a clothing drive, or an event
when everybody rallies together to serve food at the shelter or sort
through donations at the Salvation Army.
These are all ideas you can present to your child, a friend's son or
daughter, a teacher, or a student body government. There are so many ways that adults can
encourage youth to promote equality and reduce hunger and poverty. I hope that you will encourage youth in your community to
stand up for what they believe is right, as well as helping others out who
may not have food or money. It is
great to see a community where the youth take the initiative to act and the
adults support them! Research When youth promote equality and place high value on reducing
hunger and poverty they are more likely to grow up healthy and
successful. There are internal and
external rewards to possessing this asset, some examples are; Greater
competence (Call,
Mortimer, & Shanahan, 1995) Higher
perceived scholastic competence, less worry
about school (Johnson,
1993) Higher
levels of prosocial behavior (Eisenberg,
Miller, Shelly, McNalley, & Shea, 1991;
Estrada, 1995; Ford, Wentzel, Wood, Stevens,
& Siesfeld, 1989; and others) Better
formal reasoning skills (Darmody,
1991) Quotes: "If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the
black and the white notes together." -Richard Milhous
Nixon "Choose your friends by their character and your socks by
their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and
choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable." -Anon. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We
are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment
of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." -Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham
Jail, April 16, 1963 This newsletter and
other asset resources are produced by the Association of
Alaska School Boards Alaska Initiative for Community Engagement
(Alaska ICE) 316 West 11th Street Juneau, Alaska 99801 Tel: (907) 586-1486 Fax: (907) 586-1450 Email: alaskaice@aasb.org
Words of Encouragement
Jennifer
Loesch