The Youth Question

[Samantha Given-Dennis]

I have spent a good amount of time this summer with three boys, ages 5, 8, and 9 and have realized that a root to my issues with relating to children is that I lament their inability to recognize space, that spacial importance during childhood only gains weight when one is old enough to realize the effect space had and continues to have on their life. I know that when I was a child places had a profound influence on my senses, yet it was only until later in life that I could reflect on this.

So here is my question--how do we make sure that the average college aged student is conscious about their environs and more inclined to take initiative to improve public places, or at least appreciate them, upon entrance into the "real world?"

I gauge a general lack in critical thinking and discussion around places and spaces from my own experience with college students and from my experience within the world of social enterprise and innovation. Aside from some cases of student/public art on campus, students are more or less disconnected with the function of space on their campus. Seldom do you see ventures funded by organizations like Ashoka's Youth Venture, Echoing Green, and Sparkseed attempting to conquer space, design, and community.

I note that recently I have encountered discussion on changemaking as applied to public space frequently, which is fantastic. So how do we get these discussions to trickle down to reach the people who will feed the movement?

[Rebecca Sanborn Stone]

As a former teacher of average college-aged students, I can attest that this is a tough one. I tried very hard to instill a sense of place in students who took my intro environmental studies classes to fill a requirement, but I doubt that I succeeded with more than a handful. They could understand pollution and population issues and climate change, but it was much too foreign for them to really engage with the places right outside the doorstep.

In my experience, the best shot may be in finding a smaller number of students who really have the potential to think about place and space and take action around it and engaging them intensely in the experience of placemaking.

I've been working for the past two years on a great youth engagement project in Manchester, Vermont. The Select Board appointed two high school students to each Town board and commission, so students have now been serving as full voting members on the planning commission, design review board, development review board, etc. Feedback from the students shows that the experience has changed them in exactly the way you describe. Nearly all report that they never thought about design, planning or public spaces before serving on boards and never knew how to become involved with the community. Nearly all report that after serving on boards they do think about these issues and many plan to study them in college and stay involved as citizens when they graduate. (learn more at http://www.orton.org/projects/manchester)

If I could point to a single thing that really made me think critically about these issues as a college student, it was an Environmental Planning course that I was required to take for my concentration in environmental studies. The professor made us all attend a few town planning commission meetings, which was the first time I really understood the land use planning process. Then we all had to take on community planning projects for real clients, with real consequences. We had to learn how to read zoning bylaws and deed restrictions, how to talk to stakeholders, and how to think about alternatives. My classmates didn't all go into planning or placemaking, but a lot of us did, and I'd wager we all at least look at communities and spaces differently today.

[Samantha Given-Dennis]

Thanks so much for your insight, Rebecca! I grew up surrounded by planners and architects; your comments brought light to my biased intuition, yet, in effect prove that education of that sort is an imperative.

Rebecca Sanborn Stone said:

As a former teacher of average college-aged students, I can attest that this is a tough one. I tried very hard to instill a sense of place in students who took my intro environmental studies classes to fill a requirement, but I doubt that I succeeded with more than a handful. They could understand pollution and population issues and climate change, but it was much too foreign for them to really engage with the places right outside the doorstep.

In my experience, the best shot may be in finding a smaller number of students who really have the potential to think about place and space and take action around it and engaging them intensely in the experience of placemaking.

I've been working for the past two years on a great youth engagement project in Manchester, Vermont. The Select Board appointed two high school students to each Town board and commission, so students have now been serving as full voting members on the planning commission, design review board, development review board, etc. Feedback from the students shows that the experience has changed them in exactly the way you describe. Nearly all report that they never thought about design, planning or public spaces before serving on boards and never knew how to become involved with the community. Nearly all report that after serving on boards they do think about these issues and many plan to study them in college and stay involved as citizens when they graduate. (learn more at http://www.orton.org/projects/manchester)

If I could point to a single thing that really made me think critically about these issues as a college student, it was an Environmental Planning course that I was required to take for my concentration in environmental studies. The professor made us all attend a few town planning commission meetings, which was the first time I really understood the land use planning process. Then we all had to take on community planning projects for real clients, with real consequences. We had to learn how to read zoning bylaws and deed restrictions, how to talk to stakeholders, and how to think about alternatives. My classmates didn't all go into planning or placemaking, but a lot of us did, and I'd wager we all at least look at communities and spaces differently today.

[Sanalin]

I studied Nonprofit Leadership and Management at Arizona State University. My degree was in the School of Community Resources and Development along with Tourism/Rec and Parks/Rec, and so we shared a lot of prereq classes dealing less with the fundamentals of planning and design and more with the concepts. I think that's an incredibly important distinction to make when discussing college-aged students. First, I feel that when targeting this demographic, it's important to get them early on. In my program, a major problem we had was that people didn't know about it until they stumbled across it in their sophomore or junior year. By targeting younger college-aged students, you can get them interested in concepts about community building without bogging them down with detailed structural issues. For example, I had a class called Sustainable Communities in which we obviously discussed issues of environmental sustainability, but also community sustainability and engaging large segments of the population in a few key, energizing events. If I had had to sit through a lecture on zoning issues, I would have been much less inclined to continue that course of study to a level where zoning issues would be an interest.

Beyond that, I think it's just inclination. I mean, a lot of people are oblivious to everything beyond their own immediate problems. If that weren't the case, we wouldn't even need specific people focusing to make sure that the needs of place are met. One of my teachers framed most of our discussions that way, which really stuck with me, because it places the burden of responisiblity on anyone and everyone who thinks they might "get it."

[Stephen B. Lafferty]

I always find it interesting that when a person starts talking about a city or country they recently visited, they first talk about a place they visited; the second topic is usually focuses on something they did, third is about someone they met, and then the conversation circles around back to a place...

This is so often a type of subconscious and natural communication, but once it is pointed out and brought to the surface, a light bulb often turns on.

While this "Ah-Ha moment" may simply be an interesting observation to most, if this simple and everyday conversation pattern is formalized, reinforced and emphasized through a creative exercise to the point that it truly makes an impact upon the student, then, every time this interchange occurs, the student cannot help but realize the impact that spaces have on people.