Help: Teens and OS

[Charles 'Buzz" Blick]

Hi Jay,

I'm sorry that I didn't respond to your request earlier, but I have been out
of town a lot lately and my O.S. listserv reading has been on hold.

I wanted to respond to your request for information about teens and OS.

Over the last 2 years I have helped design and manage 8 community-wide
youth-adult OST events in various-sized Idaho communities.  Seven of the
eight sessions were 3-day events (with computer-assisted report writing) and
one was 2 days long.  Attendance at each was between 50 and 200 young people
and adults.  Judging by the results produced, and the responses of
participants, all but 2 were very successful. The two with mixed results had
a variety of problems, the biggest of which were lack of support by key
adults in the communities and gaps within the pre-conference planning.

Personally, I really enjoy doing OST with teens and adults.  The creativity
and energy of the young people, combined with the experience and political
power to get things done of the adults creates the possibilities for
wonderful results.  I keep getting reports from the communities that the
results are constantly being used as a basis for community action, as well
as needs assessment data for grant proposals.

If you would like a list of local coordinators you could contact for more
information, send me a private return email to (buzz at nwlink.com) and I will
be happy to forward those names to you.

Since you are interested in articles on the subject, you may want to check
out an article that was published on the web in Classroom Leadership Online
http://www.ascd.org/pubs/cl/1oct98.html
 It briefly describes one of the earlier youth-adult OST events I worked on
in Madison County, Idaho.  The title of the article is Students, Parents and
Community Members as Partners in Strategic School-Community Planning.  The
OST example is at the very end.  The rest of the article deals with ideas
for organizing and designing community-wide planning events.

The latest set of four three-day OST sessions I worked on was funded by the
Idaho State Dept. of Education (Safe and Drug-free Schools funds).  I have
not written up the results, but I have produced a five minute PowerPoint 97
slide show of the events.  It includes some background on research
supporting youth-adult collaborative planning, digital photos of the
sessions, summaries of the issues identified in each community, as well as
local contact information.

I would attach a copy of the presentation to an email message, but it is WAY
too large for many email systems (about 2 megs., plus the PowerPoint
readers, for those folks who don't have PowerPoint 97).  It would also take
a lot of time to both send and download.

So, If you are interested in having a copy of the slideshow, here is my
offer.  If you or others on this listserv are interested in getting a copy,
you may send me a PRIVATE email message requesting a copy of the slide show.
Again, my email address is buzz at nwlink.com.  I am making a few CD-ROM copies
of the slideshow for the local contacts, the funding agency and a few
others.  If there is interest from those of you on the listserv, I can have
copies made that would include a PowerPoint player (so you could run it on
the CD-ROM of any IBM compatible machine using any version of Windows, even
if you didn't have PowerPoint97). It will not run on a Mac or Unix system.
I am very willing to send these out for the cost of making them, postage,
and a little bit for my work.  Probably about $15.00(US) each. If anyone is
interested in this, let me know by email (be sure to include your mailing
address).  I will have a copy made and sent to you.  I will trust that you
will send me the $15.00 by return mail.

Jay, all the best with your project! Let me know if I can supply any more
specific information to help convince the "powers that be" that OST works
with teens.


Buzz  Blick


----------
From:   Jay Vogt[SMTP:JayWV at aol.com]
Sent:   Wednesday, May 26, 1999 8:50 AM
Subject:        Help: Teens and OS

Hi all:
I am talking with a respected community health program that brings 200 teens
together with their 50 adult advisors for three days every summer for a
leadership retreat about the possibility of doing a day or more of this
event
in Open Space.

They are very excited about it but are skeptical (isn't everyone?) that it
will work with teens.  They have asked me for cases, for articles, and for
phone numbers of folks who have used it with teens.  If you are willing and
able, please post, or email to me: brief case summaries, phone numbers of
contact persons, and/or references to written material to help me settle
their jitters a bit.

Thanks in advance for your help.  Open Space would be GREAT for these folks.
Best, Jay

Jay W. Vogt
Peoplesworth
166 Hubbard Street
Concord, MA 01742
(978) 371-3134 - Voice
(978) 287-5431 - Fax
jaywv at aol.com - Email