College education is a ripe opportunity for self-reflection and change, as young adults socialize, explore, and experiment in an environment that provides them a safe place to do so. In this environment, we would love to introduce the notion of critical thinking. In fact, our idea would like to take that one step forward by allowing students to think critically about all institutions in general, including education and employment.
Our Concept is a 13 week workshop that is loosely structured around the steps outlined below. Each workshop is faciliated by one person who introduces the topic, brings in a guest speaker, followed by a discussion.
So far, we've been running fortnightly workshops called YouthCafe which was inspired by a concept posted in a previous youth emplyment challenge. You can read more about it below.
( http://greenhousestories.com/youth-cafe/)
( https://openideo.com/challenge/youth-employment/concepting/youthcafe)
The youth cafe is an event where you can listen to the experiences of cool people, as they tell their story of transitioning from education to employment, and grab the tips and tricks they teach you. It is a meet-up where young people in similar situations can get together and work on projects or share stories.
The new workshop will roughly be structured similarly, though we won't just stop at discussions. The participants would also work on a project where they can collaboratively design education to be a process of discovery and learning, and employment as a way to produce value. The goal is not to help students come up with alternative models (though that would be helpful), but rather learn about what is important to themselves, what they expect from their college expereicen, and what they want to do afterward. How could we facilitate college students in thinking critically about ediucation and employment?
The Steps:
Hi, my name is [ENCRYPTED], and I am a Consumer.
- I admit that I have been powerless over consumerism - that my life has become unmanageable.
- I have come to believe that a power within myself can restore me to liberty.
- I have made a decision to turn my will and my life away from the care of institutions as I understood it.
- I have made a searching and fearless ethical inventory of myself.
- I have admitted to institutions, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of our constraints.
- I am entirely ready to have myself remove all these defects of society and myself.
- I have humbly asked myself to remove my shortcomings.
- I have made a list of all my personal liberties institutions have harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- I have made direct amends to such constraints wherever possible, except when to do so would injure myself or others.
- I will continue to take personal inventory, and when I am wrong, promptly admit it.
- I will seek through critical thought and effort to improve my conscious contact with humanity as I understand it, striving only for knowledge of my will for my life and the power to carry that out.
- Having had increased self-awareness as the result of these steps, I will not carry this message to anyone unless they ask to do so, and to practice these principles in all my affairs.
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Anne-Laure Fayard
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Anne-Laure Fayard