Family, school, peers, and community are pivotal in fostering positive development in a child (Bronfenbrenner, 1986). When these worlds of a child are working as they should, childhood becomes a time when the child's fundamental needs are met?a time to love, learn, explore, and give. There is a growing recognition among educators and service providers, however, that these childhood environments are eroding:
In the absence of good support systems, external stresses have become so great that even strong families are falling apart. The hecticness, instability, and inconsistency of daily family life are rampant in all segments of our society, including the well?educated and well-to-do. . . . We a re depriving millions of children of their competence and moral character. (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, as cited in Goleman, 1995, p. 234)
Life in technologically rich but spiritually impoverished schools and communities is difficult. The stressors of life in such circumstances create a toxic environment that is spawning a generation of discouraged children who have lost their sense of well?being (Elkind, 1988; Pipher, 1997).
As Figure 1 illustrates, a child in a toxic environment is in an ecology of "dis-ease" rather than a healthy ecology. The child may experience alienation, with inconsistent discipline and weak parental bonds in the family. School becomes a place marked by failure and conflict. Peers either reject the child or promote antisocial values and irresponsibility in false friendships. The community expects little of youth and, in turn, provides little care and support for them. It is in these roots of alienation, failure, irresponsibility, and selfishness that discouraged children are created. A child who is discouraged is in danger of being hurt by and hurting others.
The wounds of being an unclaimed or forgotten child are deep and disfiguring. Children with affect hunger, a term used by behavioral scientists (Ainsworth, 1989; Bowlby, 1980) who identified a population of children reared in sterile orphanages, strike out and desperately seek ways to fill their need to attach. They connect with gangs and false friends who exploit them. Affect-hungry children become locked in defiant opposition to adults who, if untrained, can reciprocate their anger with counteraggression (Long, Morse, & Newman, 1996). Those who are rejected by their peers have a two to eight times greater chance of dropping out of school (Asher & Gabriel, 1989, as cited in Goleman, 1995, p. 249). The estranged child becomes peer- and adultwary, often biting the hands that do not feed them (Brendtro, Van Bockern, & Clementson, 1995).
Schools are powerful cultures that transmit core values to youth. Wozner (1985) suggested that educational environments can be classified as either reclaiming or nonreclaiming. Reclaiming schools are organized to meet the needs of both the young person and society. Nonreclaiming schools operate only to perpetuate a system that values compliance and conformity. The nonreclaiming environment is focused on tending the school rather than teaching students. In nonreclaiming schools, fear of failure becomes a strategy to control youth (Kohn, 1996). It is a place where students feel increasingly less success the more time they spend in school (Currence, 1984; Morse, 1964). Students experience little engagement or opportunity for challenging activities or self-initiative (Goodlad, 1984; Sizer, 1984). White (1959) explained that, deprived of opportunities for success, young people express their frustration through anger or by retreating in helplessness and inferiority. Often it is in school - the very place that is supposed to nurture success - where students experience their greatest failures.
Defiant youth may seem to relish freedom from adult control; when their lives are empty of attachment, however, they experience the opposite of true independence. Attachment researchers Bowlby (1980) and Ainsworth (1989) suggested that secure autonomy and responsibility are built on a solid base of ongoing human attachment. Unattached youth may noisily proclaim their pseudo independence ("Nobody tells me what to do!"), but this only masks the reality of what they clearly feel: "Nobody really cares." Fighting this feeling and the resulting sense of powerlessness, some youth assert themselves in rebellious, aggressive, and other antisocial ways. Some become violent. Teenage girls get pregnant (Underwood & Albert, 1989, as cited in Goleman, 1995, p. 237). Still other children, who believe they are too weak or too impotent to manage their own lives, become pawns of others. Lacking a sense of control or autonomy in their lives and with little opportunity to practice responsible independence, youth become discouraged.
Unless the natural desire of chiJdren to help and care for others is nourished, they fail to develop a sense of their own value and instead learn to live an empty, self-centered existence in desperate pursuit of empty pleasures in a hedonistic, narcissistic lifestyle. It appears that communities and schools in fact are failing to nourish children's sense of caring, as evidenced by the Search Institute's finding that the spirit of justice and concern for others reaches a peak at fifth grade and then declines (Benson, Williams, & Johnson, 1987). Hedin (1989) further concluded that young people have never been more self-centered or more consumed with money, power, and status than they are at the end of the 20th century. Yet the search for happiness through materialism and selfish pleasure only leads to discouragement for many youth.
Goldstein (1991) noted that much of the psychological literature addresses only the negative side of human behavior. Crime, psychopathology, and aggression are explored in depth. In fact, most of the terms used to describe the emotional and behavioral issues of youth are pejorative and demeaning. Specifically, youth are labeled with "d" words such as disturbed, disordered, deprived, deviant, disadvantaged, disruptive, disrespectful, and disobedient (Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern, 1990). Those who work with young people, then, are led to focus on the negative. To further blame dysfunctional parents, delinquent friends, disrespectful schools, or disadvantaged communities - negative labeling itself - does little to solve the problem. Such labeling does not focus on the strengths that can be found in just about every situation and individual, nor does labeling facilitate the building of strengths.
Research (Benard, 1992; Werner & Smith, 1992) suggested that perhaps as many as 70%, of children from high?risk environments are resilient and survive in spite of the odds. A resiliency perspective asks why young people stay courageous in the midst of discouragement. This perspective attempts to identify assets and protective factors that ensure a child's well-being. Metaphorically, instead of simply providing an ambulance for those who have driven off the cliff, people who focus on strengthening the child are more interested in setting up roadblocks to prevent the child from going over the edge in the first place.
Researchers have identified some of those roadblocks. In a study of thousands of students in Grades 6-12 in just over 500 communities, Benson (1997) identified internal strengths (e.g., achievement motivation) and external supports (e.g., a mentor) that help protect children in a high-risk community. Benson found that, as the number of assets increased, risk indicators (e.g., alcohol abuse, antisocial behavior, school failure) decreased. He also found that students who did 1 or more hours per week of volunteer community service had reduced risk indicators.
Benard (1992) suggested resilient youth have social competence, problem-solving skills, autonomy, and a sense of purpose and of the future. The community, she argued, can protect its children by providing care and support through affordable housing and employment, by having high expectations of its youth, and by engaging youth in socially and economically useful tasks. Her work suggested that the family needs to express affection, provide order, and set clear expectations. Giving children a sense of their future is yet another protective gift families can provide. Benard affirmed the important role that schools play. When schools foster relationships with teachers and peers, cooperate with the family, ensure success for all, and eliminate negative labels, a child's resiliency is strengthened.
Dropout and alternative education researchers (e.g., Newmann, 1992; Wehlage, Rutter, Smith, Lesko, & Fernandez, 1989) have moved from searching for fixed negative characteristics of students (e.g., poverty, grade retention, family background, truancy, substance abuse) toward a search for school practices that encourage students to persist until graduation. Damico and Roth (1994) synthesized much of this research and concluded that resilient or persistent students had caring teachers who liked them and liked teaching, structured successful learning experiences, conveyed a message that students could learn, used varied instruction strategies, involved students, had small classes, and helped their students become test-smart.
In the book Reclaiming Youth at Risk: Our Hope for the Future, Brendtro and colleagues (1990) proposed a strength-based model of youth empowerment. Grounded in contemporary developmental research, the perceptive insight of early youth work pioneers, and Native American philosophies of child care, these authors suggested that belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity are the core needs of all children. They further argued that these core needs transcend culture and are the birthright of all children. Helping children have these needs met can become the shared vision that drives the work of caring adults.
Adler (1990) suggested that one of the great philosophical mistakes of the late 20th century was to suggest there are no absolute values. All values, he argued, are expressions of either wants or needs. Wants are personal or cultural preferences and are thus relative values; but human needs are universal, and absolute human values are those tied to absolute human needs. Using Adler's reasoning, belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity express absolute values. Children in every culture need to belong. Depriving a child of care is universally evil. Children by their nature are created to strive for mastery; thus, schools that sabotage this motivation for competence are maltreating children. Children from any background have the need for self-determination; to block this development of independence is to commit an injustice. Finally, from the dawn of cooperative civilization, children have sought to give back to others the concern they have been shown by others. If educators fail to provide children with opportunities for caring and generosity, they extinguish their students' human spirit.
Native American philosophies of child care represent what is perhaps one of the most effective systems of child development. These approaches emerged from cultures in which the central purpose of life was the education and empowerment of children. They understood the importance of meeting the needs of belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. Lakota Sioux artist George Bluebird has portrayed this philosophy of healthy child development as the circular medicine wheel shown in Figure 2. Native Americans see the person as standing in the circle surrounded by the four directions, with the circle being the symbol for life connecting light and dark, good and evil, giving and receiving, and even life and death.
It is notable that contemporary research has validated what Native American cultures intuitively understand. For example, fostering selfesteem is a primary goal in socializing children; without a sense of selfworth, a young person from any cultural or family background is vulnerable to a host of social, psychological, and learning problems (Gilliland, 1988). In his definitive work on self?concept in childhood, Coopersmith (1967) observed that significance, competence, power, and virtue are four basic components of self?esteem. Traditional Native American educational practices addressed each of these four components:
GENEROSITY
INDEPENDENCE......................................BELONGING
MASTERY
Figure 2. The Circle of Courage. (Copyright @ 1999 by ReclaimingYouth International; reprinted by permission.)
In traditional Native American society, it was the duty of all adults to serve as teachers for younger people. Child rearing was not just the province of biological parents. Children were nurtured within a larger circle of significant others. From the earliest days of life, the child experienced a network of caring adults. Kinship in tribes was not strictly a matter of biological relationships but rather a learned way of viewing those who shared a community of residence. The ultimate test of kinship was behavior, not blood; one belonged if one acted as if one belonged (Walker, 1982).
Marty (1987) observed that contemporary civilization is threatened by a loss of this sense of community that characterizes tribal peoples. Consequently, children at the turn of the 21st century are desperately pursuing artificial belongings (e.g., gangs, cults). For many children who are troubled, healthy belonging is found only in relationships with caring adults who are willing to create a community.
The goal of Native American education was to develop cognitive, physical, social, and spiritual competence. Among the first lessons that a child learned were self-control and self-restraint in the presence of parents and other adults. Children were taught that wisdom came from listening to and observing their elders. Ceremonies and oral legends transmitted ideals to the younger generation. Stories were used not only to entertain but also to teach models of behavior and ways of perceiving the world. Such lessons became more meaningful with repetition; the more one listened, the more wisdom that was revealed. Stories facilitated remembering information and functioned as a higher-order mental process that made sense of human existence (Reitz, 1988).
Competence or mastery was also cultivated by games and creative play that simulated adult responsibility. Dolls and puppies taught girls nurturing behaviors, and boys were given miniature bows and arrows in preparation for the hunting role. The learning that came from such activities was effortless because the motivation to strive toward competency and group involvement provided powerful intrinsic reinforcement. Play was encouraged but was balanced by an emphasis on work.
Success and mastery produced social recognition as well as inner satisfaction. Native American children were taught to generously acknowledge the achievements of others, but a person who received honor must always accept this honor without arrogance. Someone who was more skilled than oneself was seen as a model, not as a competitor (Standing Bear, 1933/1978).
The simple wisdom of Native American culture was that, because all people need to feel competent, all must be encouraged in their competency. Striving was for the attainment of a personal goal, not to achieve superiority over one's opponent. Just as one felt ownership in the success of others, one also learned to share personal achievements with others. Success became a possession of the many, not the privilege of the few.
Traditional Native American culture placed a high value on individual freedom. Survival outside the camp circle depended on making independent judgments, so training in self-management began in early childhood. Children made decisions, which fostered a sense of responsibility for their failure or success. The individual answered to selfimposed goals and not to demands imposed by others (Bryde, 1971). In contrast to obedience models of discipline, guidance was given without interference. Elders taught values and provided models, but the child was given increasing opportunities to learn to make choices without coercion.
Native American elders believed that, if children were to be taught responsibility, they must be approached with maturity and dignity. In the 19th century, Haines (1888) observed that Indians were fond of their children and treated them with the greatest respect and consideration. The main strategy of behavior control was kindly lecturing that began as soon as the child was able to communicate. Blue Whirlwind (Hassrick, 1964) related that his people never struck their children. Rather, Blue Whirlwind indicated that children were spoken to gently, never harshly, because they were loved. If they were doing something wrong, they were asked to stop. Such gentleness did not imply permissiveness, as a Pegian elder explained: "My parents really pushed and disciplined us as we were growing up. They were very clear as to what our responsibilities were and what they expected from us. If we failed to meet our responsibilities, we were thoroughly lectured on what we were doing wrong" (Graff, 1987, p. 84).
Standing Bear's (1933/1978) approach to rewards and punishments challenges many contemporary theories of child management. Children were never offered prizes or rewards for doing something well. The achievement itself was the appropriate reward, and to put anything above the achievement was to implant unhealthy ideas in the minds of children and make them weak. Likewise, harsh punishment was seen as destructive. In place of rewards and punishments were modeling, group influence, discussion, and positive expectations.
Growth toward independence does not mean that a young person no longer has a need for nurturance. As Maier put it, "Children's ability to separate and manage on their own is anchored in the degree of security of their attachments" (1987, p. 161). Many who work with adolescents confuse those needs by disengaging from dependency relationships while perpetuating behavioral dependence. Native American child care philosophy recognized the necessity of harmonizing apparently conflicting needs by blending autonomy with belonging.
A recurrent message in Native American culture is that the highest virtue is to be generous and unselfish. Long before he could participate in the hunt, a boy would took forward to that day when he would bring home his first game and give it to people in need (Black Elk, 1932/1993). Training in altruism began in earliest childhood. When a mother would share food with the needy, she would give portions to her children so that they could experience the satisfaction of giving (Standing Bear, 1933/1978). Children were instructed to always share generously without holding back. Eastman (1902/1993) told of his grandmother teaching him to give away what he cherished most, his puppy, so that he would become strong and courageous.
Giving was a part of many ceremonies, such as a marriage or a memorial to a loved one. People engaged in gift giving upon the least provocation: Children brought food to their elders' teepees, and women made useful and artistic presents for orphans and widows. Prestige was accorded to those who gave unreservedly, and those with nothing to give were pitied. To accumulate property for its own sake was disgraceful (Hassrick, 1964).
Unlike communal societies, in which property was owned collectively, individual ownership prevailed in Native American cultures; however, property was not acquired for conspicuous consumption but to be better able to help others. Material possessions were less important than people, and the test of one's right values was to be able to give anything without one's pulse quickening. Those not observing these customs were seen as suspicious characters whose values were based on selfishness. Although generosity served to redistribute wealth, giving had more than an economic rationale. Core values of sharing and community responsibility were deeply ingrained in the community. Giving was not confined to property but rather permeated all aspects of Native American culture.
Native American culture shares with Western democracy the fundamental tenet of responsibility for the welfare of all others in the community. Conrad and Hedin (1987) called for a return to the spirit of service among contemporary youth to counter the attitude of "looking out for number I" that is rampant in the United States at the end of the 20th century. They noted that nearly all reports on the status of U.S. education recommend more opportunities in the curriculum for students to become involved in community service. Brendtro and Ness (1983) demonstrated that young people who are troubled increase their sense of self-worth as they become committed to the positive value of caring for others. Elkind (1998) suggested that helping others improves young people's self?esteem and that increased self?esteem allows young people to "decenter" and contribute to the well-being of others. Selye (1974), the pioneer of stress psychology, concluded that altruism is the ultimate resource for coping with life's conflicts because, in reaching out to help another, one breaks free frorn preoccupation with oneself.
Without belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity, there can be no courage, only discouragement. When the Circle of Courage (see Figure 2) is broken, the lives of children are no longer in what Menninger (1963) called the vital balance. This harmony can be created or reclaimed only when the child's environment includes the core values represented in the Circle of Courage. In reclaiming environments, the child's need for belonging is nourished without neglecting the child's corresponding need for autonomy. Youth are taught to make independent decisions as they are taught to respect the wisdom and advice of caring and competent adults. Mastery is ensured in order to empower the child's acts of greater service to others.
Building reclaiming environments is no simple task, although beginning construction can be as simple as changing negative signs that are hung on the walls of the school building, hanging plants in the office, or cleaning dirty walls. Teachers can be trained to encourage greater classroom discussion, and students can be given greater freedom to make choices about assignments and classroom rules. Students might sing at a nursing facility. Although such a start is largely uncoordinated and unorganized, it can lead to more integrative changes that pervade the entire fabric of the learning community. Individuals can initiate construction, but it is best if everyone involved works together to realize the shared goals of belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. Eventually, a reclaiming philosophy can become internalized in the institutions' norms. At this level, there is a synergy that allows the school community to examine policies, practices, programs, and procedures in light of the developmental needs of young people. The following sections of the chapter highlight ideas that can provide a framework for building reclaiming environments.
Early education pioneers saw positive human attachments as the sine qua non of effective teaching. Johann Pestalozzi declared that love, not teaching, was the essence of education. In his classic book, Wayward Youth, Aichorn (1935) argued that relationship was at the heart of the reeducation process. His ethic was that affection rather than punishment must be dispensed to youth who exhibit difficult behavior because that is their primary unmet need. Research supports such thinking: Brophy (1986) found that the quality of human relationships in schools and youth service programs may be more influential than any specific techniques or interventions employed.
Teachers with widely divergent instruction styles can be successful if they develop positive classroom climates. Purkey and Novak (1996) offered practical and easily implemented belonging strategies and activities in their book, Inviting School Success. Examples include sending postcards to welcome students before classes begin; maintaining "recognition books" that contain articles featuring students; and having each class select an emblem, motto, or class color.
Fahlberg (1991) described three modes of building relationsh for preventing and treating attachment problems:
Learning to build relationships with children in crisis can be difficult. People are born with an instinctive urge to fight or flee when threatened, and children in crisis threaten untrained adults. With the 68 Van Bockern, Brendtro, and Brokenleg understanding that comes with training, however, adults and young people also can learn to be strong and fight these urges to get into conflicts with youth. Building on the work of Redl (1966), Wood and Long (1991), and others, the Life Space Crisis Intervention Institute (Long & Fecser, 1997) developed reclaiming interventions that support youth in periods of turbulence. Instead of walling off the youth in crisis, the goal is to surround the young person by using the crisis as an opportunity to teach and build new skills.
Positive attachments between adults and youth are the foundation of effective education. These individual bonds, however, must be part of a synergistic network of relationships that permeate the school culture. These include positive peer relationships among students, a cooperative teamwork relationship among school staff, and genuine partnerships with parents. The middle school movement, with its emphasis on fostering attachments, does much to foster belonging in schooling. Typically, schedules are designed so that frequent and sustained contact between students and teachers is possible. Often, a team of four or five adults, including teachers, administrators, and counselors, serves a core group of students on a daily basis. Thus, administrators and school board members must see their roles as co-workers in support of their staff, not as superiors trying to dominate. In the final analysis, only adults who are themselves empowered are free to build empowering relationships with youth.
Hart (1998), who has summarized brain research related to education, suggested that the brain is designed to detect patterns and works best in nonthreatening, active, and social environments. With increased knowledge of how the human brain functions, schools can be restructured so that they are "brain-friendly."
Traditional educational approaches were developed centuries before humankind had developed any scientific understanding of the human brain. Youth work pioneers such as Montessori (1967), Italy's first female physician, decried the obedience tradition of schooling. She tried to revolutionize learning to be brain?friendly in the belief that curiosity and the desire to learn come naturally to children. Even earlier, Addams (1909/1972), writing in The Spirit of Youth aud the City Streets, observed that many of the difficulties of youth were related to the reality that they were highly spirited and adventurous and unmotivated by the humdrum routine of most schools. Outdoor education programs build on this spirit of adventure. In some outdoor wilderness programs, the struggle against the elements of nature keeps even the most resistant youth from defying the law of natural consequences (Bacon & Kimball, 1989). Less risky field trips to rivers, forests, and farms also engage students in ways that sterile, traditional curricula are unable to accomplish. For example, the Illinois River Project (Williams, Bidlack, & Winnett, 1993), which has as its ultimate goal scientific literacy, engages students from more than 150 schools in six states in analyzing water samples from various test sites along rivers. Through an integrated curriculum, students in science, social studies, and English classes examine historical, social, and economic implications of the status of these rivers. A Rivers Project (Williams, 1999) in the areas of chemistry, biology, geology, geography, and language arts can be applied using any river in the world.
Teaching and learning that centers on competition instead of cooperation can be "brain-unfriendly." Teachers eliminate students from practicing and developing skills when they focus on finding, developing, and celebrating the best. Novice ball dribblers and rope skippers, those who need the practice the most, often are the first to sit down when they fail to meet expectations. In The Second Cooperative Sports and Games Book (1982), Orlick pointed out that the King of the Mountain-type games that permeate schools keep all but one child from achieving. When the outcome in competition is made to seem important, young people cheat, hurt other children, and engage in deception to get to the top.
Equally unfriendly to the brain are the teacher-dominated instruction techniques of uninspired, lengthy lectures and recitations. In contrast, the whole-language movement recognizes the value of an integrated curriculum that irnmerses students in authentic projects and social exchange of ideas. Teachers can use stories and Socratic methods (use of questions and teacher-student dialogue) to engage students in important ideas.
As important as academic content is, there is as great a need to ensure that our children develop their emotional intelligence. Yale psychologist Salovey summarized the five main domains of emotional intelligence: knowing one's emotions, being able to manage those emotions, motivating oneself, recognizing emotions in others, and handling relationships (Salovey & Mayor, 1990, as cited in Goleman, 1995, p. 42). Goleman (1995) argued that a person's success in life can be attributed more to his or her emotional intelligence than to his or her cognitive abilities. Findings from the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs support this position. Specifically, the center found that school success is predicted by measures such as being self-assured and interested; knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in the impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, follow directions, and turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children (Brazelton, 1992, as cited in Goleman, 1995, p. 193). Information alone does not seem to solve problems. The wars on drugs, teen pregnancy, suicide, alcohol, dropouts, and violence will be lost unless information is combined with attention to young people's longer-term emotional and social development.
Finally, emotional literacy programs do more than increase a student's "emotional IQ." Programs and schools around the United States are finding that academic achievement scores and school performance are improved when the emotional needs of children are strengthened. Such programs include the Child Development Project, the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program, Parents and Teachers Helping Students (PATHS), the Augusta Lewis Troupe Middle School, and the Neva Learning Center (Goleman, 1995).
How do people develop responsible independence and self-discipline in youth? Early in the 20th century, educational reformers challenged traditional authoritarian pedagogy and obedience models of developing self-discipline. Montessori (1967), who created schools for disadvantaged children, wrote passionately about the need to build inner discipline. Korczak (1967), a Polish doctor and social pedagogue, proclaimed the child's right to be treated with respect. He created a children's newspaper so that the voices of children might be heard. Dewey (1916/1929), the American pioneer of progressive education, advocated democratic school communities in which students and teachers worked to pose questions and solve problems. All of these youth pioneers shared the understanding that children need to experience power or control in their own lives.
More recently, Glasser (1998) argued strongly for innovations in child management that allow youth to exert power over their lives. His premise is that discipline never really succeeds if it does not recognize the universal need of all people to be free to control themselves and to be able to influence others. Hoffman (1977) cited child development research showing that management by power assertion causes children to perceive moral standards as externally imposed. Often children resist such control or respond to it only when they are under the threat of cultural sanctions. Such studies support an alternative management strategy of inductive discipline, which involves communicating to children the effect of their behavior on others while fostering empathy and responsibility.
To create responsible independence in youth, Kohn (1996) argued that educators need to move from an atmosphere that emphasizes compliance to one that emphasizes community. This approach entails giving children real choices and a say in the classroom, eliminating punitive consequences and rewards, and conducting meaningful classroom meetings. Transferring power to children enables their choosing, trying, and doing?the building blocks of independence. Waiting patiently for a 2-year-old to pour his own milk, allowing a 3-year-old to struggle with her coat, and sending a 6-year-old to the office with a message builds these children's independence.
In summary, obedience models of discipline are based on reactive, arbitrary, and adult?imposed consequences. Control of behavior, the ultimate desired outcome of the obedience model, comes from external, psychological, and physical threats. In contrast, independence models of discipline are proactive, absent of psychological and physical threat, and dependent on teaching social responsibility. Like the obedience model, control of behavior is the desired outcome. Unlike the obedience model, independence models of discipline seek the child's inner control, a self-efficacy that allows the child to do the right thing when he or she is not under surveillance. Curwin and Mendler (1988), authors of Discipline with Dignity, developed a systematic approach to discipline expressly designed to build the child's inner control.
Service teaming can give meaning to children's lives. Evidence suggests that, when youth are involved with helping, positive results occur. Hedin (1989) summarized various research that supports the positive results of volunteer service, including increased responsibility, self-esteem, moral development, and commitment to democratic values. In addition, she cited a series of findings that identify intellectual gains that accrue from helping others.
Maryland was the first state to incorporate volunteerism as part of the curriculum. It produced curricula for high schools, special education, and middle schools (Ayers & Limages, 1997). Maryland has defined student service as caring for others through personal contact, indirect service, or civic action, either in the school or in the community, that requires preparation and reflection. Stories of service learning success abound in schools all over the state. In Howard County, Maryland, students proposed and worked to pass a bicycle helmet law. The student government organization in Baltimore City opened and continues to run a food pantry in a poor neighborhood. In Allegany County, Maryland, students produced and distributed a booklet about child abuse (Van Bockern, 1993).
Integrating service learning into the curriculum can happen at three levels. First, it can involve extracurricular volunteer work. Students do not receive credit and are not allotted time during school hours to participate. At Chadwick School in Los Angeles, privileged students run a soup kitchen, help individuals with various needs, put on plays, work with children at risk for developmental delays or school failure, and campaign for environmental protection. In Connecticut, students serve as the professional rescue squad for a semirural area. All of these programs value young people's abilities to participate and help in the community (Lewis, 1990).
On another level, a unit may be offered in a general class that complements the traditional course content. In a home economics class, for example, students might sew clothes for homeless families; an English class might publish a newsletter for the local neighborhood watch organization. Teachers might assign independent study work to be done outside class, as did two high school teachers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota: The teachers assigned 81 students in their American studies classes to do volunteer work in the hope that their students would learn the value of giving (Olson, 1990). The assignment was made after the students read Emerson's (1844/1983) essay "Gifts," which states that a gift must be necessary, chosen especially for an individual, and given from the heart. The students were asked to put the words into action. Some worked at a food pantry, and others went caroling at nursing facilities. One group volunteered to help at a shelter for abused women and children. Some offered to volunteer their time at the Humane Society. Four students spent hours at the zoo, feeding penguins or cleaning out the buffalos' pens.
What children need in order to love, learn, explore, and give - to be whole - is not a mystery. Traditional Native American child-rearing philosophies provide a powerful example of education and youth development at its best. Early European anthropologists described Native American children as radiantly happy, highly respectful, and courageous. Refined over thousands of years, Native Americans' approach to child rearing challenged the narrow perspectives of many latter-day psychological theories and politicians' Zero-tolerance, gettough rhetoric. From Native American cultures, the insight of early youth work pioneers, and contemporary research, one may deduce what can be done to reclaim troubled and troubling youth.
Specifically, families, schools, communities, and caring individuals can work to ensure that children's most basic needs are met. Blaming school systems for allowing children to fall through the cracks frequently misses the mark. Parent (1998) suggested that, too often, children fall through our own fingers. Reclaiming children requires each educator to be courageous and willing to struggle with imperfect systems in order to make sure that belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity are made available for all children.