One of Oneville’s core goals is to empower young people to be active agents in their learning and education.  Another is to engage people throughout the community in supporting young people. So how can young people stay “in charge” and feel supported at all times?

One promising approach may be to engage young people in establishing and tapping their own team of supporters. Lots of schools have support teams for some students; these teams meet face to face to discuss student progress. But what if every young person had a team of supporters, and could help choose members for that team? What if team members could be reachable at any time to provide ideas, guidance and resources as needed? Would the young person actively engage these people on her own behalf – or serve on the “team” of someone else?

This summer we started exploring the model of a “support team around each young person” in two summer school classrooms of insightful young people and a teacher from Somerville High.  We wanted to find out who the students would want on such a support team and how they would want to interact with team members.  Since both students and teacher agreed that no one had enough time to meet in person, we all agreed quickly that technology — such as a “social network,” email or texting – could include team members who couldn’t make face to face meetings or scheduled calls. In fact, what if team members could reach out to each other – and respond — whenever they had a free moment?

From a mixture of group conversations, individual interviews, and surveys filled out by the students, we arrived at some very interesting findings. Some affirmed beliefs we had going in and others raised new questions and redirected our efforts.

One repeated finding was that in addition to valuing parents, guardians, same-age peers, and key school personnel as “go-to” supporters, many youth particularly valued older “buddies”  — often cousins, friends, and sometimes siblings, in their late teens or early 20s — who advised them on homework and graduation and got them through emotional rough spots. Many spoke of older buddies who inspired them to think big, reach goals, and stay focused.

Young people also spoke of needing regular access to information (many wanted to check up more regularly on their attendance and assignments, for example). But many also valued familiarity and trust over the obvious resources or information that a person could provide. For example, one youth sought out a prior history teacher rather than a current one to help out with history class. Another student looking for information about a potential college major relied on a serendipitous conversation with a sister of a friend instead of reaching out to less-familiar teachers or other school staff.  Youth spoke of particularly valuing teachers who made the extra effort to forge personal connections to them, though never being just like “friends.”

Another major finding was that students preferred to use different technology with different people.  Texting, talking on the phone, and meeting in person were the preferred methods of interaction, ranked above email, IM, and social networks even while the majority “had a Facebook” (even those without a home computer). Texting was used most with other young people (some reported receiving hundreds of text messages daily); many also texted at times with parents. Students were at first skeptical when asked whether they’d like to text with teachers, as they considered texting more of a peer to peer communication. But upon further discussion, the young people said that they’d be fine with their teacher texting them to offer supports (homework or test reminders) if the more social, anytime conversation aspect of texting was left to peer culture (no one wanted a teacher “blowing up” their phone). As opposed to a computer, a phone was “always in my pocket,” making it the communication tool most likely to succeed. On a final survey, a number of students said they’d even welcome daily contact from or with a “support team.”

So, we’re now hoping to pilot a model where “teams around kids” text each other as needed, in one classroom of people excited to try out the approach. We’ll keep Somerville young people, teachers, family members, and “buddies” in the driver’s seat of designing a structure and process for these “teams.” We’ll keep you updated on our progress.