Paul KivelBesprekingen

Good workbook-type read for understanding and challenging systemic racism.

Reprinted 2017.

VHS and workbook set.

I have recieved this book free of charge from Librarything and am in no way bound to give a positive review

Why I started this book: While reading through the list of books being offered this title caught my eye. As violence continues to grow, seeing the need for community change and all the call to stand for justice really attracted me to this book.

General thoughts; This book, while well intentioned, was mediocre in my opinion. This book was like an introduction to the topic and not well fleshed out. I found it to be too liberal for my tastes.

Why I finished this book: I finished this book because it was worth reading once. I finished this book a long time ago and forgot to write a review until now. I am thankful for being accepted to review this book. This book would be worthwhile to use and discuss in a youth group so more critical thinking can flesh out some of the material.

This book is not incredibly deep, but I believe it is a good introduction to these topics for teens. Most teenagers don't really have a true understanding of what privilege, prejudice, and discrimination are. It introduces concepts such as socialization that most teens have never heard of. The book is not intended to be therapeutic, but it does bring up issues that many teens will have experience with. Because it might evoke emotion and pain, and it brings up some issues the teens may need help dealing with, this sort of a book would be best used by a social worker equipped with the skills to do some light counseling.½

While I don't think this book is the fix all for the problems our teens and pre-teens face today, I do feel it is a good starting place. The format is user friendly and the role play shouldn't have the teens rolling their eyes so far back in their head that there is danger of permanant damange, this is said toung in cheek but I have seen some books that have that problem. I think that this book would be helpful not only to the targeted group but to the teachers, parents and youth group leaders as well. We all need to learn how to better relate to those about us.

I imagine this book would be of great use to teachers or other adults who work with troubled teens and adults. From a non-teacher & parent of pretty well adjusted kids, I came to realise from reading the role-playing exercises that ANYONE can be a target for discrimination, not just the well documented and published problems such as race, sexual orientation, or disability.

This is a absolutely fantastic guide to working with youth, empowerment practices, and the importance of self-reflection, self-awareness, and appropriate use of self-disclosure when working with youth. It covers the importance of social justice, working within marginalized communities, and offers exercises for building competence, confidence, and trust in helping and mentoring relationships with youth. Highly recommended.

I would recomend this resource book for those who are involved in teen centers and guidance in high schools of urban and suburban city developments.
The book is set up as a workbook with many different exercises for the facilitators, many of which, help put them into the eyes and shoes of today's teen.
Issues covered are not only about racial, but also those of sexual choice, religous, body type (ie...over weight), and ethnic background

Folks, can I tell you how EXCITED I was to receive this book? I'm a teacher. I work with at-risk students. AND (!) the goal this year on our team is to build community within the school and within the neighborhoods.

I immediately opened the pages upon receipt, sitting down on the couch with plans to read the afternoon away. And then I stopped. About one-third of the way through.

I found the "introspective" questionnaires and situations more apt for an inexperienced individual working with teens. (Or one that spends little time in reflection?). I found the exercises not terribly practical for my my team and my students.

AND FINALLY ! About a third through I was so over the -isms. Yes, I get it. We have loads of them already. But the (over)use of adultism for ran me running for the hills.

Another teacher, another day perhaps.

What it is: A 200ish page compilation of consciousness-raising activities for teens, focused on the power hierarchies and some of the "isms" political and economic systems in the U.S. might seem to support: adultism, sexism and heterosexism, racism, and able-ism (this last one focused on systemic discrimination against those with 'disabilities'), to name a few. Also offered: chapters with activities related to Christian hegemony, anti-immigrant oppression, and environmental justice.

What it isn't, that I assumed - from the title - it would be: A practical system for helping teens move from awareness to action. In fact, there wasn't more than 20 pages' worth of content related to what teens can do to build community (and that's a generous estimate), unless you count whatever community is built naturally among participants in the no-doubt thought-provoking but also emotionally risky activities that form the bulk of the book.

I do appreciate the opportunities this book provided for sometimes-uncomfortable personal reflection on my role as a part of an educational system that has - in the past and to some degree in the present - tended to reinforce cultural norms. Heightened awareness of one's cultural framework/worldview, and the degree to which one's personal ethics or morals depart from or coincide with them is - in my view - an outcome worth applauding, and so I suspect that the activities herein could prove enlightening, sometimes surprising, and perhaps even life-changing for teens.

A great resource for teachers (and parents!) who teach older students-- I would see this as a useful addition to an advisory program, especially for those students who deal with certain issues every day. The activities included really help to support the student and give them a voice!

The book provides a realistic perspective on how adults can relate to troubled teens. More often, then not counselors, probation officers and teachers truly cannot relate to teenagers. This book enables the reader to explore the differences between a teenagers thought process and an adult's ideas on how a teens mind should work. A good read and very instructive.

Helping Teens Stop Violence will obviously be most useful to those who have immediate practical application for its suggested exercises and the resources listed in the back of the book (though I found their resource lists a rather odd mix, with curious gaps -- particularly when it comes to the available literature on violence in education and violence against youth). However, it's a worthwhile read for anyone who is interested in the practical aspects of social justice work at the grassroots level, and who is interested in thinking a bit more deeply about the way in which our culture has institutionalized ageism and systematically disenfranchises young people and children.

Read the rest of the review at: http://annajcook.blogspot.com/2011/08/booknotes-helping-teens-stop-violence.html

I liked this book very much and I will be using many of the exercises and ideas in my classes this Fall. I recommend this to anyone who works with young people.

The authors of the book are clearly very experienced and knowledgeable in this field. The book is written with a great deal of respect for teens, and one suspects that the authors are extraordinarily effective in working with youth.

The main function of the book seems to be as follows:
**teach people who operate from a position of privilege to think of "isms" in terms of power and privilege.
**teach adults not to use their status/privilege as adults to mistreat youths or diminish their contributions. This might be a revelation for socially-conscious "tweens" who are aware of white skin privilege but have not considered adult privilege.
**activities that will help mixed populations (mixed-race, mixed-age, mixed-religion, mixed-gender, mixed-SES, mixed education) to identify lines of privilege.

That said, the book contains little content that will be relevant for experienced, capable youth workers. Naive recent college graduates who "just want to make a difference" and "are here to help you" would probably learn quite a bit from this book.

I also felt that the boundaries between "adultism" and "not adultism" were a little vague. When an adult makes rules for a teen, rules which prevent the teen from overstepping boundaries (for instance: insulting a guest speaker), is the adult engaging in adultism, or is the adult providing the teen with a behavioral framework that will prevent the student from embarassing him- or herself?

Arising from this vagueness was a general sense that adultism is different from racism, somehow. White people are not responsible for the care and upbringing of people of color, but adult people are responsible for the care and upbringing of children. Behaviors and interactions that would not be appropriate between two adults of different races may be necessary between an adult and a child. This boundary was not explored sufficiently, and this could lead to some readers discounting the concept of adultism.

I cannot think of a context in which this book should be required reading, but it might be a good item for a mid-level administrator who is training new employees who work directly with youth. This might also be a useful text for an undergraduate library with education or social services degree programs.½

This amazing book outlines a model to highlight resistance and alliance as the principal tools for the liberation of young people. It dictates that youth need practical skills and that the best strategy for young people is solidarity with each other and with adults to achieve dignity, love, and a sense of purpose with power. It is a step-by-step program filled with hope not pessimism, to create an educational model for a better world future.

The authors have laid out an incredible guide for all adults working to help young people become active members of the community. As a professional who works with children and families, this is a book that will remain on my bookshelf and used often in my day to day dealings with teens.

This book offers a nice working framework for engaging adolescents coming from different backgrounds. The new sections on ability, access, immigration, and religion supplement long-standing sections of class, race, gender, and sexual orientation nicely. It also offers many interesting and engaging activities for adult facilitators and young people to develop leadership skills and understand the importance of solidarity work. It would be nice to have more workbook style activities. It would also be very valuable to ground this work in some historical understanding of the work for equity and social justice. There is an astounding lack of curriculum in these areas for adolescents. All in all, a great first resource, but it doesn't go deep enough for people working in this field in more than a peripheral way.