Partnerships between youth and adults can take many forms—children and caregivers, students and teachers, mentees and mentors. Whether returning to the classroom in a new paradigm, learning from home, or participating in social movements, these partnerships have proven even more essential during the pandemic and periods of unrest.
As we learn in this month’s SCRI Asks, true youth-adult partnerships require adults to recognize the wisdom and experiences of young people and honor them with flexibility and reciprocity. To get to the heart of these critical partnerships in practice, we interviewed three contributors to a new book that offers in-depth insights on the topic. At Our Best: Building Youth-Adult Partnerships in Out-of-School Time Settings is the latest book in Information Age Publishing’s (IAP) Current Issues in Out-of-School Time series. In our conversation with experts, we uncover the role adults can play in supporting youth voice, learning, and activism and the tensions and dilemmas that arise along the way.
Looking ahead, we are eagerly awaiting the release of the next book in the IAP series, Measure, Use, Improve!, which features a chapter on BellXcel’s impact on teacher practice during the school year. We look forward to sharing what we learned, and how we learned it, while continuing to introduce you to new thinkers and doers we meet in each new book in the series.
