Are we happy to be told we are wrong?

A few months ago I was working in a school and supporting a R.E. teacher as she taught a group of year 9 young people. The class a few weeks before were asked to prepare small 10 minute presentations about a range of ethical and relevant topics from ‘abortion’ to ‘bullying’ and ‘the ivory trade’, and then argue their opinions on their individual topic. These presentations were then rated out of 30. In this lesson the young people were asked one-by-one to present their presentations to the rest of the class. It got to this boys turn who as he started his presentation suddenly got quite upset and said that he couldn’t do it. As a result I and another girl in his class were asked to assess the boy in the next room. As we did this and he started his presentation, the reason for why it was so upsetting for him become clear – he was talking about how a member of his family died as a result of the topic he was studying. When he finished myself and the girl in his class started to discuss what his mark should be. I without knowing too well the marking scheme (about it being out of 30 and not 20) said “why don’t we mark him 15?”.

What happened next I would never have predicted. The normally shy, well behaved, perfectly polite, quiet and content girl suddenly looked at me with disgust and said “Mike that is wrong! He has just shared a personal and difficult story, he deserves a higher grade than that!”….and she was right. Even though I was a member of staff, I had authority, I could have told this girl off and got her in trouble… she didn’t care because she was standing up for what was right.

It can be easy sometimes to feel that young people don’t really care about the things that we talk about as they can appear to just look bored and emotionless, but young people have a real deep sense of what is just and what isn’t, and they are massively prepared to fight for it. The girl in the story didn’t care that i was a member of staff who could have got her in trouble, she was fearless for justice; and we as Youth Workers just need to have faith in young people and to give them the opportunities to use these abilities to fight the injustices in the world.

Mike Harrison is key worker in Nuthall and Kimberley
He also works for NYfC in Radford and Bulwell