7 Portraits of Young People Traveling in the Migrant Caravan

In Central America, "Being young is a crime.” At least that’s what I hear all the time when talking to teenagers.


Adolescents are vulnerable victims in the Northern Triangle — Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador — where violence has torn communities apart and forced residents out, like those currently traveling in large, determined groups toward the United States. The most recent “migrant caravan" is made up of thousands of people. Many traveling north plan to seek asylum in the U.S., where President Donald Trump and his administration have imposed great efforts to keep them out, including the use of tear gas on those who attempted to come through a fence at the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday, November 25.


I spoke with young people in the caravan on behalf of Teen Vogue in Mexico. They told me that they are joining the caravan because back home, young people are recruited against their will by gangs from a very early age. Sometimes they are forced, sometimes they are easily convinced because they feel someone is going to take care of them and protect them by making them part of the group. By the time they are 15, the jobs they are forced to take on become more violent. Teenage girls are wanted as partners, sometimes against their will. Many are the children of migrants whose parents were forced to emigrate into the country where these young people live because of poverty and similar violence, thinking that they could give a better way to their children.


Those I met traveling in the caravan are young people who want to study. They want to be able to walk home from school safely.


They say migration is the only option. The caravan is full of young people, many traveling alone, many in small groups, and some traveling with their parents or relatives. In Mexico, I interviewed them and captured portraits. Here are their stories.









Photo by Encarni Pindado


1/7
Naomi Juliet, 11, from California


Naomi’s mother, Mayra, traveled from Honduras to the United States when she was 19 years old. She crossed Mexico on top of cargo trains, traversed rivers, and walked through deserts, eventually arriving in New York. From there, she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived for 13 years and worked in restaurants. It’s where Naomi was born.


Naomi tells Teen Vogue that her mother left three other kids back in Honduras with her grandmother. One day, a gang member told one of her siblings that he had to sell drugs at school or accept the consequences, so Mayra felt she had no option but to go back to Honduras with Naomi and try to help her family. That was three years ago.


Now, Naomi and her mom are traveling back to the United States, where the 11-year-old is a citizen — her dad lives in California, she says. Despite being a citizen, she says she needs to travel on the caravan, as her mother doesn’t have a U.S. visa.











Photo by Encarni Pindado


2/7
Katherine, 17, from Honduras


“This journey has been so hard for me,” Katherine tells Teen Vogue. She has no friends or relatives in the United States but is still making the journey north.


“People [along the way] have been incredibly supportive,” she says.“They gave us food, water, clothing, medicines and everything else. But I have never had to sleep on the streets, until now. I can’t sleep, I feel so insecure, my brother and cousin are here with me and they take care of me, but still, I am too worried. I just want to go back with my mom, she is the only person I feel secure with.


In my neighborhood in San Pedro Sula, girls don’t go out, [it] is far too dangerous, and I spent the whole day at home since I had to leave school because we couldn’t afford it. I tried to work to pay for my school, but after a month the boss refused to pay my salary and there was nothing I could do. Then my mother had to quit her job at a factory worker because of a [medical] operation, and I decided to join the caravan, to help her.”










Photo by Encarni Pindado


3/7
David, 17, from Honduras


"I have to make a decision and I choose to put my life at risk in order to help my mother and change my lifestyle and improve myself,” David tells Teen Vogue.


David comes from one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. He used to study computers, go out with his friends on the weekend, watch movies, go to parties. He says he was like any other young person — except that his neighborhood is in control of gangs.


“I know some of those guys, I would say hello to them, but I’ve never wanted to be involved in the gangs. Sometimes they asked me, and I just keep on saying no, and they let me be,” he says. There are better things, I want to have new experiences, I want to know other places, not just Honduras, now I know Mexico — and maybe I will get to know the U.S.”


When it was time to leave, David traveled with friends. “I went home put a couple of pants in a backpack and I told my mother that I was leaving, it was very sad to say goodbye to her, we hugged, and she gave me her blessing,” he says. “I miss my family, but I would like to study and work as a mechanic fixing cars if they let me enter the U.S. I want to help my family and have a better life for myself, make enough money to build a house.”


















Photo by Encarni Pindado


4/7
Catherine, 15, from Honduras


“My father was killed when I was nine years old, my mom was given 24 hours to leave or be killed,” Catherine tells Teen Vogue. “Since then, me and my sister went to live with my grandmother in a different part of the country.”


“My mother fled to Guatemala after they killed my dad, from there she went to the United States, where she gave birth to two of my brothers, but she was eventually deported. Me and my sister were sent to live with my grandmother in a different part of the country," Catherine says. Her grandmother, Maria, tells Teen Vogue how there is no escape from gangs in Honduras.


“Gangs are everywhere. I sell food or clothes in the area where I live and they are always coming to ask for extortion money, and sometimes I haven’t [made] enough money and I can’t afford to pay them. If you can’t pay them, they think you are rebelling against them and that is enough reasons for them to kill you. That is why I wanted to leave.”


When Catherine saw on television that there was a caravan of migrants walking to the Guatemalan border, she told her grandmother to join them, and Maria agreed immediately. “The journey has been hard, but we have been lucky and manage to get lots of rides on cars and trucks.”


Catherine would like to get to the U.S. and open a beauty salon, as she studied toward that goal for a year, she says.










Photo by Encarni Pindado


5/7
Eli, 18, from Guatemala


Eli’s brother was killed after being deported from the U.S. Still, he tells Teen Vogue that despite the risk, he has decided to forgo entering university and flee north.


“I was about to enter university to study business administration, but the caravan is a better opportunity. I want to go to California, where my friend lives, I would like to study English first and then something else if possible. I am willing to do anything but I wouldn’t like to work construction,” he says.










Photo by Encarni Pindado


6/7
Mairon, 18, from Honduras


“Today is my birthday,” Marion tells Teen Vogue. “I am 18 years old — never thought I would turn 18 while [traveling] in the caravan.”


“We are very poor, my mom and other brothers could not travel with my dad and me because we couldn’t afford it. We are farmers in a community surrounded by a gold mine and a hydroelectric company. But they do not give us jobs."


Marion lives near the mine and says local communities are against it because of the environmental damage caused and the lack of economic benefit to the locals.


“If I manage to arrive to the U.S., my dream is to help my family and help the Catholic church in my community. If not, I will stay in Mexico.”










Photo by Encarni Pindado


7/7
Araceli, 11, from Honduras


Reina, Araceli’s mother, tells Teen Vogue, “One day a gang member told me that he wanted my daughter as a girlfriend. Every time I saw him, he would call me ‘mother in law,’ and I knew it was only a matter of time that he [would] take my daughter against her will and make her his partner.”


When Reina saw the caravan on TV, she told Araceli to stuff a backpack with her belongings, and they left. Araceli says that once they reach the U.S., she just wants to study.


With the burning sun overhead in the south of Oaxaca, Araceli said, “I don’t want to walk anymore.” Reina encouraged her, saying, “Let’s walk a bit further until we find a shade to sit down.” Later they started playing and singing, so Araceli could forget how tired she was and continue walking.

Top Seven Dangers Children Face Online: How to Keep Them Safe

The Internet can be a dangerous neighborhood for children and teens. From cyber-predators to social media posts that can come back to haunt them later in life, the hazards can be frightening. Children may also unwittingly expose their families to online risks, for example, by accidentally downloading malware that could give cybercriminals access to their parents' bank account or other sensitive information. Protecting children on the Internet is first and foremost a matter of awareness—knowing what dangers lurk and how to safeguard against them. Cybersecurity software can help protect against some threats, but the most important safety measure is communicating with your children.

Tweet: Cybersecurity software can help protect against some threats, but the most important safety measure is communicating with your children. Tweet This!

Here are the seven greatest risks that kids face online:

1. Cyberbullying
   According to Internetsafety101.org, 90 percent of teens who participate in social media have ignored bullying they've witnessed, and one third have been victims of cyberbullying themselves. Social media and online games are today's virtual playground, and that is where much cyberbullying takes place. For example, children can be mocked in social media exchanges. Or, in online games, they or their "player characters" can be subjected to incessant attack, turning the game from an imaginative adventure into a humiliating ordeal.
   The best foundation for protecting against cyberbullying is to be comfortable talking to your children about what is going on in their lives, and how to stand up to bullies.
2. Cyberpredators
   Sexual and other predators can stalk kids on the Internet, taking advantage of children's innocence, abusing their trust and, perhaps, ultimately luring them into very dangerous personal encounters. These predators lurk on social media and game sites that appeal to children (the same virtual playgrounds where much cyberbullying happens). There, they can exploit not only children's innocence, but also their gift of imagination. "Let's play pretend" is a common and healthy part of online gaming and interaction, but predators can use it as a hook to pull children in.
   The FBI offers guidance in safeguarding against predators and other online risks to child safety. However, again, the best protection is to be able to talk to your children about what is happening in their lives.
3. Posting Private Information
   Children do not yet understand social boundaries. They may post personal information online, for example in their social media profiles that should not be out in public. This might be anything from images of awkward personal moments to their home addresses.
   If your children are posting in public view, you can also see it—and there's no harm in reminding them that if Mom and Dad can see it, so can everyone else. Don't snoop, but talk to your kids about public boundaries.
4. Phishing
   Phishing is what cybersecurity professionals call the use of emails that try to trick people into clicking on malicious links or attachments. ("Hey—thought you might like this!") This can also be done with malicious text messages (then it's called "smishing").
   Phishing emails and smishing texts can pop up at any time, but the cybercriminals who devise them keep watch on sites that are popular with children, and gather information such as email addresses and friends' names to use in their scams. Teach your children to avoid clicking on emails or texts from strangers and to be wary of messages that claim to be from their friends but have no genuine personal message attached.
5. Falling for Scams
   Children are probably not going to fall for Nigerian princes offering them a million dollars, but they might fall for scams that offer things they may prize, such as free access to online games. Young people are easy marks for scams because they have not yet learned to be wary. As with phishing, cybercriminals can use sites popular with children to identify potential victims, and then promise them something in turn for what they want—like parents' credit card information.
   For young or old, the best protection against scams is knowing that if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true. Teach your children to be leery of online offers that promise too much.
6. Accidentally Downloading Malware
   Malware is computer software that is installed without the knowledge of permission of the victim and performs harmful actions on the computer. This includes stealing personal information from your computer or hijacking it for use in a "botnet," which causes sluggish performance. Cybercriminals often trick people into downloading malware. Phishing is one such trick, but there are others—such as convincing victims to download purported games—that can be especially beguiling to children.
   As with scams, educating your children is the best protection, but antivirus software and related security protections can help safeguard your child's computer against any malware that sneaks into it. In addition, many Internet security products also include specific parental controls that can help you set a secure framework for your children's online activities.
7. Posts that Come Back to Haunt a Child Later in Life
   The Internet does not have a delete key. Anything your child puts online is nearly impossible to remove later. But teenagers in particular are not thinking about how a future boss—or, one day, a prospective spouse—might respond to "amusing" images or other personal content that they post to their social media profiles or other websites.
   Explain to your teens that they might change how they wish to portray themselves online—but that the Internet won't let them.

The Internet can pose dangers to children. It can also open doors of wonder for them that previous generations could not even have dreamed of. Help make sure that your children experience the joys of an online world, not its hazards.

American Airlines Welcomes First Flight Attendant With Special Needs

For one South Carolina teen, her dreams of becoming a flight attendant have just come true, thanks to American Airlines.

During a special birthday party at Columbia Metropolitan Airport, 17-year-old Shantell “Princess” Poser, was inducted as a flight attendant earlier this month, making her American Airlines’ first flight attendant with special needs and a terminal illness.

According to the Saving Shannie Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 2015, Shannie has Down Syndrome and is currently fighting an inoperable series of terminal airway defects.

Shantell’s mother, Deanna Miller Berry, told WIS News 10 that the airway defects are known as “laryngomalacia, tracheomalacia, and tracheobronchial malacia.”

Her condition obstructs more than 87 percent of her airways and requires both Shantell and her mother to travel to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital frequently.

Traveling to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital is how Shantell fell in love with flying.

“So far, we’ve been on over 57 flights. That’s including the connecting flights, as well, too,” Berry told WIS. “She saw the flight attendant, and she was like, ‘Mommy, I want to be a flight attendant.'”

Dressed in an American Airlines uniform, Shantell showed up to at Columbia Metropolitan Airport for her first day of work earlier this month with a pit crew of her own: her proud friends and family.

Berry described her daughter’s birthday party “a dream come true.”

A tweet sent from Saving Shannie to American Airlines reads, “Thank you @AmericanAir for all that you did to make Shannie’s dream to be a flight attendant a reality we all got the chance to witness.”

American Airlines responded, “Congratulations, Shannie! We’re proud to have her as part of the #fAAmily and are looking forward to sharing the skies with her.”

Emily Scarlett@ScarlettWISTV

 · Oct 14, 2018

THIS WEEKEND: @AmericanAir inducts its FIRST flight attendant with special needs & a terminal illness fulfilling a dream “Princess” never thought she’d live to see: https://bit.ly/2pU8CM5  @wis10 @CAEAirport

American Airlines inducts first flight attendant with special needs & terminal illness

Saturday morning, a Midlands teenager enjoyed the birthday party of a lifetime all thanks to American Airlines.

wistv.com

Saving Shannie@Savingshannie

@ScarlettWISTV THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS COVERAGE! IT WENT VIRAL! Thank you @AmericanAir. For all that you did to makes shannies dream to be a flight attendant a reality we all got the chance to witness!

18

8:27 PM - Oct 16, 2018

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See Saving Shannie's other Tweets

According to the Saving Shannie Foundation website, Shantell is determined to share her story to help save the lives of millions of other children struggling to breathe just like her.

She just checked off becoming a flight attendant for American Airlines off her to-do-list, and her next goal is to become an author and meet former U.S. President Barack Obama, and former first lady Michelle Obama.

Students learn indigenous history by reenacting colonization in unique blanket exercise

Three dozen high school students in stocking feet wander quietly over colourful blankets spread across the floor. They are roaming their land. It is centuries ago, and they inhabit a vast place that will one day be known as Canada. “You represent the indigenous peoples, the people who have been here for at least 10,000 years,” their narrator tells them.



“Long before the arrival of Europeans, Turtle Island was your home, and home to millions of people like you.” In reality, they are students from five Toronto Catholic high schools engaged in the Kairos blanket exercise, a powerful interactive lesson that teaches indigenous history through re-enactment. The morning begins with 13 blankets, a script and a circle of teenagers. It will end with a new perspective of Canada that for too long has not been taught. As the 45-minute session unfolds, students with numbered scrolls take turns reading in the voices of First Nations people, describing their lives, how “everything on the earth is to be respected” and how events affect them. Their observations are punctuated by the arrival of Europeans and what follows, from the time of the earliest treaties that begin the process of appropriating their land, through colonization, forced assimilation and resistance. Some students hold coloured cards handed out at the beginning of the exercise. Throughout it, they are asked to leave — one group representing the millions wiped out by smallpox, measles and other diseases brought by settlers, another for those lost to starvation. Later, there’s a chilling moment of silence to honour children torn from their families and forced to attend residential schools many miles from their homes. With each encroachment, blanket edges are folded back as indigenous lands shrink. By the end, what remains is a fraction of the original population, several crumpled blankets strewn across the space and some dislocated students on the bare wooden floor. In the talking circle that follows led by elder Bob Phillips, an aboriginal educator of Mi’kmaq heritage, some teens speak about the injustice. Others remark on how much they hadn’t known. Many are speechless.

When Roma Lead the Way to Prosperity

In recent years, many policymakers and NGO leaders have attempted to compile “success stories” demonstrating the results of their work to improve the lives of Roma. Oftentimes, they focus on their own short-term projects. But when you ask Roma communities, they do not see these projects as successes.

For the racist majority, this difference of opinion fuels claims that Roma do not want to integrate. For allies of the Roma movement and for many Roma advocates, meanwhile, it casts doubt and cynicism on whether change can be achieved at all for Roma.

If we want to see success stories, we need to look beyond short-term social assistance projects driven by the agenda of donors, intergovernmental agencies, and practically everyone but the Roma themselves. We need to look at communities where Roma have been relying on their own self-organization to amend local authorities and create equality and prosperity for Roma in the long-term.

Lom, a small town in northwest Bulgaria, is one of these communities. In Lom, the legacy of racism placed an artificial limit upon what Roma could achieve. Roma were marginalized and separated from the rest of the population by a sign which read: “No Gypsies beyond this line.” Roma children were not allowed to go to school; their parents could not find work.

But local Roma leaders pushed back and crossed the segregation line. They advocated relentlessly for authorities to work for Roma as they do for all citizens. Hardworking Roma families built up the rest: children went to school, they found employment or started their own businesses, they built friendships with their non-Roma neighbors.

Today, Roma are thriving in Lom: they are doctors, school principals, entrepreneurs, committed citizens. And their experience shows the remarkable success that can be achieved by ordinary people.

Before a Child Can Learn They Need to Feel Safe and Cared For

The life of a high-powered literary agent in New York City seems about the farthest thing from my life as a teacher serving largely low-income students in southeast Nashville. It is certainly far removed from the life of my students, many of whom are recent immigrants from Africa and South America. But the kindness of a complete stranger brought these disparate worlds together to change a student’s life. What may have seemed like a small action helped open up a new world for my student and enabled him to connect with his classmates.

Early this school year, I met a brand new fourth grade student who moved from Egypt to Nashville. He only spoke Arabic. This is not unusual at Rocketship United Academy, as we have a wildly diverse student population. Our students come from dozens of different countries and nearly 50 percent are classified as English Language Learners. Nonetheless, language barriers are challenging. I could not read, write, speak or understand a single letter in Arabic.

HE HAD BEEN HEARD.During the first week of school I pulled him out of class and used a translator app to ask him a series of questions to learn his story. He shook his head yes or no and sometimes shrugged his shoulders. After an hour I learned that he loves animals, playing dodgeball and has two little sisters. He headed back to class with a tremendous smile. He had been heard.

In my student’s fourth grade humanities class, we use “read alouds” to give students a chance to get lost in the magic of a story. This fall, we were reading the hit book-turned-movie, “Wonder.” It’s a wonderful story for all ages—if you haven’t read it, you should. My students love it. Except for my new friend from Egypt. As I turned the page, I would catch a glimpse of him zoning out due to lack of access to the text. So I tried to order him a copy in his home language so he could enjoy the story too. But when I went to order the Arabic text it came up as $600 or not available.

This didn’t seem possible. It is 2019, “Wonder” is one of the most popular children’s novels of this generation and Arabic is the fourth most common language in the world. The book’s publisher said it has been translated into more than 40 languages, yet I was unable to find an Arabic copy.

EVERY DAY IT KILLED ME TO SEE OUR STUDENT UNABLE TO JOIN HIS CLASSMATES IN DISCOVERING THE JOY OF “WONDER.”I asked some colleagues and friends for help. We all fell short. Next, I tried a college friend who works for the publisher, Random House. No luck. So I tried a cold email to another department at the publisher. And then when that didn’t work, I tried another one, was redirected, and got a bounce back with an “out of office” message. At this point, it felt like a dead end. But every day it killed me to see our student unable to join his classmates in discovering the joy of “Wonder.”

A few weeks later an email from an unfamiliar name popped-up in my inbox:

“Dear Emma,

We would love to send you a copy of Wonder in Arabic for your student. Would you send me your preferred mailing address, please?”

The book arrived less than a week later with a letter, again from an unfamiliar name and company. Tracing back the email chain and upon some Google searches I realized that the book was sent from the agent of “Wonder’s” author! Her assistant is the one who reached out and mailed the novel.

A SMILE LIT UP HIS FACE

Bringing our student the unopened package has to be one of my favorite moments as a teacher. As his class filed in from lunch, they began whisper as they eyed the mysterious package on the table, knowing something special was about to happen.

I beckoned my student over and he slowly opened the box. First taking out a letter resting on top, he quickly put it to the side and grabbed the book. I think it took him a moment to realize what it was, but once he recognized the book art, his eye widened and a smile lit up his face.

His classmates clapped and were so excited for him to get to experience August’s journey with them. This person who is working in New York City, a thousands miles from Nashville, Tennessee, has no idea how happy they made a student and how much this mattered for him to feel a part of a shared experience with his classmates.

HE SAID, “PEOPLE CARE ABOUT ME HERE.”Recently, my colleague asked the student what he likes about his new school. He said, “People care about me here.” When she asked him what makes him feel that way, he didn’t say a word.  He just pointed to his Arabic copy of “Wonder.”

Before a child can learn in a classroom they need to feel safe and cared for. In doing so, their affective filter is lowered so they are open to participate, even when it’s hard or means making a mistake. His copy of “Wonder” has been symbolic of that. Now, the book sits on top of the shelf in his reading class, across from his desk. Even though the class finished the book he still keeps it out to look at and remember he’s cared for.

Breakthroughs like this are why I love teaching. The lightbulb moments when a student becomes fully immersed in the joy of learning. To the literary agent who made this breakthrough possible, thank you.

What if schools focused on improving relationships rather than test scores?

University of Georgia education professor Peter Smagorinsky wrote a piece last year about a promising young teacher who chose to leave education. She has now returned to the classroom but in a different Georgia district.

In this column, Smagorinsky explains how her new district, with a focus on enhancing relationships rather than test scores, has revitalized her enthusiasm for teaching.

By Peter Smagorinsky

A year ago I wrote a Get Schooled essay about an outstanding early-career high school English teacher in Georgia who had become so frustrated with testing and scripted curricula that she decided to leave the profession. She had been a participant in a study I am doing of the career development of teachers, with interviews each semester since 2010, when she was still at UGA education major.

I’m happy to say she contacted me in the spring with the news that working in the private sector for a year had produced a yearning to be back in the classroom. Her job had been quite pleasant, and she had appreciated the way her day began at 9 and ended at 5, and did not involve late afternoons and evenings filling out forms, tutoring, grading papers, planning classes, recovering from exhaustion, and consuming her life until she started over again the next day.

It was a nice respite from what had become a grind in the classroom. But, ultimately, to her it was unchallenging, a bit boring, and unfulfilling. It was time to get back to the kids.

We talked for about 90 minutes recently about her first semester back at work. She did not return to her old position, her old school, or her old district, all of which she had found stultifying to her creativity and her relationships with her students. Her former district relies on test-driven curriculum and instruction, determining teacher effectiveness by test scores, no matter what kind of shape the kids are in. It was exactly what she wanted to avoid.

Her new district provides quite a contrast. At the school’s orientation before classes began in the fall, her superintendent spoke about the importance of human relationships, above all else. Not test scores. Not real estate values tied to test scores. No, he spoke compassionately about how everything follows from developing and fostering productive relationships within the district.

The emphasis on relationships was the central driving force in her return to teaching and in her happiness with this new position. The school is not perfect, of course. She has quibbles with some of the policies, for instance. But she loves the fact she has tons of latitude in what to teach, and how to teach it. And she loves her students and the idea that her main task is to ground her instruction in the relationships she develops with them.

Many of the kids come from low-income households, are immigrants, have personal challenges, and, in general, represent the demographic groups whose test scores often reflect poorly on a faculty and administration. But here was the superintendent telling the faculty to tune out the noise about test scores and focus on making the school feel positive to kids, teachers, counselors, principals, and I’m sure the cafeteria staff, grounds crew, and custodians as well.

What, then, helps teachers form these relationships? It’s useful to contrast her current district with the district she left a year ago in frustration. Her previous district administration had created a lot of barriers between students and teachers that produced alienation of each from the other.

The school’s scripted curriculum had reduced her flexibility in teaching on the basis of what she believed her students needed most. A curricular barrier of this sort assumes all students in the district (and other districts that purchase the same materials from edupreneurial corporations) have the same interests and needs. Anyone who has raised two children in the same household knows even the most closely bonded youth have different needs, however, and those needs are probably quite different from what a remote corporate textbook writer provides for them.

Making instruction responsive to the textbook’s materials and accompanying assessment products, rather than to what teachers understand about kids, alienates teachers from kids, and kids from both teachers and school. In a school like the one that now employs this teacher, with a predominant population of students of color whose heritages get little representation in these corporate products, the likelihood of estrangement from the institution of school is great.

The testing mandates further damage the possibility of constructing and cultivating strong relationships with students. These bonds in turn may lead to instructional insights that produce relevant, on-target instruction. Tests intervene in relationships by warping instruction toward the most reductive, least compelling ways of thinking: picking the best of four multiple choice items in response to a question the test-taker has little interest in answering.

The teacher I interviewed asserts this emphasis discourages teachers from teaching in any way that is not ultimately tested. This requirement means shutting down all open-ended, creative, constructive thinking and focusing on how to pick the best of four possible answers to irrelevant questions, posed only for diagnostic purposes. Kids see through this sham pretty quickly. It’s a shame policymakers are too dim to understand what any teenager could tell them in a second.

Relationships are not developed by limited-choice options. They follow from genuine interaction, mutual listening, generosity, care, responsiveness to emerging needs and hopes, and constructive thinking in relation to shared challenges. These processes are fluid, not restricted to four choices. By presenting teaching and learning as static, with fixed answers to immutable questions, the possibility of growth into active citizenship in a tumultuous social world is damaged.

I often hear administrators lack the will or fortitude to buck the assessment movement and its grounding in business-style accountability measures that reduce complex actions to single numbers. There’s at least one district in Georgia, however, where the superintendent has rejected the premises behind that assumption and has insisted good teaching begins with forming relationships with kids.

I wish there were a whole lot more school systems with leadership of this sort. I suspect most teachers would agree with me, and that kids would buy into education much more if such alienating barriers to the building of relationships were removed.

Youth at risk | Stefan Hermann | TEDxPanchgani

Stefan Hermann claimed the audience's undivided attention as he bravely shared heart-breakingly honest and intimate details from his past, while speaking at the TEDxPanchgani. This German born author, professor and world traveler firmly believes that the entire Education system should be revamped, as it is completely irrelevant to life skills and employment in the future. In fact, our future depends on broadening our vision of Education. Stefan boldly proposed that each person can be a catalyst for change, via meaningful interaction with the younger generation. In India, almost ten thousand young people took their own lives in the last year. That means something is terribly wrong with the educational system, and also the support system. Stress, bullying, depression and abuse can severely impact youngsters. Mentoring groups can make a tremendous difference to the lives of those who have suffered emotional, physical or sexual trauma. A revolutionary new approach towards mentoring; involving listening, acceptance and "modelling" behavior, can create a safe space for troubled teens. Stefan urged everyone to help in this, for example by creating "truth-telling circles" where youngsters can open up, share their deepest feelings and channel their anger. India has immense potential for change - everyone can come together to make a drastic change!  Stefan Hermann is a firm believer in the re-invention of the entire system of education. This German born author, professor, Pro tennis player and world traveler has been teaching for many years as a guest professor at the University for Social Pedagogy in Lausanne, Switzerland. For some time he served as the 1st Executive Director of "Boys to Men" San Francisco Bay Area, and has also appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in May 2013, speaking on the subject of Education. Stefan is certified at the highest level of the world’s largest men’s organization “The ManKind Project” heading up weekends with large groups in attendance.  He also held the Guinness Book record for the longest rally in tennis history.  For over a decade he been working with his global, more-than-for-profit network for youth mentoring called GenDerations International, currently active in Southern Africa, Europe, the US and lately, in India. For much of the last ten years he has lived in Pune, India, where he is deeply involved in youth mentoring. This talk was given at TEDxPanchgani an event held at Ravine Hotel using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx