I will never let anyone mess with my money

By Rachel Manuel

Monday and Tuesday I was invited to attend a Dropout Reengagment Training hosted by United Way of Central Iowa at the Logan Boys and Girls Club. The training was facilitated by Edward DeJesus, the founder and president of the Youth Development Research Fund. DeJesus is one of the most sought after experts on young adult/youth engagement and as I learned he even has the key to the city of Miami (and Edward DeJesus Day) for the work he has done in cities with dropout and youth engagement problems.

DeJesus started the training by doing a "thug" test of three boys in the room and asked them if they had any money. All three students passed the "thug" test, but he said that he wasn't actually asking them about the money in their pockets. He was asking them about the money they could have if they were successful in graduating from high school. This is where he made the entire room say together "I will never let anyone mess with my money." This seemed to really resonate with the students in the room, because too often they think of school as having little relevance to their future and it is easy to see the short term benefit of dropping out to start a job or even sell drugs on the streets to make money now, but DeJesus was able to help them see that by staying in school, they will make more money in the long run. He also however, was able to resonate with the adults in the room to understand how it is imporant to reinvent school to make it more interesting and relevant to young adults in today's world.

The training participants included youth program staff such as Boys and Girls Club and Creative Visions, Des Moines Public Schools, and young adults themselves who are in area youth programs and even some dropouts and those who are on probation from juvenile court.

The training was fantastic in really involving the young adults to help us "adults"(I loosely call myself an adult) in the room to better understand why young people may be struggling in school or why they might dropout. By better understanding these issues, we can hopefully keep the youth engaged and interested in school so they graduate and be successful in adulthood. One exercise we did in small groups was the adults in the room listed what they look for in a successful student, while the young people created a list of what they look for in a supportive teacher. We found that both the students and adults in the room value education and graduating, but sometimes our actions don't always match up with our values.

While there is so much more I could talk about from the training, overall it really opened my eyes to what DeJesus talked about being Youth Culturally Competant, which means engaging youth in the process. We will be more successful at keeping students in school, if they are involved in deciding what is best for them and how they are learning in school. By keeping them involved, they will in turn be invested.