Working up close and personal with youth...
Well I survived my shift at YL last Friday...very draining, with noise, general boisterousness etc. but generally it's nice to hang out (legitimately) with young people for a while.
The tensions between "is it a library/is it a youth centre" however, have risen to the fore with many young people coming to hang out but not necessarily interact actively with the space/resources. We sort of predicted this would happen. We maintain that "hanging out" is OK, but, victims of our own success, we just can't cope with the numbers. And with so many people hanging out without purposeful activity, there is the potential (and the actuality) of mischief and - and the attraction for a minority of young people who are keen to pursue basically antisocial behaviour (graffitiing, abusive language, bullying). Hmmm a dilemma. The challenge as always is to find that balance. Intense discussions between library staff and youth services staff are definitely on the agenda!
I've also been hanging out with young people in a more structured environment - as the gopher while we run Animation workshops at YL. It's nice to be able to form actual relationships (first name basis) with young people (rather than in the full-on atmosphere of YL during opening hours where you're mainly telling kids to get their feet off the wall/furniture/kid next to them!). We have run 3 x6 hour workshops for up to 8 kids (most sessions have a couple of no-shows so averaging around 7 per session) with visiting Animation artist "Pixelmorph". (Needless to say, all the horrible things I thought could go wrong didn't actually eventuate - the artist arrived on time, the trial versions of Flash worked fine for the workshops, the workshops were all full and everyone was happy etc etc).
Sometimes I feel so good about this job...
The tensions between "is it a library/is it a youth centre" however, have risen to the fore with many young people coming to hang out but not necessarily interact actively with the space/resources. We sort of predicted this would happen. We maintain that "hanging out" is OK, but, victims of our own success, we just can't cope with the numbers. And with so many people hanging out without purposeful activity, there is the potential (and the actuality) of mischief and - and the attraction for a minority of young people who are keen to pursue basically antisocial behaviour (graffitiing, abusive language, bullying). Hmmm a dilemma. The challenge as always is to find that balance. Intense discussions between library staff and youth services staff are definitely on the agenda!
I've also been hanging out with young people in a more structured environment - as the gopher while we run Animation workshops at YL. It's nice to be able to form actual relationships (first name basis) with young people (rather than in the full-on atmosphere of YL during opening hours where you're mainly telling kids to get their feet off the wall/furniture/kid next to them!). We have run 3 x6 hour workshops for up to 8 kids (most sessions have a couple of no-shows so averaging around 7 per session) with visiting Animation artist "Pixelmorph". (Needless to say, all the horrible things I thought could go wrong didn't actually eventuate - the artist arrived on time, the trial versions of Flash worked fine for the workshops, the workshops were all full and everyone was happy etc etc).
Sometimes I feel so good about this job...