Matthew Searle: Promoting Positive Youth Development through Interaction in an Era of. Isolation

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1 Catherine Nichols ENG-W240 Verbal and Visual Portrait 2/22/11 Matthew Searle: Promoting Positive Youth Development through Interaction in an Era of Isolation I sat in the art room trying to talk a 10 year old boy my first day at the Boys and Girls Club; it was a losing battle. I tried talking about anything from Valentine s Day to basketball and was striking out with consistent one word answers. Finally, we got on the subject of the Nintendo DSi. All of a sudden, this young boy s eyes l it up and he began to explain how great the toy was and the cool things you could do with it, like text message. His enthusiasm spread to the other children at my table. In a matter of minutes, my near-silent table became the most talkative group of children in the art room. Each child was fighting to get a word in about this fantastic Nintendo DSi. After listening to them talk, the most important features seemed to be the violent video games that could be played on it and its text message capabilities. It seemed strange to me that the item that made my group of children most excited and willing to interact with one another the most was an item that seems to isolate them. A Nintendo DSi is a oneperson gaming device; the closet one gets to communication during a Nintendo DSi experience is through text messaging, an impersonal form of communication. This led me to question how Matthew Searle, Program Director at the Boys and Girls Club, managed to keep children engaged every day in an environment free of Nintendo gaming devices and full of hands on activities aimed at creating caring, responsible, and productive citizens. I had the opportunity to

2 speak with Searle and realized that an issue emerging in today s society is how to keep kids engaged and help them develop to become positive members of society. The mission statement of the Boys and Girls Club is to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as caring, productive, and responsible citizens (Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington). Searle explained in our interview that daily activities at the club are all based on this mission statement, as is seen in their variety of programs such as the Club Bucks program which rewards children who are being caring, productive, and/or responsible. The Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington serves over 700 youth annually and approximately 2,500 youth in community outreach programs, like Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Mitch s Kids (Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington). When I spoke with Searle, he placed emphasis throughout the interview on the importance of the clubs aspiration to follow the mission statement and ensure that their activities work to develop children who become caring, productive, and responsible members of society (Searle). Searle worked to convey a positive attitude throughout the interview and seemed proud of what his organization does. When I asked him about the challenges surrounding his job, he sighed and collected his thoughts before continuing. Searle said one challenge was changing their image from a cheap after-school daycare (a year membership costs only $20) to a place where parents and kids go for the programs. After a busy day at school, it seemed interesting to me that children would be willing to participate in more structured activities. After observation at the Boys and Girls Club and my interview with Searle, however, I began to see what made the club so special. The Boys and Girls club had an abundance of programs available and when children picked an activity, like spending an hour in the art room, they had the freedom to do any

3 art-related activity they desired. They could even take breaks for other activities, like talking freely with me about their favorite toys, like the Nintendo DSi, and to sing songs they learned at Choir Club, like Katy Perry s Firework. I began to understand why Searle was so proud of his organization. The kids really enjoyed coming to this place after a long day at school. Better yet, they moved away from the impersonal technological world many children are becoming a part of thanks to toys like the Nintendo DSi and participated in constructive activities for their own positive development. In Joan Brumberg s article, The Body Project, she writes: Today s harried parents expect their hurried children to be autonomous, competent, and sophisticated by the time they are adolescents. This pseudosophistication leads adults to abandon the traditional position of setting limits and forming values. [ ] Adolescents raised in this permissive environment become extremely stressed precisely because they have been denied a comfortable envelope of adult values that allows them time to adjust emotionally to their developing bodies and new social roles. (199) Many of the harried parents Brumberg discusses I would assume are also the parents that send their children to afterschool programs like those available at the Boys and Girls Club (199). That being said, perhaps she is incorrect about children forced into pseudosophistication because the Boys and Girls Club message statement directly contradicts such an idea (199). These hurried children are, in fact, given structure and guidance in their development as well as the chance to remain kids instead of being forced to grow up to fast. Thanks to the programs Searle helps create, these hurried children are able to slow down and their harried parents can be comforted knowing their children are given the structure they are at times unable to provide.

4 Searle talked about how he worked hard to get children engaged each and every day at the Boys and Girls Club. He mentioned an upcoming event that the young girls of the club were extremely excited for called the Girls Night In (Searle). I had heard of the event already; the girls in the art room couldn t stop talking about how excited they were to attend. Searle said the girls had been planning the program themselves for weeks and had arranged for a variety of programs including a cupcake walk, Mary-Kay make-up class, dance party, and karaoke. The program was left entirely in the hands of the children to plan. Jane Quinn, author of Where Need Meets Opportunity: Youth Development Programs for Early Teens, would likely see the significance and value of a program like the Girls Night In, planned entirely by the children. She studied the importance of a healthy transition from childhood to adulthood and the value of youth development programs in the process. Quinn writes: Current theory suggests that young adolescents need opportunities for physical activity, development of competence and achievement, self-definition, creative expression, positive social interaction with peers and adults, a sense of structure and clear limits, and meaningful participation in authentic work. (103) Searle s program at the Boys and Girls Club, Girls Night In, is, according to Quinn s ideals, a great opportunity for adolescents to participate in authentic work and develop a sense of competence and achievement through a successful program adolescents planned and executed themselves (103). Matthew Searle yawned and noted what a busy night he had the evening before. He had to stay late that night and clean-up trash because two different parents had come up to him with new program ideas. He had been busy earlier that day calling different parents about new programs their children were involved in and emphasized the need for daily attendance for kids

5 participating in ongoing activities, like choir or cheerleading. Searle described himself as someone who wore a lot of different hats in order to be the best he could be at his job of Program Director. His job isn t easy, but he s proud of what he does and happy knowing he is really helping in the positive development of the youth of Bloomington. In a world where children are focused on often isolating video games and are more frequently becoming the offspring of harried parents, Matthew Searle is working to find a way to challenge these kids through afterschool programs and create a place where they can grow to be caring, responsible and productive citizens. Programs like Girls Nights In and the art room offer loosely structure environments for children to grow, interact, and just be kids. The Boys and Girls Club is a youth development program that may succeed in developing the America of tomorrow, especially if help is received by passionate program directors like the busy and dedicated Matthew Searle.

6 WORKS CITED Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington. Boys and Girls Club, Web. 15 Feb < Brumberg, Joan J. The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls. New York: Random House. Print. Quinn, Jane. "Where Need Meets Opportunity: Youth Development Programs in the Early Teens." The Future of Children 9.2 (1999): Print. Searle, Matthew. Personal Interview. 2 Feb Stahl, Joel Photograph. Weston, Fl. Associated Press Images. Web. 25 Feb