A striking convergence of research, documentation, commentary, and policy in the past five years strongly suggests that an almost exclusive focus on academic knowledge and skills is an incomplete solution. Additional behaviors, skills, and mindsets--sometimes called metacognitive skills or 21st-century skills--are just as necessary for academic…

Renaissance School is part of a network of Expeditionary Learning (EL) schools that was borne of a collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Outward Bound, USA. The EL model is centered on the Outward Bound ethic of having youth work together to achieve a task. EL schools take an approach to teaching and learning that…

Keeping all adolescents in high school longer will not necessarily solve illiteracy, crime, and unemployment problems. Dropout prevention programs are already on a collision course with demands for higher promotion and graduation standards. What urban dropouts need is to exchange city slums for a revised version of the Civilian Conservation Corps,…

Teenagers enjoy being involved in community service; all we have to do is ask and provide the opportunity. The 101st Congress passed the National and Community Service Act of 1990, which will fund programs enabling students from kindergarten through college to serve their communities. A sidebar lists national resources for service-learning in…

Argues for the importance of providing adolescents with opportunities to care about and contribute to their communities. Briefly describes several programs that have been based on youth participation. (IRT)

Outlines a proposal whereby students between the ages of 16 and 26 would give two years of national service in the government agency of their choice or in the nonprofit private sector. The proposal would be especially useful, the author argues, for noncollege-bound high school students and dropouts. (JBM)

A shortened version of a commencement address delivered at Saint Louis University, May 31, 1969

Observing that there is no shortage of work to be done, but rather a shortage of employment, this essay analyzes aspects of youth unemployment in Europe including school effectiveness; alienation and the work ethic; remedies, which include European Community's "social guarantee"; and some considerations for future change. (MJL)