The Observation Deck

Every community is only as vital as the participation of their youth in the civic communal process. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed their absence. How do we engage them in our concerns or will that simply never happen because of the age gap? As a former educator, I'm a big believer in engaging our young people. They are our future.

Young people almost exclusively use Social Media. This forum is probably considered outdated to them.

The Deck deals largely with city issues, which young people don't care about.

When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I wouldn't have known Tony Sinagra from a ham sandwich.
I had no idea or concern that he was selling tires out of city hall.

As I've told Alex a few times, the same goes for the vast majority of renters. Most renters, like my family in the 1980s, do not get involved with local civic matters. If they have kids in the local schools, they care about schools....but that's it.

Homeowners are the ones that primarily are concerned or get involved with this stuff. People generally don't buy homes until they are older.

Amy Martin wrote:Young people almost exclusively use Social Media. This forum is probably considered outdated to them.

This is exactly what I told Jim. Maybe there can be an extension of The Deck on social media that caters primarily to young people and their concerns?

Michael Deneen wrote:The Deck deals largely with city issues, which young people don't care about.

That is such a huge generalisation and absolutely not true. Young people do care about city issues. What the majority of young people DON'T do is use forums. Our daughter is in high school and she is very interested in everything going on with the mayoral election, issue 64, Lakewood Hospital etc. But, she would never think about coming to a forum like this and posting. Many of her friends feel the same way. They definitely care about what is going on but how the express it is different from other generations.

Matthew Lee wrote:That is such a huge generalisation and absolutely not true. Young people do care about city issues.

Your child is very much the exception.
I've been working on local campaigns for 24 years (when I was only 23)...I've encountered a few kids like that over the years, but they are rare.

In my experience, younger activism over the years has been geared toward more nationalized issues...for example, Black Lives Matter.

However, I do agree that social media is used by young people over forums.

I have a 21 year old son away at college. His Facebook received posts from his contemporaries that had verbatim BL Bleed Lakewood talking points. Summers, CCF and Bleed Lakewood had money and high priced consultants to organize and spread their misinformation on social media


I think Amy is right. The Deck not in the social media mix of that young crowd.


SLH has done a great job as a grass roots organization but it could not afford to higher the political strategists. They came up less than 600 votes short on one issue--and less than 2,000 on the mayor race.

Is there any evidence Summers won with the votes of young people?

Still Alex poses a great question. How can we hear what the young people are thinking.

I don't see that as a failure of the Deck.

There are almost no young people coming to City Hall to speak either.

I heard rumblings of a significant youth voter turnout because of the marijuana amendment. I don't know personally because I voted by mail. If so, we may have missed a bet by not emphasizing the basketball issue. Are there other topics that relate to local politics that interest them? I don't know that they would not use the deck, but I suspect there is not much here to draw them in.

Dan Alaimo wrote:I heard rumblings of a significant youth voter turnout because of the marijuana amendment. I don't know personally because I voted by mail. If so, we may have missed a bet by not emphasizing the basketball issue. Are there other topics that relate to local politics that interest them? I don't know that they would not use the deck, but I suspect there is not much here to draw them in.

Dan

I hit the polls throughout the day. I did not see anything unusual like a massive turnout of young people. The polls looked normal but very busy. Even the poll workers said it was larger than they ever remembered.

As for drawing in the young people, they tend to run from old people. Look at FB, as their parents got involved they went elsewhere, twitter, instagram, etc. So do we chase the fads? No, we just make sure that we are ready and here when people need us.

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SLH had a significant facebook presence as well. I was a member of their facebook group early on, and felt inundated by their negative postings and had to leave the group. I'm not a young person (I'm 41) but I don't like to receive much controversial information through facebook, and certainly didn't want to be pounded over the head repeatedly with the same sort of messages. I think it's difficult to effectively use facebook for political purposes and electioneering without alienating lots of people. It's mostly preach to the choir stuff.

All I'm trying to do is be an advocate for the young people of Lakewood. That's why I try to use my photography to make them feel wanted and important. Maybe we can try to recruit young people to be freelance reporters for the LO?

Alex Belisle wrote:All I'm trying to do is be an advocate for the young people of Lakewood. That's why I try to use my photography to make them feel wanted and important. Maybe we can try to recruit young people to be freelance reporters for the LO?

Alex

You are breaking me up, we regularly have reporters in the Observer from the schools. We have worked with students in the past helping them get scholarships in journalism, art and photography.

But here is the biggest difference, we do not label people young, old, black, white mixed. They all appear together with the same respect given everyone that takes part, they are equals, not some freak show to be held up as, "The Black member," The "Kid member," etc. We treat them as equals.

We have a grade school out reach program teaching 5th graders to write and take photos. Betsy and I do this throughout the year challenging them to take over the paper. One of the things they like most about the entire experience is we treat them as equals. They pick the stories, they take my cameras and take the photos, and we all have fun.

Taking picture of kids and posting them is not how you bring them in. You treat them as equals, and let them know we are here.

Youngest person to take part in the Observer 3-years-old, sent in a photo of her dad in the snow with my camera. Oldest was 91. At the Observer, we are all the same.

FWIW

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Actually Alex,

I know how hard Jim has worked to empower the young people in our community to write and take pictures for the paper. A significant part of the Lakewood Observer paper in the past has provided sections written by young people. For awhile, there was a commentary here on the 'Deck addressing young people posting. Jim or a moderator could probably better address that. I'm sure that there are legal aspects to that stuff, as well. (similar to what we had to comply with as teachers)

As educators, you and I both know anyway that wherever adults gather, the youngsters tend to find somewhere else to be. (grin) That story is as old as the hills.

Point of fact though, I do remember reading lively engagements here on the 'Deck with students who decided to contribute.

As far as the oldest contributor to the paper goes, my dad, Robert Rice, would come in close, as he contributed to several of my columns with his words and photos well into his 90's.

Back to the banjo...

Sorry. I'm just a newbie and am not aware of Lakewood and specifically LO history.