Deliberation and Teenagers

The work of the Mathews Center is rooted in the idea that when it comes to working for positive change in communities, there is no such thing as failure, if citizens approach their work as learning opportunities along the road to change.

For the 2010-11 Alabama Issues Forums cycle on the education drop-out rate, teams of teenagers from schools in five counties in East Alabama will be matched with undergraduate Mathews Center interns from the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University to employ community-based research and deliberative democratic practices as they develop and execute an action plan in their community to address the drop-out rate. They’re not expected to solve the issue in their community in a year; the problem didn’t occur overnight and is a little more complicated than setting a broken arm or implementing a whiz-bang program that can be delivered by postal mail. But I’m guessing these teens will make a positive contribution to the issue in their communities during this school year, and the community learning experience for undergraduates will be invaluable.

These teams will learn a lot, teach all of us a lot, and, hopefully, wrestle deeply with what it takes to make democracy work as it should. Check the Mathews Center Web site for regularly updates on the project.

-Mark Wilson