[MUSIC] Welcome back. This is Course 8, Developing Relationships. We're in week five. It takes a village to raise a child. And this is lecture two. What I have to do in this lecture is to look at a particular program that relates to developmental assets, which might be used in a way to improve student achievement. The organization that has been involved in these developmental assets research, is The Search Institute in the United States, and it was founded in 1958. Since that time it has been seeking to find what are the things that are needed that will help young people grow and thrive. And they've done, is that they've identified forty what they call assets that support young people's growth. In the almost sixty years since The Search Institute started the research, more than 4 million young people have consistently shown that the more assets they have, the less likely they are to engage in high-risk behavior and the more likely they are to thrive and to do well in school. The research found that youth were less likely to involve themselves in four high risk behaviors, such as alcohol use, violence, drug use, and early sexual activity. They also found that the higher the level of assets they have, the more likely they are to do well in school, to be engaged within their communities, and to value and celebrate diversity. There are 40 developmental assets and these are divided up into external assets and internal assets. The four different areas of the external assets are support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, and constructive use of time. If we look at the support assets, and I don't intend to read them out. I will just give you 30 seconds to read what is on this particular list. [MUSIC] What happens in the research is that students are given this list and they are asked, do you have this asset or not? And what we found is that the more assets that people have, the more likely they're going to do well in school. The second set of assets, and again, I've got to give you time to read these are empowerment Assets. [MUSIC] As you were looking through these you might make decisions for your selves. Are some of these more important than others? So for instance, does the young person perceiving that adults in the community value them, impact more than whether or not a young person serves in the community for an hour or more a week? The third group of assets come under the heading of boundaries and expectations. And again, I will give you a little bit of time to have a look at these. [MUSIC] In this particular group, you can see the importance of all the different people that are involved in the community. So it's family, school, neighbors, role models and peers. All of these people provide a positive perspective of what the young person should do. The final group, in the external assets is constructive use of time. Again, I will give you time to read them. [MUSIC] What we have here is how a young person uses their time outside of school. What are they doing in their communities that can be seen as being positive and supportive of their future development? The second list of assets are internal assets. And again, we have four different groups, commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies and positive identity. In the first group of assets we were looking at the things that impacted on a young person by people or organizations from outside of the person. These assets on the other hand, are assets that are internal to the person. It's my own characteristics, my own set of understandings of the world, that make a difference. Commitment to learning. [MUSIC] Am I really interested in the things that will help me learn and doing things that will support my learning? The second group is positive values. [MUSIC] This group is about how I feel about other people and how I react to other people. The next group are social competencies. And this is how I work with other people to make decisions. How do I plan? How do I support other people? How do I interact with people from different cultures? And am I peaceful? Can I understand and resolve conflict in a non-violent way? [MUSIC] The final group is positive identity. Do I feel that I'm in charge of my life? Do I have high self esteem? Do I feel that I have a sense of purpose? And so on. [MUSIC] What we can argue is that if young people see all of these in a positive light, then they will do well in school. They will do well socially. They will do well in their community. And they have the skills that they need to support their future development. Unfortunately what we find in much of the research is that there are fairly large percentages of young people who do not have the skills that they need to do well. If you go to The Search Institute web site, which I have listed on the next slide, you can find out a little bit more about developmental assets for the specific age group of the students that you work with. So we have four different categories there of young people, from three to five, from five to nine, from eight to 12 and from 12 to 18. Choose the one that is appropriate to your students' age group. Have a look at some of these assets and have a look at some of he research behind what happens to young people. What you could do is to discuss with your colleagues, or if you like on the discussion forum, some strategies that you could use to actually promote some of these assets in your school. And then you could ask, how might you get parents and your school community more involved using this framework as a way of moving forward? In lecture three we'll be looking at inviting the community into our school, what that means and how we might go about it. Until then, thank you. [MUSIC]
