Getting schooled on teens today
Anthony Ashworth-Steen, Hannah Brady, Shelley Marsh, Scott Fried and Dr David Bryfman
YOUNG PEOPLE are different today — let’s try to understand them better.
That was the aim of more than 200 educators, who came together on Sunday and Monday to attend “21st Century Teens”, the inaugural conference held by recently-launched educational body Reshet.
The group was set up last year to bring together people from across the community who specialise in informal education inside schools, synagogues and youth movements.
The conference, which was supported by the Children’s Aid Committee, was Reshet’s first step in achieving this, inviting educators to focus on an issue they all grapple with — understanding teen culture today. Throughout the conference, they were joined by school students who offered first-hand experience on the topic.
Hannah Brady, president of the Union of Jewish Students, and Anthony Ashworth-Steen, UJIA’s director for informal education, chaired the event, which covered four issues: connection and connectivity, Israel, technology and pressures on young people. The pair introduced proceedings by telling attendees: “We must recognise that young people are different today and think about how we take that and adapt as a community to stay relevant.”
Among the speakers during the event were Neil Martin, chief executive of the Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade, Chana Kanzen, chair of Jewish Interactive, and Matt Plen, chief executive of Masorti Judaism.
Meanwhile, keynote speaker Scott Fried, an internationally-acclaimed health educator, spoke about the importance of helping teenagers grapple with their sexuality and with mental health, and how such issues could affect their religious engagement.
Mr Fried said: “We must listen for the things teenagers are not saying, we must look for the things teenagers are not showing, and we must love the things they have not yet learned to love in themselves.”
Shelley Marsh, executive director of Reshet, said the conference had been a “catalyst for future conversations”.
“It created a space to hear relevant and current information from young people,” she said. “For community professionals to be able to digest this and plan for the future is invaluable.
“I can presume, I can guess, I can project what it is like to be a young Jewish person in the 21st century; but more importantly, I can listen.”