Alabama officials seek advice of teenagers for solving school violence problems

There’s an epidemic of violence in our country’s schools. It seems that everyone, from politicians to law enforcement officials to clergy, has been sought after for solutions on how to solve this problem.
   
Brice Marsh, a group facilitator at the Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA in Huntsville, realized one important group wasn’t being consulted.
   
He wondered why no one had thought to ask the students themselves. So he, along with his friend Rod Peeks, co-founded a nonprofit organization called Teen Think Tanks of America, Inc., to give teenagers a forum to discuss violence in their schools.
   
“We wondered what would happen if we gave teens an opportunity to be candid and honest and say whatever they thought about violence,” said Marsh, a member of Southside Baptist Church, Madison. “For many students, this is the first time they have ever been seriously asked for their opinion on school violence and most are interested in helping.”
   
Since they started having these conferences in July 1998, Marsh and Peeks have talked with more than 400 teenagers around the country about their thoughts on school violence.
   
And this information is now being requested by the Alabama Legislature and Alabama Attorney General’s office as state officials seek to provide solutions to the problems.
   
In 1999 Gov. Don Siegelman and the state Legislature commended the teens’ findings and gave the Teen Think Tank special recognition. The results were presented to the governor’s task force on school violence.
   
The early information also was used by the President’s Summit on School Violence in which Alabama Congressman Bud Cramer was a member.
   
In a 1999 article in The Huntsville Times, Cramer praised the think tank concept.
   
About 20 students are invited to attend a typical three-hour session.  Each group is a cross section of teens, with no more than 25 percent being high achievers, and no more than 25 percent being at-risk students. Demographics and social representation are also taken into account in the selection process.
   
Think tanks have been conducted in Huntsville, Birmingham and Sacramento, Calif. Students from Madison County and the Birmingham area have participated in the sessions.
   
Marsh said the most important factor is convincing the teens upfront that this is for real and that people of significance care about what they have to say.
   
Before each of the sessions, a government official, politician or law enforcement officer speaks to the group to assure them they are very interested in what the students have to say about school violence.
   
They are told that their results will be seen by the governor, attorney general, mayor, school superintendent and other government officials.  
   
Each student participating in a think tank conference sits at a laptop computer and types his or her response to questions posed to the group. Not only does what he or she types come up on his or her monitor but is also shown on a screen that everyone in the room can see.
   
“It’s all anonymous so students feel the freedom to express themselves,” said Peeks, who attends Metro Church of God, Birmingham. “When teens see the responses and comments from other teens, it often triggers more ideas in their minds too.”
   
Marsh said anonymity is crucial to these sessions. “These kids need to have protection and know that they can say anything they want and have what they say be given serious consideration,” he said. “There are a lot of things they wouldn’t admit if it weren’t anonymous.”
   
At the beginning of the session, the teens are presented with an open-ended question, such as, “What are things that cause teenagers to be violent?”
   
Students spend about 10 minutes typing whatever comes to their minds—and typically the group ends up with 120 to 150 ideas. 
   
Using special software, the teens rate all these ideas on-screen and tell if they agree or disagree with them. Then they select the 30 to 40 ideas that they think are the most relevant.  From those they select the top three or five ideas and concentrate on these for the rest of the session.
   
These top ideas are placed on electronic index cards on the computer screens.  Students are asked to respond specifically about these topics in well-thought-out answers. They are encouraged to focus on providing solutions rather than dwelling on problems.
  
Marsh said he tells the students to focus on how they would correct these problems — what recommendations and strategies they would suggest — if they had unlimited resources. The participants then prioritize and select the best solutions for each of the topics on which they are working.
   
The teenagers end the Teen Think Tank by taking a 15-minute survey on school violence. Every session ends with a different set of questions such as: Do you know a student who has brought a gun to school? Do you feel loved and respected by your parents? These answers become statistics and part of the report Peeks and Marsh present to school and government officials.
   
“We’re hoping to disarm fear in students and give them freedom to say whatever they feel without reprisal, ” Marsh said. “They need an opportunity to say what’s on their hearts and minds.”
   
For more information, visit the Teen Think Tanks Web site at www.teenthinktanks.org or contact Marsh at bricemarsh@aol.com.
   
Teens, parents and/or educators interested in taking the survey can go to www.teenthinktanks.org and click on “Be Part of Survey.”