Free of adult boundaries.

Livi and gravel. Gramdma, have you seen her new glasses? 

Last night I was at a meeting where we worked on planning a youth leadership retreat for 4-Hers.

The first half of the day will be at a local ropes course.

The second half is what we are planning.
We had a regional educator on Skype, to help us out.

I found it really interesting, because he had been doing some thinking about this, and said as a classroom teacher, up until a year ago when he started this job, he and the public education system across the board, ask the kids to "just give me the answer." Youth are not expected to think outside the box.

Which, of course, we encourage in 4-H. (Shhh. Sometimes we even encourage failure. It's a great way to learn.)

So, as a leadership training, we are thinking about giving them problem solving scenarios, and let them solve them, free of adult boundaries.

Then we will give them data about our county, let them analyze it, come up with a "scenario" and solutions/actions they can take...thus planning a community service project, which they will then execute, over a the course of months.

It is sort of thrilling to me. Leading kids through this project, being a "guide on the side" for them. I am some sort of nerd that way.
I have considered, now and then, becoming a teacher. Unfortunately, the sort of skills and teaching that I see as important isn't encouraged in the schools- the system doesn't allow for it very often. So, I get my thrills by helping kids learn this stuff through 4-H. Yay!