• Home
  • About
    • About
    • Policies
  • Submissions
    • Op-eds
    • News / Announcements
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

eJewish Philanthropy

Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource

  • News Bits
  • Jewish Education
  • Readers Forum
  • Research
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Readers Forum / Time to Discomfort the Comfortable Teen?

Time to Discomfort the Comfortable Teen?

July 26, 2015 By eJP

By Billy Planer

“One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles
possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.”
Albert Schweitzer

It is natural for teachers and parents to want to make life comfortable, easy, and pleasant for their students and children; natural to feel we are helping build their self-esteem by having them succeed in their endeavors.

Our attempts, as well-intentioned as they are, may be creating young people who don’t have the necessary tools and confidence to handle life when it takes a hard turn.

In medicine, there is a concept called Wolff’s law. It basically states that bones adapt to pressure or lack of it. Like muscles, bones strengthen under pressure and weaken when not put to use.  In the past 30 years of working with Jewish youth, I have seen a shift to protecting our young people from failure, celebrating any and every attempt at something, holding back from correcting mistakes and keeping them from confronting uncomfortable experiences.

I created a summer program for Jewish teens called Etgar 36 that actually encourages these encounters. We take teens on a journey across America to engage, discuss, and debate with many sides of political issues. Within the space we create in our community, we encourage the teens to actually listen and engage with people with whom they disagree. We live out the quote, “these and those are the words of a living God,” as an underlying theme of Etgar 36 is that just meeting and speaking with people and issues you agree with is not productive. We must engage with “the other,” even at the cost of being uncomfortable. In fact, it is only through this discomfort that we will figure out as a community how to move forward.

While this process is not always comfortable, fun, and nice, like the caterpillar, the students emerge from this tension that we present on Etgar 36 as a stronger, deeper butterfly.

A prime example that comes to mind is the LGBT Reform Synagogue in Dallas, Texas that every Etgar 36 group meets with on the first Friday night of their trip. The synagogue advocates on behalf of same sex marriage. A few days later, we meet with a conservative talk show host who used to be affiliated with Focus on the Family, and he speaks against same sex marriage. One year, at our daily wrap up where the students share their thoughts and feelings from each day, one student said that the anti gay marriage meeting was extremely difficult for him, but it made him confident and committed to the fact that for the first time he wanted to publicly acknowledge that he was gay.

By meeting with people who may be verbalizing ideas that go against who someone is in life, we are truly helping these teens learn how to develop thicker skin as well as the tools necessary to navigate a world that may not care about them as much as we do. The students are also learning how to strengthen their own beliefs in the face of opposition. If we deny our students the ability to have their ideas challenged and made to rethink what they stand for, how do they really know if their beliefs are solid?

The speakers also hold the students accountable for their comments. They call the students out publicly to be able to back up their thoughts, sources, and opinions. As a staff, we also make sure the students are maintaining eye contact and presenting productive non-verbal communicative skills. In today’s world of texting and non-face-to-face communications, these “old school” skills are still vital. I have heard from many alumni throughout the years that my hard line approach to constantly hold them accountable for the way they present themselves at these meetings has paid off many times throughout college and entering the work world. While they may have found it annoying or unnecessary then, they are so appreciative of it now.

I am convinced that our approach also helps build their self-esteem. After all, self-esteem is not something that is caused, but rather, it is a result. While it may feel good to be told you are correct and fine without really having that tested, the self-esteem that is built from that is built in sand. By having to test out our abilities and thoughts, and sometimes having to confront our weaknesses and even fail, we realize that we also have the ability to build back up. That is self-esteem based on results, and that is foundational.

What is Jewish about this approach? Everything. After all, isn’t one of our founding documents, The Talmud, basically a recording of verbal disagreements and debates. Clear winners and losers of the discussions in which we can turn to in order to help shape our opinions?

Billy Planer has been working in Jewish experiential education for 30 years. He is the Founder and Director of Etgar 36, a program that during the summer takes Jewish teens across America teaching them about history, politics and activism. During the academic year Etgar 36 takes day schools and synagogue groups on Civil Rights journeys.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: Readers Forum Tagged With: Engaging Jewish Teens

Click here to Email This Post Email This Post to friends or colleagues!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Michael Mellen says

    July 27, 2015 at 5:05 pm

    I continue to meet or reconnect with teens or older who took part in Etgar 36. Each of them talk about the power of the experience, the way in which they were pushed to see and hear both sides on a number of issues, and the ways in which the staff, including Billy, helped them process what they were seeing, hearing and doing in meaningful and thought-provoking ways.

Primary Sidebar

Join The Conversation

What's the best way to follow important issues affecting the Jewish philanthropic world? Our Daily Update keeps you on top of the latest news, trends and opinions shaping the landscape, providing an invaluable source for inspiration and learning.
Sign Up Now
For Email Marketing you can trust.

Continue The Conversation

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Comments

  • Lyn Light Geller on Being Heard: What We Owe Jewish Community Professionals
  • Sheila Katz on The Unfinished Work of Inclusion
  • Sarah Schuminsky on The Unfinished Work of Inclusion
  • Paul F. Resnick on Toward a Strategic Philanthropic Approach to Field Building
  • michael shire on The Big Jewish Question On My Mind:
    Where Am I Complicit in Perpetuating Bias?

Most Popular Recent Posts

  • BBYO receives historic $25 million Pledge to Support Women’s Leadership and Empowerment
  • Words to Avoid – 2019 Edition
  • Being Heard: What We Owe Jewish Community Professionals
  • Redefining Jewish Education: Federations’ Goals for a New Century
  • Caregiving – The Big Issue No One is Talking About

Categories

Archives

Footer

What We Do

eJewish Philanthropy highlights news, resources and thought pieces on issues facing our Jewish philanthropic world in order to create dialogue and advance the conversation. Learn more.

Top 40 Philanthropy Blogs and Websites to Follow in 2019

Copyright © 2019 · eJewish Philanthropy · All Rights Reserved