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The central position of Positive Peer Culture is that young people can develop self-worth, significance, dignity, and responsibility only as they become committed to the positive values of helping and caring for others. While this philosophy appears to be missing in many of today's education and treatment programs, the general concept has a rich place in history. Shakespeare observed that "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself." Most major religions extol the virtue of service to others. An ancient Hindu proverb advises "Help thy brother's boat across, and lo, thine own has reached the shore." The Christian, Jewish, and Moslem faiths all stress the value of extending kindness to others, even if they are strangers.
In the 1800s, the American educational philosopher, Horace Mann, argued that childhood should be an apprenticeship in responsibility, preparing children for the moral attitudes of self-government and service to others. During the same period, a pioneer in the work with troubled youth, S. D. Brooks, recognized their great potential for service. As superintendent of a New York training school in the mid-nineteenth century, his enthusiasm was unbounded as he declared, "The very qualities of sagacity and daring which formerly rendered them a terror to the community will push them forward in their new career of virtue, honor, and usefulness."
However, the optimism of the 1800s gave way to the reality of the urbanized, industrialized twentieth century. Social critics marked the depersonalization of life, the failures of our societal institutions, and the emptiness of childhood and adolescence. The anthropologist Benedict [1] observed that contemporary society does not provide meaningful role opportunities for youth; rather, it prevents them from assuming adult responsibilities and then blames youth for their irresponsibility and belligerence.
When the first edition of Positive Peer Culture was written in the early 1970s, young people in our society were seen by many as the "me generation." It was as if the Jeffersonian concept of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" had been mutated to mean freedom to "do one's own thing" and "look out for number one" in a climate of consumption and indifference to social responsibility. Sadly, many of our schools and treatment institutions, and even our theories of human behavior, still support this self-centered irresponsibility.
In a most penetrating analysis of this phenomenon, Michael and Lise Wallach [10] of Duke University indict the major theories of human psychology as promoting selfishness.
There is currently in our society an enormous emphasis on the self. . . narcissism, self-concern and preoccupation with "me". . . . A surprisingly broad and influential range of psychological theory turns out to legitimatize selfishness. Although this is usually far from what is intended, support is lent by academic thinkers as well as clinicians, by Freudians as well as anti-Freudians, by behaviorists as well as contenders against behaviorism, and by psychologists who investigate altruism as by those who deny its existence.
They observed that the classic psychoanalytic position reduces human behavior to innate drives that are satisfied by the pleasure principle; self-sacrifice, once seen as a virtue, is presumed to be motivated by neurotic guilt. The behaviorist sees altruism as a special case of self-reinforcement where individuals engage in efforts on behalf of others in order to promote themselves. Even humanistic psychologists are caught in this "error of egoism" by assuming that the most worthy human goal is the quest for self-expression.
In this kind of cynical, psychological world view, there is no real place for gratitude since no one is really genuinely concerned. Even if you really wanted to help someone else, the ultimate basis of your motivation is what you expect to gain by doing so. In such a climate, work that contributes to the welfare of others is devalued. Commitment to a spouse in marriage is undermined, and sacrifices for one's children or parents are suspect because they may interfere with self-expression and freedom. Concluding that therapy need not be cast only in forms that encourage selfishness, the Wallachs call for alternatives. They note a scattered but powerful alternative view within psychology. Allport, Mowrer, Adler, and Frankel all support the idea that it is essential for a person to step outside of himself to care for other' humans without thought of return, and such acts of service can heal psychological wounds. Menninger observes that major religions identify self-centeredness as the central human problem and love as the means of overcoming it-self-preoccupation is displaced by assuming responsibility beyond one's self.
The field of education has also been preoccupied with the self to the detriment of building a climate of cooperation. Johnson and Johnson note that the three major formats for learning are cooperation, competition, and individualization. Competition is the dominant pattern in regular class rooms as student is pitted against student in a struggle of educational fitness. Rejecting competition, special educators turn instead to precisely measured individual objectives; but even as they seek to meet the needs of the individual child, they often fail to address the goal of developing caring interpersonal behaviors. As in psychology, there are hopeful signs of a course correction from the "self-ish" toward the interpersonal approach that seeks to build communities of caring. This is seen in the renewed interest in topics such as peer tutoring or counseling, social skill instruction, the social psychology of learning, and moral and value development.
The Carnegie Foundation studies of the problems and needs of youth in this nation emphasize the crucial importance of involving young people in helping others. Noting that a vast industry serves youth with schooling, entertainment, and goods of all kinds, our society offers limited opportunities for the young themselves to be of service to others. Perhaps high technology economies do not have the capacity of absorbing a mass of youth in formal employment roles; nevertheless, widespread opportunities for volunteer service exist by involving young people in helping one another and in meeting other needs that exist in every community. In a major study of American high schools, the Carnegie Foundation called for all of the nation's secondary schools to establish involvement in some volunteer service activity as a requirement for high school graduation.
Young people who populate our nation's schools and youth institutions are in desperate need of an antidote to the narcissism, malaise, and antisocial life-styles that have become so prevalent. As Gallup and Poling [5] conclude from their survey of contemporary youth, the emerging generation is more than hinting, now almost screaming, to be used in some demanding cause.
INTRODUCTION
What Is Positive Peer Culture?
A student hurls a book across the room, laughs, and blurts out a remark designed to disrupt the class. Before the teacher can respond, other students in the room confront the offender for being "inconsiderate" and tell him to "check" himself. The youth, having received no peer support for his actions, slumps quietly into his seat. The teacher resumes her instruction without having said one word about the behavior problem.
The metropolitan transit authority announced its intention of discontinuing cross-town bus service for junior high school students after repeated incidents of serious vandalism. Ten students from the school's peer-leadership program offered to resolve the problem. They contacted various students who rode the buses, found out what had happened, and asked for a commitment for no further destruction. Thus confronted by their influential peers, the students willingly cooperated in the elimination of further problems on these buses.
A group home for troubled girls had severe drug abuse problems. The result of the many attempts to suppress the activity was a cold war between staff and youth. Suspicion, searches, and restriction became commonplace. That was a year ago. Now staff members no longer police students for drugs, and the climate of intrigue is gone. As a new girl enters, her peers confiscate any drugs she may have and tell her, "We don't have to use dope around here." Drug problems are dealt with openly in a helpful, matter-of-fact way. Group members state with strong conviction that when a person has good feelings about herself she no longer needs to get high on drugs.
In a residential treatment center for court-committed youth, a new student suggests to others that he is planning to run away. Instead of finding partners in truancy, he encounters a totally unexpected peer response. "Listen, running isn't where it's at. That's just a copout. You have to face things. We're not going to let you mess over yourself; if we have to stay up all night and put'our mattresses in front of your door to make sure you're still here in the morning, we will. But we really don't like to sleep on the floor, guarding you like you're a child. You're man enough to take care of yourself!"
Students from an alternative school for troubled youth volunteered their services to the community by chopping wood for the elderly, repainting playground equipment for neighborhood children, and assisting in a Special Olympics for the handicapped.
What is happening in these situations? In each, young people are part of a program called Positive Peer Culture (hereafter, Positive Peer Culture).
Positive Peer Culture departs decisively from traditional approaches and charts a new course in the fields of education and treatment. A comprehensive strategy for dealing with the problems of youth, Positive Peer Culture teaches students to assume responsibility for helping one another.
Young people are profoundly influenced by associations with their peers. Too often the peer group has been viewed only as a liability; too seldom has it been seen as a resource. Just as peer group influence can foster problems, so also can the peer process be used to solve problems.
Positive Peer Culture is not a new brand of group therapy that has just appeared on the market. Nor is Positive Peer Culture "something extra" that can be added to an existing program, as one might attach accessories to an automobile. Instead, Positive Peer Culture is a total system for building positive youth subcultures.
Although first developed for delinquent youth, Positive Peer Culture now is being employed in a wide range of settings. Schools, community programs, juvenile courts, group homes, and other childcare facilities have found Positive Peer Culture to be a clear and viable alternative to existing programs.
The history of Positive Peer Culture can be traced to the senior author's experiences at Highfields in the late 1950s. This residential treatment program for delinquent youth was established in a mansion given to the state of New Jersey by Charles A. Lindbergh. There, under the guidance of Lloyd McCorkle, Lovell Bixby, Albert Elias, and others, a peer-oriented treatment model called Guided Group Interaction (GGI) was developed. In this approach, structured peer groups met five times weekly in group counseling sessions, and youth assumed responsibility for one another's behavior outside the group meetings. The program at Highfields received wide attention as an innovative treatment design.*
Following his experience at Highfields, Harry Vorrath worked with colleagues to employ this model in a variety of community and institutional settings. In response to certain initial problems, the program was modified, expanded, and refined until it reached its present form. The result is a comprehensive and specific treatment methodology, now known as Positive Peer Culture.
Built around groups of nine youth under the guidance of an adult leader, Positive Peer Culture is designed to "turn around" a negative youth subculture and mobilize the power of the peer group in a productive manner. Youth in Positive Peer Culture groups learn how to identify problems and how to work toward their resolution. In group sessions and in day-to-day activities, the goal is to fully involve young people in the helping process.
In contrast to traditional treatment approaches, Positive Peer Culture does not ask whether a person wants to receive help but whether he is willing to give help. As the person gives and becomes of value to others, he increases his own feelings of worthiness and builds a positive self-concept.
Positive Peer Culture does not avoid the challenge of troublesome youth; rebellious and strong-willed individuals, when redirected, have much to contribute. Those who have encountered many difficulties in their own lives are often in the best position to understand the problems of others.
Positive Peer Culture does not seek to impose specific rules but to teach basic values. If there were one rule, it would be that people must care for one another. Caring means wanting what is best for a person. Unfortunately, positive caring behavior is not always popular among youth. In fact, negative, harmful behavior frequently is more acceptable. Therefore, Positive Peer Culture uses specific procedures to foster caring behavior. Once caring becomes fashionable, hurting goes out of style.
Positive Peer Culture has had its most dramatic success to date in turning around schools and institutions that were plagued with severe problems of student unrest and adult-youth conflict. In Children in Trouble: A National Scandal, a nationwide study of programs for problem youth, the Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Howard James described the success of Positive Peer Culture in a school for delinquent youth.
Mr. Vorrath was given the opportunity to prove that his ideas worked with small groups in Kentucky, Washington, D.C, and in scattered spots across the country. The projects were successful. He was able to turn small groups of tough delinquents around. But Mr. Vorrath wanted to try his program at a large institution.
He got his chance in 1968 after things fell apart at a rather average reform school at Red Wing, Minnesota. Youngsters rioted and ran. Mr. Vorrath was called in.
Using a technique that might be described as building a culture of caring, Mr. Vorrath divides the boys into groups with each member responsible for all the boys in his group.
His program is built on love-"not the sweet, sugar-coated kind," he adds. "I'm talking about the unselfish love that makes a Marine crawl on his belly into enemy fire to save a wounded buddy. There can be little doubt that the program works. At Red Wing, I talked to boys sprawled on the lawn playing chess on a warm Sunday afternoon. Others batted a baseball around-all without supervision. The boys learn to help each other stay out of trouble.
Two-, three-, and four-time losers agree that before Mr. Vorrath arrived, they could "con" the staff into letting them go home by pretending to conform to institutional requirements. No attitudinal improvement took place. All this is changing.
There are still important questions to be answered. Will Mr. Vorrath's culture of caring-what one finds in a strong, happy family-last after Mr. Vorrath has moved on to other institutions? Can he teach others to build his culture? And can youngsters so absorb this philosophy of caring deeply for others that they can survive on their own in the harsh, dog-eat-dog world they came from?
I was more heartened by what I saw at Red Wing than by anything else going on in large institutions anywhere in America.
Currently, Positive Peer Culture programs are operating in all parts of the country and in a variety of settings.
An urban Midwestern high school that was beset by riots, police surveillance of hallways, and a high dropout rate is now the scene of positive rapport between students and faculty. The guidance department tells Positive Peer Culture groups about any student who is nearing failure or suspension so that peers may have the opportunity to help him to succeed. Students of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds are no longer warring but work together to solve mutual problems.
A large state correctional school operates with unlocked doors for the first time in more than a century. The atmosphere is no longer clouded with fear, mistrust, and intimidation. Teachers are now free to teach without being entangled in futile attempts to discipline and control youth.
A group of youth, once a street gang that had engaged in dozens of undetected felonies, now works as an adjunct to the juvenile court. Members serve as assistant probation officers and are assigned to help with new offenders. This court, which had had great difficulty in recovering runaway youth, now uses peers to locate truants and "talk them back in" so they may be involved in constructive treatment.
Positive Peer Culture is not a permissive, laissez-faire approach but places considerable demands on youth. Although adults remain in charge, young people have the responsibility for helping one another. They must learn that no one has a right to ignore a person in need, for in the words of George Bernard Shaw: "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity." Positive Peer Culture asks much of youth in the knowledge that people seldom will be more responsible than they are expected to be or more helpful than they are allowed to be Positive Peer Culture is a synthesis of several long-known but seldom-utilized principles. While Positive Peer Culture can be related to theories of learning and group processes, it grows not from theory but from practice. Positive Peer Culture was not suddenly invented but has gradually emerged through years of searching for those factors that underlie successful group programs. The procedures that have evolved are those that have survived the tests of time and experience.
Although the basic concepts of Positive Peer Culture can be easily understood, it is no simple matter to produce a truly positive culture of young people. Careful planning and organization are necessary, with attention given to many different variables. An effective program also requires properly trained staff who are committed to the task of developing the positive potentials of youth.
Harry H. Vorrath Larry K. Brendtro
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