AEU’s Ethical Education for high school-aged young adults offers greater freedom and self-direction in a safe, respectful, and confidential environment. Teens freely discuss and explore topics that are relevant and important to them while planning activities that allow them to directly engage ethical questions and current issues in the world around them.
While the groups are generally youth-led, an adult advisor is always present to help guide the discussions and projects as needed. Each Fall, youth groups from local Ethical Societies gather together for a Youth of Ethical Societies (YES) Conference.
Teens work together to organize service activities, fundraisers, and opportunities for ethical action. We hope that they’ll find room to think, room to examine and thoughtfully question the assumptions they may have inherited. Together, youth group teens tend to exercise an inspiring capacity to think critically and act ethically.
YES 2021 was held online March 5-7th
The annual Youth of Ethical Societies (YES) conference is sponsored by the AEU. Every year, teens travel to either NY, St. Louis or DC to visit friends’ Societies and share an intense weekend of discussions and fun. 2020’s conference was the final group activity for many of us, as everything quickly shut down immediately after.
For YES 2021, our teens gathered online from the evening of Friday, March 5, to the evening of Sunday, March 7. Unbelievably, we had 28 teens and six adults attend the conference! Represented Societies included the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, the Ethical Society of Mid Rivers, the Ethical Society of St. Louis, the Susquehanna Valley Ethical Society, the Washington Ethical Society and the Ethical Culture Society of Westchester.
The online format made it easy — and inexpensive! — for folks to attend. Friday evening, after introductions, ice breakers and forming a group agreement, we welcomed James Croft as a guest speaker. James inspired us to think critically about what we’re taught and how we learn best. After his talk, the teens had an organic large-group discussion about their education.
Saturday began with a Kahoot and the responses helped shape our discussions. Teens then chose breakout groups for more specific discussions. The breakouts about sex and gender topics were LGBTQIA+ issues, sex ed and sexual harassment; the race issues breakouts were school-to-prison pipeline, funding and honest history. Each breakout group, along with the rest of the conference, was entirely teen-led.
Saturday evening was more relaxed and unstructured. Teens separated into two groups to watch movies and then a small group returned to our zoom room to have what we call a Sharing Circle. During this time, the teens are free to share anything that’s on their mind — anything that they’re excited about or struggling with. Given the year we’ve all had, the opportunity to connect over challenges and stressors was powerful.
Sunday included a presentation about FES (led by Anya Overmann), a bridging ceremony for seniors, elections for YES 2022 officers and planning our upcoming All Society Platform. We hope you’ll join us on May 16, 2021 when our teens present about YES!
Many thanks to our fantastic planning team for YES 2021: Jasper (President), Ellie (Vice President), Caroline (Officer), Abby (Officer), Bella, Bryan and Ella. All but one of these team members are seniors and they contributed countless hours, during an already-stressful year, to plan the conference.
We look forward to being back to an in-person conference next year, with plans to meet in NY the first weekend of March. But one of the silver linings to being forced into a virtual YES for this year: we’ve decided to also add in a one-day fall conference, online!
The ability to expand our community is exciting at this time. Teens are connecting across several Ethical Societies and youth group advisors have been meeting to share challenges and successes from the year. Next up, we’ll be looking to connect the broader ethical education community. If you would like to be part of the upcoming conversations, please contact Trish Cowan-Williams at tcowan@aeu.org or 314-680-3348.
For details of the Young Adult program in your area, contact your local Ethical Society.
