On Sunday, November First, nine Jewish teen girls reminded me why I am committed to sharing power and authority with girls.  The girls in question were Ma’yan’s second cohort of Research Training Interns (RTI) – a program built on the model of “participatory action research,” where members of the group being studied serve on a collaborative research team.  That Sunday was the culmination of their work: a presentation of initial research findings for parents and professionals at Ma’yan’s Symposium on Bat Mitzvah. 

Although participatory action research rests on sharing power between adults and youth, I learned a long time ago—as an editorial intern at New Moon, an advertising-free magazine for 8-12 year-old girls—that these negotiations are easier preached than practiced.  New Moon really puts its money where its mouth is: not only does it publish writing from girls, it invests authority in a Girls’ Editorial Board (GEB).  It was at New Moon that I experienced my first “a-ha” moment about girls and power.  One afternoon, I sat with an adult editor and several GEB members on a conference call to plan an upcoming national event.  Each time I had the urge to interject, to lead the girls to some conclusion or coach them in their responses, I noticed that the adult editor from New Moon held back.  That’s when I got it: in the absence of my stepping in, the GEB girls managed to work things out themselves.  I hadn’t been stepping in, all this time, because the girls needed my help.  I’d been doing it because I didn’t trust them, because I was impatient, because I wanted credit for coming up with the answer.  When I mentioned my observation to the adult editor, her face lit up.  “You got it,” she said.  “We’re not here to patronize these girls or use them to sell magazines.  If we want to encourage them to speak up, we have to be willing to listen.”

In the years since that internship, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice sharing power with girls.  And even though I know the benefits, I still find it challenging sometimes to make room for them to experiment, to choose something different from what I’d imagined, to risk failure.  So it was at the Symposium on Bat Mitzvah, that I held my breath when the RTIs decided to go with a novel format for their “panel”: presenting in pairs to small groups of attendees arranged in circles around the auditorium.  In ten minute increments, the pairs rotated around the room, eventually addressing each group of attendees (who remained seated for the entire session). 

I feared the strangeness of this set-up would be confusing for those attending the symposium; indeed, I saw a lot of bewildered looks on people’s faces as they entered the room full of unmarked circles of chairs.  But here’s the thing: it worked.  Instead of a formal address behind a podium, the RTIs entered each circle, sitting face-to-face with attendees.  Instead of having one shot to get it right, each Intern presented five times, gaining confidence with each performance. Instead of waiting until the end of the hour to receive feedback, the RTIs fielded spontaneous questions in response to their work, sparking deeper inquiry and reinforcing the RTIs’ authority as researchers.  The girls had created something effective and exciting, something I would never have come up with myself. 

Would I feel differently about our power-sharing if the presentation format had been less successful?  Perhaps so – making room for teens to make mistakes and learn from them is another topic for another blog post.  In this instance, I’m simply giving our RTIs full credit, and remembering that if I want to encourage girls to speak up, I have to be willing to take a deep breath, let go, and listen.