Description
Coming of Age the RITE Way: Youth & Community Development through Rites of Passage addresses the absence of community-oriented rites of passage. This book is distinguished from others in that it combines almost fifty years of scholarship and practice to examine the concepts of rites of passage and sense of community, as it exists in literature and life. It focuses on the reciprocal relationship between rites of passage and sense of community and ways for it to impact the development of children and the health and adaptability of their community. This text raises and answers some of the most fundamental questions facing parents, schools and communities; How do we raise our children to be resilient, self-reliant, capable adults who are competent and with compassion that is manifested in civic engagement for social justice? The book sets forth guiding principles and clear methods for putting into practice a whole systems approach to youth development through rites of passage. The approach involves connecting and enhancing environments and building competencies, which promote the positive development of children and youth in their families, in their schools, among their peers in their community and with a strong connection to the natural world. It provides extensive narratives and case studies to illustrate how a framework of rites of passage is used to weave a common language throughout the community and links techniques for youth development with prevention, identification, intervention, and treatment and strengthens the fabric of community support.
About the Author
David Blumenkrantz, PhD, MEd, LADC, is the co-founder and executive director of the Center for Youth & Community, Inc. and the co-designer of the Rite of Passage Experience (c) (ROPE (R)). He is the author of "Fulfilling the Promise of Children's Services: Why Primary Prevention Efforts Fail and How They Can Succeed" (Jossey-Bass, 1992), along with numerous articles about youth and family issues for professional journals, newspapers, and magazines. His blog "The Rite Way" has been syndicated by Social Justice Solutions and is frequently reposted.
Reviews
Advance Praise: How are the children? the Masai ask in their daily greetings, knowing that the integrity and promise of community is not realized unless youth and their aspiration for an authentic life are embraced by the adult world. In this important and compelling book, David Blumenkrantz skillfully illuminates our current state of fragmented community, where adolescents are a tribe apart. He then brilliantly and gracefully shows us a way home to a very old idea and practice of the human village, where children and adults belong to one another, and where the question can be rightfully answered that the children are well. * Len Fleischer, EdD, Professor of Education, Keene State College; Licensed Clinical Psychologist *
Advance Praise: This groundbreaking book provides profound and practical community strategies for promoting the positive development of youth. It is a must reading for educators, human service providers, and policy makers who aspire to improve community institutions that successfully raise knowledgeable, responsible, caring, contributing youth on their way to happier, more fulfilling lives. * Roger P. Weissberg, PhD, University/LAS Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Education, University of Illinois at Chicago and Chief Knowledge Officer, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) *
Advance Praise: David Blumenkrantzs lifes work expressed in this seminal book gives us the philosophy, the foundation and the tools we need to support our children and young people at a time when they are experiencing so much neglect. We should have inherited this road map from our ancestors, but I am so grateful that David has reinvented it and given it to us as a gift for ours and future generations. * Mark Weiss, PhD, Education Director, Operation Respect, former New York City schools principal *
Advance Praise: Coming of Age the Rite Way will prove to be a significant bridge between scholarship and practice for the fields of education, social work, and youth development. Dr. Blumenkrantz weaves exquisite initiatory tales based on his 50 years of experience in community organizing and youth development. The book sets forth tested navigational aids to guide communities in the creation of unique place-based rites of passage for their young people. * Bethe Hagens, PhD, Faculty, School of Public Policy and Administration, Walden University *
Advance Praise: Coming of Age the Rite Way is a thought provoking and a healing manual that addresses some of the fundamental ills of the world today: In presenting rite of passage and community development as inseparable, the book reveals the profound wisdom that highlights how focusing in our youth is focusing in our communities. This book comes at the right time as a gift to parents and communities everywhere concerned about the future of their youth and longing for tools to fertilize their imagination. This book is a generous contribution to modern consciousness challenged by the decay of human creativity and imagination. * Malidoma Patrice Some, PhD, West African Elder, teacher, and author of Ritual: Power, Healing and Community and Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman *
Advance Praise: David Blumenkrantz continues to show how much we all still have to learn about rites of passage. Rite of passage specialists struggle to connect a youths community with their childrens initiatory experience so they can affirm their transformation and acknowledge their emerging adulthood. Blumenkrantz solved this decades ago by developing a supportive community before attempting any rite of passage approaches. This should be required reading for anyone interested in helping youth transition to adulthood and strengthening the village to raise their children, especially within the story of rites of passage. * Bret Stephenson, MA, author of From Boys to Men: Spiritual Rites of Passage in an Indulgent Age and owner, The Adolescent MindArchetypal Adolescent Services, Programs and Training *
Advance Praise: David Blumenkrantz offers a compellingsometimes provocativevision of rites of passage as a powerful yet neglected responsibility, resource, and focus for community and youth development. He weaves together his practical experience working in communities with stories and insights from many divergent sources to offer an integrative vision of rites of passes that transmit values, ethics, skills, and commitments from generation to generation. In the process, he shows how intentional rites of passage transform adolescence from what too often has become a time of alienation and rolenessness into a meaningful journey into both individual thriving and community strength. * Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, PhD, Vice President, Research and Development, Search Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota *
Advance Praise: Blumenkrantz is an activist. His community organizing through the Rite of Passage Experience (c) (ROPE) process, put into action in the 70s has included over 200,000 American youngsters and their parents. Had Blumenkrantz been a Brit, he would without a doubt been Sir David or even Lord Blumenkrantz by now. I cited his work in 2008, which helped to influence rites of passage in the UK. I wrote: One day it is hoped this fascinating and pioneering work will be readily available in bookshops all over the world. That day is now. A must read for educators and youth workers alike who want a new story and practical steps to change the future for our children, ourselves and our planet. * Geoffrey Ben-Nathan, author of Im Adult! Arent I?: The Case for a Formal Rite of Passage *
Advance Praise: David Blumenkrantz has done it again. His previous book, Fulfilling the Promise of Childrens Services, provided readers with a wide-ranging exploration of the myriad factors that either make or break prevention efforts targeting children, families, and communities. In this new book, Dr. Blumenkrantz creates another comprehensive examination of human services work, this time focusing attention on concepts and activities related to rites of passage. This is a tour de force, a book that contains encyclopedic coverage of concepts and activities related to the various ways in which societies provide their youth with pathways toward adulthood. * Stephen M. Gavazzi, PhD, Dean, Ohio State University, Mansfield *
Advance Praise: Ive witnessed the transformation of many children into young adulthood via rites and rituals. In Coming of Age the Rite Way, we learn adolescent becoming, moral and otherwise, finds fuller expression in the reciprocal reconstitution and growth of communal elders responsible for receiving their youth beyond their passage. A master storyteller, Dr. Blumenkrantz weaves narrative and theory into a magnificent study and celebration of initiation and rites of passage. * Rabbi Craig Marantz, Congregation Kol Haverim, Chaplain Connecticut State Legislature *
Advance Praise: In beautiful and often lyrical language, this book is a gift to all facing the challenge of preparing young people for the rewards of safe passage toward a fruitful life as adults. A welcome contrast to the often arcane and distancing language of social science that only other scholars might understand and embrace. All who believe in the rich potential of cherished youth will find gems here to aid them in the serious task of preparing children for bravely facing their next serious step in the life cycle. This is a must read by anyone especially parents, teachers, and counselors. * Lee Ann Hoff, PhD, author of People in Crisis: Interdisciplinary and Diversity Perspectives, 7th. Edition, and related titles on crisis and violence issues *
Advance Praise: Is it about raising test scores or raising children? asks Blumenkrantz. Our coming of age stories focus on problems: school shootings, drugs and alcohol, and testing. Children hate these boring stories, and they just scare adults. You have to pay people to work with stories that bad. But, Coming of Age the Rite Way, is a story that grabs children. Through it they get to answer their favorite question, How do we grow up? We know this story, weve just forgotten it. Weaving scholarship, practice and his deep experience of traditional wisdom, Blumenkrantz spins nothing less than the origin story for tomorrows communities. * Richard Owen Geer, PhD, community practitioner, Founder Community Performance International, co-author of Story Bridge: From Alienation to Community Action. *
Advance Praise: Coming of Age the Rite Way is a timely publication and its attractiveness is far-reaching. This book is strongly needed and is a welcomed addition to the literature. I applaud David Blumenkrantz for his keen attention to detail and creativity. Clearly a must-read for anyone who has the noble responsibility of providing guidance and direction to todays youth. Blumenkrantz has done a masterful job in presenting stories as well as factual data that will help synthesize our understanding of Rites of Passage and its curative value. I am pleased we now have a vivid and comprehensive body of work in one volume that will advance how to help youth move from one stage of life to the next. * Keith A. Alford, PhD, School of Social Work, Syracuse University *
Advance Praise: To read this book is to experience an awakening. It provides tools and understanding to take action in changing this storythrough restoring and innovating the rites of passage that our youth and communities so urgently need. Drawing upon research from diverse fields of study, as well as upon the authors own life work, Coming of Age the Rite Way contributes vital new thinking to youth and community development. It also inspires us to imagine new possibilities in emergent design for co-creating the narratives and rites that are needed to change our trajectory and reorient our planet toward balance, responsibility, and well-being. A must-read for parents, teachers and all those working for social change. * Joanna Cea & Jess Rimington, Visiting Scholars, Stanford University Global Projects Center *
Advance Praise: For three summers in the late 1960s and early 70s during my early teenage years, David Blumenkrantz was my counselor at Camp Wamsutta in Charlton, Massachusetts. It is only in retrospect that I realize that through my experiences as a camper under his guidance and mentorship that I actually lived the Rite Of Passage Experience (c) ROPE program he would later create to assist youth through the coming-of-age process. There are many who lament that there are no users guides or manuals for helping kids to navigate the turbulent waters of adolescence. Ah, but they have not read this book! * Kenneth F. Heideman, MS, Meteorologist, Director of Publications, American Meteorological Society and Past President, Board of Directors, Council of Science Editors *
Book Information
ISBN 9780190297336
Author David Blumenkrantz
Format Paperback
Page Count 280
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 408g
Dimensions(mm) 155mm * 231mm * 18mm
About the Author
David Blumenkrantz, PhD, MEd, LADC, is the co-founder and executive director of the Center for Youth & Community, Inc. and the co-designer of the Rite of Passage Experience (c) (ROPE (R)). He is the author of "Fulfilling the Promise of Children's Services: Why Primary Prevention Efforts Fail and How They Can Succeed" (Jossey-Bass, 1992), along with numerous articles about youth and family issues for professional journals, newspapers, and magazines. His blog "The Rite Way" has been syndicated by Social Justice Solutions and is frequently reposted.
Reviews
Advance Praise: How are the children? the Masai ask in their daily greetings, knowing that the integrity and promise of community is not realized unless youth and their aspiration for an authentic life are embraced by the adult world. In this important and compelling book, David Blumenkrantz skillfully illuminates our current state of fragmented community, where adolescents are a tribe apart. He then brilliantly and gracefully shows us a way home to a very old idea and practice of the human village, where children and adults belong to one another, and where the question can be rightfully answered that the children are well. * Len Fleischer, EdD, Professor of Education, Keene State College; Licensed Clinical Psychologist *
Advance Praise: This groundbreaking book provides profound and practical community strategies for promoting the positive development of youth. It is a must reading for educators, human service providers, and policy makers who aspire to improve community institutions that successfully raise knowledgeable, responsible, caring, contributing youth on their way to happier, more fulfilling lives. * Roger P. Weissberg, PhD, University/LAS Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Education, University of Illinois at Chicago and Chief Knowledge Officer, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) *
Advance Praise: David Blumenkrantzs lifes work expressed in this seminal book gives us the philosophy, the foundation and the tools we need to support our children and young people at a time when they are experiencing so much neglect. We should have inherited this road map from our ancestors, but I am so grateful that David has reinvented it and given it to us as a gift for ours and future generations. * Mark Weiss, PhD, Education Director, Operation Respect, former New York City schools principal *
Advance Praise: Coming of Age the Rite Way will prove to be a significant bridge between scholarship and practice for the fields of education, social work, and youth development. Dr. Blumenkrantz weaves exquisite initiatory tales based on his 50 years of experience in community organizing and youth development. The book sets forth tested navigational aids to guide communities in the creation of unique place-based rites of passage for their young people. * Bethe Hagens, PhD, Faculty, School of Public Policy and Administration, Walden University *
Advance Praise: Coming of Age the Rite Way is a thought provoking and a healing manual that addresses some of the fundamental ills of the world today: In presenting rite of passage and community development as inseparable, the book reveals the profound wisdom that highlights how focusing in our youth is focusing in our communities. This book comes at the right time as a gift to parents and communities everywhere concerned about the future of their youth and longing for tools to fertilize their imagination. This book is a generous contribution to modern consciousness challenged by the decay of human creativity and imagination. * Malidoma Patrice Some, PhD, West African Elder, teacher, and author of Ritual: Power, Healing and Community and Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman *
Advance Praise: David Blumenkrantz continues to show how much we all still have to learn about rites of passage. Rite of passage specialists struggle to connect a youths community with their childrens initiatory experience so they can affirm their transformation and acknowledge their emerging adulthood. Blumenkrantz solved this decades ago by developing a supportive community before attempting any rite of passage approaches. This should be required reading for anyone interested in helping youth transition to adulthood and strengthening the village to raise their children, especially within the story of rites of passage. * Bret Stephenson, MA, author of From Boys to Men: Spiritual Rites of Passage in an Indulgent Age and owner, The Adolescent MindArchetypal Adolescent Services, Programs and Training *
Advance Praise: David Blumenkrantz offers a compellingsometimes provocativevision of rites of passage as a powerful yet neglected responsibility, resource, and focus for community and youth development. He weaves together his practical experience working in communities with stories and insights from many divergent sources to offer an integrative vision of rites of passes that transmit values, ethics, skills, and commitments from generation to generation. In the process, he shows how intentional rites of passage transform adolescence from what too often has become a time of alienation and rolenessness into a meaningful journey into both individual thriving and community strength. * Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, PhD, Vice President, Research and Development, Search Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota *
Advance Praise: Blumenkrantz is an activist. His community organizing through the Rite of Passage Experience (c) (ROPE) process, put into action in the 70s has included over 200,000 American youngsters and their parents. Had Blumenkrantz been a Brit, he would without a doubt been Sir David or even Lord Blumenkrantz by now. I cited his work in 2008, which helped to influence rites of passage in the UK. I wrote: One day it is hoped this fascinating and pioneering work will be readily available in bookshops all over the world. That day is now. A must read for educators and youth workers alike who want a new story and practical steps to change the future for our children, ourselves and our planet. * Geoffrey Ben-Nathan, author of Im Adult! Arent I?: The Case for a Formal Rite of Passage *
Advance Praise: David Blumenkrantz has done it again. His previous book, Fulfilling the Promise of Childrens Services, provided readers with a wide-ranging exploration of the myriad factors that either make or break prevention efforts targeting children, families, and communities. In this new book, Dr. Blumenkrantz creates another comprehensive examination of human services work, this time focusing attention on concepts and activities related to rites of passage. This is a tour de force, a book that contains encyclopedic coverage of concepts and activities related to the various ways in which societies provide their youth with pathways toward adulthood. * Stephen M. Gavazzi, PhD, Dean, Ohio State University, Mansfield *
Advance Praise: Ive witnessed the transformation of many children into young adulthood via rites and rituals. In Coming of Age the Rite Way, we learn adolescent becoming, moral and otherwise, finds fuller expression in the reciprocal reconstitution and growth of communal elders responsible for receiving their youth beyond their passage. A master storyteller, Dr. Blumenkrantz weaves narrative and theory into a magnificent study and celebration of initiation and rites of passage. * Rabbi Craig Marantz, Congregation Kol Haverim, Chaplain Connecticut State Legislature *
Advance Praise: In beautiful and often lyrical language, this book is a gift to all facing the challenge of preparing young people for the rewards of safe passage toward a fruitful life as adults. A welcome contrast to the often arcane and distancing language of social science that only other scholars might understand and embrace. All who believe in the rich potential of cherished youth will find gems here to aid them in the serious task of preparing children for bravely facing their next serious step in the life cycle. This is a must read by anyone especially parents, teachers, and counselors. * Lee Ann Hoff, PhD, author of People in Crisis: Interdisciplinary and Diversity Perspectives, 7th. Edition, and related titles on crisis and violence issues *
Advance Praise: Is it about raising test scores or raising children? asks Blumenkrantz. Our coming of age stories focus on problems: school shootings, drugs and alcohol, and testing. Children hate these boring stories, and they just scare adults. You have to pay people to work with stories that bad. But, Coming of Age the Rite Way, is a story that grabs children. Through it they get to answer their favorite question, How do we grow up? We know this story, weve just forgotten it. Weaving scholarship, practice and his deep experience of traditional wisdom, Blumenkrantz spins nothing less than the origin story for tomorrows communities. * Richard Owen Geer, PhD, community practitioner, Founder Community Performance International, co-author of Story Bridge: From Alienation to Community Action. *
Advance Praise: Coming of Age the Rite Way is a timely publication and its attractiveness is far-reaching. This book is strongly needed and is a welcomed addition to the literature. I applaud David Blumenkrantz for his keen attention to detail and creativity. Clearly a must-read for anyone who has the noble responsibility of providing guidance and direction to todays youth. Blumenkrantz has done a masterful job in presenting stories as well as factual data that will help synthesize our understanding of Rites of Passage and its curative value. I am pleased we now have a vivid and comprehensive body of work in one volume that will advance how to help youth move from one stage of life to the next. * Keith A. Alford, PhD, School of Social Work, Syracuse University *
Advance Praise: To read this book is to experience an awakening. It provides tools and understanding to take action in changing this storythrough restoring and innovating the rites of passage that our youth and communities so urgently need. Drawing upon research from diverse fields of study, as well as upon the authors own life work, Coming of Age the Rite Way contributes vital new thinking to youth and community development. It also inspires us to imagine new possibilities in emergent design for co-creating the narratives and rites that are needed to change our trajectory and reorient our planet toward balance, responsibility, and well-being. A must-read for parents, teachers and all those working for social change. * Joanna Cea & Jess Rimington, Visiting Scholars, Stanford University Global Projects Center *
Advance Praise: For three summers in the late 1960s and early 70s during my early teenage years, David Blumenkrantz was my counselor at Camp Wamsutta in Charlton, Massachusetts. It is only in retrospect that I realize that through my experiences as a camper under his guidance and mentorship that I actually lived the Rite Of Passage Experience (c) ROPE program he would later create to assist youth through the coming-of-age process. There are many who lament that there are no users guides or manuals for helping kids to navigate the turbulent waters of adolescence. Ah, but they have not read this book! * Kenneth F. Heideman, MS, Meteorologist, Director of Publications, American Meteorological Society and Past President, Board of Directors, Council of Science Editors *
Book Information
ISBN 9780190297336
Author David Blumenkrantz
Format Paperback
Page Count 280
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 408g
Dimensions(mm) 155mm * 231mm * 18mm
