Learning to Love: The work of the Romance Academy.
One of the most frequent criticisms of modern society is that people's interaction with technology simply doesn't allow them time or space to reflect. Take, for instance, the experiment conducted in Washington DC earlier in 2007 when world class violinist Joshua Bell, playing a £2million violin, busked in a Metro station during rush hour.
Only 2 people actually stopped to listen to him play during the 45 minutes he spent there. Most of the commuter crowd were completely unaware that they were listening to some of the most beautiful music in the world - they were talking on the phone, focussed on getting to work or, as one commuter attested, listening to Brit goth band The Cure on their I-pod.
For today's teenagers the word 'reflect' rarely appears in their day to day existence except in the occasional essay question. Their world is a non stop buzz of pop music, soaps, school and, most importantly for them, good times with friends. So when it comes to getting them to think about a really vital area of their lives such as sex and relationships how do you create for them a space in which they're comfortable, where they can learn about and most importantly reflect on not simply what they want out of relationships but what makes a healthy relationship?
This is really the heart of Romance Academy. It presents an opportunity not to preach at young people about what they should or shouldn't be doing but to help them get to grips with a topic that is one of the key factors that will influence their future happiness.
So by now you're thinking what does a Romance Academy look like? Allow me to oblige.
12 young people, six boys, six girls, embark on a fifteen week course of close mentoring by two trained youth workers.
At the initial stage of the project they're encouraged to sign a 'pledge' to abstain from sexual activity during the duration of the course. This is designed to give them space to reflect on their own, each others' and society's attitude to sex and relationships.
Each week they meet as the leaders provide input and provoke peer generated discussion on different aspects of love and relationships: the physical and emotional impact of having sex; how to grow beyond relationships built purely on sexual attraction and activity; how to respect members of the opposite sex; how use of drugs and alcohol impact not just our ability to make right choices but our ability to form right relationships.
There are also extra curricular activities aimed at enhancing group cohesion and introducing them to different ways to relate: For instance an activity based weekend away; salsa lessons; ice skating; a 'date' night on which they learn dating etiquette.
We also encourage them to seriously think about the consequences of their decisions as well as pointing out the positive benefits of having the mutual support of a partner in relationships. For example for one weekend the young people have to 'pair off' and look after an 'electronic' baby for the weekend.
The course ends in a graduation ceremony. The Romance Academy graduates, along with their friends and family, celebrate all they've learnt on the course and receive a certificate noting their achievement.
The very first Romance Academy was filmed as a documentary for BBC2 entitled 'No Sex Please We're Teenagers.' The youth workers involved were Dan Burke and my wife Rachel Gardner. The series caused such a stir when it was aired in Autumn 2005 that since then the RA team have been darting up and down the country training youth workers to run Academies in their areas.
So does it work? Well whenever you ask that question you have to define what you mean by success but I think the following quote from one of the first 'graduates'- Grace, then 16 years old, sums up a lot of what the project achieves:
'I had never known what I really wanted in relationships. I lost my virginity when I was 14, and had slept with two different boys. When I heard about the Romance Academy, I knew I wanted to explore more about relationships...being in the Romance Academy gave me the confidence to say I wanted to wait (for sex in her new relationship). Before I would have jumped in and had sex straight away, but I gave myself time, and we really got to know each other. Everything I learnt through the Academy helped me to become a sort of grown-up. I was so naïve before. I have learnt that I can be loved and I can now love myself, I don't have to do things to be loved.'
Success for us doesn't simply lie in young people becoming abstinent, or delaying sexual activity. What we've experienced is that Romance Academy gives young people a better understanding of who they are and improvements in the area of self confidence and social skills. Many of the graduates and their families have attested to how it's helped improve relationships at home as well. Providing them a safe space with the support of peers means that they don't just understand what it means to have a better relationship one on one with a partner but also with their networks of friends and family.
Key to our development of Romance Academy has been a recognition that we need to start where young people are and journey with them for a while rather than be solely focussed on where want them to end up! So we're acutely conscious of the many pressures placed on them to fit in not just with their peers but with societal expectations. In today's world it's hard not to associate success and happiness with being sexually desirable. Obviously that's a very superficial approach to any understanding of human worth but it's one that's prevalent. The knock on effect of it is young people with low self esteem who feel that having sex in some way means that you're wanted and accepted even if it's only for a short while.
But then, as sex dominates our world so much, the flipside is that young people often have low expectations of sex. It's just another experience to fit in after getting stoned or drunk at a party. Sometimes sex happens more out of boredom than a need to be desired.
Romance Academy speaks into this world. We try and start with an understanding that teenagers are influence by 4 key areas, family, friends, school and media. When it comes to decision making for young people all those factors come into play. Although a 14 year old might tell you that what matters most to them is the opinion of their friends certainly media and family also play a big part in the choices they make - even if it's as an act of defiance against family expectations. So we try and improve their understanding of their families; how media represents sex all while ensuring that we don't just teach them but that they teach each other in how they listen and interact with the questions we give to them.
Ultimately we want to bring another influence to bear: faith and spirituality. We don't demand that Romance Academy leaders are Christians but we do ask them to respect that it's founded on Christian principles and ethos.
For the Christians involved in Romance Academy having a Christian ethos means exploring what God was playing at when he made male and female in his image. It's about understanding the complimentary nature of relationships between the sexes: God places humans within a paradise in Eden - a context designed not to help them simply survive but also flourish. God creates man for woman and woman for man in order that each other can flourish through relationship and assist each other in completing the all important task of doing God's will.
What we hope to stir up in long people is a sense of longing: that there must be more to sex than society says because God invested it with such a deep purpose. It's been our privilege to help youth workers help young people begin to connect with some of their God given abilities and their own inherent worth.
What we love about Romance Academy is that in helping young people reflect on what makes life and love really valuable we're helping them to pick out, amidst the demands and pressures of life, some extraordinarily beautiful music.
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