Integrative Apprenticeships
Our goal is to team with organizations with shared values and to develop independent, cooperatively organized, profit making entities where program participants can find apprenticeships. Over time, as the cooperative enterprises take shape. apprenticeships can translate into employment, and again over time employment can translate into membership and an ownership stake. Initial apprenticeships and cooperatives will be in the supply chain of the growing local food movement from seed to table. Additional enterprises and apprenticeships will focus on areas such as sustainable nutrition, eco-therapy, ecological design, green building, and alternative health and healing.
The Importance of Internships
in the Current Environment Without jobs waiting for them, career-relevant internships are an important key to success, and Millennials and employers agree that internships are the best way to gain real world knowledge not taught in classrooms and increase their sphere of influence through networking. Internships also greatly impact how students feel about their college experience in terms of preparing them for entering the workforce and being successful in their jobs. For those entering the workforce, internships are no longer optional. What employers expect from workers these days is narrower, more abstract and less easily learned in college. In essence, employers are asking, “So what else have you done besides going to college?” A recent study showed: > 91% of employers think that students should have between one and two internships before graduating > 87% of companies believe internships should be at least three months in duration for students to gain enough experience > 50% of managers look for leadership positions in on-campus organizations. > 29% are looking for entrepreneurial experience. Internship experience has become so important that many young adults are settling for unpaid internships. In 2008, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 50 percent of graduating students had held internships, up from the 17 percent shown in a 1992 study by Northwestern University. This means hundreds of thousands of students hold internships each year, while some experts estimate that one-fourth to one-half are unpaid. There are no statistics on the number of college graduates taking unpaid internships, but there is widespread agreement that the number has significantly increased, not least because the jobless rate for college graduates age 24 and under has risen to 9.4 percent, the highest level since the government began keeping records in 1985. Employment experts estimate that undergraduates work in more than one million internships a year, with Intern Bridge, a research firm, finding almost half unpaid. In fact for Millennials entering the job market unpaid internships have become the equivalent of the entry-level job. In many cases, these positions have nothing to do with the intern’s field of study and interns function as unpaid personal assistants. The Rise of Alternative Break and Bridge Year Programs
In addition to the practical experience offered by internships, college students are finding other ways to build their skill set, as well as expand their horizons. This trend is most noticeable in the rapid popularization of “Alternative Break” and “Gap (or Bridge) Year” service learning programs. Alternative Breaks and Bridge Years are fun, productive, and engaging ways for students to learn, meet others, and make a difference in the lives of others. The concept of a Bridge (or Gap) Year is still relatively new to the US, but in countries such as the United Kingdom it is a widely acknowledged and appreciated as a way for emerging adults to provide themselves with meaningful context and experience before or during their time in college. Guidance counselors and college admissions officers in the U.S. say they're seeing a surge of interest in similar programs. Harvard, which has long encouraged its incoming first-years to defer matriculation, has seen a 33% jump in the past decade in the number of students taking gap years. MIT's deferments have doubled in the past year. And Princeton formalized the trend in 2009 by funding gap-year adventures for 20 incoming first-years annually. The school's goal is to extend this offer to about 100 students per class. Tom Griffiths, founder of GapYear.com, a site that serves as a clearinghouse for gap-year programs, says five years ago perhaps 1% of his Web traffic originated in the U.S. and now that figure is 10%, and the U.S. is viewed in this sector as the sleeping giant with the potential to surpass the rest of the world in numbers and possibly spending within the next five years. The number of Americans taking gap years through Projects Abroad, a U.K. company that coordinates volunteer programs around the world, has nearly quadrupled since 2005. The rise in popularity of these service-learning programs reflects the general attitude of Millennials – they are concerned about and compassionate towards global issues, appreciative of the opportunities available to them, and eager to pursue activities that benefit others as well as themselves. The IRL's programs encourage this trend by adhering to a “world-centric” orientation for its educational component, offering service opportunities in the local community, and fostering the motivation to contribute to the larger purpose of social innovation. |
What is an Integrative Apprenticeship?The research shows that many internships are either unpaid or unsatisfactory or both. Often the intern finds themselves performing menial or repetitive tasks that are focused more on helping the employer than educating the intern. At the same time the need for practical training continues to grow, as higher education seems both too expensive and increasingly disconnected from the world's need and the desire of emerging adults for meaningful work. In Medieval society a master would take on apprentices and educate them in his craft. While the relationship might have been exploitative, at its best it provided an opportunity for young people to develop their talent and earn a place in society. After proper training they might become a journeyman, a person adequately trained in their craft but not yet having earned the level of skill or respect of a master. For that to be recognized the journeyman was required to produce a "masterpiece" Today many young adults seek to become masters in a craft where they can both care for the earth and make their way in an increasingly uncertain world. In various spiritual schools work at an everyday task, from making furniture, to working in the fields or cleaning the floor was seen as a form of spiritual practice. By paying attention to their inner reactions, thoughts and feelings in the midst of action, the student can better observe themselves and develop a growing capacity to "be in the world but not of the world". The challenge is to maintain a more skillful or evolved state of consciousness even when in the midst of the stresses and pressures of life in the marketplace. Keats has said to us: "Call the world if you please, ‘The Vale of Soul-making.’ Then you will find out the use of the world…" , and in an online review of the book Work as a Spiritual Practice by Lewis Richmond the Daily OM commented on how many times we have been asked the question what do you do, and answered, without thinking I'm a lawyer," or "I'm an aerobics instructor," or "I'm a musician." But beyond small talk, that question suggests a deeper inquiry. What, indeed, do you DO, here on this earth, here in your life? What is your work? What is your passion? What is your aspiration, your dream, your calling? Do you find joy in your work? Have you given up hoping that joy is something you might expect from work? Or do you love your work so much that you have no time to enjoy anything else? Why do you have the job you do? Is it just a way to make ends meet, or is it something more? What is the relationship between your inner self and your outer, public life on the job? Our notion of an Integrative Apprenticeship is an essential part of our programs, bringing together the notions that: > by working closely with an individual who possesses mastery in their field, as well as a level of mastery in life, an aspirant or apprentice can develop their own skill to a much greater level in a shorter space of time than they could ever do on their own, > that in a digital age it is essential to participate in a human relationship with a practical focus in order to generate the capacity for skillful action in the midst of what may, in the future, be a high level of stress, > that we can expand our awareness and strengthen our inner observer if we integrate our tangible knowledge with our reflective practice in the course of our daily labors, and > that these capacities are essential for a significant number of emerging adults as we face an increasingly volatile and uncertain world. The Integrative Apprenticeship process weaves together the knowledge and understanding developed in the Evolutionary Education components of our programs, and the personal reflection and support of our Legacy Mentoring triads in a process that generates behavioral awareness and a capacity for practical accomplishment and emotional intelligence, even in stressful situations. Our apprenticeships address the failure of many internships to provide personal relationship or adequate focus on both the student's learning and the work's requirements. By providing apprenticeships in the local green economy, and by qualifying and supporting the apprenticeship process in a larger context we offer a more satisfying and impactful experience. Our aim is to expose participants to meaningful work, to develop practical and transferable skills with long term applicability, and to provide a possible career path as an alternative to the mainstream job market. After completing an IRL program, participants will have had an opportunity for training and experience in an ecologically valuable profession or craft in a way that evokes both inner and outer skill. |