BLTN NextGen: Thought Leaders for a New Generation

“Youth are resources to be tapped, not problems to be solved.” Dixie Goswami, co-founder of Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English’s Bread Loaf Teacher Network (BLTN), has for decades invited teachers to work collectively and collaboratively with youth in diverse settings, united by this vision. The BLTN Next Generation Leadership Network (BLTN NextGen), founded in 2017, brings Goswami’s vision to a new level. 

BLTN NextGen is a youth social action network linking ten sites across the nation. Launched by a two-year grant from the Ford Foundation to Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English (BLSE), BLTN NextGen mobilizes social justice teams to address issues identified by youth. 

Led by a Youth Advisory Board and by Bread Loaf-connected teachers, community mentors and young people from diverse, economically challenged communities and regions, BLTN NextGen work takes place in hub sites in Lawrence, MA; Atlanta; rural South Carolina; Louisville, KY; Vermont; the Navajo Nation, and the Santa Fe Indian School. These sites are joined by recently formed affiliate sites in Chlesea, MA; Philadelphia, PA; and Henrico, VA.

Each of the BLTN NextGen sites is a place where BLTN’s teachers and their students have been leaders of wide-ranging activities, research, and advocacy, and where they have engaged as participant researchers in their own communities. Youth on the Navajo Nation, for example, work with community partners to advocate for healthy food options within a vast reservation with few grocery stores, while youth across Vermont and Kentucky use documentary film and collaborative research to raise awareness of many inequities. Young people in each of these regions, along with teachers and community mentors, network across differences with principles and practices that arise from BLSE courses, faculty, theater, and the entire Bread Loaf community. 

BLTN NextGen youth bring to the table insightful perspectives on their worlds, knowledge, skills, talents, and an extensive repertoire of communicative and expressive practices. Together, they hone their talents as thought leaders, researchers, analysts, and storytellers. As a cohort, they set a compelling framework for a more richly defined view of “American diversity.” Their presence and their roles change conversations about education inside and outside of BLTN, about public school classrooms, and about social issues and public policy.