Richard Fransham
Richard Fransham advocates for young people. His view is that anybody who feels respected and who feels good about themselves is unlikely to knowingly diminish someone else’s life. This is the perspective from which he approaches racism and mental health problems with youth. His work is currently focused on changing the common views that “children are made to be seen and not heard”, and that young people are too irresponsible and inexperienced to be taken seriously. It is by bringing to light the evident wellbeing of youth who feel respected and who feel their voices matter that he hopes to make progress dispelling the destructive misconceptions about young people.
Richard is currently putting most of his energy into supporting the youth-led Youth Rights Day initiative. Youth on the Youth Rights Day Panel that presented at the 2021 AERO conference serve as examples of young people who exude wellbeing, thoughtfulness and respect for others while passionately working to put the world on a better course. Richard sees all youth as having this potential and that they will flourish in learning environments that cultivate their humanity by treating them with dignity and respect. A recording of the panel discussion can be seen here: https://drive.google.com/file/
Richard has over three decades of experience working in public education with ages 5 through to student teachers in a faculty of education. He has years of experience working in children’s summer camps and he has served as an executive member of OCASC, an assembly of parent school councils. Most of his experience teaching has been at the secondary school level. He has a master’s degree in computer applications in education. He is a co-initiator of the CHIP Program that creates a vision of how to transform public education through a small steps non-coercive process based on the concept of schools-within-schools and people’s readiness to explore their options. He lives with his wife in Ottawa, Canada. They have two children and five grandchildren.