A Youth-Inspired School Project

State of the Re:Union  would like to call attention to some commendable youths and their exemplary actions. These Detroit students were not satisfied with the way their community was being portrayed in both national and local media. It was not necessarily a bad reflection upon their city, however, they didn’t feel that it was entirely accurate. So, with the help and encouragement of their teachers, they decided to do something about it.

According to the excerpt found on The National Writing Project – Digital Is Website, “We Want Our City Back” is a photojournalism project that grew out of students’ chagrin prompted by the media’s “biased” coverage. They felt that the heroes chosen by a highly-recognized magazine to represent Detroit was not enough. (You can read the original excerpt by clicking here.) So, taking this into consideration, these youths were asked to create a catalog of what they thought their community needed. After the list was compiled, focus groups were assigned photojournalism projects in the following topics, representing students’ concerns:

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• Raise Your Voice - Group attempted to combat negative “images” of the city via the media in print, photographs, discussions.
  
• Crime Fighters – Group looked at violence and other issues that students viewed as a crime, such as having a lack of health care, not having access to grocery stores within their neighborhood, or when faced with an emergency – having no emergency responders or a delayed response.
• Power in the City – Students presented both scandal and abuses of power, authority and trust, as well as ways that they thought power in the city could be redistributed.
• Building Bridges - Students looked at segregation in the city based upon race, class, gender, religion, age, socioeconomic status.

After the assigned photojournalism task was finished, they created project boards displaying the photos they took depicting their thoughts and ideas. Resource binders created by these students further expounding upon their concern with the intent of educating others about the issue targeted by the project. With display boards and resource binders in hand, the student participants then went to a summit “where they interacted with invited speakers around the issues at hand.”

This project might not have yielded earth-shattering results, stopping the country in its tracks with all eyes on the Detroit community, but change rarely works that quickly. The most important thing that could have come from this project, did: Helping students develop critical thinking necessary to make a change within their own community. It also cultivated in them some solid reasoning skills, helped them learn what they want their city to represent, and made them aware that they can find solutions to issues. They now know – through experience – that inaction solves nothing, but critical thinking can help others understand what concerns are important to them. These photojournalism projects are an effectual way to disseminate concerns to others in their community and getting their voices heard.

There are so many ways for people to get their message out, but how is it done effectively? What are some other tactics used in your community to get people to actually listen and learn about important concerns? Use the comment section below – we would be indubitably delighted to know.

A Reflection of Meaning

Although Thanksgiving has come and gone, the spirit that it ushers in is one of charity, thankfulness, well-wishes and acts of kindness. This spirit has a tendency to last through year’s end, but what of the other months in the year? Where does this spirit go, but most importantly, why does it go? State of the Re:Union contributor Rich Harwood of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation shares some of his reflections on Thanksgiving, including the proverbial turkey chase, what it means to us and how it intertwines with our daily lives.

I’ve never been on a real turkey chase, and maybe you haven’t either, but with the passing of Thanksgiving, I suspect we’re all in pursuit of something. But where will your own chase lead you, and why are you headed there? Here are some thoughts concerning “the chase” to think about as you reflect over this recent Thanksgiving and the upcoming holiday season.

Turkeys hold a special place in American culture — from defining early historical meals and current Thanksgiving menus, to Wild Turkey whiskey, to calling something we deem unsatisfactory “a turkey!” It was even the bird Benjamin Franklin suggested be our national symbol instead of the bald eagle. And on every Thanksgiving, there are all kinds of “turkey runs,” 5K and 10K races sponsored in support of some charitable cause.

And yet, the notion of “a chase” conjures up the pursuit of the unattainable. Think: “chase dreams,” where you cannot bring closure or finality to something in your life. Think: “ideals,” which we strive to place within our grasp, knowing that they may never be fulfilled. According to Wayne Capooth, in Delta Farm Press, “Turkey chases have been a part of American history since our earliest days. Samuel Kercheval in his A History of the Valley (Shenandoah), 1833, said “the native youth is taught the wiles of the turkey hunter.”

This season you may be “chasing” your own way to a holiday gatherings. Maybe it is across town, or in another community, or at your home. But, wherever the places you go, this time of year puts each of us in a precarious bind: running to complete our work, running to get somewhere, running to get back to work. That’s me too.

I’m in the middle of writing a new book about how people can make good on their urge to do good. There are many subtexts at work, but there are two that shed light on the notion of the turkey chase.

First, there is the pressure of inwardness, which is our proclivity to see our work in public life through the prism of promoting and spreading our own efforts. Inwardness tells us to start with our own needs and programs, rather than the community in which we live and work. The second factor is the push for busyness — a kind of “activity happy, yet action deprived” approach. Such busyness can make us feel we are doing something, moving ahead, and soothing our own anxieties about the lack of progress. But for all the running, all the activity, little changes.

I raise the ideas of inwardness and busyness because they launch us on a chase of the unattainable. If we are not careful, we risk losing sight of what we care about, and what change or goodness we hope to effect. What about you?

What is that path for you? Is it the “chase” — the proverbial unattainable, unachievable, even undesirable; or, is it something that you should stop to see and feel and know? There is something noble about Thanksgiving, [the start to the holiday season] about how it has the power to halt our busyness and inwardness; for many, it creates the space that might not otherwise exist to come together with family and friends (however difficult that can sometimes be!).

Maybe it is trite to say that this Thanksgiving should be about something doable, and that is intrinsically decent: giving thanks. It’s a simple idea, I know, and one that you have already thought about. But it may not be something we each do.

As we go through this holiday season, what are some ways we can integrate the hallmarks of Thanksgiving and this season into our daily lives? What does the “chase” mean to you, and how does it intertwine with your everyday living? How do you make your busyness count? Is it satisfying with how you spend your time, or do you think your “activity” could include notes of “action” offering more fulfillment? You can tell us, we always have an ear to bend your way.

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A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people\’92s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We\’92re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on State of the Re:Union’s website.

State of the Re:Union would like to share valuable knowledge (literally) on how to make your community a better place to live. In the article, 7 Holiday Events that Better Your Community, Houselogic.com provides some helpful hints on how to bring your community together and add value to your home, all by celebrating the holidays.

According to a study done by Director Dennis Rosenbaum of the Center for Research in Law and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the actions of organizing holiday events, gatherings and festivities can “help to foster higher property values, strong schools, and lower crime rates in your neighborhood.” Here are seven different ideas to inspire a neighborhood gathering this upcoming season:

1.) Sing Songs – One neighborhood near Brooklyn, New York, has been enjoying caroling since 1967 and speak highly of the camaraderie it has established and has this advice to offer: “Identify neighborhood streets heavy with holiday decorations. Festive residents will likely be most receptive to carolers. Ask volunteers to print song lyric sheets, post flyers announcing the event in advance, and bring a thermos or two of hot cocoa.”

2.) Holiday Parties with a Purpose – In New Orleans, Louisiana, one organization honors and awards its emergency first responders who’ve made a difference with an annual Christmas party. They say this event is a way of thanking these heroes and building neighborhood spirit.

3.) Swap Holiday Food - Organizing a neighborhood holiday cookie or dessert exchange promotes good feelings that are lasting.

4.) Organize a Search Party – In Maineville, Ohio, some families participate in neighborhood-wide holiday scavenger hunt. They have half of an hour to secure festive items listed, such as candy canes and tinsel. At the end, the family with the most items wins a $50 gift card. But the real prize is the fun.

5.) Share Holiday Giving – In Logan, Utah, in lieu of exchanging gifts and items with each other, some 50 to 60 neighbors use that money (an average $30 per family) and opt to pool money together to provide items to four families in need through a local organization. They get together at a neighborhood party to wrap these gifts they’ve purchased.

6.) Feed Your Friendly Neighbors – Some 100 residents in Wilmington, North Carolina, enjoy mingling at three neighbors’ homes via progressive dinners. Of course, this number can be scaled down. Hosts can decide to foot the cost themselves or make it a potluck, but the point is to get to know the families around you.

7.) Light Up the Holiday – A designated night during the holidays can be set aside for each family to line their home with 10-12 containers (as simple as altered milk jugs or water bottles) filled with votive candles. This is a great way to come together as a neighborhood and line the streets with warmth and cheer.

These are just a few simple ideas that can amount to huge investments in your neighborhood. Having a friend as a neighbor truly creates a bond, making a safer environment for all who live on your street. Friends, or just friendly people, take a vested interest in caring for one another. If something happens to a stranger, curiosity tends to be the cause of slower reaction time. However, if someone happens to a friend, the urgency to aid them becomes overwhelming. Which neighbor do you want living next to you? Is there something special that your neighborhood does for the holidays that brings good cheer and promotes friendships? Ideas, comments and thoughts are always welcomed at SOTRU, and we would love to hear more ideas advocating community, trust and friendship.

Beyond Basics in Tucson, Arizona

School Spotlight takes us to Roskruge Bilingual Magnet Middle School in Tucson, Arizona, where one special school program, Beyond Basics, is helping students in its community achieve better success in school by providing opportunities that expose them to the arts. To read the original article from Teaching Tolerance, click here.

According to its Web site, “Beyond Basics is a school-centered program that brings targeted reading, writing and other literacy and self-expression programs to students in grades pre-K through 12.”

Beyond Basics offers a program that takes place during the school day, with no cost to the schools, the district or individual students. This program is firmly based on the understanding “that children, exposed to educational curricula beyond the basic school system offerings, will obtain higher scores on exams and have a greater chance of achieving excellence beyond their public school careers.”

And Roskruge’s Principal José Olivas agrees. Beyond Basics has been working in his school, and Olivas says he needs no further proof that the program works. Students’ eligiblity for program participation is dependent upon maintaining a certain academic level. This gives the students a reason to work a bit harder in school, and they have been. In the article he states, “Without [arts classes], they might not concentrate on their other courses … Once they get a taste of success in whatever class it may be, it spills over [into other academic work].”

The work done by volunteers and staff members of Beyond Basics has been proven to help school children in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. They ”change their destinies by significantly raising their reading proficiency scores and providing developmental and emotional growth opportunities. Typically, we get children reading at grade level or above in six weeks. One hundred percent of the children we work with show improvement in literacy.”

Children who live in poverty tend not to have exposure to the arts. Beyond Basics President and Founder Pamela Good says “We want to expand their world in huge ways through the arts … When we bring art into the school it adds vibrance and creativity. When the students create art, they are being celebrated in that space. It breaks down so many barriers that we all have built up, but children in poverty might have built up many more.”

Good also says that this program is an answer for public education in poor schools. “We hear all the time what the problems are and it may take many, many years to solve some of those. But in the meantime there are little children that need the service.” It has made a profound difference in the lives of the students who are currently being served by the program. One eigth-grade girl says that she “works extra hard in her classes” to be able to sing in the mariachi band, an opportunity provided by the program.

The arts tend to be the first plan of attack when whittling away at budgetary matters, but more and more stories from around the country are proving that, just maybe, the arts are where the answers might lie. Think back to your days in school. What activities do you remember, and which ones made an impact? Attending music class was always my favorite escape from letters, numbers and tests. There is a symbiotic relationship between academics and the arts, and programs like Beyond Basics can help fill the gap that is so often spoken of. Know of another program helping students in need? You could always let us know. We love to hear about programs helping communities and students in need.

Although Thanksgiving is widely acclaimed as a day of feasts, family, friends, fun and football (the five F’s of Thanksgiving, but that is another post), it is important to remember that the first Thanksgiving was truly all about community. In SOTRU fashion, we would like to honor some organizations and communities embracing and perpetuating the spirit of the oldest American holiday tradition.

• Some folks at The Giving Heart organization in Richmond, Virginia, will celebrate Thanksgiving with The Giving Heart Community Thanksgiving Feast. Everyone in the greater Richmond area is invited, but a special invitation is sent “to the less fortunate, the elderly and those who would otherwise spend Thanksgiving alone.” At the end of this holiday feast, guests will be given a floral arrangement commemorating their celebration and have the opportunity to pick up a few necessities for staying warm, including a Giving Bag, consisting of “toiletries and other essential items that are created by many” in their community.

• Equinox Inc., a community service organization out of Albany, New York, will be hosting its 42nd Annual Equinox Thanksgiving Day Community Dinner. This long-standing tradition originally started in 1969, feeding 200 college students who were without family. Whether it is at a designated community location, or delivered straight to their door, today, more than 8,000 individuals who are lonely, homebound or homeless neighbors are served. This is truly a community-led effort, enlisting the help of around 3,000 community volunteers who make this day possible. “The Equinox Thanksgiving Community Dinner is funded entirely by generous donations from local businesses, civic groups, and private citizens. Cash, food, trucks, tables and chairs, cell phones, serving dishes, linens, aprons, soap, towels, and advertising are matched by the valuable help of our volunteers. Equinox is the coordinating and sponsoring agency. All surplus donations are used to assist needy families throughout the year.”

• And in Santa Monica, California, the Westside Thanksgiving Community Dinner and Celebration hosts a day filled with surprises, giving families and community members a lot of reasons to be thankful. “The Celebration is open to everyone. No reservations are necessary… just come to the 
Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on Thanksgiving day.  Dinner from 11am – 3pm.” But it doesn’t stop at dinner. All can participate in a day of free services that include: Thanksgiving Dinner, Children’s Entertainment, Basic Medical Consultation, Clothing Distribution, Haircuts, and Basic Eye Exams.

Kudos to these communities who practice the foundations of what Thanksgiving was first based upon: friendship, caring, sharing and being good stewards of humankind. During these times that are so often overwhelming and harrowing, communities such as these have become a mecca to American tradition. Thank you for your sacrifices, kindness, and caring. Thank you for your shining example of subservience, strength and leadership. And most of all, thank you for restoring a bit of  faith that some individuals have been working hard to chip away at. For this, we should all give thanks.

In the recent Season Two fall release, the Southern Wyoming episode explored and briefly explained a process called “fracking”. For those who have not yet heard the Wyoming episode, or for those who need a refresher on what fracking is, you can visit our Wyoming episode page to listen to the full episode, or choose to listen by segment.

You can click on Segment C and skip ahead to 6:25 to listen more specifically about fracking.

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One of the major issues about fracking concerns a precious commodity – water. The issues range from the millions of gallons of water consumed by the fracking process, to the contamination left behind in the water that is intended for human consumption.

There has been a great battle going on between the people of Wyoming living on the land and those who believe that the fracking process outweighs concerns because of the greater benefits it produces in the form of oil and gas.

Since the Wyoming episode aired, some interesting results about fracking have surfaced, so we’re passing on a quick synopsis on the latest developments surrounding the process. Although this study was done in a different part of Wyoming than that of the episode, the results of fracking are interesting, regardless of location. To read this article from ProPublica by Abraham Lustgarten in its entirety, click here. Following is an excerpt from Lustgarten’s article.

“As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution.

“A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The finding is consistent with water samples the EPA has collected from at least 42 homes in the area since 2008, when ProPublica began reporting on foul water and health concerns in Pavillion and the agency started investigating reports of contamination there.

“Last year — after warning residents not to drink or cook with the water and to ventilate their homes when they showered — the EPA drilled monitoring wells to get a more precise picture of the extent of the contamination.

” The Pavillion area has been drilled extensively for natural gas over the last two decades and is home to hundreds of gas wells. Residents have alleged for nearly a decade that the drilling — and hydraulic fracturing in particular — has caused their water to turn black and smell like gasoline. Some residents say they suffer neurological impairment, loss of smell, and nerve pain they associate with exposure to pollutants …

“The information released [recently] by the EPA was limited to raw sampling data: The agency did not interpret the findings or make any attempt to identify the source of the pollution. From the start of its investigation, the EPA has been careful to consider all possible causes of the contamination and to distance its inquiry from the controversy around hydraulic fracturing …

“The EPA said the water samples were saturated with methane gas that matched the deep layers of natural gas being drilled for energy. The gas did not match the shallower methane that the gas industry says is naturally occurring in water, a signal that the contamination was related to drilling and was less likely to have come from drilling waste spilled above ground …

“The EPA’s research in Wyoming is separate from the agency’s ongoing national study of hydraulic fracturing’s effect on water supplies, and is being funded through the Superfund cleanup program.”

“The EPA says it will release a lengthy draft of the Pavillion findings, including a detailed interpretation of them, later this month.”

We’ve heard a variety of stories on fracking and similar practices since our Southern Wyoming episode aired, and welcome your comments and input on this controversial subject. Are there similar issues affecting your community? Keep the conversation going by sharing your comments below.