The National Teachers’ Initiative

At State of the Re:Union, we know that the best way to get to know a place, to understand the area and its residents, is through the stories of its people. For this week’s School Spotlight, we’re pulling back and panning outside of an individual school, to share the stories of those who are at the front lines of education, our teachers.

Source: storycorps.org

As part of the American Graduate series, our friends at Story Corps focused their incredible oral history project on ‘The National Teachers Initiative‘ and gathered stories from educators and the students they inspired. A special focus will be placed on teachers steadily working to increase the number of high school students graduating from high school who are prepared to enter into college and careers.

The palpability of the program can be felt through Story Corps’ explanation of how it works:  “By recording, sharing, and preserving their stories, we hope to call public attention to the invaluable contributions teachers have made to this nation, honor those who have embraced the profession as their calling, encourage teaching as a career choice, and unify the country behind its teachers—helping us all recognize that there is no more important or noble work than that of educating our nation’s children.”

Source: storycorps.org - Ayodeji Ogunniyi

Some 625 teachers are revered and celebrated for “the brilliant and courageous work” they provided for this initiative. Through telling compelling and poignant stories, the experiences of how teachers throughout America impact the lives of students are made evident.

From a neurosurgeon calling from several states away to thank the eighth grade science teacher who inspired him, to a very personal journey that made an English teacher into the man he is today, the stories of the National Teachers’ Initiative allow us to peer inside the personal journeys of men and women impacted by a teacher. Some journeys are filled with heartache, some with happiness, but all of the stories show the how the interactions between student and teacher make a difference in their lives, and that of the community. To read some of these Story Corps moments, click here and scroll down to “Listen To Stories.”

Source: storycorps.org

We live in a society that is filled with instant gratification, so to work in a profession that yields delayed results is an anomaly. Thus, being a teacher must take incredible stamina, patience and resolve. One such teacher, Renee Thorton of New York, NY provides a great analogy: “Even though you plant a seed and you don’t see it flourish or bloom, it’s there, and it grows.”

Most everyone can remember that one teacher who said or did something that made a very special impact influencing something in your life. It could be an educator from preschool giving you praise for some small thing, or a middle school teacher who helped you through a difficult time. Whatever the occasion, use the comment box below to tell us how a teacher made a difference in your life.

I’ve wondered about this. In science fiction, technology is often viewed as a threat to democracy, individual freedom or even (as in those cases in which robots try to take over) humankind itself. In real life, however, technology can help make our democracies work better.

The Olathe City Council doing an E-Town meeting on the budget.

I’m always looking for good examples of communities using technology or social media to engage people in the process of local problem solving and decision making. Here’s one: Olathe, Kansas, recently was named one of the top “digital cities” by the Center for Digital Government and Government Technology magazine.

Like most communities, the city has public meetings to discuss budget issues and holds them in different venues in an effort to get people to come. “In our experience, budget hearings at city hall were dwindling,” says Erin Vader, the city’s manager of communications and public engagement. “So you take it on the road and do road shows.”

But even going out to the neighborhoods and bringing meetings to the people didn’t seem to get the crowds, so the city’s communications and public engagement department went in search of new ideas.

So they decided to hold an E-Town meeting in the studio of the local government access cable station and to drive interest and participation with social media. Chris Hernandez, a Kansas City TV news personality hosted the meeting, which was cablecast and live-streamed, and members of the public asked questions to city council members via e-mail, the city’s budget web page, Twitter and facebook.

The city launched an online forum six days before the scheduled e-meeting, asking citizens to submit questions. Questions could also be submitted live during the meeting.

Local officials consider the experiment a success. The city’s facebook page saw an increase of about 60 percent in post views during the live-cast of the event and traffic on the city’s budget web page increased nine fold.

“We’re trying to meet the citizens where they are,” explained Chris Kelly, the city’s IT director Chris Kelly, “which is online.”

This is the 11th year the digital cities award has been given for cities that increase efficiencies and achieve better results by using technology. Olathe won first place in the category of cities with between 125,000 and 249,999 residents. The e-town hall wasn’t the only one reason for their award. Olathe has used technology to consolidate its 911 dispatch system with the county and used improve meter reading machines to save money, which is being used to promote other energy saving measures.

Getting people out to budget hearings can be a tough sell, especially in these days when the choices are almost always sub-optimal. Ordinarily, the public only gets involved when some favored program or department is facing the chopping block. But it is important these days when the choices are so tough that the public is both aware of and engaged in the process, and technology can help. Not just in discussing the issues, but also in giving citizens a role in helping local government do more with less.

The National Civic League

One of the other localities named in the digital cities survey was Long Beach, California. I’ve been doing some research on the city’s efforts to eliminate its “structural deficit.” Better use of technology is one of the ways they are trying to save on labor and money.

The city recently unveiled its “Go Long Beach” app, which allows citizens with smart phones to report problems like graffiti, pot holes, downed traffic signs and weed strewn yards so the city can respond to them more quickly and efficiently. The app allows a user to take a picture of the problem and the GPS on the smart phone tells city crews exactly where to go.

Long Beach has also made strides in using technology for more efficient document storage, upgraded its fiber optic networks and used streaming video and social media to keep citizens in touch with what’s going on at city hall.

Technology is no panacea. And there is always a risk that the robots may in fact decide to take over, but in the meantime, these cost savings and interactive engagement possibilities can increase citizen trust and understanding of government and the challenges facing localities in this time of financial crisis.

Mike McGrath is senior editor and chief information officer for the National Civic League. A former newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he is editor of the quarterly National Civic Review, which will be beginning its centennial year of publishing this spring.

Mike’s posts will appear every Thursday on the State of the Re:Union website.