Connecting High Schoolers with Non-Profits in San Diego

Eli Cameron teaches 12th grade U.S. Government and Socioeconomics at High Tech High International in sunny San Diego, CA.  You can keep up with the day-to-day content of his class at hthigovernment.edublogs.org.  One of the most important parts of Eli’s class is getting students to engage with non-profits around San Diego in hopes o building lasting relationships with organizations that work to actualize the sort of change the students want to see.  With that said, Eli’s role is not just a teacher, but also a Volunteership Coordinator.  Therefore, the purpose of this blog is to document Eli’s semester-by-semester work to bring students closer to non-profit organizations that work to actualize change students want to see.

The Declaration of This Balanced Blog

Recognizing students of Government and Socioeconomics must work for a minimum of 40 hours over the semester with any non-profit, volunteer, government, or activist organization of their choice (see: Volunteership Project Overview), and

Whereas the Senior Class of High Tech High International students are set up for success when provided with models of what an awesome product looks like.

Now, in the view of the feat of the Spring 2012  Senior Volunteership Cohort, it is so proclaimed by the author of this blog:

Resolved, the purpose of this blog is to serve as a MODEL of how students should blog about their own volunteership experience.

Resolved, that because a blog is in it’s nature opinionated, a proper model of a blog is to be educatedly biased.

Resolved, that a critical attention of unsound bias is critical in the development and success of a blog.

Resolved, therefore, that the task of modeling a BALANCED BLOG is difficult and must be open to kind, specific, and helpful citique by all people.

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_________________________previous writings_____________________________

On the Necessity of Writing with Balance and Pride

2-1-2012

If it is the object of government to maintain peace so that common goals may be achieved, how can we realistically believe our most recent war-torn history (as well as plenty other human history) demonstrates such an adherence to this proof?  And if we truly focus our attention on the pre-eminence of WAR, we cannot help but be reminded of Mortimer Adler’s argument that governments promote peace and think contrary to Adler’s revered opinion.

I do not want to write about whether Adler or Casey had the more compelling argument about whether or not government is necessary.  I prefer to view this intellectual interaction as one that places value on two different connections with reality:  Adler’s normative connection is the connection of broad logical applicability, versus Casey’s descriptive argument emphasized by historical fact and specific personal story.  No doubt, Casey lacks some of the basic logical connections inherent to Adler’s incredibly thorough work, but our focus here should not be on one style of argument being better than another, but on acknowledging the merits of both reason and fact as two separate, sometimes intersecting, entities – the normative and the descriptive. Indeed, each of these independent measurements have their own weight in determining a healthy balance of the two.  Let’s talk more about what key ingredients must be balanced in writing a paper you’re proud of.

As writers, sometimes we pay too much attention to one and take an imbalanced approach to our topic.  Certainly none of us are writers of Mortimer Adler’s stature, so we can only practice to write in his “purely normative fashion” someday long from now.  That is why we must intertwine logic with historical fact, or what we call a descriptive argument.  Historical facts taken together as parts of a descriptive argument can be measured and corroborated by many different means of media. These are what we consider quotes/citations in a research paper to be.  Learning how to use quotes effectively is a key in writing, but if the author does not have any of his/her own reasonable connections between the chosen pieces of text, there is no direction for the paper to take.  The reader will be left wondering, “what does that quote have to do with this author’s thesis?”  Therefore, it is important writers intertwine their own reasoning between cleverly-chosen quotations to paint a full and accurate picture of any event/circumstance.

One piece of sage advice most writers follow is to know your audience.  If we think about this writing truism and apply it to the idea of determining a healthy balance of both the use of normative and descriptive corroboration, we are brought to the next step: understanding if your audience is more likely to be compelled by descriptive details – storytelling in essence – or by rational analysis.  We can make an obvious distinction between the power a normative versus descriptive argument has in compelling the reader to believe.

Stories may be embellished to spice up details, and so descriptive arguments may be very limited to a single point of view, which implies via omission there may be a different, untold, point of view that may completely contrast the former storytellers ‘version of truth’ (example: Casey and mid-east peace) Even if that point of view is arguable, the reader will nonetheless have a distinct reaction to the trials and tribulations of the character (assuming the author engages the reader).  The reader’s reaction to the plight of the single character point of view is one gigantic, fantastic web of connections between the life of the reader and the life of the character.

Allow me to give an example of this complex ‘web’:  All sorts of influences befall you when I mention the word “child”, do they not?  If that minor truth is true, then we may, logically, extend a word into a sentence, and a sentence into a book, where every scenario woven by the author connects to how the reader has perceived said scenario in their own life.   Think: the theme of childhood.  What comes to mind when you think of this theme?  Do you think it is plausible a good author can get you to believe different things about the theme ‘childhood’?  Do you think different people will associate different meanings to the theme ‘childhood’? A good writer can get you to believe almost anything, especially when he has a heads-up about who his audience is.

Stories have profound effects on us, and we must recognize that power and not discount it to rational analysis.  Indeed, rational/logical development is a strong structure for an argument, but such generalized thought experiments are so bland.  Normative arguments are so NORMAL – failing to connect on a deeper level, and failing to connect on a level that appreciates the complexity of human interaction.

Mortimer Adler himself explains the power of the normative argument.  Based on our class discussions, a heavy majority of students believe in the superiority of a normative argument over a descriptive argument.  We discussed the reason mentioned above to showcase the major weakness of a descriptive argument: descriptive arguments use historical fact, which means that to disprove the argument, all we would have to do is find another piece of historical fact that contradicts the original ‘fact’.  Indeed, the more an author uses historical examples, the more they open their defenses.

But there is a point where a stellar research paper will support it’s argument SO WELL with overwhelming primary source research that it would be crazy to say another interpretation of the story was true.  These are the stories we connect with on a visceral level because the stories make us FEEL.  And sometimes feelings are irrational.  They are not given much logical analysis.  They are simply acted upon.  And that is OK.

It is OK because, when these feelings (yes… a teacher at International talking about FEELINGS!) occupy an appropriate/healthy segment of a person’s life, the other segment must be occupied by some rational analysis.  So here comes our balance of the normative argument and the descriptive argument into fruition.  Make sure you, the writer, balance out your attention to the use of quotations/citations along with your logical reason that threads the quotes together.  This is your time to explain how each quote relates to your thesis (we all know the purpose of a thesis is to address the prompt).  No doubt, everything your essay does should somehow someway revolve around your thesis.

Aside from this rather obvious need of relating everything in your essay to your thesis, the final take-away should be highlighted:  Not only should prideful work be that which effectively utilizes story-telling mechanisms, prideful work should simultaneously pursue attention to logical and rational argument development.  This combination will build a web of reader understanding and engagement.

Publius.

Reflections to Begin a New School Year With the Class of 2012

8-26-2011

As random as the video at the end of the last post was, it does have some connections to my vision as teacher.  I started to hurl (playing the sport of hurling) a few months ago and look forward to the North American Gaelic Athletic Association (NAGAA) national tournament coming up this Labor Day.  The team is a crazy mixture of men from all over San Diego – lawyers, police officers, teachers, retired and active military, politicians, and people from all walks of life.  The commonality we all share, besides our love for hurling, is that we are all white men.  What a strange and rather abrupt connection to bring up.  Why?

Anyone who has ever played sports is probably familiar with the rules of the locker room: 1) wash your gear, 2) don’t stare, and 3) NEVER, ever, talk politics in the locker room.  You and your teammates do battle on the field, and the last thing you want is some seemingly pointless division between your mates on the pitch.

Rule #3 has been repeatedly broken on my hurling squad.  As a homogeneous group of white men, there are some feelings of unity in this fact.  We uphold a Gaelic (read: white) tradition in sport.  Perhaps it is because of this lack of diversity that there are some men on the team that feel comfortable expressing their …antiquated… point of view:

(team member): “Every person I pull over is black or a spic.  I swear they’re ruining our country”

(Me): “When’s the last time you pulled over a white person?”

(team member): “Yesterday”

… Ok… another example:

(team member): “Christ I can’t wait to get that ni**er Muslim out of office.”

… and for the one we hear on an all-too-regular basis:

“You fu**ing fa**ot!  God that’s GAY!”

I’m not saying everyone on the team would ever say things like this, but there is indeed a portion of the team who knows and understands who else on the team accepts this sort of speech, and when they’re together such language is rattled off on the regular.  Even when I’m on the field with others dubbed “liberals” by the likes of the … antiquated … , they’ll speak in such a fashion just to get a rise out of us.  I don’t indulge them the pleasure.

How effective would my response be if I snapped at them and called them “stupid!”?  Such a response would only bring me down to their level, and any attempts to explain the pitfalls of their toxic logic wouldn’t so much as dent their bigotry.  Similarly, saying nothing would set a precedent that I don’t care and that I’m too passive to speak up.  There’s a middle ground.

In her interview with Captain Paul Chappell, Amy Goodman asks, “What kind of training do you give peace activists?”  Within the context of the interview, the question is specific to how peace activists can effectively engage people of opposite ideologies. How can the hippy and the warhawk reach a consensus?  Within the context of my life, Chappell’s answer transcends his specific context and encompasses many parts of my life, viz: the locker room and the classroom.

“How to remain calm is important” Chappell answers.  ”And the key to remaining calm is to have empathy for your opponent.  The more I empathize with you, the harder it is for me to get angry at you.  If you get angry at me, I don’t respond in kind, because I see how you are suffering.  It takes years of practice – and getting tired of being angry – to master it, but it’s such an important skill to have.  Without empathy it’s easy to become bitter and cynical.” (See “The Reader” page on this website for the full interview.  This is reading # 43)

The reason I bring up this tension I feel with some of my team members is twofold:  Firstly, these interactions in the locker room are practice for the classroom.  Secondly, it indirectly reminds me of one great overarching reason I am a teacher.

What educators call a ‘teachable moment’ arise when there is a blatant misconception about a given topic and the teacher takes the time to explicate the true nature of said topic.  They can arise in any conversation.  The most difficult teachable moments are those rooted in controversial topics like race, class, gender, religion, etc.  Keeping in mind Chappell’s call for empathy and calm interaction with the misguided subject, I have plenty of great opportunities to address such strange misperceptions held by my team members.  Here’s the most salient example I can think of with language as close to verbatim as I can conjure:

(Police officer): You know what?  All these damn immigrant criminals I swoop up shouldn’t just go to jail.  Jail is expensive.  We should take all them out to a range and have us all use them as target practice.  Budget problem solved and criminal problem solved at the same time.  Plus, we’d be better shots.

(me): I’m pretty sure there’s a law against something like that.

(Po): Are you Jewish?

(me): Huh?  No.

(Po): Sounds like what you’re saying is coming from the ACLjew.  Those people are criminals.

(me): Funny you say that.  I have a pocket Constitution printed by the ACLU.  The 8th Amendment to the Constitution says there is to be no cruel and unusual punishment.

BOOM!

The conversation ended with silence.  No yelling, no passive and regretful acceptance, just a profound “oh shit…” moment.  If you love your country you have to love the Constitution.  Brevity is the sole of wit.

If this were my classroom, I may have continued the conversation until it was time to move on.  Sometimes statements that are as harsh as those above need to be nipped in the bud.  The stakes are higher with 25 adolescent minds, compared to a few middle-aged men.

I love moments like these, and I love seeing the “oh shit” moment on people’s faces (in the classroom we call them “ah-ha moments”).  Among a few other reasons, that’s why I got into the teaching profession.  If our posterity inherits a world riddled with such exclusive in-group/out-group mentalities, how in the hell will we meet the challenges our globalized world poses?  Nobody will deny the NEED for international exchange, especially in the economic realm.  How can we expect people to work together if they don’t like someone’s skin color?  C’mon.

My overarching goal as a teacher, a goal I will never be quite sure I achieved because I see students for only 17 weeks, is to foster inclusivity - a place where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and can create space for others to do the same.  If my students can engage a person of a very different ideology how to think of a situation with a new perspective, I will die happy.  Amy Goodman’s introduction to her relationship with Paul Chappell poignantly showcases this desire of mine: “Chappell teaches through example.  I met him at a weekly peace vigil on a downtown Santa Barbara, California, street corner, where he demonstrated how to engage even strident opponents with empathy and respect.  I had lost patience with one such person after ten minutes of unproductive dialogue.  Then Chappell showed up.  He respectfully engaged my critic for a full forty-five minutes.  Their conversation ended with the man thanking Chappell for listening to him and accepting a copy of The End of War.  A few weeks later Chappell ran into the man and learned that he had read the book and had changed his mind about war as a means of ending terrorism.”

My duty is to produce respectful problem-solvers.  Problem solvers who can effectively listen to any opinion and take it for it’s merit, not judge it based on who said it.  After all, we’re all part of the human race.  We’re in this together.

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A Saturday Interlude 

4-23-2011

**Labor, Capital, and High Tech High International:

“Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens.” Written by James Madison to lead into his argument on how to mitigate social tension resulting from what would later be coined by Alexis de Tocqueville as the Tyranny of the Majority, this very poignant sentence introduces a facet of American society that has been overlooked, whether deliberately or indeliberately, by significant aggregate percentages of the U.S. population: CLASS.  Linking to class, no doubt, is the broad topic of LABOR.  Everybody works, do they not? We are all part of a particular labor class, are we not? LABOR seems to be a common bond we share with great percentages of the rest of the world (of course, there exist other bonds).  For who will produce meaningful and useful goods and services to drive a healthy economy if there is no efficient source of LABOR?

It is the student’s, teacher’s, parent’s, and taxpayer’s – the citizen’s – civic duty to prepare and continue a career path that contributes to one’s own well-being, as well as the well-being of their locality, as far as those personal bounds extend – where beyond one’s locality is their state, and beyond that the federal, and even further beyond to a fascinating concept of the metacognitive Sociological Imagination exists a bond – a bond between the inhabitants and posterity of a planet with limited resources where an indefatigable concentration of labor is needed to answer the broad-sweeping and ultra-complex puzzle between LABOR and it’s long time partner CAPITAL in a global economy.

No doubt, where work is done, whether said work be in the interest of labor, capital, or both, everyone who labors has a workspace.  So what of workspace?  For our graduates and underclasspeople (a funny term to use in the context of this speech), their workspace is their school.  So the question begs: what is the most effective and enjoyable preparation for students to tackle this confounding puzzle?

To effectively prepare for a short-term task or long-term project, one must immerse the self in the environment of a professional workspace.  High Tech High International mandates students in their Junior and Senior year participate in an intense time commitment in professional workspaces.  The list of community members engaged with High Tech High International (a swell list follows, I assure) extends to many professions that thrive on functional and cooperative workspace … a workspace akin to HTHI.  Student Junior internship and Senior volunteership fosters an appreciated sense of what future career the students care to pursue for a healthy balance of work and personal life shortly after graduating with an undergraduate education.  (note the conspicuous mention of our amazing college acceptance and university retention rates).  Many times, student IMMERSION puts them on their path years before others break into the workforce.

So many success stories have come out of internships and volunteerships (mention 3ish).

Note how students immersed themselves in a field they may have pursued in a few years. The valiant and rigorous efforts of our students who are to move onto a higher pursuit is an accomplishment born from engagement, empathy and reciprocal respect, no doubt among other sentiments.  In a word, High Tech High International graduates are ready to be the workforce maneuvering through global issues and the integral interplay between labor and capital.

**Presence, Legal Standing, and their Link with Two Golden Rules:

Mark Twain was so keen to write in the first decade of the previous century a piece upon “the turning point of my life,” a piece is known to the graduating class of 2011, but not by the audience, so allow one of the voices (ed note: more than one voice may be used) speak Twain’s words.

If I understand the idea, the BAZAR invites several of us to write upon the (meaning of a ‘turing-point of one’s life’).  It means the change in my life’s course which introduced what must be regarded by me as the most IMPORTANT condition of my career.  But it also implies, without intention, perhaps — that that turning-point ITSELF was the creator of the new condition.  This gives it too much distincion, too much prominence, too much credit.  It is only the LAST link in a very long chain of turning-points commissioned to produce the cardinal result; it is not any more important than the humblest of its ten thousand predecessors.  Each of the ten thousand did its appointed share, on its appointed date, in forwarding the scheme, and they were all necessary; to have left out any one of them would have defeated the scheme and brought about SOME OTHER result.  It know we have a fashion of saying “such and such an event was the turning-point in my life,” but we shouldn’t say it.  We should merely grant that its place as LAST link in the chain makes it the most CONSPICUOUS link; in real importance it has advantage over any one of its predecessors.

Twain’s idea is one stressing the importance of PRESENCE in life, and to additionally stress the importance of, as some call it, ‘waking up’ in life – to be conscious, engaged, and passionate in every moment - and to, as many shout, “LIVE!” (ed note: speaker may say “LIVE” in other languages.)

To be PRESENT in life involves attention to what C. Wright Mills discusses as the “the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self and to see the relations between the two.” Ah, the Sociological Imagination: something with many links to what many educators call a practice of METACOGNITION – a process involving considerable student time in anticipation, practice, execution, and reflection – a thought process encouraging thought of both the minute rooted in quantification and causation, and the broad realm that is the factor, variable, cell, and certainly qualifiable nature of HUMAN FREE-WILL, something capable of, as Riley Butterfield expounds, “to exist within a healthy balance of one’s temperament – an entity that may have within itself the need for change, hope, and flexibility”.

High Tech High International students are PRESENT.  Using a barrage of analytical skills, they understand patterns and trends rooted in a balance of  the minutely mathematical and expansive complex concepts of, say, tracking demographic movement within sovereign bounds, or, why not, INTERNATIONAL bounds, students are ready with an understanding of how to work collaboratively, to the comfortable, flexible, degree varying with every unique student, and how to work individually.  Balance is beautiful.

Young people think about their future and understand  a tune different from today’s is warranted.  Society must fulfill it’s writ of mandamus of providing a society granting true equality of opportunity to posterity.  This is to, as Americans across all ideological lines strive for, work for the creation of a truly meritocratic state.  It is their civic duty.  The tyranny of profit from war and environmental degradation is a labor market and capital generator of the past. Corporations, a no doubt dubious entity with questionable rights to legal standing, do not have the best interest of posterity as their motive.  Another word starting with ‘p’ is a corporation’s primary concern.  Parents and the pluralist array that is a link in a young persons life have the power to ensure proper decisions are made on behalf of youth.  Those with limited legal standing (a consequence of age, among other things) deserve to be well-represented under the law.  There is indeed a fight to profit from influencing adolescent trends, and parents – a simple bond of people of all walks of life in the United States of America – have a duty to check the influence of a corporation, which, by law, is a person (but not a human-being… which is strange… because the last time I checked you need to be a human-being to be a person) and therefore subject to the same restrains any other person in the child’s life.  If parents, local citizen organizations, 501 c3s, even students and schools, viz.: the citizenry, exercise their voice in the political arena to limit unsustainable corporate pervasiveness in their children’s and their own bounds of existence, the motives of society and it’s balanced concern for one’s self and one’s community, not profit, will dictate when the course of human events this feat will actualize.  A battle rages on the horizon for the hearts and minds of society, and with the future implications of SOCTUS’ decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the battle is clearly divided between two distinct entities – those working for profit, and those working for posterity – insofar the competing interests now share participation (with a favoritism on the side of profit) in the public discourse of politics.

The idea that a corporation, who, please remember, is a ‘person’ under the law, must pay some ‘social responsibility’ tax, is scoffed  by Milton Friedman when he remonstrates, “That would be to call on (corporations) to exercise a ‘social responsibility’!”.  Friedman claims “business,” not necessarily the individual legal entity of a corporation, has only the ‘social responsibility to increase its profits’.  Fair enough… the broad term ‘business’ is dubious and vague.  To prod Milton’s logic, one may inquire into the topic of the constitution of business.  ’Business’ represents  a spectrum comprised of varying legal entities as ‘persons’ (i.e.: businesses of varying sizes or functions etc…).  A corporation falls on this spectrum.  So if a corporation is a person, it must logically follow that, just as the law applies to ‘we the people,’ corporations hold another responsibility besides the accumulation of profit – one’s civic duty.  Therefore, it surely follows that all of us must engage in some civic duty, as all ‘persons’ do under sovereign law.  Of course, a corporation can’t (or won’t) serve as a juror (lol), vote (double lol) or purchase jerseys for a youth hockey team, so some other measure is required, viz.: payment of income tax dollars.   Naturally, the topics of a graduated versus flat income tax and corporate tax law is now open for debate. It will not be discussed here.  Just remember, now more than ever is it easy to see the glaring discrepancies between profit and public. Have you received your million-dollar bonus today?  I didn’t think so.  Where is the shirt you’re wearing from?  Right, a sweatshop.

It should be mentioned in passing that the above paragraph and the idea that corporations are ‘persons’ indirectly validates corporate legal standing.  I would like to clarify my disproval of such legal standing.  For now, it suffices to say that the above paragraph addresses the civic duty of a corporation while it still has legal standing … for I vow to dismantle the myth of corporate personhood.

We must act with determined presence to address how the two, profit and the well-being of ourselves and our children, will balance.  Citizens have the power to navigate this branch of our society’s confounding puzzle.  At this precise moment, it suffices to say time will be the author of this epic feat. Beyond this moment exists a sea of possibilities.

After the end of such deplorable investments in labor and capital, one’s that are not sustainable or flexible, and the social adaptation (which some might call ‘evolution’) of a true meritocracy rewarding sustainability and transparency, the future shall shine brighter on us and posterity.  FREE-WILL and the ability to be PRESENT, both hardwired in our great species, demands to usher in an era of sustainable growth for all who contribute worthwhile and productive labor – an idea inexorably linked with almost ANY philosophy viz.: you reap what you so, and, do unto others as you want done unto you. Ah, the BALANCE between individuality and cooperation – both inexorably linked to ideas of aggression and empathy (or even exclusivity and inclusivity) – and the broad amount of influence CIRCUMSTANCE exerts on the individual (and vice versa…for balance), or, as Ayn Rand simplifies, the interplay of “I” and “we”.  ”We the people,” which is only a cooperative amalgam of many “I”s, will turn a simple idea that there is more to be shared than shares in stock, more to be divided than dividends, more to be encouraged than consumption, into a grassroots action bringing voice to those who throughout history have not had much opportunity to voice their concerns – those of the swollen ranks of the working class.  All who labor to produce capital are already among these ranks of hope and change.

PUBLIUS

Simultaneously non-sequitur and by popular demand, here is a good hurling video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmzivRetelE