On Turning 30

"All models are wrong, but some are useful," was the famous bromide of George E.P. Box that my statistics professor put up on a slide.

Turning 30 is just a date.  Just another birthday.  I know that.

And yet, this particular round number has been a useful model to think back on where I've been, and think forward to where I'm headed.  Maybe turning 30 is just a psychological juncture, but it's a juncture nonetheless.

First of all, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Perhaps because my itinerary for the big three-oh didn't give me a chance to think much: awake at 2:50, 6:00 flight from Chicago, 10:00 interview in Boston's Chinatown for an hour-and-a-half, 20-minute lunch, 2:00 interview near Government Center for another two-and-a-half-hours, 30-minute call about a job, 5 minutes sprinting through the rain.  Home by 6.  You could have stuck a fork in me.

It was finally at the bar that it sunk in.

It hasn't been as hard as I might have thought because I don't feel a day over 25.  All the years people have been telling me I look young.  When I was a sophomore in college I was mistaken for a sophomore in high school by the town librarian.  That's been the pattern ever since.  What once felt like an albatross--being baby-faced--now feels like a badge of honor.  There are plenty of folks who look 40 at 30; if I come off as younger, then either I've got lucky genes, or else the exercise and good eating are paying off.

Turning 30 has made me think about 20, and all the things that have changed since then.

When I turned 20, I was drifting through college, unsure where I was headed, with few buoys of support.  I hadn't yet made a truly close, enduring college friend.

I thought I was done studying Spanish--only to be headed to Chile 13 months later for a life-changing year.

I had never biked more than 10 miles--several years later I would huff and puff my way to my first metric century.

Above all, It's striking how little I knew, relatively.  How to write, how to write poetry, how to write pragmatically for a job, how to write about numbers.  My yoga instructor talks about how he'd trade his late-thirties body for his twenty-year-old body any day--but not the mind.  I couldn't agree more.

At the same time, I'm struck by how the core things that make me happy have fundamentally not changed.  Losing myself in an hour of pickup basketball, writing in any form, sitting outside in the sun on a summer day, breaking bread or sharing a beer with a close friend.  Those things sustained me at 20, and they sustain me all the same today.  I only hope they can keep on sustaining me over the next 10 years.

The Importance of FACE Time

Life is as the sea, art a ship in which man conquers life's crushing formlessness, reducing it to a course, a series of swells, tides and wind currents inscribed on a chart.

—Ralph Ellison, “Richard Wright’s Blues”

I’ve discovered a few things this summer, and high up on that list, I have discovered the power of the “one-on-one.” 

The one-on-one is a key sequence from the organizer’s playbook.  Though my own organizing is limited to two years of student activism in college, I’ve snatched the idea for my work on family and community engagement this summer—and boy has it paid off.

A fact sheet from Organizing for America’s Virgina branch revealed the power of meeting people in person, individually.  OFA tracked the outcomes of various forms of reaching out to potential volunteers over a four-month period in the winter of 2010.  They found that only 3% of people talked to on the phone became leaders in the organization, and 6% of volunteers at events.  Folks entreatied through one-on-ones, meanwhile, were converted to leadership roles fully 23% of the time.

***

As I took stock of my summer-long work supporting family and community engagement (FACE) at the Wallace Elementary School in Chicago, I knew that I had something to offer.  I also knew I had to hit the ground listening. 

Part of my mandate to listen was because I am the ultimate outsider to the work: a white, middle-class male not from Chicago, not living in the neighborhood, and not recently a schoolteacher, working with a heavily African American K-8 school on the Far South Side.

But equally a part of my mandate to listen was that FACE work inherently has to be democratic.  Though surely there are many schools that give lip-service to family engagement, for a half-dozen reasons, I don’t think you can meaningfully “engage” families if you don’t listen to their perspectives—and put those perspectives at the center of your work. 

As I developed my summer work-plan, a three-stage process came into formation: Assessing, Assisting, and Achieving.  The first stage: assess the needs, capacities, and perspectives of teachers, school leaders, families, and community members with respect to FACE.  The second stage: capitalizing on what I’d learned in the first stage, assist the various parties in developing engagement strategies—contributing my knowledge and experience with engagement.  The third stage: from the end of my placement forward, it would be up to the school, families, and community to achieve their vision for engagement. 

The currency of the assessing stage would take several forms—attending community meetings, holding focus groups—but above all else, I plunged into one-on-ones. 

***

To carry them out, I’ve broken bread at local diners, met up for coffee at Starbucks, cleared a space in the corner of a library under renovation.  Through the process of more than a dozen such conversations, mainly with teachers but now branching into parents and community members, I’ve honed my techniques into what seems to be a workable set-up.

Before we even broach engagement, we get to know each other—at least on some level.  I’ve learned that a key ingredient of the one-on-one is telling and hearing each other’s stories. 

And it pays to go first, to tell my own story before I put my interlocutor on the hot seat.  I talk about where I grew up.  I put racial issues on the table: I talk about my choice to major in ethnic studies in college, the awareness and passion for social justice I gained from that.  I touch on my experience as a high-school teacher, then an adult ESL teacher, and how that led to an interest in family literacy and parents engaging with schools.  And I express a desire to work together with whoever sits across from me on community engagement.  By going first—and I’ve tried it both ways—I can show my interest in going deep, in being candid.

Then I listen.

One teacher told me about the intentional multiracial housing community she lived in in college.  Another about the ministry she leads.  Another about attending the Wallace back in the day, when it attracted students from across the city.  About the dozen pathways into education they’ve taken. 

Another talked about his high-school days at a strict Catholic school, where they vowed to turn boys into men.  Another about how her very parents reflected both visible involvement (her father served on the Local School Council) and subtle but critical engagement (her mother pushed her learning at home). 

I’ve seen faces open up, start to glow.  Not just about their experiences—also and ultimately, their vision for community engagement.

I usually don’t open my notebook until their personal story is over.  Then I dive into questions about community engagement, and start writing.  It’s striking how much information can be conveyed in merely an hour.  Even my limited stenography, when I retype it into Word later, can run for a dense page-and-a-half, full of insights I might have forgotten if I hadn’t been writing as I listened.

As we talk, I’m jotting notes about the person’s values, interests, and resources.  I’m identifying possible leverage points—attempting to chart Ellison’s sea: I plunge deeper when a topic seems to strike a chord, when the other person really cares about positive phone calls or the nuts-and-bolts of preparing for a parent-teacher conference.  I pivot off a topic when it’s exhausted itself. 

Finally: the commitment.

As the conversation winds to a close, I make explicit two to three talents in family engagement that I see in that person.  And I suggest a small way in which they might be able to contribute to FACE strategies.  In some cases, I’ve asked for a commitment on the spot: Would you be willing to teach newer teachers in how to make positive relationships with families in the first weeks of school?

Such commitments get funneled into an action plan, the template for next steps.

***

On their face, the one-on-ones I've put at the center of my work this summer may appear inefficient.  They are, however, purposeful--and purposefully limited, usually an hour, no more than 90 minutes.  And I have explored focus groups as a way to meet with more than one person at a time.

Beyond that, though, the value of the one-on-ones is that they allow me to make a potentially deep connection with the very individuals who will be responsible for carrying out—or not carrying out—community engagement long after my work is done.  They allow an individual’s perspectives, vision, and talents in the area of FACE to surface in ways that they might not in even very small focus groups.  As I’ve come to believe, it’s school leaders, teachers, and families who will ultimately have to do the work: if they are energized about community engagement, if they are the ones to build the strategies, they’ll own them. 

And the hope is—they’ll implement them.  One-on-ones are only the first step in a pathway that requires a lot of hard work.  But they make a very good first step indeed. 

Accomplished

Completed: The 30-30 Challenge on the 365 poetry blog.  Actually, 31-31: a poem a day throughout July.


Applied: To six jobs.


Set up: Two interviews.


Played: Tennis, for the first time in 8 months.  Sprains (on two forehand fingers, in my case) take a loooong time to heal.


Visited: Cincinnati (informational interview); Galena, Illinois (work retreat).

And all this in the last week!

Welcome to the Big Time, Kid

I know a little bit about Chicago politics.  I've read about the pork and patronage.  Followed the Blagoyevich Senate-seat selling scandal.  The wards, the "mini-mayor" aldermen, the machine, the voter-turnout traded for jobs.  

When it comes to the school system, I've been slowly absorbing the lingo associated with the web of roles, rulers, and responsibilities in and around CPS.  At the local level, perhaps the most unique manifestation of politics and schools are the "LSCs," or Local School Councils.  Created during 1980s decentralization, with one for each of the 600-plus schools, they have survived recentralization--and maintain the power to hire and fire principals.  

In addition to the LSCs, the system's alphabet-soup includes CACs (Community Action Councils) and PACs (Parent Advisory Councils).  Powerful?  Evidently, yes.  Why?  I'm not sure yet.  

In the case of the south-side turnaround elementary school I'm working with on community-engagement, leaders from the LSC and CAC supported the turnaround.

Oh, and did I mention there's a PTA?  The PTA did not support the turnaround.

It's one thing to conceptually know the politics.  It's another to see it with all its brass-knuckles gleaming--as I did Thursday night during a community meet-and-greet for the school.

The meeting featured an invigorating opening speech by Principal Brennan, who recounted the teachers that first sparked her love of science, laid out her turnaround vision, and was generally a beacon of energy and optimism.  

It was an important speech.  But the real drama seemed to lie elsewhere.

Two community members were invited to speak.  One the head of the LSC, the other the head of the CAC. 

Community speaker #1 addresses the assembled parents: "You don't have to like me, and I don't have to like you.  Because it's about the kids."

Okay, glad we got that out of the way.

Now she addresses the principal: "Principal Brennan, people have been asking me, What do I think of you?"

An opportunity for a show of unity in the face of enormous challenges?

"And to be honest, Principal Brennan, I don't have an opinion about you.  Come back in December and ask me, and I will then."

How do you like them apples?  

Community speaker #2 was a little longer on the forward-looking and esprit-de-corps ...

... until I was introduced to her after the meeting.  As a non-Chicagoan white male in a suit, it often takes a little explaining to convey why I care about community-engagement and may have something to offer.  

Fair enough.  As it should be.

Well, let's just say: speaker #2 was and remains skeptical of my capacities in that regard, which she did not hesitate to directly tell me.  My status as an outsider, my choice of coffeeshop location, my taking of the bus ...     

I needed a glass of wine and a good 30 minutes of yoga after the meeting.  The school politics, the parent politics, the turnaround politics, the politics of race, of accountability, of community engagement.  This city breathes politics.  I've got a lot to learn.  

My Big Five

Everybody gets to the point, I guess, where the job search becomes serious.  I spent months and months exploring jobs, calling up folks for informational interviews, and mulling.  Lots of mulling.  Now I need  a job in the next two months.  I've applied for things, but unfortunately HR offices don't calibrate their hiring processes to the end of my grad-school program!

Folks at Education Pioneers have nudged me to reach out transparently to people I know, with a single message: I'm on the job market.

I'm even getting sort-of headhunted.  By a pretty cool nonprofit for an intriguing job, but I will admit it's a bit ... weird.

A couple years ago, I was asked what are the five most important things I'd need in a job.  I made a list back then.  I've tweaked it since, but it hasn't changed much:

Mission: I've got to work for a place I can connect to.  For the most part, I always have--a blessing, but also a need.

Grassroots Connection: I struggled teaching high-schoolers, but loved teaching adults.  I loved being a student activist in college.  I love talking to people.  I don't know if I have to be on the front-most of the front-lines, but I feel a deep need to be close, at least.

Strategy: Okay, this one can be hard to square with the preceding one.  I like the opportunity to think strategically, make plans, deal with "big ideas" (even if they only seem big to me).  Some mix of grassroots and strategy would put me over the moon.

Sharp Colleagues: I want to work with people who push me.  "Push" can mean a lot of things--push me intellectually, emotionally, experientially.  But at the end of the day I want to be challenged not just by my supervisor, but my peers, too.

Support, Growth, Development: Though I am very self-motivated, I struggle when I feel "out in left field," with lack of clarity or lack of support.  I thrive when I can bounce an idea off someone.  When I taught adult ESOL, that person was not just my on-site supervisor, but also a mentor I connected with almost exclusively via email.  In other words, I'm flexible as to where I get the support, but I know I need it.

Those are my big five.  I'm trying to keep them in mind as I search for jobs: considering lots of options, trying to stay true to myself.

Week Links: In a Wonky Mood

Guess I've been in a wonky mood since my professor encouraged us this week to "curl up in bed ... with Title I of No Child Left Behind."  Haven't gone that far, but ...

A well-reported piece on how more and more homeless families in Massachusetts are being put up in local hotels.  I would have liked a little more about the overall Rube Goldbergian homelessness and housing system, but there's plenty of good stuff and vivid anecdotes nonetheless.  The money stat: Four years ago the state housed 66 homeless families in hotels; today, that's 1469.  And this, despite state programs designed precisely to move families into their own apartments ASAP.

A perceptive article at The New Republic on Obama's "re-competition" plan for early-childhood education: same pot of money, but now programs deemed "deficient" have to compete for grants.  One interesting takeaway: the changes have faced little opposition because they were proposed by a Democrat--and because ECE lacks large teachers unions to organize resistance.  This will be an interesting one to watch.

Finally, a Romney and a Kennedy: strange and (at times) strained bedfellows.

What Matters to Me, and Why

Third in a series of speeches for Arts of Communication, at the Kennedy School of Government (the first here, the second here).  

Assignment: Speak about your values.

Over the past few weeks, a number of you have spoken about growing up white and privileged.  In the small town where I’m from, that was my experience, too.  My parents are loving, caring, and involved in the community.  But let’s face it: we were more likely to be in a food co-operative than a multiracial coalition.

A month after I graduated college, I moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to volunteer with AmeriCorps.  In college, I’d been an ethnic studies major and student activist.  I was drawn to Milwaukee because it was diverse, affordable, and a bit gritty.  I was drawn to AmeriCorps because, before I became a schoolteacher, I wanted to immerse myself in the community.  I wanted to learn about the institutions around me, and about myself.  Little did I realize, living in a white neighborhood, and working in a black one, just how immersed I would be.

When I arrived, I had six weeks to kill before the program.  I went on brewery tours, I bought a bike, I learned about Milwaukee history.  And I settled into the room I’d rented in a two-bedroom apartment, one of six units in a yellow stone building in a neighborhood people had told me was good to rent in.

A month after I moved in, my roommate Helen and I were chatting one night.  She said, “if you ever need something fixed, talk to me.  The landlord, Gretchen, doesn’t like to deal with subletters.  And I’ll tell you something else Gretchen doesn’t like: blacks.”  Ellen went on: one time Gretchen found out she was considering subletting to a black couple.  She told her, “If you ever rent to people with hair like that, I’ll evict you.”

That night, I learned: it’s one thing to read about race, another to feel it pound, feel it sweat.  I went to my room in a daze, wrote down everything Ellen had told me on a yellow legal pad.  That night, and many more nights, my muscles would clench with questions: Should I move out?  Should I stay, and try to change minds?  I had black friends.  Could I invite them over?

I decided to stay.  I decided to take action.  Now, I didn’t end unfair housing.  But I gathered facts, secretly.  I called up a fair housing council, and gave them each piece of the story.  They opened a case—though I never found out how it got resolved.  But as they investigated the practices in my building, I had to interrogate the habits of my mind. 

For Milwaukee is a city with a lot of street crime.  And for many people, the face of that crime is young, black, and male.  That fall, as I’d leave my AmeriCorps job at the Red Cross to wait at a bus shelter on the corner of 27^th and Wisconsin, in a downbeat, black neighborhood, I’d like to say I felt no anxiety or prejudice.  But I’d be lying.

With time, I found my own way to be comfortable.  I talked to friends and colleagues about—my own racial feelings.  I walked around the neighborhood.  I engaged people at the bus stop.  I tried to make peace with my skeletons.  That fall, I learned: It’s one thing to feel open-minded, but another to open your mind and see how you really feel. 

More than that, in my year in AmeriCorps, I learned what structural racism, and personal racial prejudice, look like in living color.  What was the more important lesson?  To take steps to rectify institutional racism?  Or to take a step back and reflect on our own racial feelings?  Both.  And I learned that you can’t deal with one and not the other.  As long as our minds are segregated, our apartments, our streets, our neighborhoods, will be segregated.  I truly believe that, even if we can’t overcome inequality overnight, with time, we can—but it has to start with each of us.

Which One Do You Want to Hear First?

The good news is, I got a summer job offer in Chicago.  It trains.  It pays.  It even pays as much as my former job!  And it starts a whole month after school ends, so there'll be some much-needed R&R.

The bad news is, I've got a dog of a cold.  And it's getting worse.

The hard news is, I need to give a speech on My Values in 9 days, and I'm struggling to get ideas on paper that feel deep enough to speak on, but not too detailed that they go for more than the allotted four minutes.  Time to suck on a zinc tablet and think it over.

Limits

This week, a plunge into something new.  I'm interning at the Statehouse working on education policy. Firsts: first time working in a government building, first time walking through a metal detector to get to the office.  We all deal with policy--ramifications, fallouts--on a daily basis.  But--first time dealing with it from the inside-out.

My first day my supervisor handed me a three-inch-thick binder.  Instructions: learn everything you can about English Language Learners.  I put my head in the binder and emerged a few hours later swimming in Whereas this and Ch. that. 

The inherent limits of policy strike me right off the bat.  I'm not in an ELL classroom, and most of the briefs and reports I've read don't make me feel like I am.  I'd love to read some organized testimony of teachers: what's it like to do this work?  What do you think the law should say?  I'm sure it's out there for the finding.

Even if policy is informed by the grassroots, how much of current, or amended, policy can reach back to the classroom?  Should reach that deep?

**

It's an interesting way to learn.  Before Wednesday, I knew almost nothing about ELLs.  I know something more about language acquisition.  This is perhaps the most transactual learning I've ever done.  Learning for the purpose of tweaking a bill that has already been written.  Learning just enough, in compressed time, to suggest those tweaks.  Borrowing ideas already in use in other states.  Writing to the constraints of four-page policy memos.  Will it feel liberating, having so specific an outcome?  Will it feel limiting?

**

It was a hard decision to drop my fifth class.  I was already feeling overwhelmed by the workload.  I found myself stringing together 14-hour days, yet still not fully engaging with the work in some courses.  I pulled the plug on an extra quantitative class, in favor of being able to dive more deeply into projects I'm passionate about in other classes.  I think it's the right tradeoff.

The limit to the one-year program is always having to make these trade-offs. 

I already feel better.  I can follow through on having a discussion group for a class.  Talking through readings solidifies learning for me.  I'm excited all over again for this last semester.

**

An observation this year: I miss the grassroots.  I miss my students, my class.  I miss the crafting of lessons, the buzz of carrying them out, the lightbulbs when folks make connections.  The new recruits for the next course.  I loved--love--working with adults to help them overcome the limits of not speaking English.  I miss pushing the limits of practice.

I'm trying to heed the voices of my passions as I answer the $39,500 question: What Comes Next?  I came to grad school because I wanted to touch more than a dozen or two lives at a time.  I came because I saw my students confronting the realities of living poor in Boston and wanted to be part of a movement that could holistically address, upend, change those realities.

Should I go back to a classroom?  I don't think having a foot (heart, head) back in the grassroots need be seen as a limit.  I'd love to do good work on the ground and connect to good work at the 10, 20, 30,000 foot level.  Not sure how.  Still working on the roadmap.

Past as Prologue

Ten years since I started undergrad, I continue to be struck by how different my current grad-school experience has been.  Submitting papers in … paper form vs. submitting everything to online dropboxes.  Solitary archives vs. group work, group work, group work.  Studying under the West Coast sun vs. … celebrating East Coast days where it at least doesn’t rain or hits fifty in January?

My whole strategy is different now.  Back then, my strategy amounted to how I approached most buffet tables as a youth: grab whatever dishes look most appealing, and don’t look back (okay, I still do that sometimes).  We had distribution requirements, but I was fortunate to satisfy most of them through classes I was deeply interested in taking.  I took up an interdisciplinary major, ethnic studies, that was a dabble of psychology, of anthropology, of public policy.  A year abroad in South America gave me the most powerful experience of my life (especially, as Mark Twain would have celebrated to find out, the non-schooled part of that time abroad), and transected my studies with courses that became the basis for a minor in Spanish.  The most focus came in history, where I took more courses than in any other field and wrote a thesis, on campus labor relations.  Even that last assignment was a pursuit that drew out of a personal interest—in this case, my organizing efforts as a student activist alongside campus workers. 

I was all over the map, and I loved it.  I learned a little about many things, a lot about a few, and thoroughly enjoyed almost all of what I signed up for. 

There have been times as I look back that I wished I’d thought through things more.  I rarely stepped back, as an undergrad, to see what all the work added up to.  It wasn’t that I was undisciplined in my studies—I worked really hard.  But I didn’t consider the benefits to learning a discipline, a particular method with which to approach things (with the possible exception of history; but I took no methods classes).  If I could do it all over, there isn’t that much I’d change, I don’t think, but yeah, a few classes here and there.

While taking classes of interest as a grad student, I’ve tried to also be mindful of attaining more concrete skills and knowledge within certain areas.  I came in with goals: bolster quantitative skills, learn about anti-poverty policy, study cradle-to-career initiatives.  I’ve approached the buffet table differently: rather than grab and go, I try to pair complementary offerings.  I took a very, very intensive stats-class-slash-half-time-job in the fall, and am in … another very, very intensive stats class now.  I studied social policy in the fall, and have an internship in policy for the spring.  I researched a parent-education program in the fall, and am now taking a course on family and community engagement.  I wrote a paper on the Strive educational continuum in the fall, and hope to study similar initiatives in the next few months.

Throughout the experience, I’ve tried to listen to my own questions and concerns and answer them: How do you set up a good parent-education program?  What are the pros and cons of cradle-to-career programs?  And so on.  While I don’t have quite the unbridled approach of my undergrad years, I’ve tried to retain the joy and curiosity that marked those years.  May is fast approaching; when I graduate, I hope I can look back and say I’ve had just enough of the freedom of youthful discovery, and just enough of the discipline of career preparation.

Thinking ...

... about what I want to do next year, and off into the future.  The last time I left school and was looking for work, I talked to almost nobody about the actual jobs I was interested in.  I mean, I discussed prospects with my friends, but I considered journalism without talking to journalists.  I considered teaching without asking teachers the passions and challenges of the work.  I have a lot of uncertainty about where I'm headed--partly because I am slightly risk-averse due to past work that didn't go so well, partly because I tend to get tempted to go down the road less traveled, the road well traveled, and several other roads, partly because I don't always know what I want to do--next year, in five years, in 10 years.  This time around though, I'm bouncing ideas off people: I've talked to people in government, in family-engagement positions, in nonprofits.  What's the work like?  I've had coffee with classmates--just yesterday, a friend of mine made a great case for D.C. (which I'd been skeptical of).  I'm not asking for anybody to give me the answer, I've got to come up with that myself.  But I'm taking the conversation out of my own head.

... about how to stay active this semester.  Five classes, one internship, one job search (which feels like three or four).  My goal last summer was to exercise more during grad school not less, because I knew I'd need the energy, need the sanity, that I get from pick-up basketball, from a bike ride, from a three-mile run.  Last semester, I did pretty well--I'd give myself an A for physical activity (grade-inflation included).  Not sure how it's gonna happen this time around.

... about where I want to live.  That's connected to what I want to do.  And unlike in the past, for me, it's a two-person decision, not a solo act.  Somebody asked me the other where my girlfriend and I don't want to live, what's ruled out.  If you drew a line from Minneapolis to Austin, anything West of that ... not so sure.  Anywhere you have to drive everywhere--probably not right.  Beyond that, more questions than answers.

Organizing Principles

If I am not for myself, who am I?
when I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?

--Rabbi Hillel

As I look back over the years, there are very few classes I took that transformed me, that I could say changed my life.  More transformative were moments I didn't see coming--a volunteer experience while studying abroad, a year volunteering with AmeriCorps after a planned job fell through.

I think I might be taking such a class this semester, though: "Organizing: People, Power, Change."

When I was an undergrad, my last two years on campus, every Wednesday, I attended the weekly meeting of a labor-rights group that advocated for (and alongside) the janitors, cooks, and groundskeepers who kept our campus humming.  Between meetings, I'd write op-eds, do outreach to students, plan events, and the such.  We started a Living Wage campaign--successful after I left campus. We walked picket lines in solidarity with a campus strike.  We didn't have a "leader": there were two coordinators, and everything was shared.  We rotated meeting facilitators, rotated note-takers, rotated op-ed writers.  Our group had people of all stripes: kids from backgrounds advantaged and challenged*, black and white and Latino, gay and straight, men and women.

Rarely in my life have I ever felt so alive as when I organized with them.  On the one hand, we were grappling with concepts of interracial understanding, capitalism, human rights; on the other, we were taking actions that, we hoped, would ultimately lead to direct benefits for the community we studied in.  Against the often theoretical background of being undergrads, we were doing stuff that felt real, that felt like it mattered not for tomorrow, not just to build our careers, but right now.  We had a extra-large dose of idealism, but we did genuinely good work.  We learned a lot--about communities, about ourselves, about commitment.  When I look back on my undergrad years, there are a few things I'd do differently if I could.  Being a student activist is never one of those.  I cherished those moments, and cherished them still.

One of the appeals of this class is that it's a more theoretical backing for organizing work.  Another is that it will let me test ideas of activism, even as I'm considering advocacy work upon graduation.  Another are the exercises: I will actually have to initiate an organizing campaign this semester.  Of all the classes I've signed up for, it feels scariest, hardest.  In the years since college, I've volunteered, I've canvassed for political campaigns.  But it's been many moons since I organized--and when I did, I did it in a group.  This feels like a step out into the wilderness.  I can't wait.

*Update.  This originally said "good backgrounds and bad" till a reader's comment made me take a second look at it and edit it.  Thanks for the input. 

After David Brooks

A few picked-up pieces from a book tour for The Social Animal (paraphrase alert):


Every politician he's ever met has incredible social talents.  But their emotional intelligence stops when it comes to making policy.


People see "reason" and "emotion" as two ends of a see-saw.  They're mistaking emotion for "arousal"--Emily Dickinson was emotional, but she wasn't screaming all the time.  Emotion is the basis for rational decision-making.


Economics has become the gateway between different disciplines because it offers the currency we can understand to communicate--quantifiable, hard stuff.  But it's the soft stuff that determines so much more.


The ed sector is way ahead in acknowledging emotional components.  


When I go to Senators' office to talk about the thing I care about most--early childhood education--they pat me on the head patronizingly and say, Let's talk about the defense budget.  There's a status hierarchy of policy topics.  If it's perceived as being "soft" stuff, they don't want to deal with it.


Great schools like KIPP do both hard stuff (data-gathering) and squishy stuff (relationship-building) more than most.


Colleges should offer marriage courses (featuring Anna Karenina, among other texts): if you have a great job and a crappy marriage, you'll be unhappy.  If you have a great marriage and a crappy job, you'll be happy.

Wondering ...

... if the best place to attack poverty through education is in schools, in nonprofits, or in policy.

... if I should finally give in to the lifelong temptation of working in politics.

.... if there is a place for me in a school, and if so, where?

... when I'll have to finally decide this.

What I Did Over My Winter Vacation ...

Southern France: could hardly believe I was there.  Espresso, red wine, delicious meals, rented bikes.  A few shots from an amazing Christmas:

Daily market in Nice

Options: Pretty decent

Ville Franche

Eze Village

Sunrise over the Mediterranean

My To Do List

Tentative plans, for once all of the last statistics have poured out my ears and I am officially on break ...

1. Write poetry for open-mic
2. Cook something while not in a hurry
3. Eat something while not in a hurry
4. Taper caffeine intake ...
5. ... and, being here, ramp up wine intake.  Bet you 10,000 dollars I won't be thinking about regression diagnostics there!