Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - October 11 Edition

Inspiration, Life Well-Lived

Video:

Meet the Oldest Female BMX Racer in the U.S. (She’s 69)

U.S.-Mexico Relations, Economic Opportunity

Finding a New Approach to the US-Mexico Border

“The US-Mexico border is one of the most vibrant yet misunderstood regions in the world. Often portrayed as troubled territory characterized by negative attributes such as violence and disordered migration, the reality of this extensive geography is that it is also a place of unparalleled cultural richness and business opportunities created by the convergence of two nations, two languages, two cultures, and two economies.

In mid-September, the Institute of the Americas partnered with the Aspen Institute Latinos and Society Program to convene a ground-breaking conversation called Innovation and Culture at the Border. This convening examined the creative dynamism of US-Mexico border, with a focus on the impact of American Latinos in border economies, and the opportunities that border regions represent for them. Along the border, American Latinos — who are often bicultural, bilingual, and frequently binational — are uniquely positioned to contribute to new approaches that create economic opportunity and advance prosperity.

Examples of creativity and entrepreneurial success are abundant in border cities along the nearly 2,000-mile US-Mexico border. However, such models are many times invisible, actively ignored, or unacknowledged. To counter such invisibility and enrich the narrative, Innovation and Culture at the Border brought together individuals who work and live along the US–Mexico border (with a special focus on CaliBaja) and who have intimate, practical knowledge of the challenges and opportunities for innovation and creativity.”

Theatre, Social Justice

Meet the Playwrights Bringing Social Justice to the Stage

Dominique Morisseau

Humanizing the struggles of the school-to-prison pipeline

Dominique Morisseau, an award-winning playwright from Detroit, describes herself as an artist-activist. She recently developed a three-play cycle called The Detroit Projects, in which she highlights issues that have affected the city for decades, such as racism, urban renewal, and economic inequality.

Morisseau’s newest project, Pipeline, tackles the mass incarceration of Black men with the story of a devoted inner-city public high school teacher who tries to save her teenage son from the school-to-prison pipeline.

New research shows that kids can start going down that path as early as preschool, where Black children are 3.6 times more likely than White children to be suspended.

Morisseau, the daughter of a teacher and a former teacher herself, developed a deep understanding of the pipeline from her time living in urban cities like Detroit, New York, and Chicago.

“This concerns me,” Morisseau says. “And playwrights have the power to humanize social issues by making people visualize human beings at the forefront of those issues. We can spark emotions and make people feel these issues in their guts rather than simply make them think about it in their brains.”

Read MORE

Islam, Community

Huff Post "Listen to America" series:

In Face Of Islamophobia, This Group Hosts ‘Meet A Muslim’ Events In Kansas

“The Crescent Peace Society’s “Meet a Muslim” events are one of a handful of similar initiatives that have sprung up across the country since the election. One Muslim couple started a “dinner with your Muslim neighbor” project in Seattle, for instance, and a Muslim veteran has been traveling the country with a sign reading “I’m Muslim and a U.S. Marine, ask anything.”

When asked whether such projects place undue responsibility on Muslims to have to humanize themselves to non-Muslims, particularly in an environment of increased fear among the Muslim community, Latif demurred.

“There’s a lot of discussion in progressive circles on whose job it is to humanize people, and I understand it’s off-putting to explain, ‘I’m just a human being just like you are,’” he said. “But we’ve found in our work that waiting for other people to do the work doesn’t get anything done. You have to take that first step and hope that other people will join you.” 

“If we don’t speak, then other people write the narratives for us,” he added.

Amid a recent rise in anti-Muslim hate groups nationwide ― and spate of hate crimes in recent years in the Kansas City area ― Latif recognizes the effect and reach of the group’s events are small. But even if they touch only a few hundred people, he believes they still have value.

“There are so few Muslims and so much said about them,” Latif said. “Even just meeting people who [already] support us, they can say to their extended families: ‘I’ve met a Muslim person and this is what I found out,’ so it’s a ripple that hopefully reverberates further out.””

Women, Running for Office, Campaigning

12 Absolutely Essential Things You Should Know About Running For Office

This advice, while geared toward women, can help men as well. 

"Whether you're happy with the political climate or hell-bent on change, one thing is clear: You are underrepresented in government — and that void has far-reaching consequences, no matter what side of the aisle you're on. Currently, 70 percent of our elected officials are men, even though females make up more than half of the population. What's holding us back? The crazy (and statistically unfounded) notion that women can't win. Well, it's time to step up. Follow this ultimate guide to running for office to get started."

Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - August 15 Edition

Writing, Creativity

The Author Of "The Artist's Way" On Why You Should Write Every Day

"For more than 25 years, I have faithfully written Morning Pages—three pages of longhand stream of consciousness that serves to unlock my creativity, guiding me a page at a time into my future. The pages, I often say, are like lanterns—illuminating the path ahead. I write them daily, aware that skipping them leads back to blocks. The faithful practice of pages leads to freedom. They bring ease and inspiration to my life.

1. The first thing I've learned is that persistence pays off.

Doing the pages day in and day out, even when they seem dull, boring, or difficult, eventually leads to breakthroughs. Because they can be about anything, pages are like taking a whisk broom to the corners of our consciousness."

To read 2 – 10, click here.

Grief, Kindness

94-year-old puts in pool for neighborhood kids

"MORRIS, Minn. – Peace and quiet seem like a good thing, until you’ve had too much. Keith Davison got his fill in the months that followed the death of his wife Evy.

“You just can’t imagine what it's like,” says Davison, who lost his wife to cancer in 2016 after a marriage of 66 years. “You cry a lot. That's just the way it is, because she's not here.”

But it’s not quiet at Davison’s house anymore.  Late this spring the 94-year-old retired judge installed in his backyard an in-ground pool – then filled it with the neighborhood kids."

Education, Soft Skills

Social And Emotional Skills: Everybody Loves Them, But Still Can't Define Them

"More and more, people in education agree on the importance of schools' paying attention to stuff other than academics.

But still, no one agrees on what to call that "stuff."

I originally published a story on this topic two years ago.

As I reported back then, there were a bunch of overlapping terms in play, from "character" to "grit" to "noncognitive skills."

This bagginess bugged me, as a member of the education media. It bugged researchers and policymakers too. It still does.

If anything, the case for nonacademics has gotten even stronger since then. In fact, it has been enshrined in federal law. The Every Student Succeeds Act mandates that states measure at least one nonacademic indicator of school success.

There is also new research indicating that school-based interventions to promote social and emotional skills have large, and long-term, positive impacts: an average of $11 for every dollar invested, according to an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (which is a supporter of NPR).

But despite all the hoopla there is still — still! — no consensus on how to define these indicators, or even on what to call them."

Communication, Social Justice

Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Well-Intentioned People

(This article is from 2016 but definitely worth a read.)

"This is a follow-up to my previous piece entitled Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Social Justice Educators. The latter was written for folks who consider equity work as their core life purpose. I wrote Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Well-Intentioned People for the folks who consider themselves good people invested in social justice and conversations around equity, but who may show up in the ally role most often. Well-intentioned people make mistakes, lots of them. Mistakes must be expected and being held accountable has to be expected as well. The points below outline some of the common behaviors that show up often in social justice conversations.

I want to be clear that we all participate in some of the following counterproductive acts. We are not all privileged or all oppressed. We are complex people with complex identities that intersect in complex ways. Therefore, we all show up in problematic ways with our privilege. I own that my background is from the higher education setting, but I think the points below can be useful for all folks interested in creating dynamic change in the communities around them. Moreover, this piece was written in the midst of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner non-indictments (many more people could be listed), so some of it may feel specific to race. However, these rules apply beyond the identity of race; in fact, these rules only exist in the dynamic of intersections. Below are ten counterproductive behaviors that people who want to do “good” commit and must actively work to correct: Click here."

Single, Childless, Work-Life Balance

How to say no at work when you don’t have kids

"So, what should single workers do if they feel they’re being singled out because of their personal life choices or situation, yet don’t want to jeopardise their careers and reputations?

“Don’t bitch and moan about your particular circumstances,” is the first advice dished out by UK-based business mentor David Carter.

He argues that “the answer is in the crowd.” Single colleagues should consider clubbing together, he says, to identify and propose changes to company practices that might benefit the organisation more widely, while at the same time demonstrating their own problem-solving skills.

That may be easier to do than ever, as unprecedented numbers of us are settling down later in life or not at all. A 2014 Pew Report study estimated that one in four young adults in the US will have never married by the time they turn 50, while the most common type of household in the European Union in 2016 was that of a single person, according to the EU’s number-crunching agency Eurostat."