Tag Archives: Civics

The Road to Diamond, Day 98: Dribs and Drabs Again

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

March 6, 2025- There was about an inch of snow that fell here, this morning. Dribs and drabs, and gone by noon. There is a better chance of accumulation tomorrow, so we’ll see. I stopped by a coffee shop that offers a hang-out for teens, just to see what it looks like. School was in session, so there was a lone young man staffing the counter and there were a couple of ladies running the office. Three workmen were doing repairs on a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system (HVAC). I got a cup of joe to go and moved along, saving the coffee for later and getting lunch at a downtown bagel shop that has several nice sandwich options. It was a good day for lox and cream cheese, with capers.

The Red Cross monthly meeting provided all the information I needed, in order to set up and run a shelter simulation-a week from Saturday. My team is poised and ready, and we will finalize the preparations next Friday. As for my acting as Sheltering Lead for this area, that will be decided next Friday, also.

I sat in on the Prescott Indivisible chapter meeting this evening. It focused on civics- helping those in attendance brush up on state government. This is something that everyone ought to know, so it was time well spent. There was not a whole lot of counterproductive bickering about personalities, which was gratifying. I see that the Governor of California has come out as opposing boys playing in girls’ sports. Personally, I think there are probably enough transgender athletes that they could compete against one another. On the other hand, there are times where girls take part in traditionally “boys-only” sports, like baseball and tackle football, so I think such matters need to be weighed carefully-on a case by case basis.

I ended the day by proofreading a paper by a Baha’i student from Indonesia, who I had met whilst in the Philippines, last month. It focused on an ecumenical ceremony hosted by some Buddhists, using traditional Javanese spiritual practices. I found the whole premise quite enlightening. It is called Ruwatan and is a means for fostering respect for diversity.

Sometimes, a day full of dribs and drabs works out quite well.

The Road to Diamond, Day 11: Lights Dimmed

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 9, 2024- The maintenance director at Solid Rock Christian Community was growing impatient with the last diner at this evening’s Soup Kitchen. The man is a slow eater, and is most often the last person to finish his meal. To his credit, he didn’t budge when the director dimmed the dining room lights. It took an extra three minutes for him to finish and leave-with a parting shot at said director.

Many people are concerned that the lights of democracy, and of a robust economy, are going to be dimmed, in the months and years ahead. Democracy must be seen as a vehicle for everyone to state their views. There are elements of elitism, in our country at present. Those who have long felt excluded deserve clearer explanations of policies and processes. Surely, it would help greatly if Civics were to be restored to its place in our education system. It is not an accident that many in Generation Z are drawn to quick fixes and more authoritarian approaches to problem-solving. Who has actually taken the time to carefully explain the nature of a democratic society to the youngest generation of adults?

The same is true of economics. There is a bit more emphasis on that subject, in the schools, but the fairly humming economy is not presenting itself, in an articulate manner, to many heads of households. There is a good return on investments and property values are holding steady, but people are not seeing their budgets stretching very far, despite the slowly declining rate of inflation. That, more than anything, is giving the loudest voices in the room traction.

Tariffs, especially at the rates being proposed now, will NOT have the desired effect on the economy. They will raise prices, and thus the rate of inflation, very likely to an astronomical level-with food, fuel, automobile repair and clothing among the commodities that will sink many a household budget, faster than is the case now. Tax cuts for the well-to-do will deplete the Treasury faster than tariff revenue can replenish it-thus adding to the national deficit, rather than shrinking it. Those who are presently staying at home, or who are otherwise not working, will find that there will be a growing clamour from their families, friends and neighbours for them to go back to work-often at fairly menial jobs, if the proposed deportation of the mass of undocumented immigrants is successfully carried out. Many of the stay-at-homes supported the incoming president. Are they ready to heed the call to work as landscapers, construction workers and housekeepers? Time will tell.

Is the national light dimming? Right now, I don’t think so, but there are some flickers. It is up to both conservatives and liberals to keep the lights burning brightly.

Standing One’s Ground

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 6, 2021- Two things of note, one personal and the other of wider import: Today marks forty-one years since I met Penny, in Zuni, NM. Former Senator and Presidential candidate Bob Dole died yesterday, at the age of 98. Both people suffered mightily, in the course of their lives. Both people were notable for not giving an inch, to anyone who pushed at their boundaries.

This came to me, all the more clearly, whilst working with seventh graders at a nearby middle school. There was a fair amount of obstinacy, that comes with being twelve. The difference, though, is that the insolent ones were fairly easy to set straight. More discernment was in order, in dealing with those who had a fair point to make, in their disagreements with policies and expectations.

This is the beauty of a day with those for whom adulthood is the light at the end of the tunnel. For all the concern with a dearth of formal civics education, the fact is that those at the tail end of Gen Z and the advance guard of Alphas have begun to do their own civics homework-both with regard to rights and to responsibilities. Group members at a table keep one another in check-not in a “crabs in a bucket” manner, but with the view towards “a tide that lifts all boats”.

There is a process, at the school, for correcting undue insolence, and it works. There is also the caveat that the teacher is the adult in the room, something that is not universally followed by all teachers, everywhere. I follow that caveat, having long ago seen the consequences of behaving otherwise. So, when a student, with a strong sense of both personal power and responsibility, questioned something I was doing, reason prevailed with both of us. No adult is diminished by acknowledging a child who stands their ground, in a judicious manner.

She left the class, at period’s end, on good terms.

The Road to 65, Mile 84: Arcaneness

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Posted by on in Personal goals, Social

February 20, 2015, Prescott-

There has come out of Phoenix, over the past several months, a concern with Common Core- the Federally-initiated set of loose education standards, which are intended to be tweaked to the needs of states and localities.  Because the Federal guidelines are so general, Common Core has appeared, to the average person, as a mishmash of convoluted lesson plans and circumlocution.

In most instances, Common Core has been fit to the state levels by panels of local educators.  The overriding concern, however, has been the mere fact that it is a byproduct of FEDERAL initiative.  There has been a fair amount of obfuscation and deliberate taking things out of context, so as to change education back to- “Heck, I don’t know.  Just make it something patriotic, adulatory of the Founding Fathers, pro-sports, useful for getting minimum-wage jobs, keeping the riff-raff in their place, and making Might the Master of Right.”

The only move the critics of Common Core have made thus far, here in the Grand Canyon State, is to institute a mandatory Civics Test, for those wanting to graduate high school.  That’s fair enough.  People who master Civics are less likely to be bamboozled.  All the same, there is nothing in Common Core that forbids or discourages mastery of Civics, or of any other subject.  We had a few years ago, in the Dysart Unified School District, in Surprise, AZ, west of Phoenix, something called Core Learning.  There were, in the social studies classes in which I taught, off and on, specific units on which it was felt everyone should focus:  The War for Independence, Slavery, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Great Depression.  I filled in the gaps, though it was discouraged by the administrators.  Several students, though, were more than glad to examine the Industrial Revolution, Gilded Age, the Spanish-American War and the Dust Bowl.

My point is that Common Core is a basic framework, not United Nations mandated indoctrination.  There are frivolous, off-center lesson plans being advanced in its name, but these have occurred in the names of any of its predecessors, from “A Nation At Risk” to “The First Days of School”, as well as “No Child Left Behind”.  Arcaneness is a peculiarly American aspect of education, more reflective of our freedom of expression, than of any Globo-stomp, Monolithic control of what kids learn.

I had these thoughts as I supervised groups of middle school students, who were working on learning somewhat arcane computer design applications, during the course of today.