In the latest The Call To Unite video, David Adams, SEL Director at The Urban Assembly, and Dr. Tim Shriver, founder of UNITE, discuss social-emotional learning (SEL) as a lever for equity not only in our classrooms, but in our society at large. This is America's Classroom.
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Impactful advocacy requires moving past cynicism
Sep 12, 2024
Daley-Harris is the author of “Reclaiming Our Democracy: Every Citizen’s Guide to Transformational Advocacy” and the founder of RESULTS and Civic Courage. This is part of a series focused on better understanding transformational advocacy: citizens awakening to their power.
Why does cynicism feel like a reasonable, inevitable, even smart posture these days? I think most of us have been there … ready to write off politics as corrupt or hopeless, ready to identify those on the other side of an issue as heartless or evil, feeling like the savvy thing is to keep our cards close, our hearts protected, our hopes low. But what if that’s all wrong?
In a recent Time article, titled “Your Cynicism Isn’t Helping Anybody,” Stanford psychology professor Jamil Zaki wrote: “Cynicism, the belief that all people are selfish, greedy, and dishonest — is a natural response to a world reeling from social division, rising sea levels, and countless other problems. But that doesn’t mean it helps us. Cynics … experience more depression, earn less money, and even die younger than non-cynics.”
“Refusing to trust anyone is like playing poker by folding every hand before it begins,” Zaki warned. “Cynicism protects us from predators, but it also shuts down opportunities for collaboration, love, and community, all of which require trust.”
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My decades of work with grassroots volunteers has shown the power of hope that lies just beneath the heavy layers of cynicism so many of us have built up. But it takes work, support and intention; it doesn’t happen by accident. Recently, I interviewed several volunteers who joined organizations that work to deliver transformational advocacy, a form of advocacy that also decreases our cynicism in the process.
Jocelyn Dorgan’s parents were activists and taught her that “we live in a participatory democracy, and it was our responsibility to protect it, have our voices heard and have our leaders respond to the will of the people.”
Dorgan was active in college, but “life took over” and she wasn’t as involved politically until the 2016 election. After that election, “I cast my net wide and tried to do as many things as possible,” she told me. “They all had their value … but I felt like I was spinning my wheels.”
“I found [the anti-poverty lobby] RESULTS in 2023 through my daughter-in-law. I still do political campaigning,” Dorgan said, “but this offered a way to be effective between elections.”
She went to a town hall meeting hosted by Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), prepared to make several requests. She was inspired by how every person got his undivided attention. “Then it was my turn,” she said. “I introduced myself and RESULTS and said I had three things to ask of him.”
She asked him to co-sponsor bills or sign onto letters supporting the child tax credit and tuberculosis funding, which he agreed to do. “After I was done, I felt, ‘Wow, I did it and I did it on my own,’ she said. “It was a huge sense of accomplishment. I’d campaigned but never lobbied like this, so it was stepping out of my comfort zone. It was amazing.”
No cynicism there.
Arnav Dhuri, now a senior at Ridge High School in New Jersey, was looking for a climate-related opportunity to fulfill his school’s volunteer requirement when he was a sophomore. He found Citizens’ Climate Lobby and thought it might involve things like picking up trash.
“[Instead], CCL exposed me to politics,” he said, “and made me more interested than school ever has.”
After three congressional meetings he saw that the volunteers and congressional staff paid more attention to what he had to say than the others. “All the congressional meetings were during school hours,” Arnav said, “and the principal gave me a room to take the meetings. My friends are interested, and some are joining me.”
Arnav made a special commitment to electrifying his school and has already presented to the school board about it.
We need volunteers from more nonprofits who can say, because of the training and coaching they’re receiving, “Wow, I did it! It was a huge sense of accomplishment.” And we need more students presenting to their school boards or their representatives’ offices, and taking on their own projects like electrifying their schools. We need more organizations to stop feeding us a steady diet of email form letters and start intentionally working to put an end to our cynicism.
Now that’s a winning hand.
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‘Black voters are not a monolith’
Sep 10, 2024
Meyers is executive editor of The Fulcrum.
Released two months before Election Day, a new study of Black voters and non-voters has identified five “Black values clusters” that can help organizations improve community outreach and engagement as they prepare for Nov. 5.
By identifying characteristics shared by different groups of Black people, the study’s researchers believe they can better understand why some are — or are not — civically engaged, and they intend to build programs based on the research to improve connections and help more people understand the power of their votes.
“We conducted this research because, historically, the Black electorate has been treated as a monolith in part because the only measures used to assess our interest were vote choice and party ID,” said Sojourn Strategies CEO Katrina Gamble, whose firm conducted the research along with HIT Strategies. “However, as organizers working in a community day in and day out, and as recent shifts in the political landscape indicate, there are important differences within the Black community that inform how people think about and engage with democracy.”
Ranada Robinson, research director for the New George Project, summed up the study: “Black voters are not a monolith and this research proves that. And that’s key for how we implement the findings.”
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The study was commissioned by New Georgia Project, Detroit Action Education Fund and POWER Interfaith (a Pennsylvania organization), each of which is implementing programs designed to engage various cohorts, leaning into lessons learned from the research.
For example, POWER Interfaith is recruiting members of civically engaged clusters to host events where they can reach out to those who are disconnected from politics and civic life.
“We are using the Black values research to reach a subset of 50,000 eligible Black voters who are not yet civically engaged,” said Gregory Edwards, the group’s interim executive editor. He noted that they can build on shared faith values when other connections, besides race, are lacking.
Robinson explained that her group can reach out to “underrepresented and underestimated high-opportunity voters” — a term she prefers to “low-propensity voters” — by having a better understanding of differences among cohorts of Black people and how to engage with them.
“Elections, including this one in November, are not the endgame. They are opportunities to engage Black folks, listen to them and activate them to get, or stay, civically engaged as a tool toward building a multiracial and more inclusive democracy,” she said.
Similarly, Detroit Action has planned programming designed to connect across segments of the Black community. And he, like the others, believes even the less engaged cohorts can be motivated to vote if properly motivated.”
“In Detroit, we’re going to prove that cynicism doesn't have to be a barrier to engaging in the civic process,” said Branden Snyder, senior advisor for Detroit Action Education Fund. “You can be a cynic and still vote if it means being able to deliver change for a community that you love and that you represent.”
The research, which included a survey of 2,034 Black registered voters and 918 Black unregistered voters asked standard questions related to issue priorities and demographics but also asked more probing questions.
“[Community organizers] understand to engage and build power in the Black community they have to better understand who they are talking to beyond basic demographics like gender and age, and instead dig deep to understand how values, identity and political agency impact how different parts of the Black community think about elections and democracy,” said Gamble.
The largest group identified by the study is the “Legacy Civil Rights” cluster, which accounts for 41 percent of respondents. The oldest of the cohorts, this group has a strong Black identity and generally identifies as Democrats.
“The vote and democracy is incredibly important to them because they see it as something fought and won by our ancestors. It is a civic duty to them. They are going to vote and they know who they are going to vote for,” said Gamble.
Racism and discrimination is the top election issue for that group.
The “Secular Progressives” (12 percent of respondents), also have strong Black and Democratic identities, and they also are likely to vote. This group is younger — largely Gen X and millennials — and is the most educated of the cohorts.
“They believe laws and policies often keep the Black community down. However, despite that skepticism, they are motivated to vote to protect their community from harm,” said Gamble.
Their top issue in this election is health care.
“Nextgen Traditionalists” make up 18 percent of respondents. Primarily millennials and Gen Z, they share the same strong Black identity but are more politically independent, though still leaning toward the Democrats.
“Despite their potential to be more regular voters they are likely missed in the typical industry focus on likely voters,” said Gamble.
This group’s top issue is also health care.
The “Rightfully Cynical” make up nearly a quarter of respondents (22 percent.) Mostly men and members of Gen Z, this group disapproves of both parties and generally has low social trust.
“They have a low perception of the power of the vote,” said Gamble, and therefore are the least likely to cast ballots. Their top issues are inflation and the cost of living.
“Race-Neutral Conservatives” are the smallest group (7 percent). Mostly men, they are mainly Gen X and millennials. They don’t emphasize their Black identity and lean toward Republicans, unlike the other clusters. This group has the highest incomes among the segments.
“They are more likely to blame barriers that the Black community faces on individual choices,” said Gamble.
Like the Rightfully Cynical, their top issues are inflation and cost of living.
It is clear from the research data that Black voters are not a monolith and spending more time to better understand their needs is critical to increasing the numbers of Black people who cast ballots.
As stated by Gamble, “Where the political industry has invested millions of dollars to understand White voters like Joe the Plumber and soccer moms, we believe the Black electorate requires that same level of understanding and investment.”
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The power of volunteerism
Sep 06, 2024
Frazier is an assistant professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University and a Tarbell fellow.
We’re collectively capable of amazing feats, so long as two conditions are met: first, that we’re generous with our time and energy and, second, that we’re willing to trust one another. That’s my takeaway from a 20-hour, 40-minute experience I had with the Fat Cat Track Club last month.
About 200 miles separate Mt. Hood from the Oregon coast. Every year, teams of 12 runners conduct a relay across that route as part of the appropriately named Hood to Coast Relay. The Fat Cats were one of more than 1,000 teams in this year’s race. Made up of former members of the Princeton rowing squad, that running crew can go toe-to-toe or, more accurately, stride for stride with the best of them — they averaged a 6:19-per-mile pace.
I only happened to join this impressive bunch because of a late scratch by one member of the team. Stuck between Timberline Lodge and a hard place, they turned to me to fill in. Though it was my third Hood to Coast Relay, the incredible volunteerism that defines the race was particularly evident this time around.
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The logistics of the relay, on paper, are fairly simple: When a runner finishes one leg of the 36-part race, they hop in a van and wait for the other 11 to complete their legs; this process repeats until they collectively make it to Seaside. In reality, the 12 runners make it to the coast only because of the support of hundreds, if not thousands, of volunteers.
Commentary on the race usually focuses on the participants — the crazy or courageous athletes who opt to spend between 20 and 30 hours of their lives racing across half of a state. Less attention is paid to the community of volunteers who make the race possible. That’s unfortunate because this staggeringly large and committed network proves an important idea: When people are given the chance to meaningfully contribute to a big, bold endeavor, they’ll step up. A quick review of the volunteers encountered by the Fat Cats on our journey demonstrates just that.
It was snowing at 11:40 a.m. in the middle of August, when we started our journey outside Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. Volunteers were there. Smiling. Handing out gear. Cheering us on.
When I nearly veered off course as a result of trying to run fast enough to impress the Fat Cats, I only managed to keep going in the right direction thanks to a sign planted by a volunteer. Other runners similarly reported that not even the most directionally challenged individual could stray too far from a course that had been meticulously labeled for the entire 198-mile trek.
At 3:30 p.m., after the first six runners had completed their first legs, we headed to Polar King, a diner near Gresham, to refuel. When the chef learned we were running in the relay, he cooked up an extra plate of hash browns to keep us going. He wasn’t even a volunteer but wanted to contribute.
Several hours later — around 1 a.m., the team reached Jewell — a small community in the middle of the coast range that had been transformed into a sprawling area for runners to rest. Volunteers had pitched tents, mapped out parking areas and set up aid stations. It was a sight to behold. At the time, though, I could barely muster a thank you as exhaustion had set in. Other runners likewise walked (or limped) through the camp without fully recognizing the scale and significance of the volunteer effort.
On Sunday, when I hobbled through Portland International Airport, a few people congratulated me for completing the relay — they saw my Fat Cat Track Club gear and put two and two together. No one, however, was applauding the volunteers who were surely walking those same terminals. That needs to change.
We need to not only improve our recognition and celebration of all those who give so much to minor and major causes but also make sure that more people have the chance to serve. If hundreds of Oregonians are willing to spend their weekend in the middle of nowhere to help their friends, family and strangers like the Fat Cats achieve their dreams, imagine the response to more significant opportunities to give.
Now more than ever, as our institutions struggle amid distrust and our neighbors fight economic insecurity and instability, we need to dream up bigger goals that assign each of us bigger roles. This year’s Hood to Coast may be over, but its spirit of volunteerism needs to be channeled and spread.
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Politicians step up attacks on the teaching of scientific theories in U.S. schools
Sep 03, 2024
Summers is an associate professor of science education at the University of North Dakota.
Scientific theory has had a rough time in America’s public schools.
Almost 100 years ago, science teacher John Scopes was convicted of violating a Tennessee law that prohibited teaching the theory of evolution. Although his conviction was overturned on a technicality in 1927, laws banning classes on Darwin’s theory stuck around for another 40 years. They were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968.
Over the past few decades, conservative or religious groups that object to including the theory of evolution in science classes have tried a different approach. Now, they argue, if the “scientific” theory of evolution is taught, other views, such as “intelligent design” – a stand-in for creationism – should also be taught.
Broadening efforts
The approach is not limited to evolution. Legislatures across the country are proposing or passing laws that purport to encourage scientific discussion, but instead encourage students to treat established, scientific theories as equivalent to ideas that lack scientific study.
In 2012, legislators in Tennessee – the same state where the Scopes trial took place nearly a century ago – approved a law that obligated teachers to present the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories.” What constituted a scientific “strength” or “weakness” was not defined.
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Similar bills were introduced in North Dakota in 2019 and Oklahoma in 2023. If the Oklahoma bill passes, teachers will be encouraged to explore scientific theories in class and to help students “analyze certain scientific strengths and weaknesses.”
And a new law in West Virginia allows teachers to discuss or answer “questions from students about scientific theories.” The bill’s author, state Sen. Amy Grady, said the law is about “encouraging students to think, encouraging students to ask questions and encouraging our teachers to be able to answer them.”
Court battles ahead
In my view, legislation dealing with the teaching of scientific theories is being used to influence what is taught in public schools. The law is likely to face a legal challenge. More than 20 years ago, in Kitzmiller v. Dover, a federal court ruled that intelligent design was not science; it lacked empirical evidence and testable hypotheses. Teaching it would violate the First Amendment’s prohibition against state support of religion.
As an educator – and as a scholar who studies the nature of science – I believe an understanding of scientific knowledge is critical; scientific theories are part of this knowledge.
Accepted scientific theories are the best explanations available so far for how the world works. They have been thoroughly tested and are supported by evidence, often pulled from different fields. For example, evidence supporting large-scale evolution comes from fossils, DNA analysis and comparing the anatomy of different organisms.
Updating theories
Scientific theories can be revised. They can change, or even be discarded, but they are durable. The history of science is full of stories about new evidence, reinterpretation of existing evidence and advances in technology spurring changes in the sciences. For instance, the discovery of the microscope in the 16th century literally changed how scientists saw the world.
Scientific theories have explanatory power about the natural world. The Earth’s gravity, for instance, can be explained through the theory of general relativity. Theories have predictive power, too. They can be used to generate research ideas. As summarized by astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson: “A well-constructed theory should explain some of what is not understood and, more importantly, predict previously unknown phenomena that can be tested. A successful theory is one where experiments consistently confirm its predictions.”
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Given these characteristics of scientific theories, the current crop of legislation governing how theories are introduced and taught in classrooms is concerning. Underpinning these laws is the assumption that accepted scientific theories are nothing more than conjecture.
Debating facts
For example, a 2023 bill from Montana prohibits science instruction on “subject matter that is not scientific fact.” The bill devalues scientific theories as hunches or unproved assumptions. It undermines their inclusion, as established ideas, in the K-12 curriculum. Atomic theory may be a theory, but it is fundamental to people’s understanding of matter and is a foundation of all the physical sciences.
Legislation that invites classroom exploration, debate or analysis of theories may mask other intentions. The sponsor of Senate Bill 140 in Oklahoma, for example, said he hoped the law would “expose the ‘theory’ aspect of evolution by allowing alternate views to be presented.”
Laws like the one passed in West Virginia go a step further. They open the door to discussions about alternatives to scientific theories. This allows nonscientific notions to be introduced covertly. Writing for Scientific American, Amanda Townley, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, criticized the West Virginia law. She expressed concern and said such laws open the public classroom door to false beliefs such as the Earth being flat or that crystals can heal.
Toward scientific literacy
In contrast to legislators who would allow any kind of theory to be taught in science class, experts such as Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, a leading international science education researcher, advocate that students in K-12 be taught about the characteristics of scientific theories in developmentally appropriate ways. U.S. standards for teaching science, for instance, say that by the end of 12th grade, students should understand that a “scientific theory is a substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment.”
Students should be encouraged to think critically and ask questions – like “What is the evidence that supports this theory?” or “How was this theory tested?” – with the caveat that any theories in question should have already attained the status of “scientific theory” before being admitted into the curriculum.
Education scholars say K-12 education must provide students a “functional level of scientific literacy” that enables them to understand and make decisions about issues related to science in everyday life, from vaccines to baking cakes.
Part of attaining this literacy is understanding and trusting knowledge produced by science, such as facts, laws – and scientific theories.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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‘We can’t lose hope’: A mother’s mission to save monarch butterflies
Aug 30, 2024
Cardenas is a freelance journalist based in Northern California.
CHICAGO — For Claudia Galeno-Sanchez, monarch butterflies are more than fluorescent orange insects with wings.
“The monarch butterfly is like an icon, something that Mexicans identify with,” she said. “The only difference between monarch butterflies and us as Mexicans is that we do not have the freedom to cross borders.”
When Galeno-Sanchez was 14 years old, her father passed away in Mexico from cancer but she wasn’t able to visit him.
“I couldn't go to say goodbye to him, to tell him that I loved him very much, to give him the last hug,” Galeno-Sanchez said in Spanish. “It’s like a scar that stays with you.”
The heart-wrenching experience molded Galeno-Sanchez and, with the help of neighbors, the now 47-year-old converted her home into a vibrant butterfly sanctuary in an effort to bring awareness to the species that was declared vulnerable to going extinct.
Members of the Pilsen community helped paint butterflies outside of Claudia-Galeno’s home.Jacqueline Cardenas
The mother of two children had already founded Women for Green Spaces, an organization that promotes access to green spaces and the growth of pollinators in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago by growing native plants for the monarch habitat to thrive.
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Every year, a generation of monarch butterflies can travel up to 3,000 miles from as far north as Canada to Mexico and spend the winters there. They reach Chicago by the end of May and, in most summers, there are three generations of monarchs in Illinois, according to the Nature Museum.
But the species’ population in Mexico has dropped by more than 80 percent since the 1990s and by more than 95 percent since the 1980s in California, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
David Zaya, a botanist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, says part of the species’ decline is tied to the loss of natural grasslands across the state, making it harder for milkweeds (the only plant monarchs can lay their eggs on and caterpillars can feed on) to grow.
“A lot of the milkweed in the state was in corn and soybean fields that 25 to 30 years ago had milkweeds in them and now they don't because the way that farming is done is different,” Zaya said. “It's a lot more reliant on chemicals that remove weeds, including milkweed.”
There are other factors that have led the monarch’s numbers to drop, including climate change, droughts, pollution, deforestation, disease outbreaks, and pesticide and herbicide use.
Much of these effects have been caused by human beings, Galeno-Sanchez pointed out.
“We are practically destroying our planet. “We have to realize that after we destroy the pollinators and all the other species, we are going to destroy ourselves as human beings,” Galeno-Sanchez said. “We are not immortal.”
Though planting more native plants like milkweeds won’t solve the problem, it is “part of the solution,” Zaya said.
“What planting more milkweed does is it raises the baseline of monarchs that we can have and in raising the baseline, we have more protection from those dips,” Zaya said.
Since 2017, the University of Illinois at Chicago has partnered with more than 45 energy companies and transportation agencies to develop the first nationwide Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances.
This formal agreement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, non-federal property owners and land managers may benefit up to 26 million acres of land managed by energy companies and departments of transportation across the United States, according to UIC Today.
While these efforts are helpful at the local level, in order for the monarch species to truly survive, it requires a collaborative plan between three countries.
The Trilateral Monarch Butterfly Sister Protected Area Network, an alliance between wildlife refuges and national parks in the United States, Mexico and Canada, was born out of a collective vision to safeguard wildlife across North America.
The project has led to the creation of 13 monarch butterfly protected areas across the three nations.
Diego Pérez Salicrup, a plant ecologist at the Institute for Ecosystem and Sustainability Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said another way the international community can help preserve the environment is by controlling forest fires.
Though controlling the fires “is much easier said than done,” Pérez Salicrup said. “The reality is that we don't know how much you need, or how often, or how. ... There's a lot of research we have to do.”
Pérez Salicrup said often people perceive forest fires to be destructive but if they are managed, scientists can prevent catastrophic fires like the flames that engulfed Yellowstone National Park in 1988.
“In places like the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, if we remove the fires, we will come across that same scenario in 30 years,” he said in Spanish. “What we want is for there to be fires but in the dose and the frequency that the forest needs it.”
Elsa Anderson, an environmental assistant professor at Northwestern University, said that anyone can play a role in saving monarch butterflies and the greater environment, “no matter where you live.”
“Find a way to plant milkweed,” Anderson said. “Whether that’s in a pot, whether that’s asking your property manager if you can have a little space in the lawn to grow some native plants, whether it’s asking your property manager to stop spraying pesticides, everybody has a little entryway to their home or a small pocket of space where they can plant milkweed.”
Anderson recommends people download apps like BudBurst and iNaturalist, which can teach them about different plants and animals around them.
“Those are great ways to build your knowledge and your understanding, without needing to get a college degree or read a big heavy book,” Anderson said.
The next step in making a difference is to get involved in the political process.
“Talk to your alderman, talk to your homeowners association,” Anderson said. “Talk to people who are making decisions at a higher level about your neighborhood and advocate for more native plants.”
There are a lot of benefits to planting native plants that people can point out to those in positions of power in order to be heard, Anderson said.
Those benefits include: lower watering costs, higher water infiltration, reducing flooding, lowering heat, improving mental health and reducing violence in neighborhoods.
Galeno-Sanchez first nurtured milkweeds in her backyard butterfly sanctuary but has since planted the native plants across Pilsen, including at over four local elementary schools and several local churches.
Women for Green Spaces, with its nearly 40 members, recently earned $14,000 from the Chicago Region Tree Initiative to locate places in the city that disproportionately lack trees and plant them there.
Galeno-Sanchez said she hopes adding more trees can help rebuild another piece of a frailing ecosystem.
“We need to increase the number of trees, and not only in Pilsen. We have to increase the number of trees all over the planet, in all countries," she said.
Women for Green Spaces also earned $3,000 from Whole Kids to plant fruits and vegetables in Orozco Community Academy’s community garden.
Despite her efforts, Galeno-Sanchez only has faded memories of a garden that was once filled with monarch butterflies fluttering their wings while resting on leaves.
“This year has really shaken me up in a way I didn’t expect,” she said. “I didn't expect to see my garden empty, without monarch butterflies."
The mother said she can’t help but feel like everything she is doing is still not enough.
“Honestly, I would like to feel that all this is helping but I am losing hope. I don’t want to lose them,” She said, letting out a deep sigh before picking her head up and saying with conviction: “Look, we can’t lose hope because we have no other choice. I want my grandchildren to know about the monarch butterflies.”
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