Beacon Broadside

Why Low Performing Schools Need Digital Media

January 11, 2011

Today's post is from S. Craig Watkins, author of The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. Watkins is a researcher with the MacArthur Foundation’s initiative on Youth, Digital Media and Learning where his work explores the intersection of youth culture, social media, and learning. He blogs at theyoungandthedigital.com.

When the social and digital media revolution gained momentum at the dawn of the new millennium, no one would have predicted that less than a decade later black and Latino youth would be just as engaged as their white, Asian, and more affluent counterparts. Across a number of measures — use of mobile phones and gaming devices, social network sites, and the mobile web — young blacks and Latinos are beginning to outpace their white counterparts. For years the dominant narrative related to race and technology in the U.S. pivoted around the question of access. Today, the most urgent questions pivot around participation and more specifically, the quality of digital media engagement among youth in diverse social and economic contexts.

Picture this: In the very near future the population in many of the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. will be significantly shaped by young Latinos and African Americans. A recent estimate from the 2010 U.S. Census data finds that U.S. Latinos make up nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population under age 20. The median ages for Latinos and African Americans is, respectively, 26 and 30. This is compared to a median age of 39 among non-Latino whites. Forty-five percent of children younger than five in the U.S. belong to non-white groups. The population that public schools educate in America will reflect these seismic demographic shifts.

Virtually all of those Latino and African American teens will have access to more information and data in their pockets than any brick and mortar school or library currently provides. Many already hold access to a rich array of information in their hands today. However, most teens use mobile phones as social, recreational, and entertainment devices. This is especially true among black and Latino youth who use their mobile phones to watch videos, play games, and listen to music at rates that dwarf their white counterparts. But what if young people were encouraged to view their mobile phones, cameras, and iPods as learning devices and tools for critical citizenship and engagement in their communities?

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Economic Insecurity and Plastic Surgery

January 7, 2011

How has financial insecurity motivated both surgeons and patients fueling the massive growth in cosmetic surgery in the United States? In this video Laurie Essig, author of American Plastic: Boob Jobs, Credit Cards, and Our Quest for Perfection discusses the cultural and economic issues that underlie a $12 billion dollar a year industry.

Author Laurie Essig discusses Economic Insecurity and Plastic Surgery
Revising Huck Finn, Revising History

January 6, 2011
Today's post is from Thomas Norman DeWolf, a frequent speaker at colleges and conferences around the country on the legacy of slavery, undoing racism, and healing from historic trauma. Tom is the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History. This post originally appeared on his blog.

Mark Twain defined a “classic” book as one “which people praise and don’t read.” He should know. How many of you have read Huckleberry Finn? This “classic” has been condemned, banned, or people attempted to ban it, in a variety of locations, and for various reasons, since it was first published in 1885. Back then it was banned because Twain had the audacity to create a character, Jim, who was not only black, but as human–and as fully developed–as the other major characters in the story. Jim is not only fully human, but the hero of the story. It ran contrary to everything white Americans had been raised to believe; that white America had been built upon since its founding.

When I was in junior high school in the 1960′s, several of my black classmates wanted the book banned from our school library for a different reason: because Twain regularly refers to Jim with the “n” word, which they found deeply offensive. Many teachers in K-12 classes struggle with how to teach this masterpiece, about which Hemingway said, “All American writing comes from that.” It is challenging to explain to kids today the context in which Huck Finn was written. I believe I understand the difficulties teachers face.

Caveat: in the interest of full disclosure, I’m a white man writing about a book that was written by a white man–albeit one who died 100 years ago in a very different era. I encourage readers to ponder these facts as you consider my words. I also encourage you to consider what others have written, like Princeton Professor Melissa Harris-Perry or author Earl Ofari Hutchinson for instance. Further disclosure: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the best book I’ve ever read. No one else can ever write the “Classic American Novel.” It has already been published. This is it.

A new version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is now being published by New South Books. Twain scholar Alan Gribben is the editor. He has replaced the “n” word with the word “slave.” I’m sure Dr. Gribben and New South Books have the noblest of intentions; to get Twain back into K-12 classrooms.

And there are many reasons why this is a really bad idea. I’ll focus on two:
1. Utilizing the word “slave” perpetuates one of the dehumanizing aspects of the system of slavery. Describing someone who was owned by another as a “slave” strips away her or his humanity–reduces that person to a commodity. They were enslaved people, not slaves.
2. I understand the challenge that educators face, but what are classrooms for if not to struggle with difficult subjects in order to wrestle with them? The one way we will finally heal from the legacy of slavery is to talk about all aspects of it no matter how difficult, awkward, and hurtful those conversations may be. Hiding behind an alternative word–and a poorly chosen one at that–does not teach students to deal honestly with truth; it does nothing to teach people to struggle together with difficult subjects; it does nothing to help with healing from the historic trauma that continues to afflict the people of the United States. It perpetuates injustice and ignorance.
When my grandchildren are old enough to enjoy and learn from Huckleberry Finn I hope they’ll read it the way Twain wrote it. I trust their parents–and hopefully their teachers–to work with them to understand the context of the times in which Twain lived and wrote, the horrible system of slavery that drove the entire economy of our nation, and why it is important to understand and talk about these issues.

We’ve all heard that the roads in Hell are paved with good intentions. This new edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a well-intentioned mistake. Read the original. Then read it–and discuss it–with your children.
Plastic Surgery: The Subprime Mortgage Crisis of the Body

January 5, 2011

So what does a tummy tuck have in common with an underwater mortgage? In this video Laurie Essig, author of American Plastic: Boob Jobs, Credit Cards, and Our Quest for Perfection explains how and why millions of Americans choose to finance expensive cosmetic procedures that they can little afford.

Plastic Surgery: The Subprime Mortgage Crisis of the Body
Excerpt from American Plastic: Boob Jobs, Credit Cards, and Our Quest for Perfection

January 4, 2011

“Since Dustin Hoffman heard that memorable ‘just one word,’ plastic has re-made American society. In a stroke of brilliance, Laurie Essig brings together plastic credit cards, bodies, and gender identities by telling the story of how economic insecurity has intersected with the celebrity culture and the neo-liberal ideology of choice. Essig's well-researched and original analysis deserves our serious attention.”
—Juliet Schor, author of Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth

As the new year begins, many people's thoughts turn to "improving" their bodies, and, in our age of quick solutions, plastic surgery often is looked at as a shortcut to perfection. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In American Plastic: Boob Jobs, Credit Cards, and Our Quest for Perfection, sociologist Laurie Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture and our economy—a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology.

Plastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It's estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to "fix" ourselves.

Read a review of American Plastic in the Boston Globe, and read an excerpt of the book on Scribd.

American Plastic: Boob Jobs, Credit Cards, and Our Quest for Perfection by Laurie Essig, Excerpt
http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf
Ripped from the Headlines – A Brief Look At 2010 Food Stories

January 3, 2011

Mark Winne is the author of the forthcoming book Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin' Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture.

This fall I had the privilege of releasing my second book Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin' Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture. As it makes the rounds of book reviews, and I tour the interview and lecture circuit – casting myself as it were to the lions of the marketplace – I have found that the book's first responders are drawn to its main title and less so to the subtitle. This is as I expected. People naturally want to hear stories about doers, real-life action heroes, and pioneers who might lead us out of the wilderness of the industrial food system. They are eager to get their hands in the dirt and less patient with the intellectual gymnastics required to deconstruct the half-truths of Big Food and its kissing cousin, Big Agriculture. The philosophical framework, so to speak, that mountaintop above the din and the thrum of the real world where many writers, including this one, love to dwell, is too often by-passed by the harried reader earnestly searching for a shortcut to the answer.

So allow me to use this space to reacquaint you, diligent reader, with the Big Idea of Food Rebels and why, in my humble opinion, it matters. I opened the book with a few lines from from Fyodor Dostoevsky's parable The Grand Inquisitor: "Today, people are persuaded more than ever that they have perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at our feet…And we alone shall feed them…Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us! In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" I spare little subtlety in drawing a parallel between this iconic passage of Western literature and the industrial food system's quest to control the hearts and minds of us, the dependent food consumer. After all, we know, as the industrial food system loves to remind us, that we are staring down the twin barrels of too many people and too little food.

Interestingly, the same lead was used in a recent review of Food Rebels by "Food Safety News." After going on for nearly three pages with an accurate, blow-by-blow account of the book's main points, the reviewer concludes with "Although Winne delivers strong arguments for the alternative food system, his book too glibly disparages the benefits of the industrial food system—namely, an inexpensive food supply, a system that can meet the growing worldwide food demand…." So, in the spirit of Auld Lang Syne, let me offer a selective retrospective of the industrial food system's sins for 2010 'less them "be forgot, and never brought to mind."

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What Brings Real Joy at Christmas?

December 24, 2010

Today’s post is from The Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell, an accomplished Unitarian Univeralist minister, writer, activist, and spiritual leader. She retired from parish ministry in 2009, after serving 17 years as the Senior Minister of the First Unitarian Church of Portland, Oregon, and was named Minister Emerita. Sewell is the editor and author of many books, including Breaking Free: Women of Spirit at Mid-Life and Beyond and Resurrecting Grace: Remembering Catholic Childhood. She is the subject of the award-winning documentary, Raw Faith. This post also appeared on her personal blog, Reflections.

For those of us for who celebrate Christmas, it is a holiday rich with potential–potential for joy and potential for angst. I have experienced Christmases all along that continuum. This Christmas some will be reminded of those loved ones who are gone from us and will be present in spirit but no longer in body; some of us will be far from our children; some of us will find it stressful to get into the Christmas festivities, while others will find it fun; some will be reunited with those they love and haven’t seen for a while; some will find their usual loneliness only the more acute; other will receive an engagement ring and the hope of love that will last so long as they both shall live. Yes, the whole human catastophe!

That’s what Jesus was born into, as well. Mary’s long ride on a donkey, in the bitter cold. No room in the inn. The loving arms of Joseph. Shelter in the stable. The miracle of the star that brought promise to those struggling. The wondering eyes of the shepherds. The gifts of the Magi.

I have had–well, I suppose it is 69 Christmases! On the whole, I’d have to say that they weigh in fairly heavily on the sadness scale, for all the usual reasons: alcoholism in the family, divorce, separation from loved ones, loneliness. But even the childhood Christmases, problematic as they were, had their lovely moments. We never bought a tree–we went out into some farmer’s field, crawled under the barbed wire, and cut a tree down, which is what everybody else did, too. The aunts and uncles and cousins came to my grandparents’ home, where we lived, and amazing smells emanated from the kitchen, while the men smoked, joked, and told stories in the parlor. My little sister, Donna, always woke me up at 5:00 AM on Christmas morning, to see what Santa had brought. My grandfather always gave each one of us children a shiny new silver dollar. We children always gave our father, who worked in the oil field, a metal lunch box, which he promptly “lost.” Years later, he told us that those metal boxes rattled in the car when the roughnecks returned from the oilfield, preventing them from sleeping.

Now I’m finding that it’s the simple things that seem to hold me close and keep me warm: making gingerbread cookies with my grandchildren; seeing the Christmas boats go by on the Willamette; wrapping little “secret Santa” gifts; planning the details of a Christmas dinner; talking on the phone (unlimited minutes!) to those far away; seeing a dog in a silly Santa hat; trimming our tree; hearing the familiar carols; and most of all, feeling safe and feeling loved.

That’s the prayer, then, that I’m sending out for the whole wide world during this special season: I wish that every single person–every man, woman, and especially every child, could be warm and safe and loved. That’s the heart of Christmas for me. Amen and amen.
Climate Change and Our National Parks

December 22, 2010

Michael Lanza Q&A with Jonathan Jarvis, 18th Director of the US National Park Service

National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis (2009–2017) calls climate change "the greatest threat to the integrity of the national park system that we've ever faced."

Jarvis, who began his NPS career in 1976 and took over as director in October 2009, oversees America's 58 national parks and more than 300 other units of the park system at a time when scientists are learning more about the myriad threats posed by warming temperatures. Those include the expected disappearance of Glacier National Park's glaciers within a decade; snowpack declining virtually everywhere and the sweeping impacts of that on rivers, recreation, and ecosystems; more, larger wildfires and invasive species devastating forests across the West; and the gradual inundation by rising seas of park lands from the Olympic coast to Acadia to the Everglades.

Jarvis has served as a park biologist, chief of natural and cultural resources at several parks, superintendent at Craters of the Moon National Monument, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, and Mount Rainier National Park, and director of the Pacific West Region. He says he began working on climate issues 20 years ago. In an exclusive interview with for my upcoming book on parks and climate change, he talked about how the National Park Service is responding to the climate threat, and the possibility of employing drastic measures like irrigating giant sequoia trees.

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Biocidal: Confronting the Poisonous Legacy of PCBs

December 17, 2010

In 1962, Rachel Carson stunned the world with the publication of Silent Spring, exposing the lethal character of the pesticide DDT. Her work launched a global campaign against synthetic chemical toxins and veritably created a world environmental movement. But unbeknownst to Carson, an even more insidious chemical cousin to DDT had been silently poisoning the biosphere.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were first manufactured in 1920. Seen as a "magic fluid," they were a cheap and stable heat-transfer material used as a critical coolant in big power grids. The chemical industry soon went on to develop hundreds of other uses for this highly toxic group of substances—everything from copy paper and paint to hydraulic fluids. Despite being outlawed in the U.S. since 1976, PCBs are currently found in the remotest corners of Earth and remain the most prevalent group of industrial chemical contaminants in much of the world. Every human being, from the womb to the grave, bears a body burden of these poisonous molecules forever locked in their blood and tissues.

In Biocidal, investigative journalist Ted Dracos tells the full story of PCBs for the first time, starting with the chilling chronicle of how the chemical industry manipulated regulatory agencies and scientific findings for decades to continue to reap huge profits, despite their knowledge of the threats posed by their "magic fluid." Dracos draws on extensive research to document the connection between PCBs and catastrophic human illness, presenting the latest science as studies draw ever more disturbing links between PCBs and continued health impacts ranging from cancer and autism to immunosuppression and reproductive abnormalities.

Biocidal also explores the science behind the threat PCBs pose to Earth's biodiversity: today, killer whales in the Puget Sound are dying, the eggs of Ontario Lake trout are doomed before they can hatch, 99 percent of the freshwater eels of Europe have disappeared, and frogs around the world are going extinct. While these disasters have many possible causes, evidence pointing to PCBs keeps accumulating, much like the toxins in these animals' systems.

Nonetheless, Dracos leaves readers with a profound message of hope: the damage is not irreversible. In fact, cleanup efforts that involve the removal of the source of PCBs can really work, and quickly. Offering a simple blueprint for steps that can be taken to reduce the impacts of all industrial chemicals, Biocidal ultimately points the way toward a detoxified world.

You can listen to Ted Dracos on the Joy Cardin show here.

Biocidal by Ted Dracos
http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=43002634&access_key=key-2kcxsullyshub7cqxo0c&page=1&viewMode=list
Love: Good For the Gander, But Not For the Goose?

December 13, 2010

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf. She is a leading commentator on British Islam, a columnist for EMEL magazine, a regular contributor to the Guardian and the BBC, and author of the award-winning blog, Spirit21. This post originally appeared on The National website.

"It's fine for me to have a 'love marriage'," the male caller to the radio show said, "but I won't accept anything other than an arranged marriage for my sister."

I was live on the air recently, co-hosting one of the UAE's most popular morning radio shows as part of my invitation to speak at the Sharjah International Book Fair.

We were discussing the fiery topics of love and marriage. Calls and text messages came through furiously as this usually private topic was given a forum for public debate.

The notion of "love marriage" is one that carries a note of unspoken and sinful rebellion across Middle East and some Asian cultures. The open discussion of love, even within the sacred boundaries of marriage, is taboo – especially for women. But we do need to talk about it because the ability to love – our spouses, our communities and the Divine – is what makes us human and binds us together.

My presence on the show and the publication of my book, Love in a Headscarf, challenge the prevailing silence.

I don't advocate mass love-ins or the abandonment of the arranged marriage process: quite the opposite. I'm in favour of a structured approach to love and marriage with support and input from families.

Nevertheless, my position on the subject is clear: love is not a four-letter word.

As the hosts of the show, we challenged the caller: "Would you say that your attitude to love and marriage is hypocritical if you can have a love marriage, but your sister can't?" "Yes," he responded. "And what are you going to do to change your hypocritical position?" "Nothing. That's just how it is."

He was not alone in being unashamed of his double standard when it comes to love and marriage for men and women.

Another caller, male and 36 years old, told us his personal story, which initially tugged at my heartstrings. "I'm a divorced father of three, and I'd like to remarry. I think it's important to be open with prospective families about my personal situation, but as soon as I tell them these details, they break off all discussions."

Our societies shouldn't discriminate against those who are divorced or who already have children, especially when they are honest about their situation. But on delving deeper, we found a murkiness in his position.

"I keep being offered girls who are leftovers," he whined. Leftovers? These are women we're talking about.

"I want a girl who is 28, not divorced or with children. I don't want a leftover girl who is 36," he said without shame, just minutes after complaining of his own treatment by women.

The hypocrisy of these two male callers was bad enough, but it was compounded by the fact that they were not embarrassed by their positions. As men, they saw love as their right and their privilege alone. They would not permit women the same love, the same life choice.

Forceful text messages came through from female listeners. "If these are the men, kill me now!" one wrote. I can only assume she was joking.

But one message raised an issue at the heart of the debate: "We must make it clear that these attitudes are based in culture, not religion."

To eradicate these double standards, this difference needs to be made abundantly clear. And for this to happen, what we need most is to be able to discuss love and marriage openly and honestly, without fear or shame.

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