Author Archives: Peter Levine

Cesar Chavez school

I spoke today at the Cesar

Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy, which is a wonderful

school that I have visited before. It’s a crowded warren of rooms on an

upstairs floor of a former industrial building, where kids are intensely

involved in regular classes, public-service internships, and the study

of public policy. If we are going to have broad-based, creative, informed

leadership in the District of Columbia (and other troubled cities), then

experiments like Chavez must work. It seems quite clear that the school

is successful at present—one hundred percent of its graduates

attend college, and all seem inspired to work on social problems. There

are, however, the usual questions about whether the Chavez model is replicable,

or whether it depends on remarkably charismatic and dedicated leadership.

Today, I was sent this

article on the Internet commons by its author, a former president

of the American Library Association. It seems to be an important contribution.

the point of civics

I was interviewed over the weekend by a group called Civic Honors.

The interview is posted here.

It was an opportunity to say why I personally believe in civic engagement.

I said:

My philosophical position would be something like this: (1) Volunteerism

is an inadequate form of civic engagement, because it replaces political

action with service, which does not address the root cause of problems

or tap the political capacities of the volunteers. (2) Civic engagement

should be cultivated for two reasons. First, if we don’t deliberately

teach it, the least advantaged among us will be the first to disengage,

leading to political inequality later on. Second, civic participation

is a good human activity. It is not the only or highest good activity:

theoretical reflection, spiritual contemplation, appreciation of nature,

creation of art, and care for family members are some of the other activities

that are inherently good. All of these ends or projects are preferable

to the forms of life that are more frequently advertised to young people:

consumerism, athletics, and sexual gratification. Moreover, in public

schools, we cannot teach activities connected to spirituality or care

for family. Therefore, we ought to teach civic engagement (along with

art and science) so that it is an option available to young people.

our kids’ product

Our high school students’ online history project tells the epic

history of their own schools’ desegregation, from 1955-2000. It includes

an introductory slide show, a timeline and graph of the county’s massive

demographic changes, a set of oral history interviews, and then a deliberative

forum on the topic, "What should have been done to address school

segregation in 1955?" The project will never be complete, because

students can always add interviews, historical data, and new perspectives.

But it is now ready for a public launch at an event tomorrow. Therefore,

we invite anyone and everyone to visit and participate. The URL is www.princegeorges.org/history.htm

kids in urban planning

I wrote part of a grant proposal today that would allow our high school

students to conduct research connected to nutrition, exercise, and

obesity. They would identify local opportunities for recreational

exercise and healthy food, and also local sources of unhealthy food and

barriers to exercise (such as streets without sidewalks). They would place

these items on an online, public map along with the routes of local buses

and Metrorail. Their goals would be (a) to show local residents how they

can get to healthy opportunities; and (b) to show local policymakers how

inaccessible certain important opportunities are.

At the same time, students could calculate how much unhealthy food (i.e.,

grams of fat) can be purchased in various locations for one dollar, versus

how much healthy food can be bought. These figures could also be displayed

on a map. Students could then compare statistics from comparable areas

such as Takoma Park or Silver Spring, MD.

I have been thinking more generally about how young people—especially

non-college-bound kids and kids of color—can learn to play a role

in local decisions about zoning, economic development, and transportation.

They are disproportionately affected by these decisions, yet they rarely

participate in public meetings or discussions. CIRCLE has identified "non-college

youth" as a group that does not vote, does not attend community

meetings or join local groups, and does not have the knowledge necessary

to participate. Furthermore, habits of participation or non-participation

are usually set in adolescence, so unless we find ways to involve these

young people while they are still in high school, chances are they will

be uninvolved for the rest of their lives. One promising idea is to get

them interested in using technological tools for urban planning, such

as the many wonderful products described by PlaceMatters.com.

deliberation and philosophy

I have been thinking a little about the contrast between public deliberation

and the professional discipline of philosophy. Philosophers

like to make and explore novel distinctions. In part, this is because

they pursue truth, and an ambiguity or equivocation is an obstacle to

truth. Philosophers can do nothing about faulty or inadequate data, but

they can show that A is logically different from B, even when it has hitherto

been seen as the same.

A second reason is that philosophers, like academics in general, need

to say something new. Only original arguments can be published and otherwise

rewarded. Since the most obvious distinctions are well known, philosophers

get ahead by finding obscure ones.

In contrast, citizen deliberators tend to gravitate toward language that

is vague enough to suppress distinctions, when possible. This is because

there is always some pressure to gain agreement, and distinctions drive

groups apart. Citizens may care about truth, but often their top priority

is to reach acceptable agreements, and to that end they may be willing

to overlook vagueness. There is even an art to devising rhetorical formulas

that can accommodate different positions. (Diplomats speak of "creative

ambiguity.") Also, unlike philosophers, deliberating citizens don’t

care much about novelty or originality. Sometimes a new perspective can

have a powerful effect in a public conversation, because it can break

a deadlock or reinvigorate the participants. But at least as often, novelty

per se is an impediment, because people don’t have time to absorb

a completely new idea. Besides, a novel argument may be associated too

closely with its author, so others will not endorse it wholeheartedly.

Thus it will often be easy for professional philosophers to tear apart

a consensus statement issued by a large and diverse group of deliberators.

But professional philosophers would not be able to run a democratic community.