Yesterday, CIRCLE released our major overview study of young Americans, coming into the 2012 campaign cycle.
The study is here. It includes a separate press release on African Americans, here.
I wrote an editorial for the HuffingtonPost, which is here. I also paste the text of the editorial below.
Here is some sample coverage: Ben Smith, “Breaking Down the Youth Vote” (Politico); Jenee-Desmond Harris, “Young Black Voters: Study Dispels Myths (theRoot).
I spent part of Monday and Tuesday with the team of OneVille, who build tools for high school students, their peers, teachers, and other adults to communicate on the students’ behalf. Lots of people have stakes in the welfare of each kid. Everyone has different information, and it’s important for them to be able to communicate easily and effectively. That process cannot be centralized or bureaucratized, but rather ought to be seen as a dense network of ties. The new electronic communications tools have potential (as well as limits) as ways to strengthen those ties.
The main example we discussed was an experiment to get students and teachers texting each other. The pilot site was an alternative school for students who have been expelled from, or opted out of, the main public school. It has a small student body and tiny faculty. They used Google Voice as the texting service, which meant that the messages were archived. Having an archive creates advantages for the students and teachers (they can go back and see what they wrote), and it enables research. It may also have some disadvantages. Among other things, it creates a record that may have to be disclosed to parents under certain circumstances.
We reviewed anonymized transcripts of teachers texting students to wake them up; students disclosing health problems and depression to teachers (and explicitly preferring to communicate by text as opposed to voice); and a traditionally angry teenager thanking his teacher by text. Clearly, the medium affected relationships and power hierarchies, although not necessarily in a uniform way. Whether the changes were educationally beneficial is one big question. Another question is what would happen if the experiment moved from a small, alternative school to a regular high school in which each teacher briefly meets more than 100 kids every day?
Tracery in Gloucester Cathedral Choir (ca. 1350)
In many buildings constructed before 1950, the ceiling is the aesthetic focus. Even when the walls are plain or are devoted to practical purposes, the ceilings are available for decoration. Our eyes are drawn upward.
My two examples (quickly selected from a multitude of possibilities) date four hundred years apart and differ in materials, style, color, and most other respects. But both exemplify the ceiling as an opportunity for free play.
Pilgrimage Church Wies, Bavaria (ca. 1750)
My contemporary example (below) is unfair: just a typical drop ceiling from an office. But I have noticed that even when an architect designs a contemporary space and the walls and floors are meant to be enjoyed, the ceiling is often an afterthought–an array of panels bearing a random assortment of sprinklers, lights, and audio speakers. It’s as if, by convention, one does not look at the ceiling when assessing a room aesthetically. In fact, it’s hard to find photographs online of fine contemporary rooms that even show the ceilings: photographers choose angles that conceal the upper plane.
This seems like a waste to me.
Drop Ceiling (ca. now)
(Logan Airport) On November 29 at 2 pm Eastern, I’ll be part of a Webinar produced by the Alliance for Positive Youth Development on the topic of “Helping Non-College Youth Become Engaged Citizens.” It’s free and open to the public, but you have to register here.
On December 5th at 6 pm, I’ll be speaking at Harvard’s Berkman Center on “The Fate of Civic Education in a Connected World.” This will actually be a moderated discussion, not a set of presentations, and the other panelists will be Charles Nesson, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Harry Lewis, my friend Elizabeth Lynn, and Juan Carlos de Martin. Free and open to the public.