Education, Building Community, and Individual Growth

Education is one of the most important things that we can do as individuals or as a society. Through education, the mind is transformed, given the nourishment to explore new avenues of thought.

A quality education isn't just the province of teachers and the students, as much as we'd like to relegate it to them. It is something everyone has to take part in, throughout an entire community. Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, Tennessee, is a school where the creation of a supportive educational community has led to amazing things, as recently cited in Barack Obama's commencement address (read the speech or watch the video).

Just a couple of years ago, this was a school where only about half the students made it to graduation.  For a long time, just a handful headed to college each year.  But at Booker T. Washington, you changed all that. 

You created special academies for ninth graders to start students off on the right track.  You made it possible for kids to take AP classes and earn college credits.  You even had a team take part in robotics competition so students can learn with their hands by building and creating.  And you didn’t just create a new curriculum, you created a new culture -- a culture that prizes hard work and discipline; a culture that shows every student here that they matter and that their teachers believe in them.  As Principal Kiner says, the kids have to know that you care, before they care what you know.  (Applause.) 

And because you created this culture of caring and learning, today we’re standing with a very different Booker T. Washington High School.  Today, this is a place where more than four out of five students are earning a diploma; a place where 70 percent of the graduates will continue their education; where many will be the very first in their families to go to college.  (Applause.)

I discuss some of the intellectual benefits of education elsewhere, but here I'd like to focus on even more ephemeral benefits of education, including some which matter even more than better mental acumen. President Obama goes on to highlight these ideas as well:

And finally, with the right education, both at home and at school, you can learn how to be a better human being.  For when you read a great story or you learn about an important moment in history, it helps you imagine what it would be like to walk in somebody else’s shoes, to know their struggles.  The success of our economy will depend on your skills, but the success of our community will depend on your ability to follow the Golden Rule -- to treat others as you would like to be treated.


We’ve seen how important this is even in the past few weeks, as communities here in Memphis and all across the South have come together to deal with floodwaters, and to help each other in the aftermath of terrible tornadoes.


All of these qualities -- empathy, discipline, the capacity to solve problems, the capacity to think critically -- these skills don’t just change how the world sees us.  They change how we see ourselves.  They allow each of us to seek out new horizons and new opportunities with confidence -- with the knowledge that we’re ready; that we can face obstacles and challenges and unexpected setbacks.  That’s the power of your education.  That’s the power of the diploma that you receive today.

You can see the impact of this way of thinking resonating from Obama's education - both his formal education and his family life - but I think that Michelle Obama's story is even more relevant, because it seems to have taken her longer to realize the course that she wanted her life to take. In a recent college commencement address in Iowa (with video also available), Mrs. Obama outlines the path her own life took as she searched for inspiration:

... that process of discovery doesn’t stop when you leave this campus.  I know that from my own experience.  Back when I graduated from college, I was certain that I wanted to be a lawyer.  So I did everything I was supposed to do.  I got my law degree.  I went home and got a job at a big firm in Chicago.  By all appearances, I was living the dream.  But the truth is, all the while that I was climbing, I knew something was missing. 

Sure, I was working up in a tall building downtown, but when I looked out across the skyline of the city, even though I could see the community I’d come from off in the distance, I was so far up, and so far away, I couldn’t feel that community.  I felt like I was beginning to lose that connection to where I had come from.  And I realized that I didn’t want to climb anymore.  I wanted to be grounded, working with the folks that I knew, folks like the ones I grew up with.  I wanted to be mentoring young people, I wanted to be helping families put food on the table and a roof over their heads, I wanted to be giving folks the kind of chances that I’d had. 

So I did something that shocked my friends and family, and added about a decade onto my student loan debt: I quit that job. I left that high-paying firm to go work for the city government.  And from there, I moved on to lead a nonprofit organization called Public Allies, helping young people pursue public service careers.  I wasn’t making nearly as much money and my office wasn’t nearly as big or as nice, but I was working with terrific young people and colleagues who inspired me. 

I found that I would wake up every day with excitement, with a sense of purpose and possibility, because I was finally doing something that made me feel fully alive.  And graduates, that’s what I wish for all of you today – for you to find that career, that calling, that makes you feel alive.

What I like about this passage is that it is supportive of education while also pointing out that just getting advanced degrees for their own sake will not lead to happiness or fulfillment. You have to really find the things that you love and then pursue those. College degrees, and even advanced degrees, may lie along that path, but they may not.

Whatever one's views of the Obama's political objectives, the course of their life is certainly inspirational, especially for anyone who wants to work to serve others. Their overwhelming commitment to the goals of education should be commended, even by those who normally like to focus more on fiscal concerns. An educated populace is the best defense we can have against a failing economy in the future, while a failing educational system will devastate every aspect of our society.

Day 34: White River Watchers

Today's give is to a local organization which has done some great work helping to beautify the White River. Their name, appropriately enough, is the White River Watchers of Madison County. I was able to volunteer with their 2009 White River Fall clean-up, which had me walking up and down the White River dragging trash out of it. Just the group I was with - consisting of about a dozen people on foot who covered less than a mile of the river - found, among other bits of debris, four or five tires, a giant tractor tire, a set of bed springs, and one large, empty oil barrel that had rusted through. (Other groups - two entire school buses full, as I recall - loaded up in canoes and traveled the river that way to find and clear other trash.)

Amber didn't accompany me, because at the time she was very pregnant. But we did, later that day, take Elijah for a walk down by one of the river's tributaries and he was able to practice casting his fishing pole (with a rubber fish weight tied onto the end of it). We saw a lot of trash in that area, and talked to him about how important it was to not litter, especially in the river. We explained to him that even though someone else had left the trash there, it was our job to help clean it up, because if it was left there it would make the Earth and the fish sick.

While we do our part with our son, the White River Watchers (founded in 1997) performs outreach with local schools, as well as performing chemical tests on the White River water supply, to supplement their clean-up activities. They've received numerous awards and recognition for their work, including the 2004 Governor's Award for Excellence in Community Service and Volunteerism for the Environment. Their mission, "to protect the White River ecosystem for the present and future use of all by means of community involvement and education" is one that Amber and I can both get behind 100%.

(For those wondering about the Day 33 give - it was Sunday, so we gave a tithe to church and brought a pie, and spent the rest of the day spending time together as a family.)

Day 32: A Gift to the Past

When I was in high school, I had horrible self-esteem. Looking back on it, I'm honestly not sure where this came from. I have pictures. I wasn't ugly, though I thought I was. I wasn't fat, though I thought I was. I had tons of friends, so shouldn't have been lonely. There was really no rational basis for any of these thoughts, but I had them ... in spades.

In fact, at one point in my junior year of high school, it got so bad that I lost nearly all of my friends ... because I stupidly, in a moment of unbridled (and unjustified) self-pity declared, in front of three friends, "My life sucks. I just don't have any friends!"

Of course, I wanted them to reassure me. I wanted them to say, "No, we're your friends. We like you."

Instead, they got justifiably pissed that I was completely negating their friendship, and wanted nothing to do with me. Especially the girl who I was interested in ... and who, at the time, was even interested in me back!

Still other friends turned away from me as well. One of the sweetest girls I ever knew said that she just couldn't stand to spend time with me, because it was like I was a "psychic vampire" who just leeched all of the positive energy off of people.

Because I was in this funk, people were deciding they didn't want to be with me. My irrational fears were making themselves become reality, in possibly one of the most tangible ways I've ever experienced in my whole life. I was horribly depressed and couldn't think of any way out.

And that's when a senior, Sunshine, took the time to help me out. Sunshine basically became a mentor, helping me work through some of my issues and figure out how to view myself in a way that had some measure of self-respect. And, as I began viewing myself with respect, my relationships began to slowly mend. Others began to, once again, view me with respect.

So I decided today to give to something designated by Sunshine, who is now an intern Unitarian Universalist minister, focusing on anti-poverty work with grassroots organizations.

When I asked Sunshine where to give, though, I didn't immediately get a definite answer. In the socratic way that I remembered so well, I was offered a set of possibilities, none of which was right and none of which was wrong. (While this was great when I was trying to "find myself" in high school, I'm not particularly sure it's the best way to designate a donation.) Here are the options I was provided:

• A Unitarian Universalist social action fund
• Unitarian Universalist denomination giving 
• Her own local church, West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, in Rocky River, OH. (The West Shore sermons, including some from Sunshine, are available online.)

Of these, I figured that the local church probably needed some funding the most. (Sunshine confirmed this on a follow-up e-mail.) So today, the give goes to West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church... because a decade and a half ago, Sunshine offered a helping hand to a very confused, desperately needy kid.

It doesn't even begin to repay what I owe.

The Merits of Service Leadership

Today I spent the morning at the District 11 Toastmasters Leadership Institute, along with some of my fellow members of the Chief Anderson Toastmasters chapter. For the second session, I attended a fascinating presentation (given by Jennifer Pillion-Walker) which is relevant to my 40 Days of Giving project:

Service Leadership

For those with only a passing familiarity with Toastmasters International (as I had until a few months back), it's most likely known as a public speaking organization. And it's true that the major component of what takes place within the organization - public speaking and the evaluation of those speaking so that members can grow in their abilities.


However, in addition to this Communication track, Toastmasters also features a Leadership track. Now, this is clever on a number of levels ... the most obvious being that it gives members a tangible benefit for taking leadership positions within the organization. To be awarded with the highest level within the organization - Distinguished Toastmaster - you must commit a not-insignificant amount of time to leadership activities.


The structure of the leadership taught and exercised in Toastmasters is, therefore, leadership through serving others. The alternative is an authoritarian leadership style, which doesn't really tend to work in a situation where people have choice about participating. (It can seem to work, at times, if people have - or feel they have - no options. But the truth is, people always have options, so it really never works.)


As Pillion-Walker points out, this is service leadership, a term coined by Robert K. Greenleaf, after whom the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership in Westfield, IN, is named. He, of course, didn't come up with the concept - Lao Tzu was citing this concept in the 4th century B.C. and a few hundred years later Jesus also had a thing or two to say about it. In more recent times, leadership experts Ken Blanchard, Peter Drucker, and Stephen Covey have taken up the cause.


The servant-leader is servant first... Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first... The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and the most difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? - Robert K. Greenleaf


The best (rulers) are those whose existence is (merely) known by the people.
The next best are those who are loved and praised.
The next are those who are feared.
And the next are those who are despised.
It is only when one does not have enough faith in others that others will have no faith in him.
(The great rulers) value their words highly.
They accomplish their task; they complete their work.
Nevertheless their people say that they simply follow Nature. - The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te ching)


But Jesus called to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. - Matthew 20:25-28 (also essentially the same quote from Mark 10:42-45)


Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. - Peter F. Drucker


Leadership ... is not something you do to people; it's something you do with people! - Leadership & The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard


If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. - John Quincy Adams


A footnote in my Tao Te Ching says that "best" can be translated as the "highest type" ... would that we all would choose to be the "highest type" of person, let alone the highest type of leader, that we could be.