What I've Learned This Week

Resume creating can be engrossing.

Changing design minutia is much more difficult on NeoOffice than Word.

Wedding photographers cost an arm and a leg.

That Seinfeld is hilarious, and that should have been obvious.

I'll always wish I took more writing, communication, and design courses.

That writing and creating is just as worthwhile, if only I did more regularly.

Waking up with a whizzing cough sucks.

CVS is open 24 hours.

Muppet Studios has been putting out viral videos for months.

These videos are call virmups.

They, and their name, are adorable.

Honesty

Previously I wrote about my struggles with being honest and transparent as a teacher. Though I have not come much closer to figuring out that problem, I have come up with another problem about honesty, opinions, and being a teacher. This time instead of wondering how open I should be about my opinions, I am now wondering how open I should be about my feelings about student's opinion. Though this new problem is related, it has several different implications and problems.

As a teacher, and therefore a public role model, I should encourage acceptance of others and the ideas of others. Though this sounds obvious, what about when someone's opinion seems wrong or even damaging. Sure I cringed when some of my students aligned themselves with Rush Limbaugh, but I don't show that to my students. I make myself appear to be more open to different political beliefs than I really am.

Making a more extreme line of thought, what if one of my students was a Nazi? Sure this is one of those forced hypotheticals that typically get on my nerves (much like the common challenge to pacifism involving my family being attacked while a gun is in my hand), this issue has really attached itself to my brain. What if a student really thought through Nazism and decided it was a good idea. I'm not talking genocide, but I do mean a socialist government that supports itself monetarily by exported all non-whites, thus dramatically lowering the population size being cared for by the state.

Now I clearly do not like this student's beliefs, but how hard should I challenge this student if the issue is brought up in front of the rest of class. Where is the line between being honest about my opinions and seeking to be publicly open to different people and their beliefs. Put in simpler terms: on a spectrum of critically close minded to openly accepting of everything, where should I be placed in order to be the best example and role model that I can be. Also, is it good or bad for me to appear, to my students, to be elsewhere on this spectrum than I really am?

Well, now I know what to ponder over summer.

Locality

A few days back was the final exam for my last education course before student teaching. Though this post could easily degrade into a panicky diatribe about feeling unprepared, or rushed, etcetera, instead I would like to focus on one of the essay questions on the exam. The scenario posed essentially was that after teaching for several years, your school asks you to be part of a committee to review and reconstruct the guiding principles for your entire school, every department together. The question then is what two or three ideals or focuses do you advocate for?

The first principle was easy: critical thinking, something I have talked about here before. However the essay demanded at least one more. After some thought (we were given the questions ahead of the exam), I decided that a focus on local life would benefit students in all courses by making the content more assessable, applicable, and interesting.

Making local life a foundation of school could be done in several ways. First and foremost, through planned interactions with the community. This could include both field trips around town and also guest lectures from the area. This would instantly make content more interesting and meaningful by showing how it matters to students' hometown and also how it matters outside of academia. Focus could also be turned local in smaller ways such as framing questions and projects in a local perspective. Teaching grid coordinates? Use the mainstreets as your axis. Teaching about the New Deal? Find WPA projects that started around the area.

The biggest obstacle to locality is that it requires each teacher to be an informed and active member of the town. Despite the inherent appeal and logic that each and every teacher is a pillar of the community, this is often not the case. Though I'm not a teacher yet, I do know that as a student, getting outside of your bubble of peers can be quite difficult. Even after living in Goshen for three years I hardly know anything about the history of this town, and I a history major.

When thinking through this problem I believe that connections with the parents of your students would be the best way to encourage teacher awareness and attachment to their local communities. This would be effective and would simultaneously build rapport between the teacher and parents, and perhaps, the student.

Unpartisan Role Model

My college is "dry." This is to say, there is no permitted consumption of alcohol. Something about this has always bugged me: it kills any dialog about responsible use. Like the abstinence only sex educator in High School, any talk about alcohol with administration or some faculty feels shallow and even, at times, fraudulent.

Currently I am in a government class at the High School and am trying very hard to remain nonpartisan in the way I present information, but it goes father than that. If students ask questions about my own beliefs, I dodge or reflect them. At every moment I try to give away my own beliefs as little as possible.

I feel this is important, as my role should be to facilitate their understanding of their own beliefs. At the same time though, I wonder if my lack of honest dialog is as obvious and awkward to them as the above mention situations are to me.

Couldn't I be honest about my beliefs and yet still present information in a nonpartisan way? Would not honest dialog about my own struggles with, and development of, my political beliefs help them understand what it means to be an active and caring public? But at the same time, the line is so fine. Once crossed would I be able to be nonpartisan, once the precedent is set would they accept going back to hearing the vanilla-flavor centrist perspective again? Or would they begin to constantly ask me about my personal take on each lesson? Also, as a role model would not my honesty still influence them, even if I did not try to actively convert them to my side of the political spectrum? Or am I even kidding myself that I would be that important to them, or even the fact that I am currently succeeding at my deception. How many of them know what I believe?

That really trick is that to know the answers to any of these questions requires honest dialog. And I'm not sure it would be appropriate.

Spending Money on What Matters

This week my house was two dollars over in our budget for groceries. It was the dish soap that did it.

Though this might seem like nothing special, it sparked quite a bit of discussion among myself and the nine other people I live with. The conversation was started by those who were upset, who wanted to be under budget constantly in order to get some money back at the end of the year. Thankfully, this was quickly side stepped by those of us who felt the budget was to be met because, after all, the budget was what we were willing to spent. Besides, we've been under budget pretty much every other week. Therefore the discussion became about what to do with our surplus: would we buy fancier food, or would be buy organic food. I ended up siding on the organic side of things, but that was a gut reaction, I hadn't really thought it through at the time.

When thinking about my reaction, it really wasn't about organic food at all. Though I appreciate fresh produce; organic, non-bleached flour just doesn't mean much to me. In the end my decision was about where we would be buying the organic food: the local Co-Op. I've been a member of this place since moving to Goshen and was a regular member during the first two years of college, however buying for one is a lot cheaper than buying for ten and this year I've been using Kroger as my sole source of groceries. It was one of those changes I hadn't even noticed until I thought about it.

It all comes down to wanting to support a local business. It helps that I like food, and I like the store's style... and I know most of the employees. Since supporting the Co-Op more was such a no-brainer. I quickly started thinking about the other business I should frequent more. Spending time on this was quite mind opening because I realized how many great small businesses there are in Goshen: Better World Books, The County Seat, Universal Tamal, Il Forno, Southside Soda Shop... Ok, so I mostly just came up with food, but I can't help it, I buy what I like. Though I'm not sure if my more miserly housemates will join in with me or not, this thought process/experiment has really renewed my zest for supporting local businesses, because this place has such a special community, why wouldn't I want to support that?

Jeans and Fit

As an adult I have never bought, or worn, jeans. The last pair I ever bought were freshman year of High School, and only to satisfy my mother. I was soon disappointed to learn that my mother's satisfaction was connected to me wearing the jeans and not simply buying them. We compromised with a plan to wear them during laundry day. This work for her because I'd wearing jeans a few times a month, and I was happy because by being able to wash all of my other pants, I'd be able to go longer without doing laundry.

My others pants were primarily khakis, though I guess nowadays they're called chinos, or maybe there's a difference and I just can't tell. Sure I had a few corduroys, but even those were a beige color. In retrospect, this must have made me stick out like a sore thumb. I grew up in middle class Virginia were denim was king. My childhood town's economy was centered around a Wrangler jeans factory.

This whole anti-jean thing could to painted as my teenage punk phase, but that would be far more dramatic than the truth. I was a pretty mild-manner, responsible teen. I went to a private, Christian school, I took ballet. My only real experience with punks would have been through my father's record collection and though Patti Smith's legs are rarely visible on her album covers, The Ramones are prominently wearing jeans on all of their albums.

So if I was rejecting the style of pants that everyone, including punk rockers, were wearing what was I doing? They say that the clothes make the man, but what men wear khakis all the time: soldiers. And that didn't line up because during these early High School years I was becoming more and more of a pacifist.

The more I thought about my lack of jeans, and less it all made sense. If I couldn't figure out why I had started my khaki phase then why was I staying in my denimless rut? During Christmas break I went shopping with two old friends in order to find a pair of jeans.

After several hours of shopping, I returned home, jeanless. My mother pursed her lips in an unsatisfied manner and asked if I had found a pair that had fit. I explained to her that yes I, or rather, my friend Jeff, had found a pair of jeans that fit me. They were dark wash, straight leg, and very expensive. My mother brushed this last comment aside by asking again if they fit. Reluctantly, I assured her that they fit. Unreluctantly, she explained to me how when a fitting pair of jeans is found, one must buy them. That's how it works. Partially biting my tongue, I told my mother how though the pair of jeans fit me, jeans in general just don't seem to mesh well with me. I don't like how they look and I wasn't going to spend that much money on pants I wasn't going to wear, even if they fit. Plus, in the hat kiosk in front of the store they were selling some gray driver's caps that were cheaper than the jeans, and reminded me of a lawyer I use to know.

Handmade Pledge

Thinking of a topic for this last post on Democratic Principles has been difficult. Thus far I've talked about the importance of individual contribution to the whole, and the importance of the whole supporting all the individuals. I suppose what's left is individuals helping individuals. The trick is, wouldn't that be more anarchy and less democracy because then there is no whole? But then could that be seen as the democratic ideal? Just individuals contributing to each other, with no need to a governing body? I'm not sure, but we'll go with it for this post.

This Christmas I am buying only things created by individuals, a sort of handmade + indie pledge. I developed through this decision since last holiday season. I appreciate spending a little extra money to help out someone who has a small business, or no business. I like anything that decommercializes and personalized the holiday season. Shopping handmade feels like leaving a large tip at a restaurant, it uses a small amount of money to create a connection with a person and makes both of us feel better.

The trick is, what is handmade, what is indie? Sure something bought off of Etsy.com or Poppytalk is fine. Anything website with a handmade pledge patch is in the green. Ten Thousand Villages was an obvious yes. But what about, say Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog? It was made on a very small budget, independently marketed, but at the same time in mentioned in tons of magazines and is sold through Amazon.com. I ended up voting yay, but there was some unease over the decision. Still, the purchase made me feel as if there was a connection formed. Perhaps that was only because of the Dr. Horrible twitter feed or other things that feel so intimate despite being mass produced.

The Dr. Horrible purchase made me, however, question the whole handmade pledge. It made me look at the underlining hypocracy. Sure if feels like decommercializing, but it is still me purchasing products, even if I get a hand written note by a jeweler on etsy, but I still don't know her. The connection is weak at best and delusional at worst.

Then I listened to some Mates of State and Santogold and decided I needed to be less cynical and problematic. Shopping handmade is still shopping, but that's unavoidable and I might as well make the best out of the situation that is Christmas shopping.

Encouragement and Honesty

Early this semester I found myself in a funk over wether I truly wanted to become a teacher. A job in public history was beginning to sound desirable, and my field placements at schools were leaving me unsatisfied. I tried to talk to some of my friends about this, but they could not really understand, and therefore were not helpful. In my search for advice or an ear, I sent an email to one of my old High School teachers.

He addressed all of my concerns, and really gave me the emotional boost I needed. He reminded me how so much of teaching is about the relationships with students and how short field placements really do not allow for much rapport building.

Another portion of his email that was helpful was an admittance that teaching is hard and at times is more unsatisfying than satisfying. This was important for me to hear. I have often heard from teachers (and all kinds of professionals) that the day they wake up and don't feel like teaching is the day they'll find a new profession. Well, that's just not accurate or helpful, and I'm glad that I found someone who can offer me the right mix of encouragement and honesty.

Mrs. A. Non

Talking about past teachers is tricky for several reasons: a)I'm the not the person I was when I was a student b)They are not the person they were when they were my teacher c)The internet is public.

The first two are really the most important, the third problem just keeps me from naming names.

When I was in High School I was mostly indifferent about most of my teachers. However there was a teacher I really did not like and several teachers that I did like. When looking back however, I believe that I would not appreciate my least favorite teacher.

She tried to give us lots of freedom in our projects and assignments while also having high expectations. She made references to popular culture. She allowed for more artistic vision, and she tried to encourage the girls in the class.

She was in retrospect a lot like how I would like to teach. She lectured, but kept it interesting and more like a dialog, she allowed for great differentiation in assignments, she believed in personal and societal responsibility.

She was my least favorite teacher.

I did not want a class that encouraged me to invest into assignments, nor did I want someone trying to make me more introspective or, well, do anything hard. So though she was a very good teacher, I was a very lazy student. But here's the real trick. I wasn't "normal" lazy, or her differentiation would have accommodated to me. I was academic lazy. I wanted to follow clear guidelines that reigned me in and kept me from thinking to much. Or well, maybe that is normal lazy. Anyways, now in college clearly defined rubrics frustrate me to no end and I love to have classes with teachers that were like her, and that's hard to get my head around.

Maybe I should write her a letter, cause I'm sure I made her class more difficult.

For extra credit for the one person who reads this blog regularly and who went to High School with me: Guess which teacher I'm talking about. Hint: You loved her

Parents

Back in High School when I taught Karate, my studio had a banquet/potluck thing in which we all got to see each other in a social context. Part of this was also introducing myself as an instructor to all of the families and students who might not be familiar with me or in my classes. When it came my turn to say a few words in front of everyone I found myself thanking the parents who drove their kids to class each week and who supported and enabled both their children and us. In many ways the relationship between instructor and parent and teacher and parent are the same.

I'm not really writing this post just to say that parents are important and contribute to the learning process, but to suggest that parents are underrated and underutilized. Yes, they can sometimes be frustrating, but they also contribute in many ways when asked. Field trips often require parents to come along, PTAs raise extra funds, and even little things such as getting their child up each morning and sending them off to school. You know, small things.

I'll admit, my experience with parents as a teacher is nill, because I'm not yet a teacher. Also, when I was an instructor I really had a love/ hate relationship with them. They were especially frustrating when they blamed me for their child's struggles. But at the same time, at a karate studio most parents sit in the lobby and watch each class, so they tend to feel more hands on.

As I've become older, and as I've seen how many teachers interact with parents, I believe they are a resource and ally that is often overlooked.

The Wire

Despite a heavy academic workload these last few weeks of the semester, I have been finding, or rather, refinding, a good way to relax: The Wire (and How I Met Your Mother, but that's for another post).

For those of you unaware of this masterpiece show about the systems of the city of Baltimore, well watch it. I could extoll its many virtues for a very long time, but again, that's for another post.

This time around, I was brought in particularly by Season 4 which focuses with the school systems of Baltimore and the lives of middle schoolers. Though the focus of the school scenes are these students, ample time is also spent on the various teachers, especially one new teacher who will be unnamed due to spoilers. Anyways, while watching this season I noticed a lot of things about what is and is not effective in such a classroom/system.

A form of tracking happens at the school and is shown as being fought by the administration, but allowed by the parents. Now this tracking did not involve giving worse resources to worse students, it involved giving worse students different goals. This in many ways reminded me of my field placement in a special education classroom at Goshen High School, those kids were not given less attention or resources, but they also were working towards being able to live and find a job whereas most general education classrooms are working students towards higher education.

This sort of tracking seems very beneficial for both sets of students. The trick is such a system of tracking requires more faculty and staff and could only work if the parents and students agreed to being tracked towards vocation instead of towards college. Now of course this was in a television show, but I thought it would be a beneficial idea could it be implemented well.

Throughout the season the new teacher struggles. First he has to keep the students from being violent, he attempts a token economy, social contracts, and several other forms of behavior modification. In the end he more or less settles on changing the curriculum to foster rapport building between him and his students. After a time of this he transitions back into the normal curriculum. While I think this was a little extreme, it illustrated well how important rapport is and how creativity and flexibly is also key to teaching effectively.

The trick with rapport is that sometimes personal attachments can become too strong. Near the end of the season this new teacher struggles with several students being socially promoted to High School. He argues with the administration that the students are not ready yet, to which the administrator replies that the goal is to help as many students as possible and that the teacher needs to keep in mind that next year there will be a whole class of students who needs him as a teacher just as much.

What I've Learned This Week

Chronology is a really fun boardgame.
This coming Friday is the 75th Anniversary of Repeal Day.
Save Darfur Now doesn't give money to on the ground aid.
Writing a paper about anti-genocide NGOs and treaties over Thanksgiving is really really sad.
The dryer sometimes shakes the floor of my room.
Emma Thompson is dreamy.
How to speed cup stack.
Subvocalization is key to speedreading.
Footnotes are suppose to be tabbed and spaced, but I think spacing makes them look silly.
Taking a week off can help one focus on schoolwork.

What I've Learned This Week

“Instability” would be a great name for a speed based superhero
What the WTO does
That Bangledesh use to be East Pakistan
Strawberries are not berries
Pineapples are not fruit
Dan Deacon should be on Sesame St.
Neil Patrick Harris has been on Sesame St.
How to make california rolls
That I can find a job after college
The magic of 10,000 hours

Schools and Community

This past week I watched both “Word Wars” and Dave Egger’s TEDTalk presentation. Word Wars is a documentary about competitive Scrabble playing and follows four players during the nine month journey to the 2002 National Scrabble Tournament. Dave Egger’s presentation has to do with local and community people pitching in to help students succeed. What do these have in common? Well, the documentary several times follows one of the players, Marlon Hill, to a local high school where he starts an afterschool Scrabble club where he gets kids together and gives the students tips and attention.

Now not every community will have members that are as obsessive about their particular gifts or interests, but each community will have dozens of people who are very good at a specific, and often quirky and interesting, skill.

So what connects this to Dave Egger’s talk is an idea: administrations always need more time to push school wide plans and teachers can always use more time for professional development and interdisciplinary collaboration. So why not give administrations and teachers extra time by having a community skills day? There could be an opening assembly that would then break down into seminars and demonstrations throughout the building that students would sign up for in advance. Community members who don’t feel like leading a session could be in charge of getting students from one session to the next.

Such a day event could happen each semester or trimester or whatever. Not only would it give faculty and staff some extra time to work on development, such a community day would foster, well, community and show that many talents, not just academic, are recognized and appreciated.

Change We Need

Two days before the Elections I wrote about why I was a supporter of Obama: he was a marketing campaign that could change my nation’s attitude and mind set. Well, turns out change sort of scares me.

Obama’s campaign and message resonated with many Americans. In fact, it resonated with most Americans. Hope and Change are the catchphrases of our nation right now, and this has larger implications then just changes in politicians’ rhetoric. Just as Jill Thompson tried to sell herself in Indiana with Obama’s message so might new cellphones and cereals. Strokefire’s blog discusses Obama’s effect on marketing:

Marketers are moving away from the wry approach - and are even dropping the sexy sales pitches. Heck, even luxury isn't selling.

If I'm right then Samsung is probably going to regret their recent name choice. I'm guessing the Rant isn't going to do well in this market. Instead look for new names to pop up that speak to our hopes and dreams. Phones with names like Breathe, Lift, Give, and Chance are going to be here in a matter of months.

This attitude change is not just going to affect the United State’s marketing. The change in marketing simply illustrates more foundational changes in our sense of humor and our world view.

As mentioned before, I’ve grown up with George W. Bush as president. Incidentally, I also grew up with irony and sarcasm. I grew up with Jon Stewart who now jokes that soon The Daily Show will be out of business. Turns out hope and belief tend to replace wryness and sarcasm: the two attitudes I am most familiar and comfortable with.

Now this does not mean that I don’t want change. I’d vote for Obama again if given the chance and I still do hope that he changes my nation’s attitude. I just didn’t think through how he might change my attitude, nor did I think about how scary change can be.

I like my sarcastic safety blanket.

What I've Learned This Week

How to tie a balloon animal
Dave Eggers can be very inspiring
When emailing a professional starting with “Dear Mr./Mrs.” helps
Kung Fu Panda is surprisingly good
The Wire is consistently good
Nick Hornby just published a third collection from his Believer column

Multiculturalism

This past week I participated in a mock interview for a teaching job. The first question that I was asked was why and when did I decide to become a teacher. Well, I became a teacher in order to do two things: interact with young adults and to contribute to my country. For me, teaching social studies to a way for me to fulfill my civic duty by helping create the next generation of effective citizens. In a democracy, especially one of so many cultures such as the United States, a multicultural education is key to helping form and encourage effective citizenship.

Multicultural education really has two main components: empowering students and teaching the skill of critical reflection. Empowering can be accomplished by any number of things. Students could be given vast artistic agency to perform a drama or some slam poetry. They could also be empowered through the simpler and less consuming poster project. The key is voice giving. This requires creative control and an audience.

Students can, thankfully, also be empowered by arguing, an activity that encourages critical reflection. Critical reflection can also be encouraged simply by critical lessons or by metareflection lessons when students can practice diagraming and somewhat deconstructing the aims and flaws of advertisements or political speeches.

The key really is to make multiculturalism a priority during instruction. Sure specific lessons and exercises will help greatly, but if a teacher is reflective, critical, and empowering students will pick up on that. And they will become better citizens for it.

What I've Learned This Week

Roger William has an amazingly sad, but also uplifting, sermon against coercive conversion
Indiana can surprise me, even if my county did not
Japanese tubs are cozy and spatially effective
Pudding and cubed Pound Cake is a great dessert
Kibitzing – Unwanted advice, such as during a card game
Petrichor – The smell of the ground after rain

Podcasts

This semester I am taking a full load of upper level, major related courses. Needless to say I do not have a lot of free time, but when reflecting upon what I use my free time for, I realized that I end up thinking about nonhomework topics. For example, I am part of a fundraising committee for my old High School. The point is that I recharge myself not by doing nothing, but my intensely thinking and reflecting on other topics. One way I do this is by listening to podcasts.

Before I get into the specific types of podcasts I listen to, I'm going to talk about them as a medium. Firstly, they are amazingly convenient. Once I find a podcast, I subscribe either through iTunes or an RSS feed. From then I will automatically receive any new podcasts that I can listen to at my computer or through my iPod when I'm cooking or riding my bike to class. Basically I can take in new information whenever I'm usually not doing anything. I've read before about the power of audiobooks, well podcasts are just about everything good about audiobooks, but shorter and therefore even more convenient.

As for specific podcasts, I mostly focus on podcasts that will teach me something. I enjoy the stories from This American Life, as well as Radiolab, the TED presentations and other science based podcasts because they are the best way for me to learn something new about a field of study that I have little academic interaction with. I also use podcasts to keep myself updated about the news, or corporations/organizations that I want to keep updated about (Wikipedia Weekly, for example). Finally, and most importantly, I use podcasts to audit university courses. Many university's post recording of their class records. For example, right now I am auditing UCSD's East Asian Political Thought, Introduction to Western Music, and New Ideas/Clash of Cultures as well as Stanford's Geography of World Cultures. These are all courses that simply are not offered at a small liberal art's college such as the one I am currently attending. Because these lectures are available to the public for free, they are an inspiring show of the opening of academia. They have also become a great resource both for my education and my sanity as they provide me both knowledge and a respite from homework.

Democratic Journalism

Image via WikipediaThis week I've been looking into techniques that social studies teachers can use to empower students and give them a voice. As I've been thinking upon this and reading about this I realized that there is another way one can empower a student: not by giving them an individual voice but by having them become part of something bigger than themselves. Now that isn't to say that we shouldn't give students a voice, but I do think we can supplement the individual soap box with a democratization of voice, or citizen writing.

In many ways, Wikinews can describe this better than me. Here is what they have to say about how they work and what democratic journalism is:

Citizen journalism is a growing phenomenon of grassroots participation in the media. Wikinews, a sister project to the highly successful Wikipedia, gives you the chance to be both writer and editor of the news you think should have a wider audience.

Wikinews has a strict neutral point of view policy, rigorously enforced by its users. It strives to meet traditional reporting standards and all reports must be fully sourced. This makes it an ideal training ground: here you won't be rewriting press releases or covering the local flower show but can wade straight into breaking scandal on a world level with an audience of thousands.

One thing you won't get on Wikinews is a byline. Your work could be ruthlessly re-edited and your reward will be satisfaction in a good story rather than cash. But your work will be freely available to anyone in the world with a computer, you won't be exploited by a commercial organisation selling news like peas and you will be working towards telling the truth as you see it with a team of thousands.

So if you don't get a byline, what do you get? Well, these skills won't do your career prospects any harm:

* news writing
* high standards to fulfil of source recording and note taking for original reporting
* proof reading and copy editing
* factchecking
* direct involvement in media production processes
* writing and enforcing high standards of neutrality in reporting
* teamwork with a wide range of contributors worldwide in a consensual environment
* strategy and policy development for an international media outlet
* basic programming syntax of a widely used online system

Starting at Wikinews is easy. Just create an account and a community member will give you some tips - or if you can't wait that long: hit edit and get going.

Love,

the Wikinews community

I'm a historian so much of my work is individualistic and argumentative in nature. However I am more and more drawn to ideas such as this, ideas that if we all pitch in a little bit then we can all reap great benefits. I have not yet contributed to WikiNews, but I would encourage others and certainly will encourage my students to contribute to any of the WikiMedia projects, because I believe that such projects are great examples of democracy and in a way civic duty, and also are immensely satisfying.