Do you really want EVERYONE to vote?

From Tim Stahmer's Assorted Stuff blog, The Choice is not Between Candidates, August 26, 2020.

Tim writes in the post linked above about these charts:

Certainly a few of those people had very good reasons for not voting. A not-insignificant number were excluded from voting due to antiquated laws and active suppression activities.

However, the vast majority of that slice failed to cast a ballot because they were apathetic to any consequences of their inaction. I’m sure if you asked, they will offer a variety of excuses, but none of them will be valid. Their reasoning will all boil down to simple indifference.

So, the real choice in this election is not between two candidates, parties, or ideologies. It’s a contest between a functioning government run by rational, responsible adults, and indifference.

I agree with Tim wholeheartedly. What I wonder is if Tim is not actually getting his wish. I don't WANT indifferent people voting. I only want informed (Fox or NYT), passionate, thoughtful people voting of every class, color, location, and income level. 

Ideally, our society, with major help from our educational systems, would assure every citizen not only can vote, but wants to vote, understanding its importance. Aspirational, for sure.

Non-voters, it's fine with me if you stay home. Eventually you will pay the price for your apathy. And those of us who do care, our votes will count even more.

BFTP: When problems are a blessing

HUMANeX, StrengthFinder (1 and 2), Myers-Briggs tests - I've taken them all as a part of "leadership" programs during my career.  While I find such tools interesting, I am not sure exactly if the results from them had much impact on my leadership ability. Leadership, like happiness, is not something about which I ever spent a great deal of time worrying.

What leadership development programs often do is make one reflect upon problems and one's perception of them.  Among my highest ranked "talents" was usually problem-solver. While I certainly had times when I wished problems had come less often and and had been easier to solve, having a job - leading a technology department - that is basically solving people's problems (which then become one's own problems) makes for interesting work.

I learned the hard way just how important it is to have a job with challenges. After two overly-challenging years as a high school English teacher fresh out of college in a poor rural district in Iowa, teaching 6 classes, having 5 preps, and sponsoring class plays, speech contest, the yearbook, and the school newspaper plus working at a gas station on the weekends to pay the bills, I swore I wanted a job that required no thinking whatsoever.

And I got my wish. To support myself and my family while I attended graduate school, I got a job the central sterilizing department at the University of Iowa Hospital. 3-11 shift.

Although central sterilizing sounds like a rather unpleasant activity involving the removal of body parts, what the department actually did was clean and prepare surgical equipment and supplies. Steel instruments needed to be washed and disinfected through a trip through an autoclave. Three-gown-packs of surgical gowns, drapes, towels, and bowls were endlessly prepared. This was my usual job - to stand at a table, laying down a large cloth into which I would place gowns, towels, and bowls in a specific layout, fold it, tape it, date it, and place it on a cart that would later be pushed into a giant autoclave. Every evening, five evenings a week, 8 hours an evening - a job that would bore even a robot.

After two weeks I was going crazy. But I stuck out the job for the 15 months it took to get my masters degree. When I returned to the classroom, it was with a fresh appreciation for problems - and having a job that required solving them.

Jonathan Kozel advises picking battles that are big enough to matter, but small enough to win. This can be applied to problems as well. We need to learn to ignore those problems that are too big to solve within one's own sphere of influence, but not to dwell on the unimportant ones. There is a problem-solving sweet spot, akin to Csikszentmihalyi's flow experience depending on the task at hand falling between boring and frustrating.

So the challenge I had as a leader was to help my staff find that problem-solving sweet spot, identify the battles that are big enough to matter but small enough to win, and perhaps most importantly, see problems as a blessing, not a curse.

Original post 1/6/17

BFTP: I long to know a lot of things

I long to know a lot of things.
With curiosity I'm cursed;
But teacher tells me that I must
Complete my education first. - Rebecca McCann

Yup.

The little verse and Calvin strip above perfectly illustrate why I was much happier as a school librarian than I was as a classroom teacher.  In my seven years as an English teacher, I don't know that I ever encountered a student who really wanted to read Lord of the Flies or write a five-paragraph expository paper. Perhaps there are some out there, but the best I expected and got from kids was quiet acquiesce, an understanding that learning the mandated curriculum was a hoop through which one must jump to get to one's third year of college when the course work became meaningful and relevant.

But the library was different. Yes, kids used it to meet classroom requirements, but we pre-Internet subversive librarians also made sure the collection included resources on topics that we knew kids loved - sports and romance and science fiction and pop culture. As a librarian, I worked with kids who actually enjoyed learning.

There are, of course, genius classroom teachers who have always found clever ways to personalize the standard curriculum and experience the joy of working with willing readers, writers, researchers, and creators. Somehow we need to help every classroom teacher acquire this ability.

Or make the whole school a library.

Original post 1/13/17