Everyone agrees that Chicago Public Schools have to change. Yet there are fierce disagreements over what kinds of changes must be made, who should lead that change, and how it should be administered. At the helm of the warring parties are Karen Lewis, the new president of the Chicago Teacher’s Union, and Ron Huberman, the CEO of CPS installed by Chicago’s Mayor Daley.

These two opposing leaders are fighting a serious battle, one that will determine the extent to which public schools remain publicly owned and operated. It is a fight with tremendous implications, ranging from the future of charter schools in the City of Chicago, to how success is defined and evaluated.

In the backdrop of this battle, there is another struggle going on in Chicago Public Schools. This is the fight to protect the life of Chicago Public School students. As a recent New York Times article identified, 218 CPS students were shot in the last school year, and 258 the year before. The article, provocatively titled “Graduation Is the Goal, Staying Alive Is the Prize,” highlights efforts to improve the safety of simply attending public school. They focus on an unfolding intervention strategy which targets the most “at-risk” students and connects them with adult mentors and support services. Created by CEO Huberman, a former police officer, this $60 million intervention is also geared to strengthening communications between the police and school administrators. While this intervention brings in deeply needed resources, the police dimension of the program strengthens a disciplinary approach that relies heavily on law enforcement to run daily operations at schools.

Read More…

Do-It-Together Energy

The next bubble is bound to be green. Stock markets will rise and fall based on how people relate to new energy technologies. So why not learn to master these technologies ourselves? This post reviews a few promising trends in the renewable energy sector, and talks about how ordinary folks can learn to master our own energy futures. Only a few short examples are highlighted here, so please leave comments with inspiring examples of your own.

Make Your Own Windmill At the age of 14, William Kamkwamba built his own windmill to power his house in rural Malawi. After discovering a book called Using Energy, he simply started experimenting with discarded local materials and designed an energy solution to help meet his family’s needs. His story was quickly picked up by NGOs across Africa, and celebrated at global thought forums like TED. William’s story teaches us that you can control your own energy future, and that you don’t have to have much money to do it. You don’t even have to be an adult! Sometimes, you just need the basic knowledge, a knack for experimenting, and the ability to find leftover materials from the area where you live.

Here is an excerpt from the work-in-progress documentary about William’s story:

Find out more on the Moving Windmills site.

Solar-Powered Internet

How much energy does it take to power internet usage in the world? A whole bunch. Getting connected, powering communication and searches, and storing information online all require tremendous energy resources. When we think about the internet’s billions of users, where this energy comes from starts to matter in a major way. As more people get connected every day, we need to be creative with how we power our lives online. One emerging example of powering our web time with renewable energy comes from Project Focus , a group that is partnering with leaders from rural Uganda to build a solar powered internet café.

Check out their short video.

New Tools for Living Off-the-Grid

Getting our energy from the sun and wind will mean that people no longer have to be dependent on major electricity companies to live our lives. Rather than plugging into a privately-owned network of energy providers, technology is emerging that can help folks light up their own lives, literally. The Solar Pebble is an awesome demonstration of how people anywhere in the world can harness the sun’s power by day, to bring light to their night-time activities. As more technologies like this emerge, it will be vital for people to learn how they can develop and reproduce them on their own. Check out Shervin Saedinia’s story about the Solar Pebble on four-story.

Read & Listen

If Only Cleverness Could Sustain Her

The Earth is unconvinced by our arguments
That She’s doing just fine,

The ice caps remain skeptical
Of our witty reasons and rhymes,

The rising oceans do not wait
As we take our sweet time.

This world is in the cross-fire
Of our denial, and it’s the fearless storms
Who’ll speak most clearly at the trial.

Mother Earth has a crazy fever
And we just let her moan,
Like a long-forgotten parent
In a nursing home alone.

click image to hear poem

This month Dr. Pop is all about sports and politics, about the ways that the love of the game gets mixed up with the love of money and power. Celine examines the “rules of the games” in the upcoming London Olympics, Gary comments on a recent drive for professional football in LA spearheaded by a local power broker, and Andrea turns her eye to the collateral consequences of the 2010 African Cup of Nations. Each story deals with the tension between sports for the sake of enjoyment, and sports for the sake of enhancing market values or securing political futures. They address the ways that athletic competitions have become a key fixture in the contemporary global political economy.

This unique mixture, between the politics of sports and the economic game of politics, comes into play every time a city faces a decision about building a new stadium or a country attempts to host a mega-event like the FIFA World Cup.  At stake in these decisions is the deployment of scarce public dollars and vital urban lands. As the future of these resource get decided, a broad collection of stakeholders must debate:  What kinds of benefits might an expanded sports infrastructure bring to our city?  Who will get to enjoy these benefits and for how long? And because these are tough questions, these debates can set off fierce competitions between opposing groups, competitions which make many championship games seem like little-league. To read more about how these questions are being answered in South Africa, check out this recent NY Times article: “Cost of Stadium Reveals Tensions in South Africa.”

At the heart of these debates is the issue of who has the right to access and to enjoy the city. This often becomes a clash between the use value and the exchange value of urban space, between the ways that city dwellers make the most of city lands and the ways these same lands are controlled by outside investors, as well as commercial and government interests.  The 2008 Beijing Olympics offer a clear example of what happens when the concern with building a new sports infrastructure becomes more important than the human rights of urban dwellers. In addition to the seven gold medals won by swimmer Michael Phelps, the Beijing Olympics also featured the displacement of roughly 1.5. million people from their homes.

Read More…

For a general introduction to the theory and practice of restorative justice, check out:
Restorative Justice online.

I sat next to an astrophysicist on the flight to South Africa, one who was on a mission to observe the first stars as they formed. How does one look back millions of years to the moments when stars were first coming into being? Well, apparently you just need a very sophisticated radiotelescope in an area with very little interference. My neighbor in the aisle seat, a scientist and professor at Berkeley, was taking advantage of a much larger project called the Square Kilometer Array. By tuning into certain frequencies, this man and his colleagues would be able to gain key insights not just on how stars form, but on the dawn of the universe itself.

In order to understand this project at all, I had to change the way I understand time and space. Here is the thought exercise I was given on that flight: Think of the universe as a balloon. As more air goes into the balloon, it expands. What we experience as time is the expansion of the balloon, moving everything outwards as it goes. Earlier moments in history, like when stars first formed, are really just points that are further out on the balloon. By looking outwards towards those points scientists can capture information that has taken millions of years to travel back to us. This information can then be analyzed, put into equations, and used to fill out our contemporary understanding of the expanding universe, its origins, and perhaps even its future directions.

The balloon metaphor is an imperfect one, but it’s a start. I like it because it challenges me to think about my travels, and my life, in a totally different way. I am not growing older. Time, at least in the traditional sense, is not passing by me. Rather I am moving outwards, with a first-class seat in an expanding universe. Of course, none of us is on this journey alone. All of existence is in it together, at different phases and stages of becoming. Once I landed in Johannesburg I began to enter a new phase in my own unfolding life, one marked by political education and peer learning, by the fruits of other people’s struggles and by my own bonds with a group of trouble makers who call Chicago home.

I was heading to South Africa as part of a restorative justice delegation from the Windy City. Our group brought with it a diverse history of activism, action, and hustling for change. Some of the delegates were working to transform the disciplinary culture of the public school system, others were community leaders deeply rooted in neighborhood life, several had been working for decades to reform the ways our society responds to domestic violence, and many in the group had dedicated their lives to working with young people to shift power in their communities. All of us were practitioners of conflict resolution methods like peace circles, and all of us shared a basic belief in the power of groups to come together to address difficult issues, to deal with the conflicting forces in our lives.

For 2 weeks we meet with like-minded folks in Capetown and Johannesburg, interacting with an incredible array of people, places and projects. We connected with students, principals, teachers turned into police, preachers turned into organizers, community groups, and a whole host of amazing folks. We were there for the 20th anniversary of the release of political prisoners during apartheid (February, 2nd 1990). We were there as South African cities scrambled to ready themselves for the FIFA World Cup. We were there as much of the world heard about the marital and extra-marital exploits of the current ANC leader. We were there to listen to the Soweto Youth Choir, and to hear Hugh Masekela and Sibongele Khumalo perform together live at the Market Theater. But mostly we were just there, riding the balloon together, taking things one van ride and one conversation at a time. Read More…

In US cities today, our public safety officials typically respond to violence by locking people up, by moving the offender far away from their families and their communities. This process of removal is almost always handled by the police, the only government officials that many US residents will ever see. And whether the people involved in the incident are youth or adults, the official response is roughly the same.

Alternatively, there may be no real response to violence at all. This is especially common in cases where weapons are not involved. Neither of these two extremes –police-led removal and inaction – does anything to address the underlying causes of violence. Neither accounts for the pain, neglect, or stress that can drive people to harm one another. Moreover, neither extreme deals with the hurt caused to others by an act of violence, the survivors, victims, witnesses, and loved one whose lives are forever changed by the event .

This begs the question, what is so public about public safety? Is it just that criminal justice employees are paid with tax payer dollars? Can real public safety be achieved without meaningful public involvement? Restorative justice is a philosophy that emphasizes the critical importance of involving parents, brothers, sisters, lovers, friends, children and other community members in the peacemaking process following a violent incident. It focuses on repairing the harm caused by crime and conflict, healing broken relationships, and addressing the underlying reasons for any offense.

A common saying in restorative justice circles is that “hurt people, hurt people.” This phrase suggests that healing is, in and of itself, an act of violence prevention.  Like a wild fire that can only spread when surrounded by dry conditions, violence can only thrive when hurts go unhealed. Extending this belief, restorative justice supporters argue that our streets can be made safer simply by creating community spaces to lovingly confront past pains. For restorative justice folks, healing is prevention.

It was precisely this understanding that guided Chicago’s first “Day of Healing” on December 8^th of 2009. Called by the Community Justice for Youth Institute, the day was initiated as a response to the more than 50 youth killings that happened between January and November of 2009 (see map below).  Thanks to the work of over 30 community organizations and schools, the day was organized in a matter of weeks. All across the city, from the South Side to the Wild West to the North Pole, these groups brought together youth and adults whose lives have been seriously impacted by violence.

Map by Andrew Greenlee

More than 40 peace circles  were successfully organized on that day, each one providing a safe space where people volunteered to sit down with one another and to share whatever was in their heart. Some circles explored the root causes of school fights, some provided a safe place for people returning from prison to share about their personal journey, while others brought together community leaders to reflect on the peacemaking work they’ve been doing for years.  Since that day, all of the circle organizers have met again and are planning to coordinate similar days of healing on a regular basis throughout 2010.

Chicago’s “Day of Healing” model offers a prime example of what peace and safety can look like when neighborhood leaders take charge. Whether you are a high school student, a teacher, a grandparent, or a non-profit worker, you have the ability to organize and facilitate peacemaking circles. You have the power to change the culture of justice at your school, on your block, and in your neighborhood. It is not enough to outsource safety to the police, or to simply ignore violence when it occurs. Real public safety requires the regular involvement of the real public. And that means us.

To learn more about peacemaking circles, restorative justice, and Chicago’s “Day of Healing,” go to:

http://cjyi.org/

http://healingchicago.wordpress.com/

http://www.livingjusticepress.org/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/power-with-power-over_b_312935.html

What makes mathematicians good mayors?

They solve problems!

People using too much water? Taxi drivers taking folks to the wrong locations? Too many men acting violent at night? Frustrated drivers unable to communicate with each other? Urban dwellers crossing the street in dangerous ways?

In this videoblog urban planners from Colombia tell the story of two creative independent mayors who found new ways to address old urban issues. The mayors – Antanas Mockus from Bogota and Sergio Fajardo from Medellin – worked to change the way that residents relate to one another and to public space. With the help of mimes, super hero costumes, and artistic interventions, they helped to create a ‘culture of citizenship’ in their respective cities.

As you listen to Catalina Ortiz and Diego Silva tell the story of these two mayors, you’ll learn how former mathematicians became some of the most innovative politicians in Colombia’s recent history. And their efforts are far from over. Amidst Colombia’s unfolding presidential race, Mockus and Fajardo are both trying to bring their alternative messages to the national stage. While Fajardo’s campaign has been gaining steam in the mainstream, Mockus is focused on fueling a new grassroots movement built on trust between informed citizens. What is his campaign slogan amidst the violence plaguing the country today? “Life is Sacred.”

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For more on Mockus and Fajardo check out the links below:

Mockus in Bogota:

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/03.11/01-mockus.html

http://www.neohouston.com/2009/03/antanas-mockus-and-a-multi-regulated-society/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antanas_Mockus

http://povblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/participaction-notions-on-cultural-agency-and-antanas-mockus/

Fajardo in Medellin:

http://colombiapassport.com/2009/09/30/sergio-fajardo-still-on-the-move/

http://latintrade.com/2009/06/sergio-fajardo-the-mathematical-answer/

http://www.newsweek.com/id/69623http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpPZ6EgYZ0w

Here are some other reports on the event:

Chicago Renters Spending More of Their Paychecks On Shelter (Chicago Tribune)

Renters Caught in the Housing Collapse (Chicago Public Radio)

A Renters Nightmare (The Chicago Reporter)

Rent Key to Chicago Economy (Chicago Tribune, letter-to-editor)

State of Renters Here: Insecure (Chicago LISC)