This weekend was pretty laid back. I did some housework, some shopping, made a great chicken pot pie for Sunday dinner, started a puzzle, and finished a book.
I just finished Three Cups of Tea http://www.threecupsoftea.com/, what an amazing story!! If you haven't read it yet you need to, in fact every American should read it. It's about Greg Mortenson, a mountain climber who fails in his attempt on K2 (second highest mountain in the world). He comes close to dying on the Baltoro Glacier and wonders into a Balti village in northern Pakistan where the villagers take him in and save his life. To repay them he offers to build them a school for all their children. He has no money, but through sheer determination and unbelievable luck he manages to pull together the money he needs and heads back to Pakistan to build their school and discovers a few things, 1) as hard as getting the money had been, that would be the easiest part, 2) there's a lot he doesn’t know and much he will have to learn from the most unlikely teacher, and 3) he's found his life's work even though it takes him a couple of years to figure it out, and then someone has to point it out to him before he recognizes it.
Through his work the Central Asia Institute (CAI) https://www.ikat.org/ is born and he sets out to build hundreds of schools across northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. For a village to qualify for a CAI school they must donate the land, and labor to build it, and they must allow their daughters to attend as well as their sons. CAI also builds clinics, and women's centers. CAI schools, in many cases, are the only alternative to radical madresses where young boys are being indoctrinated into a terrorist culture. The CAI’s mission is to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. What the CAI is doing costs peanuts, but makes positive changes for generations.
Two of the girls from the very first class in that first Balti school have gone on to college, one to be a doctor and the other to be a teacher.
I have always said that you can’t change a culture in a few years, you need at least a generation. And, you can’t change I from the top down, you have to start on the block where people live and give them the power to make the changes. Greg Mortenson and the CAI have found a way to make this happen and it’s working in a big way.
I have made a donation to CAI and I'm sure I will make more. As a woman I feel the work they do is very important. As a mother I feel it's important. As the mother of two soldiers I feel my donation is also and investment in their safety.
If I had an independent means of supporting myself I’d jump at this. At this point in my life I have a low threshold for discomfort, so while I’d love to go see these places and the work being done, I’d still want clean sheets, a running toilet, and drive up service. I know, I’m such a wimp!!
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
What will it mean to be an American in the future
Today on the front page of the big local newspaper there was a headline “A green revolution”. I picked it up for that article since I’m in the Green business. It turned out to be an article about the world’s largest platinum environmental rated – the highest possible from the U.S. Green Building Council - construction project. It covers 16 square miles, it will have 20 elevators, 750 bicycle parking spaces, a conference room that doubles as a full-sized basket ball court. Incredible!! And where do you think they are building this amazing thing? Omaha, LA, Chicago… Nope, China! In Shanghai to be exact.
That’s right China, is going green in a major way. It is the fastest developing economy in the world, and has access to a major portion of the world’s resources. And, guess what? They’re serious about building that economy in a green way.
Over the past few years we have had several delegations visit us here to see what we are doing with green technology to address stormwater and sustainable building. Last year they top secretary for China’s environment was here in person. Also in the last year, China has paid to have delegations from our city go there and give presentations to their people on what we do. We aren’t the only people they’re talking to either. They are seeking out the best ideas and actively seeking ways to implement them. The Chinese have apparently taken Friedman to heart. If you haven’t noticed, it’s a whole new day!
In my last blog I asked the question, “What will it mean to be an American in the future?” As I see these types of articles it brings home to me that the rest of the world is catching up when we are trying to cut back. They are ready to go where the best minds can take them. Will those best minds be American minds?
In the past America has been the land where you can dream and create. It’s where other countries sent their college students to learn engineering, and hopefully to catch our “can do” spirit. Now India has opened an engineering university that rivals MIT, Columbia, or Stanford. Our students are having a harder time getting in a complete school year, and forget about niceties like textbooks. I fear we will very soon be falling behind.
It is my growing fear that in the future being an American will not mean what it has in the past. I see China and I see the dragon coming to life and setting itself up to reign as #1. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I see us so focused on the wrong things that we’re not tending to the real basics, education, the environment, and basic health care. If we want to maintain our place in the world, we have to be raising the people that have the skills to compete, the opportunity to grow those skills and the desire to keep us in the forefront. These people have to come from across all socio-economic levels. It’s true that a team is only as good as its weakest player.
We need to adopt the Army’s slogan, Leave no one behind, and then really make it work.
That’s right China, is going green in a major way. It is the fastest developing economy in the world, and has access to a major portion of the world’s resources. And, guess what? They’re serious about building that economy in a green way.
Over the past few years we have had several delegations visit us here to see what we are doing with green technology to address stormwater and sustainable building. Last year they top secretary for China’s environment was here in person. Also in the last year, China has paid to have delegations from our city go there and give presentations to their people on what we do. We aren’t the only people they’re talking to either. They are seeking out the best ideas and actively seeking ways to implement them. The Chinese have apparently taken Friedman to heart. If you haven’t noticed, it’s a whole new day!
In my last blog I asked the question, “What will it mean to be an American in the future?” As I see these types of articles it brings home to me that the rest of the world is catching up when we are trying to cut back. They are ready to go where the best minds can take them. Will those best minds be American minds?
In the past America has been the land where you can dream and create. It’s where other countries sent their college students to learn engineering, and hopefully to catch our “can do” spirit. Now India has opened an engineering university that rivals MIT, Columbia, or Stanford. Our students are having a harder time getting in a complete school year, and forget about niceties like textbooks. I fear we will very soon be falling behind.
It is my growing fear that in the future being an American will not mean what it has in the past. I see China and I see the dragon coming to life and setting itself up to reign as #1. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I see us so focused on the wrong things that we’re not tending to the real basics, education, the environment, and basic health care. If we want to maintain our place in the world, we have to be raising the people that have the skills to compete, the opportunity to grow those skills and the desire to keep us in the forefront. These people have to come from across all socio-economic levels. It’s true that a team is only as good as its weakest player.
We need to adopt the Army’s slogan, Leave no one behind, and then really make it work.
My new American friend
Over the last week I have been emailing with a deployed soldier who is of Lebanese decent. He immigrated to the U.S. only 5 years ago. During our emails, I mentioned two people I have known in my life who had also immigrated from Lebanon, one a very fine gentleman who was well educated and well thought of in the community, and the other a girl I went to high school with. He was Christian and she was Islamic. He wrote me back to thank me for saying such nice things about his countrymen. This hit me in a weird way. Can you imagine saying something similar to someone, “Thank-you for saying nice things about fellow Americans”?
America is so strong that we generally expect people from other countries to like us, or hate us, and we don’t generally feel it too deeply one way or the other. Sure we feel entitled when they like us, and when they don’t we don’t really care too much about it.
In the same email he asked what my race was. I had mentioned that when we first moved to the Pacific Northwest from Houston that we were more than a little disturbed about the lack of racial diversity here. The answer was easy, I’m not just white, I’m bright white. I’m glow in the dark white. It’s sad how white I am, but there’s nothing I can do about it. God knows I spent my teen years burning in the attempt to change my condition, all to no avail.
My new friend also tells me that he speaks 4 languages. I had to admit that like most Americans I am very poorly educated in languages and only speak English, and sometimes that’s debatable. I can make myself understood in sign language, but at points I get pretty frustrated, the signs get really basic, and might involve only one digit.
He worked as an RN before he came to America but was unable to get licensed here and hasn’t able to practice. He hasn’t said exactly what he does for the Army but I know part of it involves interpreting.
So, here’s a guy with better manners and education then I have, who’s family has been here only 5 years, and who is now helping to keep me safe, and representing my country to the world. I just don’t think there’s a way to convey how humbling that is. I think about my ancestors who came here over 200 years ago to make their futures, all the families that have gown from those first ones. Capt. James Davis fought in the Revolutionary War for the Americans. We’ve had family in just about every war since. There is a feeling of entitlement that we often feel from a history like that, until we come across someone like my new friend and think about how our ancestors must have felt when they hit these shores and were the new kids on the block. Am I entitled by what they did? Will my children be entitled by what I do? What will it mean to be an American in the future?
I feel very fortunate to have made a new friend and to be exploring these questions, because knowing him has opened me up to them.
America is so strong that we generally expect people from other countries to like us, or hate us, and we don’t generally feel it too deeply one way or the other. Sure we feel entitled when they like us, and when they don’t we don’t really care too much about it.
In the same email he asked what my race was. I had mentioned that when we first moved to the Pacific Northwest from Houston that we were more than a little disturbed about the lack of racial diversity here. The answer was easy, I’m not just white, I’m bright white. I’m glow in the dark white. It’s sad how white I am, but there’s nothing I can do about it. God knows I spent my teen years burning in the attempt to change my condition, all to no avail.
My new friend also tells me that he speaks 4 languages. I had to admit that like most Americans I am very poorly educated in languages and only speak English, and sometimes that’s debatable. I can make myself understood in sign language, but at points I get pretty frustrated, the signs get really basic, and might involve only one digit.
He worked as an RN before he came to America but was unable to get licensed here and hasn’t able to practice. He hasn’t said exactly what he does for the Army but I know part of it involves interpreting.
So, here’s a guy with better manners and education then I have, who’s family has been here only 5 years, and who is now helping to keep me safe, and representing my country to the world. I just don’t think there’s a way to convey how humbling that is. I think about my ancestors who came here over 200 years ago to make their futures, all the families that have gown from those first ones. Capt. James Davis fought in the Revolutionary War for the Americans. We’ve had family in just about every war since. There is a feeling of entitlement that we often feel from a history like that, until we come across someone like my new friend and think about how our ancestors must have felt when they hit these shores and were the new kids on the block. Am I entitled by what they did? Will my children be entitled by what I do? What will it mean to be an American in the future?
I feel very fortunate to have made a new friend and to be exploring these questions, because knowing him has opened me up to them.
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