"The best ideas will win if given an equal hearing"
Aristotle
Often the best and most useful ideas are the simplest ideas. Do you know anyone who doesn't use coat hangers, safety pins or paperclips? What about those little post-it notes? It doesn't take a specialist to come up with good ideas; many problems are solved by ordinary people who don't overlook the obvious.
In Madison, Wisconsin garbage truck drivers were taking over an hour to dump each load and a real bottleneck was occurring at the plant. The city was considering expanding the plant's tipping platform which would have cost millions of dollars. There was no need: dumping time was cut to an average of 15 minutes and fewer trucks did a better job. The solution: stagger the dumping by scheduling half the trucks to start work one hour earlier.
Could you have thought of that?
During the Great Depression sixty years ago, a mechanic and his nine year old son built a suspension bridge across the Snake River out of discarded material from a dump site in Wyoming. They were able to find enough structurally sound iron and good steel cable and with the help of the drag-line rig they made entirely from junk, they were able to construct a bridge which would have cost the government $50,000 to build (in depression-time dollars); money that was not available. The bridge had no trouble passing county inspection and the farmers were eager to pay $2,500 for it . The mechanic, after paying for cement and gasoline, was able to clear $2,000 for his time and labor which helped carry his family through the lean years.
Would our current governments have let you and your dad do that?
It helps to be aware of problems that need solving and to be receptive to ideas and that's where you and the Harry Singer Foundation come into it. The Harry Singer Foundation has unbounded faith in your ability to contribute.
Some people might think you are too young and haven't had enough experience to make much of a contribution to solving the nation's problems. Maybe you've run into some of those people? One wonders if they ever heard of the youngster from New England who was invited to talk with Gorbachev. Maybe they aren't familiar with the 12 year old boy in the Midwest who mobilized his town to help the homeless, or with the college student who started Teach for America.
Young people are short on experience and may not be the best choice for administrative or leadership roles, but you may well be our best problem solvers. You are not afraid to ask why or to suggest why not. You bring a fresh enthusiasm and optimism to problems. You don't believe when you are told it can't be done. You of all our citizens are most like those immigrants who keep coming to our shores, working hard and developing entrepreneurial businesses and taking top awards in our educational institutions because they don't believe the American Dream is dead and so in their naiveté they make it a reality.
As you begin your contribution keep in mind the following quotations which can be found in the Foundation's brochure:
"Every country is renewed out of the unknown ranks and not out of
the ranks
of those already famous and powerful and in control"
Woodrow Wilson 1912
"The efforts of Government will never be enough. In the end the
people must
choose and the people must help themselves."
J. F. Kennedy 1960
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot
of others,
or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of
hope. And
crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and
daring,
those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls
of
oppression and resistance."
Robert Kennedy
"I am writing this letter to express my thoughts about the Reinventing Government program that I was involved with this past year. I felt that this was a very worthwhile project that I personally took a great deal of enjoyment in, and my students did too. This project is extremely valuable because it puts our youth out into the communities asking questions and critically thinking about issues that I seriously doubt get brought up in the traditional classroom in much depth. Our youth is the hope and future of our country and should be expected to meet high expectations. I personally know that many can achieve those expectations.
A number of my students particularly enjoyed Section Two-"The Decline of Opportunity and Freedom." I had many conversations with various students and they got a big kick out of question (B-4). Montana is a rural state with rural health issues, therefore we are required to cover items such as horse bites and rattlesnake bites vs. wigs and hair transplants in Minnesota. I also had a number of disheartening conversations in which some individuals felt that they do have less opportunities for success than did previous generations. I personally received a great deal of satisfaction in that an example in Section Six was from our own Justice of the Peace, Wally Jewell, a guest speaker earlier in the year for our classes. Bravo!
The Singer Foundation has put together a fantastic opportunity for teachers and students to become more involved in being a citizen of their community, state and nation. We must realize that schools and schooling need to be dynamic, not static, because our world is changing, and if our youth are to compete we need more project-based exercises. This project was top-notch! It made the kids get out there and get their hands dirty by doing---Awesome! The project lends itself to many facets of the curriculum as well, and could therefore be more than just a social studies project.
I already believe that it is good for kids to be critical thinkers of anything that runs across their noses, but they really at times had to wrestle with what they thought should be correct; what their fellow students thought was correct. The fun part came when they came down to my office and made a phone call to check something out and found something that was not what they expected at all. They had to readjust; sort things out and find what was true for them.
The section that had us check out the numbers on cheating by anonymous survey was enlightening in that most students had no idea of the amount and the far reaching aspects of cheating. It gave us a fantastic opportunity to discuss the Nixon-Watergate situation etc. Thank you for the direct correlations. I think that this project was a great aid to my teaching effectiveness in that I was able to present dynamic, more compelling, vibrant ideas and the students were able to discuss, do, perform and become immersed in a fantastic project that was extremely worthwhile for their future. It gave many students skills to compete at a higher level and peaked interest in a number of others.
Some summarized thoughts/overheard expressions from my students were:
Over all I thought this was a super project. It was fun for me and the kids for the most part enjoyed it as well, although it certainly made some defend their ideas. The White Hats project at the end was fantastic.
A number of students served dinners at the local homeless shelter (God's Love), while others went and interviewed some of those that were present about their background and then exchanged their experiences with each other.
Thank you for giving them the opportunity to have their eyes opened!
To sum up all that I have said, the Harry Singer Foundation
project, Reinventing Government, has earned a top grade from me."
Justin Smith-Social Science Curriculum Chair K-12
Helena School District K-12 Curriculum Council
Carroll College Education Advisory Board
Helena, Montana
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Currently Justin is the Principal of Evanston High School in Evanston, Wyoming