If you're in the room are you being heard?

Tonight the Chicago Tribune is hosting it's #ChicagoForward event. I plan to be one of the people in the crowd expected to attend.  I've attended events like this for many years, and the graphic below visualizes my frustration.

If you're sitting at one of these tables, who can hear your ideas?

The image above is from last Monday's #ChiSTEPSummit, "Steps to End Poverty" hosted by Mayor Lightfoot. She'll be one of the featured speakers tonight, too.

It's great to hear what the featured speakers have to say, but I suspect others besides myself have been working in this arena for many years and have some good ideas about what works, what does not work, what needs to change, etc. 

this visualizes
Tutor/Mentor Library

I've been sharing my ideas since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, using print newsletters, email, websites, blogs and social media as libraries where people can dig deeper into my thinking and experiences.

In the Tutor/Mentor web library I point to more than 2000 websites where other people are sharing their own ideas. The goal is to borrow and build rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.

Furthermore, the goal is to influence philanthropy, business involvement, government funding, etc. so programs throughout Chicago have consistent, flexible funding to hire and retain talent and innovate solutions.

I use Twitter to draw attention to these ideas, to find ideas from other people, to connect and build relationships, and to try to build greater involvement of more people in solving problems like tonight's ChicagoForward meeting will focus on. 

The concept map below shows a strategy that the Tutor/Mentor Connection launched in the 1990s and that I continue in 2020.  Across the top you see events and actions that draw people together and share ideas.  The vertical paths show how people are supposed to be using these ideas to innovate better solutions to problems we face in Chicago and other places.  This one of a collection of cmaps that I've developed since 2005. Take a look.

This cMap shows how I use media to draw attention to ideas

While I sit at one of these tables and listen to speakers, I'll also post a few Tweets using #ChicagoForward hashtag.  Tomorrow I'll scroll through the Twitter feed to see who else has been posting and what ideas they are sharing.  I'll re-Tweet some, LIKE others, and add a few people to my Twitter lists. You can do the same.

If you want your ideas to be heard, this is a way to do it.  If you want to know more of what I've been thinking and suggesting then scroll through past articles and follow the links to my websites.  I've been writing the blog since 2005, but the library of PDF essays on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site, was launched in 1998.

If you want to borrow my ideas and create new versions, please do. Just include a link to the original source material.

I've used maps since
1993

Confused? 

If you're wondering how the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (T/MI), which I launched in 2011, differs from the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), launched in 1993, the only difference is tax structure. 

I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011 in an effort to keep the Tutor/Mentor Connection available in Chicago after the strategy was discontinued by the non-profit where it was born in 1993.  Since every major city in the world could produce maps showing areas of concentrated poverty, I've been sharing T/MC ideas with the goal that one, or more, cities would embrace the strategies I'm sharing....including Chicago. 

I hope to connect with you on Twitter tonight or in the coming week. I'm @tutormentorteam.  You can find me at these other social media sites, too.

Free College for All - Let's Dig Deeper

One of the popular campaign issues that Bernie Sanders is proposing is 

"It’s Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free"

On his web site he says "As President, Bernie Sanders will fight to make sure that every American who studies hard in school can go to college regardless of how much money their parents make and without going deeply into debt."

I see two problems with this.  

First,  he's only talking about tuition at public universities. And, if you read this article, you'll see that tuition is only 39% of the full cost of attending a 4-year public university. The major other cost is room and board.  Thus, many poor and middle class families still will not be able to afford college, or will go in debt to pay for it....just not as much.  And, of course, students will still not have as equal access to private colleges as much as more wealthy students have.

Second, is this "who studies hard in school" phrase.  At first glace, this makes sense. It's the American way. Work hard. Get rewarded. Get ahead.

The problem is, for many different reasons, a large number of US students are not motivated to "study hard", thus their grade point averages and college resumes don't look so good as they finish high school (if they do). Here's an interesting article titled "What's Wrong with School". 

In the "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis" book, Robert D. Putnam (see my article for link) shows the growing impact of where you live on what your support system is.  Youth born or living in high poverty have fewer people in the family, neighborhood or school who model the wide range of careers youth might aspire to, or who help kids build study habits and experiences that enable them to "do well in school".

However, it's not just kids in poverty who are not motivated in classrooms all across America.  While affluent families can pay the way for less prepared kids to get into the best colleges, or any college, less affluent families who might not qualify for the "study hard" free tuition deal, will only get their kids into college by absorbing large amounts of debt.

I'm not sure how much any of the candidates are addressing this issue of student motivation and how well schools, families and/or communities are addressing the problem. 

Just to be fair to Bernie Sanders, five of the six steps he talks about when he talks about college education, focus on the financial burdens incurred by student and parent loans. 

What do you think? Is this something we should be talking about?