Help me help others

 On December 19th I'll be 79 years old.  Each year since 2011 I've invited people to support the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC by sending a gift to support my birthday.  Visit this page to do that. 

My passion for helping volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in more places comes from having led the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini Green Tutoring Program from 1975 to 1992, then the Cabrini Connections program from 1993 to 2011.

I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help similar programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago. Sometimes people ask me, “What have I accomplished?” and I respond, “Just keeping my archives available, along with a vast resource library, is a huge accomplishment.” Below is an example:

Visit the Tutoring Chicago website at tutoringchicago.org then view the videos they have created to celebrate their 60th Anniversary. I was interviewed for one, since that was the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program until 1990. In others you’ll see photos from yearbooks I created along with interviews of former students and volunteers. They would not have been able to create many of these videos if I had not kept an archive of these materials and made them available on my Google Drive.

I use these same archives to help similar programs grow in more places. That’s part of the information base I point to daily. They have done such a great job with this campaign that I included it in my November newsletter, with the goal that it inspires volunteers and donors to help models like this grow in more places. I share posts from College Bound Opportunities and other programs, too.

From the beginning I’ve hoped that programs would show their strategies on their websites and actively learn from each other. I've also hoped that volunteers in various programs would look at this information, then go back to where they volunteer and say "What if we did this?"  "And, I'll volunteer to help!"

Newspaper stories and new research, such as this "State of Our Youth 2025" report from "A Better Chicago" show that in high poverty areas there still is a shortage of learning, tutoring and mentoring opportunities in many Chicago neighborhoods.

The 60th Anniversary videos from Tutoring Chicago show what's possible. If you visit the Chicago Programs page on my website and browse the lists, you'll find many other excellent programs with long histories, and some newer ones with great potential.  

They all require on-going support.

I hope you'll help me continue to distribute this information by sending in a 79th birthday gift, or making a contribution through my HelpT/MI page.  

At the same time I urge you to share my blog articles and monthly newsletter with your networks so more people find and use this information to become strategically committed to helping youth in every  high poverty neighborhood have a greater range of support to help them through school and into adult lives.

Thank you for reading.  Visit this page to find links to where you can connect with me on social  media.

Take a new look at founding of the USA

Over the past week I watched all six episodes of the Ken Burns's Documentary titled "The American Revolution".  Find it here. 

I hope you'll also find time to watch this.  Understanding our history offers a chance to influence our future.  Below are a few articles that I've read that dig deeper into the documentary, and share links to additional reading.

"Ken Burns' The American Revolution: 10 Big Takeaways from the Directors (Exclusive) - on Military.com - click here 

From the Reader's Digest: "I Watched All 12 Hours of Ken Burns's Revolutionary War Documentary So You Don't Have to - Here Are the 12 Most Interesting Things I Learned" - click here

From the Smithsonian magazine - "Ken Burns Says His New Documentary Forced Him to Revisit Everything He Thought He Knew About the American Revolution" - click here

NPR/WBEZ Chicago interview with Ken Burns "voices the founders overlooked" - click here

The documentary also emphasized the roles of Black Americans (both slave and free) and of Indigenous nations in the American Revolution. Here's one article that describes the role of Native Americans.

Another article: "Unsung Patriots: The Contributions of People of Color in the American Revolutionary War" - click here

Throughout the Ken Burns's documentary there was a revelation of the self-interests driving many leaders of the revolution, including Washington.  This article on AlterNet, is titled "Did the Founding Fathers lead the American Revolution for t he Pursuit of Liberty - Or Personal Greed."

The articles above did not include much about the role John Adams played, in "influencing" the rebellion and subsequent Declaration of Independence.  This article outlines his involvement.  I include this because when I watched the first episode and saw the role John Adams played, I thought of FOX News, and talk radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh, and how they have influenced the actions of today's Republican Party.  

The final 15 minutes of the concluding episode showed how much the founders feared that the government would be taken over by a despot (Trump?).  

This quote is from a US History Collection on LumenLearning.com.  "In our opposition to monarchy, we forgot that the temple of tyranny has two doors. We bolted one of them by proper restraints; but we left the other open, by neglecting to guard against the effects of (the people's) ignorance and licentiousness."   This quote is from a US History Collection on LumenLearning.com. click here

I'm finding that there are a lot of websites with information about the American Revolution and early US history.  Here's a page on the Library of Congress website titled "The American Revolution in Context"

Several years ago I created a concept map that could be used as a study guide to a book titled "Uncharitable", by Dan Pallotta.  You can see it below:

I wonder if anyone has created a similar study guide for the ideas included in the Ken Burns documentary, with links to the articles I listed above.  If you have such a resource, please share the link in the comment box.

I've been posting articles on this blog since 2005. In the 12 years prior to that I shared them in visual essays on the www.tutormentorexchange.net and in printed newsletters.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving I want to thank everyone who has volunteered time, talent and dollars to help me over the past 50 years.  And, I want to urge you to form learning groups and dig into my archives, then create your own media to share what I've been sharing.  

Become part of the effort needed to create an "informed population" that the founders realized was needed for their democracy to work.

Let's connect on LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and other platforms. (see links here).

Next Tuesday,  December 2, is "Giving Tuesday" when nonprofits throughout the world will be seeking donations.  I'll be sending small gifts to five Chicago tutor/mentor programs, plus to Wikipedia, the Internet Archive and Illinois Wesleyan.  I encourage you to browse my lists of Chicago tutor, mentor and learning programs and pick a few to support. 

I also hope you'll look for the HelpT/MI and Support Dan's December 19th Birthday pages on the www.tutormentorexchange.net and make December contributions that help me continue this work in 2026.

Target holiday and year-round giving to high poverty areas

 On Sunday the Chicago SunTimes and WBEZChicago published a story about how life expectancy in some neighborhoods of Chicago is much lower than in others.  Below is the map that was in the SunTimes story, and which can be found on the WBEZ site. 

I included some text from the article with the map.  The top paragraph says, 

"In a city with a deep history of segregation, Chicago public health officials view the gap through the lens of race. They say four main drivers — heart disease, homicide, opioid overdoses and cancer — fuel shorter lives among Chicagoans who are Black compared to residents of other races. In many cases, these deaths are preventable."

The bottom paragraph reads,

"In West Garfield Park, merely living is much harder than in most parts of Chicago, according to a “hardship index” that incorporates unemployment, income and other factors. Around 40% of households make less than $25,000 a year, data shows. The majority of residents are unemployed or stopped looking for a job"

I've been writing about this for over 20 years.  In 2008 I followed a SunTimes report titled "Schooled in Fear" with these articles. 

As we began 2025 I wrote an article titled, "Inequality. So much data. So little change."

In that article I included this Chicago Tribune story and map from 1994.

This is not a new problem.

As you celebrate Thanksgiving, then the year-end holidays, I urge you to form a study group and start reading some of the articles I've posted on this blog, and some of the information I've shared in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library.

Then read some of my articles about philanthropy, such as this one.

And read my invitation to universities, such as this one.

I created this concept map several years ago to show that youth, families and schools in areas of persistent poverty face many challenges.

Helping volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in high poverty neighborhoods is one way to provide extra support that helps kids through school and into adult lives.  It's also a way to increase the number of adults from beyond poverty who become personally involved, through the bonds they form with the kids they work with.

But each node of this map points to issues that need to be addressed concurrently.  It's a huge challenge and something that won't be solved in a short term of any single elected official.  

What I've been doing as a one-man operation since 2011 and a small organization since 1993, needs to be owned by one or more universities in Chicago and other cities so an on-going input of student manpower and talent can do the work of a Tutor/Mentor Connection, and learn habits that they can use once they graduate, and for the rest of their lives, to help reduce these challenges and create a brighter future for all of us.

That ownership can come if one or more wealthy donors provides the multi-year funding needed to make it happen.  

As you celebrate the holidays, think about what's shown in the graphic below.

Everyone celebrating with you represents different talents, skills and resources that could be part of a long-term strategy.  Many have people in their own networks who also have these skills. And some may know a "super hero" who would make a major gift, if they were asked.

Read the articles. Share them. Start a study group. Pick neighborhoods to support. Pick organizations in those neighborhoods where you can offer time, talent and dollars.  Identify and elect legislative representatives who will create policy that mobilizes and distributes an on-going flow of operating resources to EVERY neighborhood with concentrations of persistent poverty.

Do this and you'll also connect with people and ideas that focus on saving our Democracy.

Thanks for reading. Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, BlueSky or any other platform that I show on this page.

And, if you're able help me celebrate my December 19th, 79th birthday with a gift that lights a candle on my cake.

Or a gift to my on-going Fund T/MI campaign. 

Map your network! New example.

Last week I shared an example of mapping networks to learn who's involved and to help members connect with each other.

Today I found another example.  This is the Global Futures Society Network Map, which was shared on LinkedIn by Victoria Mulligan, in this post. I'll share a few screenshots.

This view can be seen at this link. 

At the right is a great explanation of how to use the maps.  It starts with a statement of purpose, saying:  "The Global Futures Society (GFS) Network Map is a strategic tool designed to visually represent the member organisations, and individual members in addition to the relationships between them. In a field as diverse and dynamic as foresight, it can be challenging to track ongoing projects, partnerships, and initiatives. The GFS Network Map addresses this by offering a clear, interactive view of how the membership are connected, what they're focused on, and how their efforts contribute to shaping the future."

Here's another view: 

This shows text further down on the right side, that explains what data is shown and how to use the map.  Across the bottom are some search parameters.  They are 1) connected; 2) communicating; 3) coordinating; 4) collaborating. Click any of these and the map reformats to show that data.

On the lower left is another menu. In this case I  selected "academic, or research institution" and "non-profit organization".  The map below shows that view.

The map shows these people and how they are connected to each other.  Note: my screenshot only shows a portion of that view. You can zoom in and out on the Kumu map to see information in much greater detail, or to get a wider perspective.

Here's another view:  Click on any node and at the right you'll find information about who they are, what organization they represent and even "requests to give or share information". 
 

In this case I've singled out Victoria Mulligan, who was part of the team that created this platform.

In the article I wrote last week I showed how a GIS map was used to show where people were doing research.  The Global Futures Society map also has a GIS feature. It shows connections like on the Kumu map, but on the GIS map. See the example below.

Click on any node to learn who it represents.  This has the same filters on it as the KUMU map uses. Zoom in closer to see who is from Europe, the USA, South America, Australia, Africa and the Middle East.  I've not seen anything like this before, but since KUMU offers this feature I suspect I see more in the future. 

Here's one more view.  I circled the menus at the lower left and the lower center.  In the upper right are menus that enable you to choose what view you want to use.

I could spend a lot of time exploring this map and still not find everything that's included.  What I'd love to find is a set of blog articles written by people who are exploring the maps and using it as Victoria Mulligan wrote in her LinkedIn article:

"I’m pleased to say we ended up creating something really exciting, and have now designed and produced these “network maps” for a number of organisations - charitable, philanthropic and global industry groups. They’ve come to us not just for the pretty visualisation (isn’t it pretty though?) but because it’s now the best way of showing where your network is strong, where there are bottlenecks and whether any one organisation has too big a role (or too little) - that their fortunes will affect the fortunes of the whole network. 

Who does this map suit? Anyone working with a network of individuals or organisations working towards a common purpose. It’s particularly useful for funders and industry associations who want to measure progress across multiple fronts, and to understand where there might be challenges. Until now these challenges felt invisible, and tended to be stuck inside the heads of those working on the front lines - we're so proud that this tool can help them articulate their day to day barriers and point to opportunities to help their network thrive!"

Visit Victoria's website at this link. 

I highlighted what I've been focusing on for many years.  How can an intermediary, or member of a network,  understand who's involved, who stays involved, and who's missing?  If they know who's missing (a skill, or a representative of a key network), they can target that person or group with invitations until someone joins.  How can they connect beyond being one face in a big crowd at an event. How can these connections grow stronger over time, and have a greater impact on the work they all are doing? 

I included this "How can we do this better?" graphic in my new post on Substack.com.  

I think one way we could do more to help kids in high poverty areas is to use mapping tools like shown here and in my other blog posts, to understand who's involved and to recruit those who need to be involved.

Are you doing this?  Read what I wrote last week about mapping universities.  Such research should identify faculty and departments where students are learning these tools and who might support their use in area nonprofit and social benefit organizations.  

What if this were a project within a tutor/mentor program, showing volunteers who were involved, and who had been involved in past years?  Could youth in such programs learn to build and maintain such maps?  

If you have examples, please share them.

Thanks for reading this. 

Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon. Better yet,  please represent these ideas on other platforms where I don't have an account.  

And, if you're able to help, please visit the contribution links on the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net site and send a year in donation.

Engaging Universities - Who's Connected?

In 2009 Chris Warren, a Northwestern University graduate and Public Interest Fellow at Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, created the concept map shown below and shared it in an article titled "Mapping Northwestern University for Tutoring/Mentoring Programs". 

He wrote, "So as I've mentioned in previous posts, Colleges and Universities are full of valuable assets for Tutor/Mentor Programs like ours. They are chock full of smart and engaged people who want to make a difference. However, for better or for worse, universities are multifaceted communities, with a wide variety of buildings, departments, offices...etc. They also have an unfortunate tendency to be composed of various organizational silos that inhibit communication between different parts of the university. In fact many a program coordinator has been frustrated by the seemingly endless amounts of emails and phone calls necessary to reach the right administrator who can actually begin to help forge a mutually beneficial relationship.

Therefore, after facilitating a workshop about ways to constructively engage Northwestern University at our May Conference, I decided it would be beneficial to put together a concept map of all of the different parts of NU that could help a tutor/mentor program like ours. From the various service learning, work-study, internship and practicum opportunities available for non-profits to secure skilled and committed volunteers to the various philanthropic wings of the university, consider this map a guide to the assets of Northwestern University."

Unfortunately, Chris was with us for only one year and no one at Northwestern picked up his work, and kept updating his concept map.  So, the silos still exist.

I wrote an article earlier this year showing my 30-year effort to build strategic alliances with universities. In that, I pointed to a strategic plan developed in the early 2000s by students at DePaul University, and intended to be used by faculty and leaders at universities.  

You can see in the title that this was aspirational. I called it "A Vision of What's Possible".   In the slide below I show a "vision" of a university being the first, or second, resource that anyone in the world visits to learn about poverty and the roles volunteer tutors/mentors can take in helping children grow up safely and move through high school and college into careers."

In this slide I show that "The ABC University T/MC site will unite all stakeholders around actions that help youth move toward careers."

And in this slide I show a benefit to the university that adopts this strategy.

These are just a few of the many slides in this visual essay. I hope you'll view the entire thing and share it with MacKenzie Scott or other billionaires who are making multi-million dollar gifts to universities. It takes only one of them to make this a reality.

So, how might this be done? How would anyone know who was doing needed work in different silos?  Here's a potential answer.

Above is a view of an "Interactive Research Map" created by a team at the University of Central America in El Salvador.  You can view it and find a research paper that describes how it was built and what its purpose is at this link. 

The project is caled Micelio (in Spanish) and Mycelium in the English translation.  On the home page it's described as a platform that "seeks to promote collaborative work among researchers and research networks, in order to share the  University's scientific output with the academic world and highlighting the importance of knowledge exchange within a single network."

Open the interactive KUMU map and you can search by any of the topics shown across the bottom. Here's one view.

You can zoom in to enlarge the map and you can click on any icon to see connections between it and others, as well as a text description showing who that person is.  

They also have linked the data they are collecting to a GIS map that shows "where" the work focuses on.

The project developers wrote, "This tool provides users with the ability to visualize the geographic distribution of research projects, thus enriching the user experience and offering a broader perspective on the geographic impact of the research conducted."

I began creating maps to show who was participating in Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences in the late 2000s.  The November 1988 conference map is shown below.

And, in 2010 I began to try to show connections using network analysis maps. One example is shown below. 

The volunteer who built the Tutor/Mentor Conference website in the mid 2000s created an on-line registration form that collected information showing what zip code the person came from and what type of organization (program, university, business, etc). With that, these maps could be created. Visit this website to see these maps and graphics. 

Interns from Chicago area universities worked with me in 2010 to create the network analysis maps, and teams from Indiana University did research projects in 2014 and 2015 that used the data to create new maps. You can see their work in this article.

Unfortunately, the work was being done by myself and interns working with me. It was not sustainable. I've found no example where someone within a university is collecting this type of information, or the information Chris Warren shared on his map, and used it to build connections and foster collaboration within a single university and across many universities, as I've envisioned in the  University T/MC strategic plan. 

Thus, I'm thrilled to connect on LinkedIn with Kevin Amilcar (Kevin Gutierrez) who created the KUMU maps for the Micelio Project.  He shared this report with me. Since it's in Spanish I used Google Translate to create an English version. Once Kevin's team has approved it, I will share it here.  This is an example of what's possible, and has commitment from within a university.  

The report shows an intentional effort to share the Micelio project and recruit more participants. This is the type of work students in a University T/MC could be doing on an on-going basis.    

The report states, "The implementation of Micelio as a centralized platform for managing research outputs has proven to be a significant technological advancement for our institution. This tool has enabled the efficient management and dissemination of products that, until a year ago, could not be managed on any institutional platform. These products include researcher profiles, projects, research studies, and datasets. The value of this implementation lies in its ability to facilitate the organization of and access to critical information, which in turn fosters greater collaboration among members of the academic community. The growing participation and interest in the platform demonstrate its relevance and potential to improve the visibility of research and promote knowledge sharing. 

Furthermore, Micelio has transformed how research results are managed internally, providing a crucial data infrastructure that not only optimizes internal processes but also expands opportunities for dissemination and external collaboration. This change not only improves operational efficiency but also positions our institution as a leader in academic knowledge management, thus contributing to the strengthening of the research ecosystem in academia. To this end, a workflow is proposed that aims to be replicable by other academic institutions for managing scientific work. This process diagram seeks to illustrate the life cycle of a research project, from its planning to the self-archiving procedure in Micelio." 

I'm working with another IVMOOC team at the University of Indiana this fall, with a goal that they could create an on-line event registration/network analysis form that could collect the type of data included on my maps, and Kevin's maps, and could be easily fed into platforms that create KUMU maps, and GIS maps. 

If such a tool were freely available, would it be  used?  Do other universities in the USA or the world already have a project similar to Micelio?  If you know of one, please share the link below or on LinkedIn.

11-17-2025 update - The Global Futures Society's Network Map does much of what I envision. https://kumu.io/gfs/gfs-mapping#gfs-map

11-18-2025 update - This is a map showing four departments of the University of Navarra - https://en.unav.edu/research/mapa-tematico

This is a 1994 article in the Chicago SunTimes showing how I left my corporate job for a career of helping kids in high poverty areas.  It includes one of the first maps we created to show where poverty was concentrated in Chicago, and where existing volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs were located. You can see more stories generated by this strategy on this page. 

Imagine how much attention a University T/MC could generate if it adopted the ideas shared in this article.   That would be a good thing. 

Here's a recent example of a major donation to a Chicago university. I hope the research team is reading some of my blog articles! 

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms.  You can find links on this page.

Furthermore, I hope a few will give support through my December 19th birthday campaign or annual Fund T/MI campaign.  See links on the www.tutormentorexchange.net site. 

By the way, I'm still connected on Facebook to the student shown with me in the 1994 article. She's now a mother with one son in college and another finishing high school, has two Masters degrees, and a great job.  That was our goal when we created Cabrini Connections in late 1992 and launched it in January 1993. 

Veterans Day 2025

Tomorrow the nation will once again celebrate Veterans Day, to honor all who have served in the United States military -- in wartime or peacetime, living or deceased.

I've posted a Veterans Day article almost every year since starting this blog in 2005. You can see many at this link.  

In most of those articles I also show ways to honor service and sacrifice in how you use your time, talent and dollars to help make the USA a better, safer, healthier place for ALL who live here.  Some of my articles were turned into videos by interns who worked with me in past years.  You can view the "War on Poverty" video at this link.

I don't have a section of the Tutor/Mentor library dedicated to understanding challenges facing Veterans. I added this article today. I also added this article. I found both of these by a simple search.  Maybe one of you can point to a more comprehensive, reliable, resource.

I also did a search to find a few articles showing how Trump's DEI purge in the military puts U.S. national security at risk.  Here's one.  Unfortunately, you can find many more similar articles with a simple web search. 

I was in the US Army from 1968-1971 and spent a year in South Korea. I was never in combat. I'm not sure I was that great of a soldier, to be honest. However, I did receive the Amy Commendation Medal in 1971 and an Honorable Discharge.  I've used much of what I learned in my Army Intelligence training in the tactics and strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC, and in the two direct service programs I led between 1975 and 2011.

In 2001 I received an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan for my work, partly thanks to what I learned while in the Army.

If you read many of my articles you'll see that I call on others to help gather, organize and share information that others can use to make better decisions on how they use their time, talent, dollars and votes to create a better, safer, America and World for ALL people, not just the rich.

You honor veterans for what you do.

Thanks for reading.  Let's connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, Substack and other platforms.

I've launched my annual December 19th "Birthday Campaign" where you can support my work with a gift.  And I continue my on-going Fund T/MI campaign.  Please help if you can.

Giving Tuesday, 2025 - Are You Ready?

Are you ready for Giving Tuesday, 2025? Since 2012 this global giving event has tried to unleash the power of radical generosity, drawing donors to social benefit and nonprofit organizations throughout the world. This year it will be held on December 2nd.

Is your organization ready?  

Visit this page to learn more. 

Since 1993 I've maintained a list of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs and plotted locations of more than 100 on my map.  My goal for the past 32 years has been to help programs in every poverty area get the support they need to connect kids and volunteers in on-going learning and mentoring, not just a few high profile programs.  

If you look through the list of programs and visit their websites, you can usually find a donations page.  I'm not sure you'll find a special Giving Tuesday page.

I wrote a long article about Giving Tuesday in 2023 and shared images of several Chicago youth programs to illustrate how people beyond the nonprofit organization could be using their media and influence to draw attention to this event, and to the various youth-serving programs in their community.  I hope you'll read it.

I wrote another long article in January 2024, showing my goal of creating platforms, like Amazon.com, that attract volunteers, donors, parents, media and others to lists of youth serving programs and to donation pages that encourage giving and aggregate information about how much is being given to individual organizations, and to different neighborhoods.

In that article I showed one giving platform, attracting donors to Democratic candidates throughout the USA.  That's an example of what type of platform could be created to draw attention and donors to all of the various youth-serving programs in Chicago or different places.

Does anyone have something like this yet?  If yes, please share the link.  In the meantime, look at how other nonprofits are using their websites and social media to attract support. Borrow from good ideas. Share you own.

Every November since 2011 I've launched a campaign to attract funding to the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, by giving a gift to recognize my December 19th birthday.  I'll be 79 this year and with your help I'll reach 80 and still be doing this work. 

I'll still promote this on-going Fund T/MI page, too. 

Thanks for reading. Good luck on your year-end fund raising. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and/or Mastodon to share your ideas and your websites. 

Engage Youth in Writing Activities

 In my September newsletter I featured a blog written by Sheri Edwards, a retired educator from Washington State. I met her in 2013 through the online #CLMOOC community and we've stayed connected since then. 

Below is a post Sheri made on Mastodon about the October National #WriteOut event. She points to this page on her blog. 

I follow Sheri and many other educators on several social media platforms. Many are involved in the annual #WriteOut event and share their work on social media and their own blogs.  You can learn about it on this page. 

I share this because every volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning program, along with every school, could be using the #WriteOut event to stimulate student curiosity, reading and writing during October as volunteers are just beginning to build relationships with students, or at any other time of  the year.

In the programs I led, between 1975 and 2011, we included writing activities in October and throughout the year. We published what students wrote in our newsletters and in special publications, because one of the greatest motivations for writers is seeing their own words in print!

Below is the December 1978 newsletter, which at that time we called it "Monkee Words" after Montgomery Ward, which hosted the program. Many people referred to Wards as "Monkee Wards".

Scroll through the pages and you'll find many poems written by 2nd to 6th grade students. 

Below is a copy of the November 1983 newsletter. The name had been changed to Tutoring Tattler, which was used through 1992 (and might still be used by Tutoring Chicago). This shows winners of the Halloween writing contest and includes some student work.  

In the December 1986 Tutoring Tattler you can find information about that year's Christmas Writing activity.

By 1991 we were creating separate publications to share student writing.  Below is the October 1991 KidsWork. 

I left the original tutoring program in October 1992 and with a few volunteers formed Cabrini Connections, to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade have continued support through high school. This is when we also created the Tutor/Mentor Connection, to share work we and others were doing to help programs like ours grow in more places.

We continued to encourage student writing and creative expression.  Below is the "WUZ UP! teen news from 1996.

Visit the Cabrini Blog and look on the right side. You'll see a link to the Writing Club, along with links to other creative learning activities, that expanded the tutor/mentor experience beyond the one-to-one tutor/mentor relationship.  This blog was active from 2006 to 2011 but was not continued after I left the organization in 2011.  While it is an archive now it offers many lessons others could borrow for their own programs.

In the Homework Help section of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website you'll find many more activities that you might use to engage students and volunteers on fund, creative and on-going learning and relationship-building.

I've been honored to be part of the Tutoring Chicago 60th Anniversary campaign, which has shared clips from an interview with me in several of their posts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. I wrote about it in this post. 

I hope that this leads more people to my blog and websites so that more begin using the ideas and archives I share to build and sustain mentor-rich non-school programs that reach K-12 kids who live in high poverty, under-resourced, neighborhoods of Chicago and other places.

I hope it also encourages a few to reach out and help fund my work, or to help create a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy on one, or many, college campuses.  You can find me on many social media platforms. See links on this page.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy a safe and fun Halloween weekend!

Imagining a different future

In 2023, in this article, my #CLMOOC friend, Kevin Hodgson, wrote about Google's AI platform, called Bard.

This prompted me to ask, "Has anyone asked ChatGPT to write about what the future would have looked like if Al Gore had been elected President of the U.S. in 2000?"

Image created using Scribble Diffusion

I decided to see how Google's Bard works, and posted a set of questions.  Rather than point you to a Google doc where I've saved the responses I'm posting them below.  If you don't like the questions I asked, or the responses, then post your own questions and share the answers you get!

-- begin Bard questions and responses -- 

I asked Bard to write a story predicting what the world would be like today if Al Gore had won the 2000 US Presidential election.  

Bard --  If Al Gore had won the 2000 US Presidential election, the world would be a very different place today. Gore was a strong advocate for environmental protection, and he would have taken a much more aggressive approach to climate change than George W. Bush. He would have also been more likely to sign the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, Gore was a strong supporter of education and healthcare. He would have increased funding for both of these important areas, and he would have made college more affordable for students.

Gore was also a more experienced politician than Bush. He had served as Vice President for eight years, and he had a deep understanding of the issues facing the country.

If Gore had been elected, the United States would have been a more progressive country. We would have been a leader in the fight against climate change, and we would have made significant progress in improving education and healthcare.

Of course, it is impossible to say for sure what would have happened if Gore had won the election. However, it is clear that the world would be a different place today if he had been elected.

Here are some specific examples of how the world might be different today if Al Gore had won the 2000 election:

• The United States would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This would have helped to slow the pace of climate change and mitigate its effects.
• Gore would have been more likely to invest in renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power. This would have helped to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and make our country more energy independent.
• Gore would have been more likely to expand access to healthcare. He would have supported the creation of a public option for health insurance and made it easier for people to afford coverage.
• Gore would have been more likely to invest in education. He would have supported increased funding for public schools and made college more affordable for students.
• Gore would have been more likely to take a diplomatic approach to foreign policy. He would have been less likely to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and he would have worked to build relationships with other countries.

Overall, the world would be a better place today if Al Gore had won the 2000 election. He was a more experienced and progressive politician than George W. Bush, and he would have made the United States a more just and sustainable country.

I then asked, "How would he have responded differently to the 9/11 terrorist attack? Would he have invaded Iraq? How would the world look now if he had not invaded Iraq?"

Bard -- Al Gore would have responded differently to the 9/11 terrorist attack than George W. Bush did. He would have focused on building international cooperation to fight terrorism, rather than invading Iraq. He would have also been more likely to invest in homeland security and intelligence gathering.

It is unlikely that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq if he had been president in 2003. He was skeptical of the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and he believed that the invasion would be a costly and unnecessary war.

If Al Gore had not invaded Iraq, the world would be a very different place today. The war in Iraq has been a major source of instability in the Middle East, and it has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The war has also cost the United States trillions of dollars.

Without the war in Iraq, the United States would have been able to focus on other priorities, such as fighting terrorism and improving the economy. The world would also be a safer place, as there would be no ongoing conflict in Iraq.

Here are some specific examples of how the world might be different today if Al Gore had not invaded Iraq:

• The United States would have been able to focus on other priorities, such as fighting terrorism and improving the economy.
• The world would be a safer place, as there would be no ongoing conflict in Iraq.
• The United States would not have spent trillions of dollars on the war.
• The United States would not have lost the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
• The United States would not have damaged its reputation in the world.

Overall, the world would be a better place today if Al Gore had not invaded Iraq. He would have made the United States a safer and more prosperous country.

I then asked, "If Al Gore had been elected president would we have the same level of polarization as we have today? Would Donald Trump have been elected President in 2016?"   

Bard -- It is impossible to say for sure whether political polarization would be as severe today if Al Gore had been elected president in 2000. However, it is likely that the level of polarization would be lower.

Gore was a more moderate politician than George W. Bush, and he was more likely to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats. He would have also been less likely to engage in the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that has contributed to polarization in recent years.

It is also possible that Donald Trump would not have been elected president in 2016 if Al Gore had been president in 2000. Gore would have been a stronger incumbent, and he would have been more likely to unite the country after the 9/11 attacks.

Of course, it is also possible that polarization would have continued to grow even if Al Gore had been president. The factors that are driving polarization are complex and multifaceted, and they are not easily controlled by any one person.

However, it is clear that Al Gore would have been a different kind of president than George W. Bush. He would have been more moderate, more willing to compromise, and more likely to unite the country. These qualities would have made him a more effective president, and they would have helped to reduce polarization in the United States.

Finally, I asked,  "If Al Gore had been elected in 2000, and re-elected in 2008, would Barack Obama ever have been elected President? Would Joe Biden have been elected vice-president, then President in 2020?"   

Bard -- It is impossible to say for sure whether Barack Obama would have ever been elected president if Al Gore had been elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2008. However, it is likely that Obama would have faced a much more difficult path to the presidency if Gore had been in office.

Gore was a popular and well-respected politician, and he would have been a strong incumbent. He would have also been able to draw on the support of the Democratic Party establishment. Obama, on the other hand, was a relatively unknown and inexperienced politician. He would have had to overcome a lot of obstacles to win the presidency.

It is also possible that Joe Biden would not have been elected vice president or president if Al Gore had been in office. Biden was a close ally of Gore, and he would have been less likely to run for office if Gore had been president.

Of course, it is also possible that Obama and Biden would have still been elected president and vice president, even if Gore had been in office. The political landscape is complex and unpredictable, and it is impossible to know for sure what would have happened.

However, it is clear that Al Gore would have been a different kind of president than George W. Bush. He would have been more moderate, more willing to compromise, and more likely to unite the country. These qualities would have made him a more effective president, and they would have made it more difficult for Obama and Biden to win the presidency.

---- end Bard questions --- 
 

What would your questions have been? I asked my questions on Bard. How would ChatGPT have answered?  Could this be turned into a short story using an AI tool like TinyStorie?  

One response stood out to me, which was,  "Gore was also a more experienced politician than Bush. He had served as Vice President for eight years, and he had a deep understanding of the issues facing the country."   On a national level this is probably true, but Bush had been Governor of Texas, and his father had been President. His political skills should have been better. 

I asked these questions in 2023, not knowing that Trump would be re-elected in 2024 and prove to be more chaotic and destructive than in his first term.  Maybe AI can provide some paths out of the disaster we seem to be heading toward.  Have you asked? Where are you posting your responses? 

At the left is a photo of me addressing students and volunteers at one of our year-end graduation ceremonies, for the tutor/mentor program I led from 1975 to 1992. 

We did not have the Internet or Artificial Intelligence then. Desk top computers were just emerging. But I was asking our students and volunteers to imagine all they could do to assure that each student finished high school and went on to college, jobs and careers.  

Imagine if they had been able to use Bard, or ChatGPT to ask "What are all the things we need to know and do to assure that all kids born of living in a high poverty area today were starting a job and career by their mid 20s?"    

That's still a question we need to be asking today.  

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