A Better World

As we see the myriad problems in the world today, we not only want to understand them, we want to do something to help. In this issue of Search + Discover, University staff and faculty try to shed light on issues of concern and give practical advice in response to questions like:

• What can an average citizen do to stop the impending extinction of a species (tigers, for example)?
• Isn’t each of us ultimately responsible for public health?
• What would happen to our society if celebrity and teacher salaries were reversed?
• When will we realize that our differences should be celebrated?
• How "fluid" is the incidence of poverty in the metro area? That is, do poor people remain poor or is it a temporary condition?
• Will we ever have a planned stabilization and reduction of world population?

Plus, you can explore further reading and related links.

What can an average citizen do to stop the impending extinction of a species (tigers, for example)?

"The easy answer is: donate money to a large international conservation organization. However, it may not be satisfying to a small donor to watch his or her gift disappear into an amorphous pool of donations. Our tiger research lab at the U of M, consisting of myself and Ph.D. students, decided to turn this question around and ask, ’What can we do to help people save species like the tiger?’

"In posing this question, the challenge is to come up with a meaningful strategy for people, no matter the size of their donation. A schoolgirl giving $10 or a doctor donating $5,000 both want to make a difference.

"The answer may lie in a Web technology called ‘wiki’ where people come together in a social network to address an issue. What if a Web site were established that described ongoing tiger projects throughout Asia? People could respond by exploring funding options on this site and select a project to support. For example, school children might pool funds to donate a single $150 GPS to help with a tiger survey. The wiki Web site could have a picture of a ranger in Thailand using the GPS and include the names of the children who made the donation. Another group might donate a satellite collar for a project in Bangladesh, while a single individual could purchase a solar panel system to power a park radio in Cambodia.

"I thank the person who wrote this question. You challenged us to address two important questions: how to make donations for conservation meaningful and how to link citizens in the United States with people undertaking conservation in Asia. Motivated by your question, we will develop a Web site for tiger conservation. If you want to help us start, contact me at jlds@umn.edu."

—James L. David Smith, professor, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology

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Isn’t each of us ultimately responsible for public health?

"Great question. Yes, I believe that each of us is responsible for public health. We contribute to public health as individuals each time we do things like wear a seat belt, recycle an aluminum can, ride a bicycle to work, wash our hands, cover a cough, or take care in preparing food. 

"But there are many important things that strengthen public health that we cannot do alone as individuals, but must do together as a community. These include things like making and distributing vaccines, building water treatment and waste disposal plants, inventing autos that are less polluting and safer, protecting the food supply from field to table, and teaching people to watch their blood pressure and cholesterol.

"These are all connected in some way to public health and need support on all levels from the individual to the corporation to the government to make reality. To paraphrase a popular saying, it also takes a village to create public health!"

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What would happen to our society if celebrity and teacher salaries were reversed?

“You’d be reading about teachers’ lifestyles in the tabloids,” says education professor Thom Swiss. At the same time, says his colleague, Tim Lensmire, “there would be stories about celebrities not being able to afford buying a house.”

Swiss and Lensmire, along with Bic Ngo and Misty Sato, comprise the faculty in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction involved in a new Ph.D. program called “Culture and Teaching.” The program, conceived of and developed by Ngo and Sato, is dedicated to helping future researchers and educational leaders understand teaching and learning as cultural, social, and moral events. All four are faculty members of the University’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, in the College of Education and Human Development.

The four colleagues brainstormed the answer to this question together. While the team’s responses ranged from serious to lighthearted, the exercise was an enlightening look at the “contemporary struggle over the place of teachers in society,” says Lensmire.

All four said the reversal would primarily be a boon for society, students, and teachers alike.

“Teachers would actually be asked their opinions about things like the war in Iraq, or maybe even educational issues,” says Ngo. Additionally, she said, “children would be better cared for, as teachers would donate money and create foundations specifically aimed at caring for children.”

Sato said celebrity salaries would earn teachers greater respect and authority. “Ultimately, students’ performance would not be measured on a single standardized test, but teachers would be trusted by their clients, as doctors are, to make professional judgments about student learning and progress.”

While speculating on such a fantastic scenario might be, to some, more disheartening than helpful, Lensmire says it’s important for people to examine their views about societal roles. “It’s an exercise that leads to asking important questions about the value of education in our society and how we value the people who are responsible for helping others learn.”

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When will we realize that our differences should be celebrated?

Although the human race has, for the most part, evolved past eating each other for lunch, they still have a long way to go before they readily accept and celebrate each other’s differences, says Juan Moreno, diversity and inclusion specialist with the University of Minnesota Extension Service,

“I believe that a true sense of equality in most human relationships is at best elusive and at worst non-existent,” Moreno says.

Although human beings have an intrinsic “longing for equity and justice,” they have not yet mastered the single most important skill required to achieve that equity—authentic communication and dialogue.

“We will begin to realize that our differences should be celebrated the moment we begin to appropriate communication and begin to use it as an instrument of healing,” Moreno says. “Communication has both a glorious dimension, in that it allows us to build relationships and community, and a profound shadow, in that it may very well be the first instrument we use surreptitiously to create patterns of domination and subordination. Thus, we have to develop the mindset, the heart set, the behavioral set, and the spiritual set of skills to be able to enter into the realities of others with some measure of integrity and compassion.”

Moreno says he believes such a goal to be ultimately, but not quickly, attainable.

“I am hopeful, in as much as we have a historical record of moving towards greater and greater justice and equity,” he says. “But I am not hopeful in the sense that it’s going to happen tomorrow.”

—In 2004, Moreno received the Josie R. Johnson Human Rights Award for his contributions toward improving diversity at the University. He also founded the Diversity Institute at the University of Minnesota.

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How "fluid" is the incidence of poverty in the metro area? That is, do poor people remain poor or is it a temporary condition?

Poverty is more fluid for poor white people in Minnesota than it is for poor African-American, Latino, and Southeast Asian people, according to Myron Orfield, executive director of the University’s Institute on Race and Poverty.

And while Minnesota has historically had a lower percentage of poor people than the rest of the nation and a better track record for reversing poverty trends, Orfield says school segregation and an increased trend in housing discrimination are moving Minnesota’s numbers in the wrong direction.

Research has long shown that poor children who attend schools comprised only of other poor children are much less likely to get out of poverty than those who attend schools with children of mixed incomes, Orfield says.

“If you’re going to school with middle class kids then you have connections and role models and a peer group and counselors and school relationships between your high school and college that all increase your mobility,” says Orfield. “It doesn’t solve the problems and you still have very severe disadvantages, but it dramatically increases the odds that you can move from your status.”

But while metro area schools were, for many years, desegregated by law, in the past decade many local districts have moved away from their desegregation policies and even redrawn their district boundaries in ways that increase racial and economic segregation, Orfield says.

The problem is exacerbated by an increase in discriminatory housing practices that make it even less likely that poor people of color will live or go to school in a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood, he says.

“White poor families, because they have more choices in the housing market, tend to sort of disappear into the framework of middle class society,” Orfield says. “It isn’t a panacea for them but it increases their chances of fluidly moving.”

—Myron Orfield’s most recent book, American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality, explores the economic, racial, environmental and political trends of the 25 largest metropolitan regions in the United States.

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Will we ever have a planned stabilization and reduction of world population?

"This question has two parts. First, will the world’s nations get together to plan to achieve zero (or negative) population growth? While it is impossible to answer this without a crystal ball, it seems extremely unlikely, given the amount of conflict in the world today and also given the relatively low priority that many nations place on achieving zero population growth. (In fact, some countries at or near zero population growth—like France and Italy—are trying to convince their citizens to have more children!) 

"However, many countries do agree that population growth should be lower, and some of those countries back their convictions with funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA helps provide family planning services in poor countries, so that women and men who would prefer to have fewer children, or who would like to have bigger intervals between births, have the resources to do so. The Bush Administration has withheld funds for UNFPA, so the United States is not currently contributing to this effort.

"Second, will we ever have stabilization and reduction of world population? This is very likely—but when and how are not known. If there are no major epidemics or nuclear explosions (for example) that cause lots of deaths in a short interval, then it is likely that the number of births per woman will continue falling in Asia and Africa and Latin America, and that eventually births and deaths will even out and the population will stabilize. If the world is as crowded at that point as seems likely, then even one child will become very expensive, much more so than today, and more adults will choose to be childless—possibly leading to population decline."

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