The current rise in food costs in the US and shortage abroad seemed to have happened suddenly. This week we explore the factors that led to this situation and when they actually began. Is this a temporary condition or will it worsen? Find out what you can do to deal with the impact this crisis. With Sharon Astyk of the blog Casaubon’s Book and author of “Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front,” Bettina Luescher from the U.N.’s World Food Program, and Janet Larsen of the Earth Policy Institute.
The current rise in food costs in the US and shortage abroad seemed to have happened suddenly. This week we explore the factors that led to this situation and when they actually began. Is this a temporary condition or will it worsen? Find out what you can do to deal with the impact this crisis. With Sharon Astyk of the blog Casaubon’s Book and author of “Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front,” Bettina Luescher from the U.N.’s World Food Program, and Janet Larsen of the Earth Policy Institute.
Bettina Luescher is a former CNN International anchor who made a life changing decision. Rather than continue with the career climb in the broadcast industry, she chose to become a spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Program. In this role, she witnesses, first hand, the depth and breadth of the challenge of feeding those who are hungry.
The UN World Food Program is the world’s largest international food assistance organization combating hunger in underdeveloped nations with severe food shortages. The frontline stretches from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East to Latin America and Asia & the Pacific. They help:
Victims of natural disasters like the 2006 East Africa drought, the Pakistan earthquake and Hurricane Stan in 2005, the tsunami disaster and Bangladesh floods in 2004, the Iran earthquake in 2003 or Hurricane Mitch, which affected one million people in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatamala in October 1998.
Displaced People - both refugees and internally displaced persons to leave towns and villages in places like Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia.
The world’s hungry poor, trapped in a twilight zone between poverty and malnutrition.
The World Food Program serves in two ways. First it mobilizes food assistance for delivery to natural and man-made disaster areas. Second, its rapid response team draws-up contingency plans designed to move food and humanitarian assistance fast into disaster areas.
Truly they are an unheraled champion that deserve our appreciation and support.
Janet Larsen is the Director of Research of the Earth Policy Institute, She is a co-author of The Earth Policy Reader and has written on topics ranging from natural resources availability to population growth and climate change. Her research has been translated into various languages and featured in a number of print, on-line, and radio publications
The Earth Policy Institute was founded May 2001 by Lester Brown and Reah Janise Kauffman to provide a vision of a sustainable future and a plan for how to get from here to there.As a small organization with a global mission, the Earth Policy Institute has designed a unique information dissemination model, capitalizing on the synergy between a worldwide network of book publishers, the communications media, and the Internet. Through this distribution network, countless individuals and organizations have become aware of the environmental issues facing the world and many have been inspired to take action
Check out the new book “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition” by Lester Brown that crystalizes their impact on solving some of the most difficult challenges on the planet. It is certainly a key voice that bears our attention.
Sharon Astyk is a writer, teacher and subsistence farmer, and the author of two books on Peak Oil and Climate Change —“Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front” (Sharon Astyk) which is just published and and A Nation of Farmers (And Cooks) (Spring ‘09), the latter co-authored with Aaron Newton. This is Sharon’s “encore” on our program. She brings a clarity about the world’s pressing issues and a pragmatic wisdom on getting into action now to do something about these challenges.
Sharon’s frequent writings can also be found at her Blog Casaubon’s Book and Hen and Harvest. We wonder how Sharon has time to be a farmer and a mom and write so prolifically. We forgot to mention she is also a teacher. You can find out at her website more about the wonderful on-line learning experiences she offers.
I first met Gary when our family lived (briefly) in Harlemville, NY about 9 years ago, and subsequently subscribed to the magazine which he co-edited, The Threefold Review (the Institute for Social Renewal has a few articles from the magazine, which is no longer published, up on their website). I always appreciated Gary’s clarity and in particular his clearly articulated position that government should not rightfully be in the business of providing education and that Waldorf education is best served by steering clear of the State.
Gary has dedicated himself to exploring the apparent conundrum of having Waldorf education be both indepedent of the State and accessible to all. This was an important part of what Gary had to say during this weekend. Towards the end of the weekend Gary pointed to Educational Tax Credits as a practical step toward this goal. He is personally involved with the campaign in New York State to create such a possibility (seewww.teachnys.org). The picture to the right shows Gary with Patrice Maynard of AWSNA - the Association of Waldorf Schools of N. America. (This is taken from a report about the tax credit campaign in the latest issue of the Institute for Social Renewal’s e-mail newsletter: subscribe here).
So, Gary’s essential thesis was that Waldorf education originated in and cannot be separated from “social renewal”. He talked about the founding of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919 for the children of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory workers and developed a discussion of Rudolf Steiner’s views of social renewal and his conceptualization of the threefold nature of human society, whereby a healthy balance is found between the economic life (keyword: fraternity, brother/sisterhood), the political/legal life (keyword: equality) and the ’spiritual-cultural’ sphere (keyword: freedom). Following Steiner, Gary firmly placed education in the spiritual-cultural sphere (along with art, science and religion) and described the need forall education to be free from the control of both economic forces (primarily big business) and political forces (the State) - not just Waldorf education.
Gary described a positive role for the State in ensuring the right of all children to an education but he feels that we badly need to unhook that concept from the idea of the Stateproviding education through government schools. Similarly businesses have a part to play in funding education but only in the context of educators (in the classroom) having the authority to decide what the children they are working with need.
I thought that Gary was really inspiring when he described Steiner’s view of Waldorf education (or, really, any true education) as constantly evolving, depending upon the changing needs and nature, not of the government or business, but of children. Steiner essentially said that if one is teaching exactly the same way one taught even five years ago one is not meeting the real human beings in front of one. This is why state-mandated curricula and standards are a nonsense.
Robert Karp, who had come all the way from Milwaukee, suggested that modern children’s paramount need might be an education that has a therapeutic nature and that this side of Waldorf education may need to be further developed and emphasized.
There were a couple of us Waldorf homeschoolers present at the workshop. Laurel pointed out that homeschooling very much stands in the stream of education independent of state control, though I expressed concern that ‘virtual academies’ and ‘home-based’ public school initiatives represented a dangerous blurring of the line between homeschooling and state-controlled education. (This is why Christopherus Homeschool Resources signed the ‘We Stand for Homeschooling’ resolution a couple of years ago.)
Gary described a situation - the latest step being No Child Left Behind - of increasingly centralized and big business-driven public education. While Gary chose during this weekend not to address the issue of Waldorf Charter schools and ‘Waldorf methods’ public education, it was clear that he feels this is not the time to compromise on the ideal of education free from political control.
Gary also had interesting things to say about the governance of Waldorf schools in relation to threefolding. He feels that most of the serious problems in the Waldorf schools in the US are issues of the middle, ‘rights’ sphere (justice, fairness and how things are done) rather than problems of pedagogy or funding. However, he did say that the struggle to adequately fund Waldorf schools is a big strain as well.
I was left with questions around ’social renewal’ in the 21st century. Although basic social inequality still exists as it did in 1919 it is now generally accepted that all children deserve an education worthy of a human being (even if one considers that public education doesn’t provide that), which was one of Steiner’s foundational principles in creating the Waldorf school (as was the co-education of boys and girls which is now also the general rule). Perhaps we can say that in all areas of social life we need creative, free-thinking and compassionate individuals and that Waldorf is precisely working to that end in the education of young people.
I was also left wondering how his model of intersecting spheres within a Waldorf school related to our high school in Viroqua, the Youth Initiative High School, with its much greater level of student participation in governance than in other Waldorf schools.
MicroFinance: Supporting Entrepreneurs Around the World
One of the greatest gifts we can give each other is our trust. In this episode we look at how entrusting entrepreneurs in poor countries with small amounts of capital can dramatically change the potential of their business, their country, and the world. Featuring Premal Shah, President of Kiva.org, the leading microlending website and Tracey Turner, founder of MicroPlace, an eBay subsidiary helping the working poor across the world.
One of the greatest gifts we can give each other is our trust. In this episode we look at how entrusting entrepreneurs in poor countries with small amounts of capital can dramatically change the potential of their business, their country, and the world. Featuring Premal Shah, President of Kiva.org, the leading microlending website and Tracey Turner, founder of MicroPlace, an eBay subsidiary helping the working poor across the world.
Premal Shah is President of Kiva.org – an online lending marketplace that connects internet users with developing world entrepreneurs in need of low cost capital. Prior to Kiva.org, Premal was a Principal Product Manager at PayPal, an eBay company where he spent 6 years building the world’s largest internet payment network (114 million users in 55 countries — and a current Kiva.org partner). Premal also co-founded the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network and has worked in India at NGOs focused on economic empowerment and microfinance. Premal began his career as a strategy consultant at Mercer Management Consulting in New York and graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.
Tracey Turner is the founder and GM for MicroPlace, a subsidiary of eBay. A conscious capitalist, Tracey has dedicated her career to developing sustainable solutions to global poverty. She believes that through the power socially responsible investment, we can enable a billion people to lift themselves from poverty in our lifetimes.
Tracey has been involved in international development, social investing and philanthropy for more than 20 years. Prior to founding MicroPlace, Tracey was CFO of KickStart, an organization that designs and sells products the world’s poor can use to escape poverty. In 1998, she founded her first company, 4charity, a web-based marketplace for charitable giving, and served as its CEO. Earlier in her career, Tracey held a variety of positions with socially responsible firms including the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Calvert Ventures and the World Bank.
Tracey’s numerous leadership awards include Top 25 Women of the Web Award, San Francisco Business Times Leadership Award and a Working Woman Magazine Entrepreneurship Award. Tracey holds a degree in engineering and economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Stanford Business School.
Part 2: Interview with Tracey Turner | Download MP3
Jonathon Repinecz is a grad student studying French literature at Berkeley, who recently spent the summer in Senegal working as a Kiva Fellow. He initially got involved with Kiva as a volunteer translator and then by giving French lessons at Kiva’s San Francisco office to help the company with its communication abilities in West Africa. While in Dakar, Senegal, he worked specifically for the Senegal Ecovillage Microfinance Fund where he interviewed entrepreneurs who receive Kiva funds to make sure their transactions were completed and to assess impact. You can read about his and other’s experiences as a Kiva Fellow on the Kiva Fellows Blog.
Part 3: Interview with Jonathon Repinecz | Download MP3
NCLB: Bad Education Policy for 21st Century Education - a guest posting
I’ve taught for 38 years and more than 20 as a teacher of teachers in Illinois, Virginia, and Tennessee. In addition, my three sisters teach in the public schools in Virginia. I have seen the results of the No Child Left Behind Act and I believe this legislation is seriously flawed as a means of improving our public schools. I believe that NCLB should be allowed to expire without reauthorization and replaced with educational initiatives more likely to improve both education and the economy.
First, NCLB, like the invasion of Iraq, was enacted on false premises. In the case of NCLB, the corporate voices behind the 1983 report A Nation at Risk alleged that our public schools had failed the country, but this report has since been examined and found to be seriously flawed. Unlike many school systems of other “developed” countries, we in the U.S. eschew early tracking and attempt to educate all our students in comprehensive high schools. So here we are as the world’s only “superpower” with the most envied higher education institutions in the world that are supplied with students by a supposedly failed system of K-12 public education.
The fundamental problem of NCLB is its failure to address, or even ask, the basic questions about the proper aims of education and how public schools should serve a democratic society. In his book, The Schools our Children Deserve, Alfie Kohn points out that the “tougher standards” movement with its preoccupation with performance “often undermines interest in learning, quality of learning, and a desire to be challenged.” In terms of standards and tests the assumption of NCLB is that “one size fits all” yet Kohn documents how NCLB gets motivation wrong, pedagogy wrong, evaluation wrong, and school reform wrong. In the RAND Corporation report Large-Scale Testing, authors Stephen Klein and Laura Hamilton write that “none of the large-scale national achievement tests currently in use can be employed to monitor individual student progress or to evaluate the effectiveness of particular schools, districts, or educational programs.” Technically, the tests are flawed as they invoke a fallible single standard and a single measure, a practice specifically condemned by the Standards on Educational and Psychological Testing. Despite this, such data are used to make very consequential decisions, such as whether or not schools meet the “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) requirement of the Act. What is rarely mentioned is that the most significant variables affecting student scores on these tests are not the curriculum or the teachers’ pedagogies but rather, the parents’ level of education and social/economic status (Popham, 2001).
The problem is not about having standards per se, but with having standards imposed entirely from without and from the top-down — impersonal standards and rigid benchmarks that turn students into objects and disrupt the vital connections between teachers and students and between students and their work. Anyone who has been a student of a good teacher knows that high standards existed in their classroom. However, Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOL) framework (2003), for example, prescribes far too much content at each grade level to be addressed appropriately by classroom teachers, with the consequence of a de-skilling of the teachers by removing their decision-making responsibility and consigning them to roles as technicians rather than supporting their professionalism as enacters of curriculum. The SOLs fragment and attempt to deal separately with concepts, approaches, skills, and understandings that should be dealt with in an integrated fashion. Recent studies provide evidence that NCLB has resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum, and at a time when we should be promoting a diversity of curricula to match student needs and local school situations. In fact, the current régime of standards and high-stakes testing undermines the power of local communities to choose their own policies and programs and decide what is important and this simply frustrates and inhibits good teachers. Many teachers end up teaching only what they know is going to be tested. The current régime not only marginalizes many at-risk students and fails to recognize their unique curricular needs, resulting in high drop-out rates, but also fails to serve students at the gifted end, requiring them to be on the same page as the majority of their peers. Students are being pushed out of school with high drop out rates in are largest cities. Curriculum innovation and experimentation is constrained and school experiences are severely limited by the unintended consequences of targeting school curriculum toward high-stakes assessments. Yet we know that there are multiple ways for students to demonstrate intelligence and achievement.
What has been missing from the debate about NLB, according to Gerald Bracey, is any evidence that it has really produced meaningful higher achievement (as opposed to higher test scores). Standards and testing, with very rare exceptions, are not improving those public schools that fail to make AYP under the law, which, of course, are the schools most likely to be located in inner cities and rural areas. Overall, both our inner-city and our more remote rural schools have more of the things that decrease school quality and less of the things that enrich it: more teachers who are uncertified in the subjects they teach; more crowded classes; less money for payrolls, training, and for materials and facilities. In short, we have never adequately invested in the people, programs or equipment necessary to improve our urban and rural schools while yet requiring them to meet NCLB criteria. And, of course, NCLB is an unfunded mandate.
Furthermore, teachers, like my sisters, who are on the front lines of this issue, hold a low opinion of NCLB and very few believe its ultimate goal is even possible. We will never really improve our schools until we invest in highly qualified and well-prepared teachers, programs that are supported by research, curriculum materials that don’t spoon-feed the content and are up-to-date, and appropriate facilities and equipment for instruction. In short, NCLB contributes little of anything positive to the improvement of education while high-stakes testing narrows the curriculum, depresses teacher and administrator morale, increases stress on everybody, and results in a high turn-over rate of teachers and administrators.
For accountability, NCLB requires that report cards to be issued for each school, however, NCLB report cards only contain test scores. According to Nichols and Berliner a more accurate measure of the effectiveness of a school would include information about the number of students per classroom, the number of books per student, the number of books per student in the school library, the square footage of space per student, the number and type of professional development opportunities given to teachers, daily preparation time for teachers, teacher ability to make educational decisions, the number and type researched-based strategies utilized, the number and type of student products and performances unrelated to test scores or grades used to describe learning, and “the number and type of educational books, academic journal articles, and educational research read by law-makers, school board members, administrators, governors, commissioners of education, presidents, and other decision-makers.” With this background as context, standardized test scores might be included as one of many criteria used to describe a school’s overall functioning.
We should replace NCLB with more opportunities for early-childhood education and we should offer teachers incentives to take advanced degrees and other rigorous coursework. Teachers should learn about new strategies and technologies for their classroom practice as well as curriculum and community resources. Further, teachers should be given time to try out new strategies and technologies and develop their expertise without being threatened by NCLB sanctions. They should learn to create classrooms that are multigenerational learning communities. Finally, we must provide an array of alternate routes to success for students, and that includes a revival of vocational education. These initiatives would do much to bolster K-12 public education in our country, and would do much more than even a well-funded NCLB could do to enhance our economy.
The current education system is not preparing our youth for the real world thanks to programs such as No Child Left Behind. We will discuss the source of the problem and look for both public and private solutions, such as charter schools and homeschooling. With the Peter Reilly, President of NYSCATE, Robert Cane of FOCUS, and Donna Simmons of Christopherus Homeschooling.
The current education system is not preparing our youth for the real world thanks to programs such as No Child Left Behind. We will discuss the source of the problem and look for both public and private solutions, such as charter schools and homeschooling. With the Peter Reilly, President of NYSCATE, Robert Cane of FOCUS, and Donna Simmons of Christopherus Homeschooling.
Pete Reilly is the former Director the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center, which provides technology services to over sixty school districts north of New York City. Pete is a former English teacher whose life has been devoted to empowering students, teachers, and administrators to fully utilize their unique gifts and talents. Pete currently serves as the President of the New York State Association of Computers and Technology in Education (NYSCATE). Since his retirement, he works with individual educators, district teams, and organizations to help them be the very best leaders and human beings they can be.
Robert Cane is the Executive Director of FOCUS, Friend of Choice in Urban Schools, located in Washington D.C. Prior to getting into public education in 1992, Robert worked as a political campaign organizer, lawyer, law teacher, and law school associate dean. After a year of doctoral courses at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education, he served as assistant principal at two Virginia public high schools and principal at another. Frustrated by the lack of a commitment to meaningful reform in the three school districts in which he served, Robert joined FOCUS in November 1998. Robert is a graduate of Stanford University and Northwestern University School of Law.
Be sure to visit FocusDC.org for additional information.
Donna Simmons is the public face of Christopherus Homeschool Resources. She writes the books, gives talks and workshops and consults with homeschoolers. She has been a youth worker, Waldorf teacher, parent educator and housemother for developmentally-disabled adults (in a Camphill Community). She is a homeschooling mom.She graduated with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she joyfully studied politics, history, creative writing and child development (which included independent work on Waldorf views of child development). She has been deeply involved with Waldorf education most of her life - including a brief time as a class teacher (brief due to pregnancy), and establishing a Waldorf-inspired nursery in Sheffield, England. Much of her work with children has been on the land - bringing the therapeutic benefits of Waldorf education and outdoor experiences to children, many of whom had no other contact with Waldorf education. She is a member of the Anthroposophical Society.
Part 3: Interview with Donna Simmons | Download MP3
Small is Beautiful and Productive - a guest posting
By Jules Dervaes, www.PathtoFreedom.com
I wanted acreage. Millions more like me desired the same. I dreamed of an idyllic country home where I could get away from it all. Yeah, and everyone else with the same hope would be joining in the migration to grab what land there was available. I needed space in which to satisfy my latent Bonanza longing. But, I’d probably croak on the spot for lack of the needed skills and, more importantly, for the dearth of experience needed to deal with all kinds of new, rural situations. Problems, that is.
But, I didn’t want to wait; I couldn’t wait. Waiting was dangerous. The doomsday clock for the world’s food supply would only keep on ticking as I watched, sitting on the sidelines. And, there was the palpable fear that, no matter how minor, any postponement would be the start of the strict, systematic cadence of caution. (”Now, let’s be reasonable.”… “There’s no need to do anything drastic.”… “Why do you have to be different?”… “Don’t be such an alarmist!”)
And, just like that, such a hopeful moment, pregnant with so many wild, hot and uninhibited possibilities, would vanish. My old ‘friend’ practicality would have once more prevailed as it had done many times before on these forbidding occasions, in order to keep me in line. Oh, but don’t you know, one can come to the end of one’s rope. So, after having goose stepped for so long in this maddening cultural parade, I chose this instant, this cause, to exchange my marching boots for some gardening ones.
Rather than waste precious time thinking about where we would like to be–sitting on 5, 10, 20 or more acres in the country–we would make a go of it with what we had. But, there were always nagging doubts at every turn. We needed more vegetables. “There is no room here!” We needed more fruit. “There is no room here for trees!” We needed animals. “Surely, there isn’t room here for them, too!” The doubts would keep playing their dirge; the question was: Would I dance to their tune?
Being small was going to be one big challenge. Was it ‘un-American’? Our appetites tend toward supersizing. It certainly would feel peculiar to be satisfied with less. I can get enviously green over large green spaces. So, how could I happily accept this pathetic, downsized acreage? It would come down to this: Could we make–by hook or by crook–one city lot in the hand worth five such lots “in the bush”? And, down the gauntlet was thrown!
Thinking small has made all the difference in the world. Everything is so tight, which makes for one heck of a busy, stressful situation but one that is, nonetheless, truly rewarding–physically, emotionally and spiritually. A very special bonus is being able to derive a small income from our 1/5th acre city lot. So, today, by working all the angles and leaving no stone unturned, I am beginning to feel just now a small but real sense of independence.
Why can’t we all become independent as our farmer-forefathers were before us? The freedom they tasted came from making a living the old-fashioned way; they had to earn it from the soil. The sweat of their daily physical toil brought forth the pure sweetness of another day of standing on your own. It was all in the knock-down, drag-out struggle to get a life.
Independent is as independent does. So, hit the path!
Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. - Mohandas Ghandi
I’ve got good news for you. I know I sound like some sort of salesman. In a way I am. I am letting you know of a new feature on our website. Beginning this week, we will expand our Business Matters Blog to include writings from many of our program’s guests. During the week after a program airs, you can find postings in the guest’s own voice that will I believe will broaden your understanding of the topical area of the program and more importantly inspire you into action.
We also invite your participation. You can comment on any blog entry and share your feedback and insights with everyone. You can also offer a posting of your own. Simple submit it to feedback@businessmatters.net. We will get right back to you about placing your post on the site.
Please let us know how this new features is of value to you.
Business Matters is a weekly radio program that offers its listeners admission into the inner circle of thought-leaders, entrepreneurs and executives from the worlds of business, government and non-profit. Through unbiased dialogue we explore the decisions and actions of their organizations and the impact they have on the economy, culture, the environment, public policy and international relations.
We bring our listeners a portal into the future. We feature guests who are breaking down old paradigms and creating new models for success through innovations in the areas of science, technology, philosophy and management.
