The Brain

"The story about the brain is all about connections."

"Being an active participant in leisure activities can cut in half the risk for dementia."

"Magical ideation is associated with creativity."

-- Dr. Robert Bilder, Director for the Center of the Biology of Creativity, UCLA

Health Care Reform

Social Responsibility vs. Personal Responsibility

"What is our social contract with providers and patients?" -- Dr. Kavitra Patel

"California is undergoing a complete renegotiation of the social contract." -- Dr. Bowen Chung

"What, ultimately, is the responsibility of government and the responsibility of individuals in addressing their perceived social needs?" -- Dr. Fernando Torres-Gil

Collective Action

A community doing the same set of things for a common goal.

Cohort & Social Support

There is no way to get through any stressful experience soundly without social support. Social support shows up in many ways - here is one incarnation: the 2009-10 first year Social Welfare PhD cohort. It's so reassuring to know there are other lovely women who know exactly what you are going through. Cocktails at noon at Palominos in Westwood to celebrate birthdays help too.

Hope & Optimism

“While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.”
--Helen Keller

For anyone with questions about who Helen Keller was, my daughter offers the following information: She had an illness which made her blind, deaf and mute. As soon as her parents discovered this, they got her a tutor named Ann Sullivan. In one day, Helen learned 60 words with Ann. As Helen grew up she learned Braille and sign language.

No matter how hard you size up the situation to be, and Helen's was pretty difficult, there is hope, there is always hope and sometimes, hope seems to be all you've got.

I get really activated and emotional when I hear people say or imply things like:
"It's too hard."
"It's impossible."
"I can't do it."
"You can't do it."
"It can't be done."
"It just isn't done."
"Don't rock the boat."
"It is wrong or impolite to disagree or speak up or have an opinion or challenge the status quo or confront or negotiate..."

I am grateful that Rosa Parks, the Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President Obama, Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez (Si Se Puede) and Mahatma Ghandi didn't buy these negative thoughts or limiting beliefs and managed to inpire others to challenge them too. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker (Helen Keller).

Both are true - it is hard and we are up to the challenge. I am trying to not pathologize my experience when people ask me about school. Now I reply that school is appropriately challenging.

If you have ears to hear, then listen because I want to scream: It is possible, you can do it and I believe in you! Who told you otherwise and what makes you believe it still?

Helen Keller says it best in her following quotes...

Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

We may have found a cure for most evils; but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all, the apathy of human beings.

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

Knowledge is love and light and vision.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.

Closing the Achievement Gap

In the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress results, the gap between Black and Latina/o fourth graders and their counterparts in reading scaled scores was more than 26 points. In fourth grade mathematics, the gap was more than 20 points. These gaps persist over time (Ladson-Billings, 2006).

Without genetic or other immutable traits that could conceivably be the cause of the gap, the problem is one that can and should be solved (Singham, 2003).

Addressing the historical educational disparities is important because it has implications for the kinds of lives we can live and the kind of education the society can expect for most of its children (Ladson-Billings, 2006).

Gloria Ladson-Billings proposes understanding the achievement gap using the metaphor of national debt versus national deficit. She sees some "metaphorical concurrences between our national fiscal situation and our educational situation." The achievement gap is tantamount to the national deficit, defined as spending exceeding income over a period of time. She asserts that what is actually happening to students of color is really more like the national debt, defined as the sum of all previously incurred annual federal deficits. The educational debt is an accumulation of the historical, economic, and sociopolitical disparities and moral debt. Specifics include laws forbidding students of color from learning to read and from attending colleges. Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black, Latina/o and Native communities had little to no access to the franchise, so they had no true legislative representation. Indeed, a major aspect of the modern civil rights movement was the quest for quality schooling - a great show of passion and effective action toward addressing a social problem. Taken together, these debts amassed toward minority youth may seem insurmountable. Ladson-Billings quotes, "just because something is impossible does not mean it is not worth doing."

Important questions remain: Why then has the problem not been solved? Will the gap between minority and white students inspire groups of people to engage in an effort to effect change?

If a universal education reform policy can improve the achievement gap, then it is a win-win situation politically and pedagogically. The challenge is that it takes a serious effort to provide all-around good teaching and black students receive a disproportionate amount of poor teaching. Good teaching requires intensive efforts of professional development over ten years (Singham, 2003).

Ladson-Billings (2006) asks us to imagine that an examination of the achievement performance of children of color provoked an immediate reassignment of the nation's best teachers to the schools serving the most needy students.

Personally, I have seen such schools in South Los Angeles. South Los Angeles and the excellence at these schools inspired me to work towards being the best school social worker I could be. The students and families in South LA merit our very best and brightest selves, staff and schools, community organizations and infrastructure, and good jobs with a living wage.

It is possible.

How We Learn and Make Decisions

I think President Obama is an INFP and Bill Clinton is an ENFP.

What are you? Take the test at www.humanmetrics.com