Jeremiah Stanghini

Which US City Has the Worst Drivers: No Weather Variable?

A few days ago, there was an article on Slate that claimed to investigate which US city had the worst drivers. I thought the article was interesting as it’s probably something that everyone has an opinion on. That is, we all think that we know where the worst drivers in the US live. After reading the article, I was surprised — thoroughly — that there wasn’t a mention of weather.

Having grown up in Canada, (near Toronto), I am absolutely used to driving in snow and other forms of precipitation. After having lived in 4 different US states (and spending time in 31 others), I feel supremely confident in saying that not everyone is comfortable driving in forms of precipitation. While not an extraordinary revelation by any means, it still seems important. I had to read through the article a couple of times because I didn’t believe there was no mention of ice, snow, snain, or something else related. Weather absolutely affects the way that people drive and their comfort with precipitation will have certainly affect their ability to drive.

I’ve written before about unexpected snow in Washington, DC, but I don’t think I’ve talked about one of the conversations I’ve had with someone who’s lived in Metro DC for over a decade. She was explaining to me that, not only do you have such a wide variety of drivers in the DC area (those who’ve moved from the South or those who’ve moved from the North or those who’ve moved from the West, etc.), but you’ve also got the weather. More specifically, she was explaining that the “moderate” winters in DC make it awful for driving conditions. When the temperature hovers near freezing, the afternoon rain turns into morning ice. For those who have no experience driving in icy conditions, it can certainly cause drivers to be extra cautious (or mistakenly, not be cautious enough).

This is why I think it is important for any discussion of “the worst drivers” to include a weather variable. Sometimes, we need to be careful we’re not misappropriating the blame.

Plutocrats Author Running for Parliament in Canada

I happened to be reading through some of my old posts and noticed that I was going to write a post after I’d finished reading Plutocrats. I guess somewhere along the way it got removed from my to do list. I did write something that came to me while reading the book about looking down our noses, but nothing really about the book after that.

I think the author, Chrystia Freeland, did a really good job of bringing the issues to light and explaining them in ways that were accessible. It’s been more than a few months since I read it, a couple of the main points stuck with me.

1. It’s not just the wealthy that control the global economy, but the uber-wealthy.

Meaning, it’s not the 1% that are controlling the economy and affecting the 99% (as was the main message from Occupy Wall Street), but it’s the 0.1% who control the economy and affect the 99.9%. This may seem like splitting hairs, but Freeland offers compelling data that shows even the “wealthy” (i.e. the 1%) look like small potatoes next to the 0.1%.

2. The wealth gained by these folks wasn’t necessarily from unsightly means.

I don’t know remember if she says unethical, but some may consider it unethical. She makes the case that the uber-wealthy got that way — and continue to stay that way — because they’ve manipulated the market to funnel the wealth in their direction. She also does a little bit of debunking of the “trickle-down” economics perspective.

Overall, like I’ve said before, it’s a book that’s certainly worth reading.

Something that I find fascinating — Freeland was (as of a few days ago) a Managing Director and Editor of Consumer News at Thomson Reuters. As you learn from the book, this position allowed her to cultivate the contacts with people in high places to make the book that much more compelling (with stories and anecdotes). Anyway, like I said, she had this position. She recently left it. Why? She’s running for a seat in Parliament. The Canadian Parliament (she is Canadian).

One of the most storied politicians in Canada in recent history (Bob Rae) left his seat in Toronto Centre to become the chief negotiator for the James Bay area First Nations in negotiations with the provincial government. This vacated his seat and as a result, they’ll be a by-election in the Fall (date not set, yet). Freeland has met with some of the Liberal Party of Canada leaders and decided to seek the seat.

I don’t know if she’ll win the seat (she hasn’t even won the right to represent the Liberal Party just yet), but if she does, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her become part of the “brass” very quickly. In fact, if Justin Trudeau and the Liberals can win enough seats to form a minority or majority government, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Freeland become a Cabinet Minister or at the very least, a senior advisor. Of course, the Federal election isn’t until 2015, but it’s certainly something to think about.

Is It Time to Pay Politicians More?

A few months ago, I saw this very argument made in Slate. At first, I’m sure you’re doing a double-take? Why would we pay them more? They are hardly doing the job that we elected them to do in the first place. Why would we reward failure, stagnation, and an inability to get stuff done? That’s absurd!

All natural reactions, yes, but when you take a second to think about it, the idea isn’t that bat-crap crazy. For instance, consider the Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell. Josh Barro over at Business Insider makes the case that the Governor is underpaid. Why? Well, look to the incentives! The Governor of Virginia has a salary of $175,000, which is in the 90th percentile for Governors in the USA. That’s certainly a lot of money — almost triple the median income in Virginia. So, again, you may be thinking, why would we pay them more?

Well, consider the kinds of people that the Governor interacts with on a daily basis. Plutocrats. Governor McDonnell, on a daily basis, interacts with people who have income/wealth that far exceed the Governor’s “measly” $175,000 salary. You may be thinking, why is this a problem if the Governor got into politics for purely altruistic reasons?

Even if the Governor did do such a thing, research tells us that unethical behavior has to do with the kind of person you are and more to do with the situations you find yourself in. For instance, you may be the most ethical person in the world, but if you happen to find yourself in a bind financially and a whole host of other variables are weighing on you, there’s probably a situation that you may find yourself in where overlooking a conflict of interest may seem like an okay thing to do.

That’s the argument for increasing the salaries of politicians — to remove the incentive to be unethical. Of course, there’s still likely to be unethical behavior conducted regardless of what the salaries are raised to, but it may eliminate some of it. How much, I don’t know. What would be a fair salary?

The article in Slate discussed Sinagpore, which is known for being one of the most efficient governments in the world. He explained that in Singapore, the Prime Minister earns more than four times the salary of President Barack Obama and the President gets $400,000 a year! Government Ministers (akin to cabinet Secretaries), earn over $1 million a year. The highest paid cabinet Secretary (Secretary of the Treasury) gets approximately $190,000. So, government Ministers earn more than 5 times as much as their American counterparts.

I’m not advocating this particular raise, but I think it’s a conversation worth having.

I suppose the other option would be to remove the influential plutocrats from the equation. Although, I don’t know that with the American political system arranged in the way that it is, if that’d be constitutional. Larry Lessig, someone who’s been working tirelessly on the option of getting money out of politics was asked what a question about salaries for Congress. I’ll leave you with the question and his answer:

Question: You advocate in your book that congressmen should be paid much more than what they are right now (about $175,000/year). How much do you think they should be paid to make them lose the incentive to become a lobbyist? Does 250-300k sound better?

Lessig: Oh please don’t out me on this. Ok, but DON’T TELL ANYONE I SAID THIS: They are lawmakers. Why aren’t they paid as much as a first year partner at a DC firm? In Singapore, gov’t ministers get paid $1 million a year. Where is corruption in Singapore. NO-where.

The Evolution of Energy Sources for Humans Is Shorter Than You Think

I’m a big proponent of clean, renewable, and sustainable energy. Our species will not survive if we continue to use energy in the same way that we do at the same pace at that we do. That’s simply a fact. However, in my thinking about this issue, it never really occurred to me just how “new” energy is to humans. That is, it never really occurred to me just how new our energy sources were.

Take this chart of energy consumption in the United States, for instance.

Americans only started using petroleum as an energy source around the time that Abraham Lincoln was president. That’s almost 150 years ago. Americans have “only” been using petroleum as a source of energy for the last 150 years. That means, potentially, your great-great-grandfather may have lived in a world where using petroleum as an energy source was a “new” thing.

Looking a little further along the chart and we can see that 50 years after petroleum became an energy source that Americans used (albeit scarcely), coal was far and away surpassing our usage of petroleum. About 100 years ago, coal was 12, 13, or 14 times as popular as petroleum as a source of energy. It looks as if even wood was more popular as an energy source.

Now let’s look at the last 50 years. Between the early 1900s and the 1950s, the use petroleum as an energy source skyrocketed! As did the use of natural gas as an energy source. Coal seemed to be on the decline, but still in heavy use. Fast-forwarding a little bit more and we see that petroleum is trending down (in terms of its use) as is coal, but not before coal had a big uptick between the 1950s and the early 2000s. In that timespan, nuclear power also took off as an energy source, but it appears to have leveled off in the 2000s and may even be headed for a downward spike since the 2010s.

More notably is the green line for other renewables. We don’t see its existence until the 1950s and its growth is rather slow and steady. However, in what looks like the early 2000s, it begins to trend up. Who knows — maybe we’re on the cusp of what could be an energy revolution. Maybe “other renewables” will grow in popularity and use as coal or petroleum. Maybe its a bit naive or foolhardy to expect great energy transformation from non-renewables to renewables. Evolution does take time.

My point in sharing this today is to add some perspective on just how far humanity has come in terms of its use of energy. Really, only in the last 50 to 100 years has energy consumption skyrocketed in the way that we know and understand today. Who knows what energy consumption will look like in the years to come.

Does the Middle East Today Look Like Europe Before WWI?

I recently saw a tweet that was rather intriguing:

Adm. James Stavridis: Today’s Middle East looks like Europe before World War I http://t.co/yWJw3zmmfw

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) July 21, 2013

If you care about international relations, this probably was rather intriguing to you, too. The part that got me interested was the comparison between what Europe looked like before WWI and what the Middle East looks like today. There’s been plenty written about the Middle East with things happening in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc. So, I thought this post from Foreign Policy would make some interesting parallels between what Europe looked like then and what the Middle East looks like now.

Sadly, this wasn’t the case. It seemed that this brief article was more about what the strategy should be for the US in the region. While that’s probably important, I was more interested in looking at things from a historical perspective. As far as I can tell, history often repeats itself and as a result, it is one of our greatest teachers. So, if we could learn something about what happened in Europe before WWI, that might give us some indication of how things are going to proceed in the Middle East. Of course, it’d be purely speculative, but it might be enlightening.

I don’t know enough about what Europe looked like before WWI nor do I know enough about what the Middle East looks like now to make informed guesses. If I did, you can be sure that the rest of this post would have been a comparison of those two topics. The one thing I will say, though, is that I bet that if conflict does bubble over like the Admiral is *kind of* predicting might happen, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some parallels to what happened before WWI.

Similarities & Differences of Religion & Spirituality in Public Administration Literature: Religion, Spirituality, and Public Administration, Part 3

In the first post of this series, we looked at the introduction and the first two articles from the paper. In the second post of the series, we looked at the three other articles that were examined in the paper. In this last section, we’ll look at the similarities and differences between these articles and wrap up the paper.

Similarities and Differences

Spirituality and religion. Only Farmer (2005) failed to distinguish between spirituality and religion. In fact, Farmer failed to even mention spirituality. This might be because Farmer was interested in placing public administration theory in conversation with religion, rather than addressing the similarities between spirituality and religion. The other four articles had similar definitions and distinctions of religion and spirituality. It was made clear that these two concepts were very similar, but not the same. Whereas religion had more of a community focus, was more formal, and organized, spirituality was more individualistic, informal, and less systematic.

Religion, spirituality, and public administration theory. The biggest similarity of these five articles is that they are all making the case that religion should be studied in the context of public administration. Farmer (2005) argued that public administration had been studied in the context of postmodernism and critical theory, and so it should also be studied in the context of religion. King (2007), on the other hand, was more interested in how religion was influencing public administration today. Houston and Cartwright (2007) argued that spirituality had received attention in other disciplines like business and social work, so public administration should also study spirituality. Houston, Freeman, and Feldman (2008) echoed Houston and Cartwright’s (2007) argument that other academic disciplines had studied religion and so should public administration. Freeman and Houston (2010) made the best case for studying religion and public administration through five arguments. In particular, the argument that the growing religious heterogeneity of the American population requires a more representative bureaucracy was particularly strong.

Model for religion-spirituality integration. Only King (2007) proposed (or adapted) a model for integrating religion and spirituality. King found many problems with adapting the model, most notably, the language. King felt that when religion is discussed in the context of public administration, people are quick to raise the point about the Constitution and the separation of church and state. On the point about the Constitution: Houston, Freeman, and Feldman (2008) believed that these concerns have played a minor role. They argued that, among other things, secularization had more to do with religion not being discussed in the context of public administration.

1998 GSS. Two articles used data from the 1998 GSS to test hypotheses. Houston and Cartwright (2007) found that public sector workers were more spiritual than private sector workers and Houston, Freeman, and Feldman (2008) found that public sector workers were more religious than private sector workers. Given the overlap in spirituality and religion, these results are unsurprising, but are noteworthy for the sake of consistency.

2004 GSS. Freeman and Houston (2004) used data from the 2004 GSS to test their hypotheses. They also confirmed the findings from the two articles that used the 1998 GSS. The two findings: public servant seem to have more spiritual attitudes than the public (Houston & Cartwright, 2007) and public servants are more religious and less secular than the public (Houston, Freeman, & Feldman, 2008). Their own hypotheses had to do with religious affiliation and the results indicated little difference between public servants and the general public.

Farmer’s 10 suggestions. There are a few of Farmer’s (2005) that are worth reviewing. “3) It is hard to know how to talk about religion objectively across a religious divide.” This suggestion gets to the same point raised in other articles about the Constitution and the ‘separation of church and state.’ Farmer made the argument that when not in the appropriate company, it can be difficult to broach the subject of religion. “5) It is easy to suppose that religion can participate in shaping the moral landscape.” This suggestion is pointing to the fact that maybe there are other (abortion and marriage being two of the main ones) central questions in the moral debate. Farmer suggested that ‘treatment of others’ might be one, but that it is hard to know without studying religion and public administration. “9) It is sensible to be self-revealing when discussing PA in religion, whether or not it is embarrassing.” It is easy to see where some people may whole-heartedly disagree with Farmer in being self-revealing when discussing PA in religion, but Farmer’s point is well taken. The argument parallels that which you would expect from a journalist to disclose their biases or ties to the subject of their article. Just as was gleaned from Freeman and Houston (2010), religion affects one’s attitudes and behaviors, so it seems natural that one would disclose this affiliation in the context of a scholarly discussion that included religion. The problem being that some might argue that it infringes on their right to privacy.

Conclusion

Prior to starting this project, it never occurred to me the various ways that religion could and does affect public administration. Like some of the articles have mentioned, I would have thought the ‘separation of church and state’ axiom would have kept people far away from doing research on religion and public administration. After reading through this small sample of public administration articles relating to religion, there certainly seems to be a strong argument in favor of studying public administration in the context of religion in a number of different ways.

References

Farmer, D. J. (2005). Talking about religion. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 27(1), 182-195.

Freeman, P. K., & Houston, D. J. (2010). Belonging, believing, behaving: The religious character of public servants. Administration & Society, 42(6), 694-719.

Houston, D. J., & Cartwright, K. E. (2007). Spirituality and public service. Public Administration Review, 67(1), 88-102.

Houston, D. J., Freeman, P. K., & Feldman, D. L. (2008). How naked is the public square? Religion, public service, and implications for public administration. Public Administration Review, 68(3), 428-444.

King, S. M. (2007). Religion, spirituality, and the workplace: Challenges for public administration. Public Administration Review, 67(1), 103-114.

If you liked this paper/series, you might want to check out some of the other papers/series I’ve posted.

Studying Religion & Spirituality in Public Administration: Religion, Spirituality, and Public Administration, Part 2

In the first post of this series, we looked at the introduction and the first two articles from the paper. In this next post in the series, we’ll look at the three other articles that were examined in the paper.

Houston & Cartwright – Spirituality and Public Service (2007)

Houston and Cartwright (2007) argued that spirituality has received attention in the literature of other disciplines (e.g. business, social work, etc.), but not public administration. They found this odd given the roots of service at the core of public administration. Given the idea of ‘public service as a calling,’ they hypothesized that individuals in public service occupations are more spiritual than individuals in non-public service occupations. They highlighted four components of spirituality from the literature: 1) belief in transcendence; 2) interconnectedness; 3) empathy; and 4) a sense of life purpose or meaning.

To test their hypothesis, they used data from the 1998 GSS, which had questions pertaining to spirituality. There were over 1000 respondents included in this study. They found statistically significant evidence that those workers in the public sector are more spiritual than workers in the private sector. They also found that public sector workers were more likely to believe in transcendence, experience interconnectedness, have higher incidences of empathy, and have a greater sense of life meaning than their private sector counterparts.

Houston, Freeman, & Feldman – How Naked is the Public Square? (2008)

The central questions in Houston, Freeman, and Feldman (2008): 1) how religious are public servants; and 2) how secular are the attitudes held by public servants. Before answering these questions, the authors discussed how religion had been a topic of study for other academic fields, but not public administration. Instead of the argument put forth by King (2007) that the Constitution is a major factor in the lack of study of religion in public administration, Houston, Freeman, & Feldman (2008) argued different reasons: “1) acceptance of secularization theories by academics; 2) the epistemology adopted early on by scholars of public administration; 3) the characteristics of the Progressive Era of America, when the field of public administration developed; and 4) uneasiness with the recent surge in political activity by religious conservatives,” (p. 429).

Like Houston and Freeman (2007), Houston, Freeman, and Feldman (2008) use data from the 1998 GSS to test their central questions. There were over 1000 respondents included in this study. The results showed that public servants tended to be more religious than their private sector counterparts. Public servants also tended to have less secular attitudes than did their private sector counterparts.

Lastly, Houston, Freeman, and Feldman conclude with five reasons why public administration should be studying religion: 1) public administration is missing from the debate of religious rhetoric in the political arena; 2) religion could play a key role in restoring civil society; 3) advocacy of faith-based initiatives in the delivery of social services; 4) religion is often left out of debates of multiculturalism; and 5) religion impacts a public manager’s behavior.

Freeman and Houston – Belonging, Believing, Behaving (2010)

Like the four other articles summarized above, Freeman and Houston (2010) made the case that it is important to study religion in the context of public administration. They did so through five arguments: 1) the prominence of religion in the delivery of public services; 2) the effectiveness of public services may be related to religion; 3) a representative bureaucracy should include religion; 4) “[the growing] religious heterogeneity of the American population has implications for the internal operations of public organizations;” (p. 698) and 5) religion affects one’s attitudes and behaviors in the workplace.

The central research question for Freeman and Houston (2010) was comparing the religious background, beliefs, and behaviors of public servants to the general public. Unlike Houston and Cartwright (2007) and Houston, Freeman, & Feldman (2008), Freeman and Houston (2010) use data from the 2004 GSS. There were over 2000 respondents included in this study. On religious affiliation, the results indicated little difference between public servants and the general public. The results also indicated that public servants were more active in and committed to their religious communities than the general public. The results from this study are consistent with Houston and Cartwright (2007) in that public servants seem to have more spiritual attitudes. The results from this study are also consistent with Houston, Freeman, and Feldman (2008) in that public servants are more religious and less secular.

Religion and Spirituality in the Workplace: Religion, Spirituality, and Public Administration, Part 1

It’s not secret that one of my interests is spirituality. After having been exposed to a variety of spiritual traditions when I was young, I was naturally curious about some of the other ways that these experiences percolate in the population. This is, in part, the reason that I initially chose to do my PhD in clinical psychology at a school like Sofia University. It allowed for that exploration and more importantly, it teaches its students about the importance of recognizing/allowing this exploration in patients/clients.

During one of my last couple of classes at George Mason University, I had the opportunity to take a class in Administration in Public and Nonprofit Organizations. After having completed all of the business classes for the MBA program, I found it quite interesting to think about these principles in the context of public and nonprofit organizations.

One of the papers I wrote for that class looked at something that piqued my interest during the law/ethics requirement for the MBA — spirituality and religion in public administration. I remember considering the difficulties that managers might face depending on their level of cultural intelligence in a given situation. So, today, I thought I’d start another series where I share the pieces of that paper. Let’s look at the introduction and a couple of the first sections.

The central theme of the five articles summarized is that there is an undeniable hole in the literature of religion and public administration. Most of the articles make it clear that there is a difference between religion and spirituality, but maintain that these two concepts are very closely related. Only in Farmer (2005) was the issue of spirituality not discussed, but there were 10 suggestions for thinking about public administration in the context of religion. King (2007) attempted to adapt a model of religion-spirituality integration from the business world to public administration and offered four caveats. Houston and Cartwright (2007) found evidence in the 1998 General Social Survey (GSS) that public administrators were more spiritual than their private sector counterparts. Houston, Freeman, and Feldman (2008) also used data from the 1998 GSS and found that public servants tended to be more religious than their private sector counterparts. They also found that public servants tended to have less secular attitudes than did private sector employees. Freeman and Houston (2010) made the strongest case for studying religion and public administration through five arguments. They also used data from the 2004 GSS and found that public servants were more active in and committed to their religious communities than the general public. The results from Freeman and Houston (2010) are consistent with Houston and Cartwright (2007) in that public servants seem to have more spiritual attitudes. In addition, Freeman and Houston (2010) are also consistent with Houston, Freeman, and Feldman (2008) in that public servants are more religious and less secular. In this paper, the articles are summarized in chronological order and contrasted with each other throughout. Following the summaries is a brief discussion of some of the similarities and differences.

Farmer – Talking About Religion (2005)

The central idea from Farmer (2005) was that the literature in public administration theory has failed to adequately address religion. Farmer argued that public administration has been studied in the context of critical theory and postmodernism, but not within the context of religion. He believes that religion is part of the context of public administration and as a result, should be studied.

He submitted that talking about religion in the context of public administration is difficult and offered 10 suggestions for thinking about public administration in the context of religion: “1) It is hard to know what religion is; 2) It is hard to know whether the separation of church and state is a done deal; 3) It is hard to know how to talk about religion objectively across a religious divide; 4) It is easy to suppose that religion is implicated in the constitutive magma of our society, and also a window toward understanding the constitutive framework; 5) It is easy to suppose that religion can participate in shaping the moral landscape; 6) It is easy to suppose that religion has both an up side and a down side, and that this down side is also part of our societal dynamic; 7) It is sensible to think that PA [public administration] should emulate religious ‘best business practice’ to the extent, at least, that religion is in competition with government; 8) It is sensible to think that PA should not be indifferent to the kinds of religious activities which exist in society; 9) It is sensible to be self-revealing when discussing PA in religion, whether or not it is embarrassing; [and] 10) It is lunatic to think in rigid boxes (boxism) [sic] about PA in its religious context,” (p. 182-3).

King – Religion, Spirituality, and the Workplace (2007)

Like Farmer (2005), King (2007) emphasized the lack of study of religion and public administration. Specifically, King was interested in the influence that religion had on public administration. King began with a brief literature review showcasing the differences between religion and spirituality in the context of the workplace. The key difference being that, “spirituality is distinct from but related to religion,” (p. 104). This led into the section where King discussed various court cases in which religious and/or spiritual expression was/were implicated: workplace cases, employers’ rights, employees’ rights, and political measures. King concludes this section by stating that one of today’s challenges for public administration is determining how these two concepts (religious and spiritual expression) fit together.

This led into a discussion of a model of religion-spirituality integration that came from the business world. King attempted to reconcile the differences with public administration and raised four problems: 1) public administrators are stereotyped by the values they seek; 2) how to account for the different aspects of a public administrator’s life (e.g. family, outside world, global context, etc.); 3) professional turf wars; and 4) language. The last problem is what King saw as the most important to public administration because whenever religion/spirituality are raised, people are quick to point to the Constitution and ‘the separation of church and state.’ King argued that this happens in discussions of administrative ethics, which usually pit utilitarianism (greatest good for greatest number of people) against deontology (universal principles of right and wrong). King’s main point here was that the language used in the debate of administrative ethics has a basis in sacred religious texts.

Note: Check back tomorrow for the next section of the paper. I’ll include the list of references in the last post in the series.

Musings on Improving Tests in Education: Less Writing, More Orating?

After having been in education settings for more than half of my life, I was thinking about ways to improve education. More specifically, I was thinking about ways to improve testing. Let’s take one of the classes that I’ve recently taught. In the class, there are two case assignments and two exams. The case assignments can be written at on one’s own time, so a great deal of time and effort can go into perfecting the structure, etc. The exams are taken during classtime, so there is a time limit. The students have until the end of class to finish the exam.

Presumably, the students could get through the entire semester and finish with an “A” in the class without having to say anything. I realize that a great deal of communication in today’s world is completed online and through writing, but isn’t our ability to communicating orally important, too? At least, shouldn’t there at least be some time spent on it?

I understand that some departments and professors are hampered by their ability to fidget too much with the deliverables of their courses (as certain standards and gates have to be met), but I was thinking about what it might be like to have an oral “meeting” at the end of the semester (instead of a final exam). I’d specifically call it a “meeting” to remove some of the stigma that some students place on “exam” or “test.” In this “meeting,” the student would have 3 (or maybe more, depending on the class size) minutes to convince the professor that they learned something during the semester (about the course material). The “meeting” could be recorded, in case the professor wanted to go back and watch the meeting, but presumably, they wouldn’t have to (they could just be grading as they went).

Some students would perform better as they would be used to public speaking, but the grade wouldn’t hinge on one’s ability to be a brilliant public speaker. Part of me thinks that having to convince the professor through speech, that one would have to know the material a bit better than they would for simply regurgitating answers on a test. To add another layer to this, there could be an option for students to record their “meeting” and send a link to the video. One of the stipulations would be that they couldn’t read a speech. Part of the purpose of this “meeting” would be for the students to know the material so well that they could speak about it conversationally. That is, speak about the material in a way that they could convince someone that they knew about it (or maybe teach someone something about what they know).

I’m sure that there are some professors out there who do this sort of test (especially at the graduate level), but I’d be interested to see it implemented at the undergraduate level. I think it’d be a great way to help develop the oratory skills of those who *think* they have less than stellar oratory skills. Plus, I think that the material would stay with the students a little longer than the length of the exam.

Visiting Mount Vernon: George Washington’s Lesson in Incrementalism

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Mount Vernon — otherwise known as George Washington’s home. It was quite lovely. The grounds are beautiful — so many wide open spaces, lots of greenery, and access to a waterway. Just what you’d want in an estate, I suppose. It was a bit goosebump-inducing to be able to walk through (and be near) the room where Washington and some of the other Founding Fathers plotted.

After walking through the museums on the estate, I was a bit surprised. I didn’t grow up with American history (having spent my youth in Canada), so I didn’t know much of the story of how the United States came to be of the United States. As a result, I was surprised to read about just how tenuous the beginning actually was. Of course, I’m aware that some of it may have been a bit dramatized, but Washington did a remarkable thing (depending on your perspective).

The surprising part, though, comes when I reflect on the discussions of the “greatest” President in the history of the United States. Whenever I read articles about this superfluous ranking, invariable, Lincoln tops the list. Part of this could be because some of the articles I’d been reading about the greatest US Presidents were written right around the time that the Lincoln movie was coming out. I’m also not trying to minimize what Lincoln did for the US — it is certainly important. Although, without Washington, would there even have been an Abraham Lincoln (in the way that we know of him)?

One other thing that was interesting to read about when walking through the museum was the idea that Washington also believed that the slaves should be free. Some attribute this belief to the fact that he freed his slaves when he died. Part of the reason (it’s theorized) that he didn’t free all the slaves was because of the shaky grounds that the US was still on when he was alive. Had he tried to make such a bold movie, the US might not have survived. In all fairness, some could make the argument that the US is still struggling with Lincoln’s decision to do just that (and that was a generation after Washington apparently considered the act).

In seeing that Washington was considering freeing the slaves, it made me think about incrementalism. When I used to watch politicians debate seemingly “small” measures to big problems, I would always grow frustrated. I would think to myself, why can’t they just make the big solution? I’m reminded of the phrase, “all in good time.” Sometimes, it’s not feasible to make big changes all at once. Even the small changes take time adjusting to (in politics). Making a big change could be untenable to some groups of people.

I look at the Affordable Care Act that President Obama pushed so hard for a couple of years ago. Many Democrats and liberals were upset that there wasn’t a push for a single-payer system. One would assume that President Obama opted not to push for that because he didn’t think that it could have passed. Healthcare, in and of itself, was hard enough to pass, so trying to pass something like a single-payer system would have been that much harder.

Circling back to Washington… I wonder what he would/could have accomplished for the country had he stayed on for a third term as President. I know that he died two years after stepping aside, but if he had continued as President, would we have gotten the 22nd Amendment sooner? Would Presidents like Jefferson or Madison stayed on for more than two terms?