Thanks to Dave Smith for the link.
1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth?
2. Always include local nature — the land, the water, the air, the native creatures — within the membership of the community.
3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbours.
4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products — first to nearby cities, then to others).
5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of "labour saving" if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.
6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.
7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.
8. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.
9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.
10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.
11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.
12. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.
13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.
14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programmes, systems of barter, and the like.
15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighbourly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighbourhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.
16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.
—Wendell Berry
A report from the National School Boards Association says that
online social networking is now so deeply embedded in the lifestyles of tweens and teens that it rivals television for their attention
and that
an astonishing 96 percent of students with online access report that they have ever used any social networking technologies, such as chatting, text messaging, blogging and visiting online communities, such as Facebook.
The report lists the activities that tweens and teens say they do at least weekly:
And in terms of using social networking for educational purposes:
59% say they talk about any education related topics, including college or college planning; learning outside of school; news; careers or jobs; politics, ideas, religion or morals; and schoolwork;
50% say they talk specifically about schoolwork.
An excellent post from Dave Pollard, integrating his views on shaking up the education system with building capacity in communities. Maybe a little cynical at times (just maybe) but definitely worth your attention.
Redux | June 15, 2007: Oof. It's been a tough few weeks. Work and non-work. Always busy. Never enough hours in the day or coins in the pocket, it seems. Then, last night, an encounter with an offensive real estate agent left us shaken and more than a little stirred. Thankfully, Stefan Sagmeister (thanks, Merlin!) was there to save the day. Check it out:
1. Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
2. Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
3. Being not truthful works against me.
4. Helping other people helps me.
5. Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.
6. Everything I do always comes back to me.
7. Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
8. Over time I get used to everything and start taking if for granted.
9. Money does not make me happy.
10. Travelling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
11. Assuming is stifling.
12. Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
13. Trying to look good limits my life.
14. Worrying solves nothing.
15. Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
16. Having guts always works out for me.
There. Isn't that better?
Thanks to Will Richardson for this post:
[...] I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to what my own children are going to need to be able to do when they get to where they have to support my wife and I in our old age [...]. They are not being empowered to learn, not being helped to become:
• Self-learners who are able to navigate the 10 or 15 or however many job changes people are predicting for them by the time they are 30;
• Self-selectors who must find and evaluate and finally choose their own teachers and collaborators as they build their own networks of learners;
• Self-editors who can look at a piece of information and assess it on a variety of levels, not simply believe it because someone else does;
• Self-organizers who can manage the slew of information coming at them by developing their own structures and strategies for making sense of it all;
• Self-reflectors who are not solely dependent on external evaluation to drive their decision making and their evolution as learners and people;
• Self-publishers who understand the power and importance of sharing and connecting information and knowledge and can do it effectively and ethically;
• Self-protectors who understand where the online dangers lie, can recognize them, and can act appropriately to stay away from harm.
Redux | May 12, 2007: Want to know what's hot in the world of web apps? Then go check out this year's list of Web 2.0 award winners.
And, for the freelancers out there, Yoav Ezer has put together a comprehensive annotated list of web-based tools covering everything from marketing to money management to writing tools. Bookmark it, already!
If, like me, you spend significant amounts of time working online from home (I do have a "proper" office, but telecommuting offers me greater freedom and is better suited to my work style; plus there are enjoyable distractions at home), then this post by Mike Gunderloy at Web Worker Daily may be just what you need to help expand your online office.
[Cross-posted at Eric Eckl's "Water Words That Work".]
I have a request for all of you today.
A little background: Eric’s blog serendipitously went live at the same time ESDRC was considering developing a number of short movies related to water use and watershed management. Needless to say, we’ve found the information very useful. Currently, it is our intention to develop a series of 4–7 minute shorts, each with a different focus, and take them on the road to local rural and urban communities. We intend to partner with a group that travels the province (New Brunswick) during the summer and fall and presents old Hollywood movies in the outdoors. We envisage that each screening will be preceded by one of the short water movies. An individual from ESDRC will also be present throughout the evening to offer more information and answer questions.
We are not entirely new to filmmaking but we have never secured funding for this type of venture before. Given that there are likely to be other videographers with similar interests and/or greater experience reading this, I would welcome any comments or suggestions you may have related to funding.
Are there common pitfalls to avoid with this type of project, and what should we consider if requesting assistance from arts and culture bodies (a first for us) as opposed to environmental trusts (our traditional source of project funds)?
Many thanks!
Thanks to Will Richardson for the link.
Our job is to create twenty-first-century citizens. We need workers, yes, but we also need scholars, activists, parents — compassionate, engaged people. We’re not reinventing schools to create a new version of a trade school. We’re reinventing schools to help kids be adaptable in a world that is changing at a blinding rate.
—Chris Lehmann
Thanks to Christy Lee Engle for the link.
It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness, a community practicing mindful living. And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
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