Those Parking Spaces Close to the Building

I've been thinking lately about our Catholic mission and some of our fundraising practices. With the economy dipping and all of us fearing late tuition payments and falling enrollments the importance of annual appeals and third source fund raisers becomes even more critical.

One common practice is to auction off certain naming rights or privileges. We frequently auction off annual naming rights for our gymnasium and of course the two parking spaces closest to the front doors. I don't know why but as of late these practices seem to bother me. Maybe it's because I recently finished E.F. Schumacher's "Small if Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered" (It's a fabulous read and I highly recommend it) Maybe it is just the effects of a long Lent. I wonder though what message it sends when the first impression we often make to our visitors is here are the parking spaces for the rich children or here is the gym named for the local business. We claim our mission is to make the world a better place - where the Gospel message radiates the love of Christ through our own lives to those around us. I wonder how this practice helps accomplish the mission.

Philanthropy is great and I don't mean to discourage our community members from supporting our mission with their donations. We all know these families could just as easily spend these dollars elsewhere. Obviously we are thankful for all the gifts we receive. We need their support but I sometimes wonder where the line needs to be drawn. What if we put a sign over the closest parking space that said "Reserved for the Least Among Us." It would be interesting to see who takes the space at the next sold out basketball game. I suppose in some ways this type of giving and public naming might encourage others to give - a type of positive peer pressure.

We are gearing up for a building campaign and these issues will become critical over the next three to four years of our school's existence. I suppose it is to dreamy to imagine the science wing donated to the anonymous giver or the "we give because we care" performing arts center.

I realize I am a total hypocrite as I recently purchased at my local grade school's auction the first rows for my sons' upcoming first communion. The price was only $48 but then again that number rings a little too close to 30 pieces of silver. I've been assured it isn't simony to sit in the front row but then again somehow I feel like one of those money changers Jesus came chasing after.

Economics and Catholic Thought

With the potential collapse of capitalism happening in our life times I've been giving some thought to how high school economics classes are taught. I'm specifically interested in those being taught in Catholic high schools. Financial literacy is becoming an extremely important topic. This years events have provided much fodder for discussing economics. The time seems very ripe for open minds to perhaps consider some alternative economic theories that both understand human freedom and the right ordering of goods.

We have a great history to stand upon from numerous papal encyclicals to the work of Dortothy Day and others. G.K. Chesterton and others have dabbled in the theory of distributism as an alternative to communism, socialism, or capitalism. Graduating students who have a depth of understanding regarding the right ordering of society and economic rights and responsibilities is perhaps a key step to rebuilding our countries financial institutions. Our students are tomorrows leaders. I have to believe students steeped in a thorough understanding of "fiat" currency, monetary theory, and the historical debates regarding the concept of an economic system built on "interest" will go a long way towards forming a more just economic world.

Most states require an economics course for high school students. The secular books we use rarely if ever mention alternative economic theories. As Catholic schools we count on our staff to add the deeper context and meaning required to look at economic issues through the Catholic world view.

Here are a few helpful resources to begin the conversation:
Papal Document Pacem In Terris
Papal Document Quadragesimo Anno
Small is Beautiful by Schumacher


Below is a video to help understand the current financial crisis that your teachers may find helpful.

The Credit Crisis - Animatic from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.


This vide is long in length but if you find yourself with 47 minutes and not much to do I think you'll find it fascinating. I don't personally agree with everything in the film but it is intriguing.

Watching Web 2.0 Deepen Learning

Every now and then as a principal I have the chance to get out and teach a unit here and there. For the past couple of years I've really enjoyed teaching an economics unit on futures trading and the role futures markets play in price discovery. We spend five days on the topic and the project culminates with the creation of a mock futures exchange with students wearing trading jackets screaming and yelling bids and offers back as they respond to market conditions being periodically broadcast. At this point we have a firm grasp on the role of hedgers and speculators in the modern market place.

It is a fun project but certainly not unique. What helps add to the depth of the learning is the integration of web 2.0 tools into the project. To create a true market experience we invite friends from all over the country to participate by watching our trading through ustream. These customers then call in orders direct to our student brokers via their cell phone or yahoo instant messenger. These clerks take the orders and hand them into our floor brokers who execute the orders on their customers behalf. It's a good time for all and proves to be a very valuable and memorable experience for our seniors.

What surprises me is how these tools can catch fire with other instructors. Our talented art teacher has begun using ustream and skype to work with Doug Lenuig of Purpose Driven Art on an upcoming project advocating for the importance of clean water. These tools are bringing our art students into contact daily with a world class artist. It is certainly exciting to watch and see our students so engaged in their learning. It is especially edifying to see after all of our efforts to bring macbooks to our staff, blazing fast bandwidth to our halls, and a liberal attitude towards implementing these technologies. It is paying off and our students are reaping the benefits. Now we can set our sties on a 1:1 within two years.

Below are some short vids of the projects in action. Apologies for the audio quality on the second one we forgot to plug in our better mic.  

Systematizing our Values

Over the weekend I was privileged to attend the Educon 2.1 conference in Philadelphia hosted by the Science Leadership Academy. SLA is into its third year of operation as a join project of the Philadelphia Public School System and the Franklin Institute. A large part of the success of the SLA rests with their visionary leader and principal Chirs Lehmann. The Educon conference is hosted by educators for educators with no corporate sponsorships. It is a volunteer run conference with some heavy hitters in the progressive movement even chipping in to collect garbage and clean tables. If you can get away to one conference next year I highly recommend Educon 2.2 in beautiful Philadelphia.

Chris offered a session during Sunday about connecting values with systems that continues to leave my mind spinning. We are often pushed to espouse our values. Our mission statements invoke them we plaster them all over our schools on laminated colored cardboard but how do we know we live them? If we can’t point to systems in place that make these values a lived reality odds are we only pay them lip service.

This made me think about our own values in my high school. We list seven: faith, individual dignity as a gift from God, family, service to others, personal responsibility, teamwork, love of learning, and tradition. Yet there seems to be a few we only pay lips service to.

We value teamwork but we don’t seem to do too much of it in regards as all the various constituents working together. How many team settings do we have that involve administrators, teaches, students, and parents? I’d argue none unless you count attending an athletic event or some type of year end picnic. We have a school leadership team that blends teachers and administrators (more on this later) to solve common problems together but we rarely have invited students into the discussion. We seem to relegate their role to that of detainees to be managed instead of co-owners in the work we do.

In reflecting on this a few ideas come to mind: what about a student – faculty composed appeal board for disciplinary decisions? A student who truly perceives their offense and consequence as an outrage against fairness could appeal to a board of peers. The devil is always in the details but this would further develop our values of teamwork and responsibility.

I like this idea of identifying and creating systems that implement what we claim to value. Give the exercise a go in your own building and see what your analysis is.