Reaching up for the "Oughtness"
By James Howell

We were made, not to be the same, but to be a great symphony of human life, a violin, a tuba, a drum, a clarinet, making beautiful music together.

"I refuse to accept the idea that the isness of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal oughtness that forever confronts him." I love these words, spoken so eloquently by Martin Luther King, Jr., as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo just before Christmas in 1964.

The "isness" of our present nature can, depending on my mood and which way I'm looking, make me smile, chuckle, shake my head, or sigh in despair. What I see - everywhere - is diversity. The dogs in my neighborhood - a quiet Alaskan husky, and a yapping Jack Russell terrier. Sporting events - the Panthers in BankofAmerica Stadium, and five boys trampling my own backyard. Growing things - a patch of daylilies, and a twisted oak - and children.

Every child is unique and precious as a snowflake. The three in my own house could not possibly be more diverse! But our world is growing increasingly uncomfortable with differences. Masking some insecurity, I suspect. Just when telecommunications and population shifts enable us to rub elbows with people we'd only read about a generation ago, suddenly we only cozy up to folks "just like me," and we perceive diversity, not as God's most hilarious, artistic gift, but as a threat.

Here is where the "oughtness" comes in. Diversity is our only hope to grow and mature, to reach our full potential. Why? We need each other; we need to be stretched. One of the virtues of living in a democracy is that we ought to be able to disagree without killing each other. In a dictatorship, you disagree with me, and I have you shot.

Sadly, Americans have forgotten how to disagree. You like Megan, but then you learn she disagrees with you on some subject, so you quit hanging with her and instead move on to Daniel. But then Daniel disagrees on another subject - and eventually you wind up alone. Or superficial. Just talk about the weather. We can agree on the virtue of a sunny day.

But the beauty of disagreement is that we learn. My grandfather, after he retired, walked up to Mr. Teeter's store every morning and sat in wooden chairs with his neighbors, and they argued intensely all day about politics, religion, society. And they were wise men, always learning. Christopher Lasch was onto something when he wrote, "It is only by subjecting our preferences to the test of debate that we come to understand what we know and what we still need to learn. Until we have to defend our opinions in public, they remain mere opinions, half-formed convictions based on random impressions and unexamined assumptions."

The "oughtness" lures us past mere "tolerance." Toleration is a good first step when we find ourselves faced with differences. But we ought to go further. I "tolerate" smoking, in the sense that some people I love smoke - but frankly I think smoking is self-destructive idiocy. But what happens if I merely "tolerate" people who are different? Okay, you can exist, I won't thump you, but I have no respect for you? Diversity "ought" to be richer. I see someone who is different, who thinks differently, whose whole life is lived on another axis from mine. I do not merely "tolerate" this person, but I listen, I engage, I learn, I am enriched, the other person grows, we are better because we bothered with each other. Martin Luther King, in a wise sermon, said "Desegregation alone is shallow. Our ultimate goal is integration. Integration is creative, genuine intergroup, interpersonal doing. A desegregated society that is not integrated leads to physical proximity without spiritual affinity. It gives us a society where elbows are together and hearts are apart." In the "isness" of today, we rub elbows with people who are different. Can we find the spiritual affinity? Can we get our hearts together?

A few folks have to step out and become leaders in this. I love what G.K. Chesterton wrote about St. Francis of Assisi: "He seemed to have liked everybody, but especially those whom everybody disliked him for liking. " Here is the "oughtness" we can reach for: go out and like somebody that somebody else will dislike you for liking. Get your hearts together. Listen. Learn. Celebrate. I can never be who I am supposed to be until you are who you are supposed to be, and we cannot reach up for the "oughtness" alone. We were made, not to be the same, but to be a great symphony of human life, a violin, a tuba, a drum, a clarinet, making beautiful music together. Like the dogs, sporting events and growing things. We disagree, then we hug and thank each other for it, and come back to disagree some more. Somewhere in the disagreement we will stumble upon - not common ground, but "higher ground." Reaching up for the "oughtness."

Environmental Sustainability: How do we achieve it?
Anna Wyatt

Defining sustainability is the easy part; achieving it is more difficult.

The subject of sustainability is one that began to fascinate me a few years ago. Sustainability is a simple idea: the formation of a community that will allow us to maintain the same or better environmental conditions that we have today for our grandchildren. It is an all encompassing concept that not only involves our relationship with the earth, but also our relationships with each other. Defining sustainability is the easy part; achieving it is more difficult. In his book Creating True Peace, Buddhist scholar Thich Nhat Hanh writes:

"We must examine the way we consume, the way we work, the way we treat people in order to see whether our daily life expresses the spirit of peace and reconciliation, or whether we are doing the opposite."

Though Hanh's book is focused on achieving peace, the solution he offers goes hand in hand with environmental sustainability. Each of us makes decisions that affect our world. By becoming more aware of the way we expend our resources and interact with others on a day to day basis, we have the power to make our society sustainable. Hanh's solution is feasible because, rather than setting broad, unachievable goals for society, it places the burden of responsibility on the individual. While creating widespread social change can seem overwhelming if not impossible, a solution such as Hanh's, when supported by a group of caring individuals, has the potential to have an enormous impact. Social epidemics tend to follow exponential, not linear growth models: two people each influence two friends who each influence two more, et cetera, and as the exponent grows, the effect spreads more and more rapidly.

I believe that the ever growing diversity, cancer, and environmental initiatives of Myers Park High School are a perfect example of how motivated individuals can enrich the community. Under the direction of Environmental Systems teacher Robert Corbin and IB Coordinator Dr. Ron Thomas, my classmates and I are challenged to identify issues of importance in our community, develop a plan of action, and take the initiative to become agents of positive change. Through a Myers Park partnership with Duke University, the Duke Dialogues, we have extraordinary opportunities to assume leadership for the betterment of our community. When we as individual students recognize that we have the power to affect our community in a positive way, we are inspired to action. Margaret Mead said:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

As members of a community, each of us needs to take our individual responsibility seriously. This means doing the little things: turning out lights, recycling, respecting others, walking more, and appreciating the diversity of the people and the natural environment around us. In the words of Theodor Geisel ("Dr Seuss"): "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

BROWN I, BROWN II ... BROWN III?
Steve Johnston

Can a city educate its haves and have-nots separately, and still aspire to be a diverse, open, growing, welcoming place?

At the height of the civil rights movement, Charlotte's soul, or perhaps only its survival mentality, was awakened by a U.S. District Court judge. The judge convened the decision-makers in his courtroom or in his chambers. He used his bully pulpit to educate an unwilling citizenry in the rule of law. He clothed a citizens group in the power of the court as they worked to create a way to desegregate the schools that the community would embrace.

Today, who will awaken this community's conscience? The courts have exited, stage right. Top business leaders are diverted by the economy and the national scope of their ever-larger companies. And few communities are blessed with leaders respected across ethnic, economic and other lines. Charlotteans focused on the schools' future are floundering without a convener.
Charlotte's current course, allowing choice to create separate schools, may indeed be a disavowal of Brown I, the 1954 Supreme Court being celebrated this spring. But Brown II in 1955 was a backtracking on Brown I: The order to desegregate with "all deliberate speed" signaled that communities opposed to desegregated schools would face no imminent threat.
Progress since Brown has always been slow, and not linear. But now, what is progress? The scrutiny that comes with standardized testing has brought help to many children who would have been left behind earlier, but are rising test scores all that count? Can a city educate its haves and have-nots separately, and still aspire to be a diverse, open, growing, welcoming place?

Charlotte seems to want all children to learn. Achievement gaps are closing at the lower grades, though similar gains at secondary schools are spotty and dropout rates remain high. Community leaders push achievement because that is the one goal everyone appears to agree on. Disagreements within the community immediately surface when discussion broadens to include assignment. And citizens have not instructed their political leaders that they are willing to accept a heavier tax burden to educate all kids.

Decades ago, the courts designed and enforced a constitutionally mandated task - desegregating the schools. In Charlotte, the buses that had been used to transport children to racially segregated schools were rerouted to transport them to desegregated schools. The most busing miles fell to black children, and at earlier ages. It was to be, and became, a temporary solution.

The temporary solution bought time for communities to do what it would take to maintain desegregation. Communities had time to equalize services and integrate neighborhoods such that schools would remain desegregated. Charlotte had more than three decades to rise to the task. It squandered a golden opportunity.

Look around. Do we provide services in a unitary way? Do sewers serve all, or do they stop short of some poor neighborhoods? Do street cleaners clean poor neighborhoods as often as wealthy neighborhoods? Is publicly maintained landscaping of equal quality all across town? Do people in all parts of town have access to similar urban services, including low-cost supermarkets? Is the face of poverty multiracial, or predominantly of one race? Are neighborhoods about as racially and economically segregated as during Jim Crow? If our failures have a racial face, why is that? And what will it take to get beyond the social order we have inherited?

At a conference in Charlotte last summer, lawyers and researchers huddled to pinpoint the legal strategies they may use to fight these battles. But ultimately, what communities face are not so much legal issues as ethical, moral and political ones. Those issues cannot be left to lawyers in distant courtrooms. They must, and they will, be decided by the folks at home.

To every person under 20 reading this: While the adults are off shooting each other in the foot, why don't you fix this mess? You do have the capacity to do so. Take the lead, and the adults will follow. Speak up for living and learning together as one. Speak up for pulling every child out of poverty. And set an example by acing every exam, setting your life goals high, and giving every wavering fellow student an encouraging push to do the same.

Steve Johnston is editor of Educate!, a weekly journal on Charlotte-Mecklenburg public education delivered from www.educateclt.org and published by The Swann Fellowship.

The Struggles of an Immigrant
Emilia Benavides

You should know that anywhere that you go you will find people who will not like you, but this should not stop you from being successful.

Throughout the time that I have lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, I have seen many changes in the population. I can still remember the first day that I arrived in the United States. I was born in California and at the age of three, my parents decided that the best thing for us to learn about our culture was to move back to Mexico, not only to learn the language but also get the cultural experience. I lived there for ten years, until the economy was devastating all of the income that we had. We decided to move back into the United States, but by that time, I had forgotten all the English that I might have known.

When I arrived and began school, they placed me in a special classroom, also known as ESL (English as a Second Language). In that classroom I found a lot of kids that were in the same situation as I was. They came from other countries, and the majority of them, including myself, did not want to be here. During the first two months, the time that it took me to learn English, I was discriminated against. The students would tease me by telling me to go back to where I came from, that I did not belong here, that nobody liked me, and that I could not even speak, therefore I was considered to be ignorant. Those comments really hurt me at that moment, and it affected my life. The fact that I was bullied, gave me the strength to do better, in order to show the students that I was not the ignorant, that in that case they were the ignorant ones. By the end of my eighth grade I graduated within the top ten students, and by doing this I proved wrong the other students.

Now that four years have gone by, and there is a steady increase on the Hispanic population in the Charlotte area, I have felt as if I have to help everyone that I can, who is going through this situation. Since I left the ESL classrooms during the eighth grade, I had no idea if the situation had changed at all. These wondering thoughts lead me to conduct a survey in the ESL classes and in order for it to help my investigation I had to give it only to the Hispanic students, even though they are not the only ones to get discriminated against.

In the survey I had yes or no questions, to make it easy for the students to answer, since many of them only speak a little bit of English. This survey consisted of twenty-five students, all Hispanics, and it ranged from ninth to twelfth grade. The results shocked me, because out of the twenty-five students, 100% said that they have been discriminated against, not only by the students, but also by some teachers. This shows that during a four-year period, there has been no change in the awareness of cultural differences. With this, the second question, asked them to say if it had affected them in a good or bad way. Out of the twenty-five students, 80% said that it had affected them in a bad way, while the remaining 20% said that it gave them strength to prove the person wrong who discriminated them , and to bring awareness to cultural differences.

I was shocked by the results, and decided to write an article of what I went thorough. I shared it with them, and gave them somewhat of a role model to follow so that they could be successful in life, and enjoy it, since they only live once. I also gave them some tips on how to demonstrate that they are as smart as anyone else.

Tips to be Successful Anywhere:

• You should know that anywhere that you go you will find people who will not like you, but this should not stop you from being successful.
• Don't give up, even if you get called names or teased.
• Turn all the negative comments into positive energy so that you might use it to do well.
• Always set your goals, and know what you want. It will make it a lot easier to accomplish your goals if you already know what you want in advance rather than trying to figure them out along the way.
• You will always encounter problems anywhere you go. You should not look at them as problems, but instead you should look at them as opportunities that you are presented with, in order to succeed.
• Set your standards high, and never settle for less.
• Be all that you can be, and become all that you want to be.