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Archive for the ‘Children’ Category

The Watershed School: local interest vs. local access

Posted in Children, Education, Genius loci, Neighborhoods, Social opportunities on May 1, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I may be heading to some kind of Pedestrian Hell: I have enrolled my daughter, a first-grader-to-be, in a charter school.
Actually, The Watershed School, which opens this fall, has a component that should make pedestrian-types long to send their kids there: it focuses on “place-based” education, in which students focus on their local communities to [...]

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Why do we hate teenagers?

Posted in Children, Civic architecture, Public spaces, Social opportunities on June 3, 2008 | 12 Comments »

Why do we hate teenagers so much? What made them an acceptable target for disenfranchisement?
On one of my professional e-mail lists, somebody brought up a problem with teenage skateboarders: they love to use the covered walkway in front of a facility frequented by senior citizens with visual and mobility challenges. Too often (I [...]

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The civic education of our young (Testimony before the Fairbanks City Council)

Posted in Children, City planning, Downtowns, Education, Politics on April 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Tonight (Monday, April 7), the Fairbanks City Council will have a public hearing on the Vision Fairbanks plan for downtown’s revitalization. Resolution No. 4318 is not binding, but it is an important show of support that will influence the actions of the Borough Assembly. Below is my prepared testimony.
***
Good City Council Members,
My wife and [...]

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More lessons from school than those within the walls

Posted in Children, Education, Neighborhoods, Social opportunities on March 30, 2008 | 7 Comments »

Edited 2 April 2008
My wife and I have been confronted with a choice — one that is available mostly to those in our privileged social condition, but a difficult one: where should we send our children to school?
Just a few years ago, we wouldn’t have had this difficulty. We’d have sent the kids to [...]

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Youth soccer, social capital, and neighborhoods

Posted in Children, Neighborhoods, Social capital, Social opportunities on March 4, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Today, I’ll tackle the dark side of one of our most cherished, wholesome institutions: youth soccer. (Is nothing sacred?)
Last night (Monday), I attended a panel discussion on “Building Social Capital”, facilitated by Dr. Susan Herman of the Northern Leadership Center. Briefly, social capital is the density of human social connections either within an [...]

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