What It Takes to Change the Game

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Popular magazines publish lists of the world’s most influential thinkers each year, but few of these people become true game changers.  Yet once in awhile it happens.   Someone shatters our preconceptions and creates a very different way of looking at things.   This has been called a paradigm shift, most often seen in science and technology.       

 Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell describes how a momentous change most likely is influenced by combination of people in various roles.   He calls them connectors, mavens, and salesmen.   Personally, I try to decide for myself whether to make a paradigm shift part of my quality world.    

Our own choices define our “quality world”, according to reality therapist William Glasser.  Our needs are met when those choices harmonize with our role models, possessions, and systems of belief.  The quality world is a place of personal ideals and perfection.   No paradigm shift can find its way into our own hearts and minds unless it can be calibrated to fit our “personal picture album”.

Ask yourself what recent changes have affected your habits of thinking.  Did they happen suddenly?  Were opinion shapers involved?   Are the changes gaining traction in your quality world?  The answers can be self-revealing  

Let me share a couple of personal examples.         

I am still proud that I won an elementary school high jump contest in 1955.  I remember it vividly because after winning, I took an extra jump and broke my arm in the packed sawdust.  Thirteen years later an American competitor named Dick Fosbury won the high jump at the 1968 Mexico Olympics with a 7’4” vault.  I was awestruck.  He was destined to revolutionize the sport and set the world standard in short order.   Defying conventionality, he invented what became known as the Fosbury Flop when he kicked a lead leg upward and then rotated his body like a corkscrew, falling backward over the bar.   

A thick foam rubber landing pad helped Fosbury develop his skill early on.  Invented in 1929, with enormous current implications, foam rubber has kept legions of high jumpers and pole vaulters from breaking their necks.  But Fosbury was truly a game changer.  The jumping events remain a very big deal in my personal quality world.  I never miss watching the Olympics.  

Paradigm shifts begin with a contention so universally accepted that no one really questions it.   Pencils are still a perfect expression of technology, but lately a cascade of shifts has made them all but obsolete.   When I was growing up, a phone was meant for taking and making calls, usually to my girlfriend.  However, in a blink of time, they have been transformed from clunky wire-linked vehicles into wireless digital instruments that perform extraordinary tasks.   Not the least of these is storing and sharing nearly all of the world’s recorded knowledge.  

 My game changers in this realm are Mark Zuckerberg and Steven Sasson.  Zuckerburg and friends launched facebook in 2004.  Via this powerful social engine, I maintain contact with “friends” across the country.   Moreover, I upload and share digital photos daily, thanks to Steven J. Sasson, an American electrical engineer who invented the first (26 pound) digital camera at Eastman Kodak in 1975.      

Latent paradigm shifts are constantly percolating as technology races ahead.  We gain perspective when we throw out old assumptions, keep nostalgia in check, and gauge usefulness.   Shifts may be sudden, or take decades or centuries while struggling for release from prejudice or ignorance.  When they fully activate, they quickly gain momentum and affect millions of people.   Game changers rock the world, but personal choice determines whether that world is our own.  

Photos to Accompany A Tour of Irish Connections

A Tour of Irish Connections

A Tour of Irish Connections

I have always wanted to visit Ireland.  A connection to my ancestors has a lot to do with it.  Supposedly, my great grandfather Hugh emigrated from the area of Cork.  In 1841, at the age of seven he arrived by sloop on Chebeague Island, Maine, just north of Portland.  As years went by, he married on the island, had a son Henry (my grandfather), founded a small Protestant church of the Nazarene, and owned and captained a sloop he used to install and repair lighthouses along the coast.  Big pieces of Hugh’s history are missing, however.  For instance, he had a brother whose Catholicism is said to have caused some sort of early-age split.  What happened to the brother and to their parents?  Ancestry.com may be the answer, but in the meantime a 12-day bus tour around Ireland promised to suggest some personal connections I had wondered about.

I was not disappointed, but the people connections I discovered were unexpected.  They had little to do with Hugh Bowen, but everything to do with the way certain individuals have impacted the values, traditions, and history of the Irish.  Three vignettes illustrate this point.

First, on our second tour day out of Dublin, we arrived at a place called the Irish National Stud Gardens.  The place is a prime location for breeding equine champions, but also the location of an impressive Japanese garden, said to be the first of its kind in Europe.  Who connected these two things?  The Irish adore thoroughbred racing horses, and both breeding and betting on them is a way of life.  They can thank Colonel William Hall Walker (1856-1933) for nurturing their passion.   Walker was a gambler, commentator, and critic who developed a fascination for Eastern religions and astrology.  After purchasing a spacious plot of land for a stud farm, Walker proceeded to breed a long line of derby champions in the early 1900s.  His broodmare program was based on astrology.  Oddly enough, it worked!  Perhaps the celestially oriented setting of beautiful gardens facilitated happy breeding as well.  The horses we met at what has become National Stud were a famously sated bunch.

A second connection was cemented by a plaque posted to the lobby wall of the luxurious Europa Hotel in Belfast.  It commemorates the fact that President William Jefferson Clinton slept there in 1995. Why?  It is significant that the Europa was bombed 23 times by the Irish Republic Army but stubbornly remained open in the early 1990s.  But the key link belongs to Senator and special envoy George Mitchell from Maine.  He is still widely regarded as a national hero because, after being appointed to the task by President Clinton, Mitchell masterfully negotiated principles of nonviolence and a lasting peace between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic to the south.  The “Troubles” of this era are deeply impressed in the minds and hearts of the Irish.  Reconciliation nowadays is a political rather than a violent matter, thanks to two American leaders and the miracle of skillful diplomacy.     

For a third and final connection, while traveling across a sparsely inhabited rocky landscape called the Burren, on our way to Galway, our tour bus suddenly encountered a jampacked town street lined with cars and campers on both sides.  We had arrived at the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival of 2017.  This is Ireland’s biggest singles festival, which attracts love seekers for dancing, music, and “craic” (fun in Gaelic) for an entire month.  Apparently attracting over 60,000 people worldwide, the festival highlights a semi-retired plumber named Willie Daly who has gained fame as a traditional connector of couples.  Allegedly, if you touch his “lucky book” with both hands at his office in the Matchmaker Bar, you will be married in six months.  Obviously, Willie has legions of believers.

Great grandfather Hugh Bowen drew me to Ireland in the first place.  Most likely I discovered his place of embarkation to America, the port of Cobh, but other aspects of his history are shrouded in mystery.  What is very clear, however, is that Ireland is loaded with fascinating connections just waiting to test our curiosity and help us learn about ourselves, the emerald isle, and the history we share.    

Jeffrey Bowen

October 2, 2017

 Alliances Build A Healthy Community

By Dr. Jeffrey M. Bowen

Nearly 23 years ago, as a new school district administrator, I was invited to work with a newly chartered regional network named the Healthy Community Alliance (HCA).   Funded by a $200,000 grant from the state’s Charles D. Cook Office of Rural Health, the Alliance was launched in 1996 as one of 32 networks.  To this day, the organization focuses on the health-related needs of rural communities including Arcade, Springville, and Gowanda.

 As a founding member of HCA, I marvel at how it has matured into a highly adaptable nonprofit dynamo that thrives in a shifting environment of competition and cooperation.   Nowadays our service area includes 57 zip codes in parts of four western counties including Erie, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, and Wyoming.   Last year HCA staff served more than 20,000 individuals across dozens of programs all designed to enhance the quality of rural life.  

 HCA accomplishments have historically supported young people, families, and older citizens with special attention to the disadvantaged or underserved.  Currently we partner with the Springville Concord Elder Network (SCENe) to offer a popular educational speaker series.   In Gowanda, we are providing living healthy chronic-disease self-management workshops.   Recent grants won by the Alliance ensure safe routes to schools, after-school programs, and family counseling centers.   The latest award is a $25,000 grant from the Health Foundation of Western New York to implement innovative ways to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable older adults.  All programs and workshops are free for registrants.    

 HCA headquarters is a facility known as Community Place, a stoutly built former elementary school in downtown Gowanda.  The upper floors house 32 units of affordable senior housing.  In addition, this facility offers adult day services, audiology services, a county store pantry, a private counseling practice, a family center, a county senior wellness and nutrition site, congregate dining plus off-site delivery of meals, and family doctors’ offices.  In short, Community place is ideal central location for recreation, wellness, and health promotion throughout the region.

Currently the Alliance is playing an essential role in statewide health care reform.   A major purpose is to reduce the costs and improve services to Medicaid patients.  A key goal is to activate patient engagement in services that may forestall unnecessary hospital emergency room visits yet help the underserved take advantage of primary care services and Medicaid coverage.    

Our diverse activities demand excellence in nonprofit management and policy.  Our executive leadership and financial stewardship are outstanding.  Policy, direction, and accountability are provided by a diversified 14-member volunteer board of directors.    

Good boardsmanship is a priority.  We anticipate openings in the near future. If interested, please contact CEO Ann Battaglia at 716-532-1010 (abattaglia@hcanetwork.org).  Feel welcome to tour Community Place or learn more at www.communityalliance.org. 

  

Note:  Dr. Bowen is a founding member of the Healthy Community Alliance and currently serves as its president.  He is a charter school consultant and retired superintendent of Pioneer School District.  

9/1/17

New York Public Schools Excel in Many Different Ways

New York Public Schools Excel In Many Different Ways

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The beginning of the new school year encourages everyone to put their best educational foot forward.  Our children experience excitement while their parents often breathe a sigh of relief but want assurance that the quality of their children’s learning will remain strong and uncompromised.  Generally, community residents look for evidence that their investment of tax revenue will yield the best possible results.  Fortunately, there is convincing proof that New York’s public schools meet all of these expectations.

 Governance and accountability are good starting points.  New York governs education mainly across two related layers of control – state and local.  At the state level our legislature and the Board of Regents adopt laws and regulations that arguably make New York the most educationally mandated state in the nation.  State aid to schools amounts to some $25 billion annually, about a quarter of the state’s budget.  State revenue sources account for 36 percent of all school district expenditures.  Since policy follows the buck, it is unsurprising that hundreds of earmarked policy requirements set performance standards for local districts.  

 Local school boards represent a second layer of accountability.  They must comply with a huge collection of legal requirements.  Technically, a board must be authorized specifically by law to act.  According to one statute, Section 1709 of education law, they are obliged to adopt a budget, hire staff, develop curriculum, purchase textbooks, provide transportation and maintain school facilities.  Much of this is delegated to the superintendent. What is more, except in large cities, local residents can yea or nay a board adopted spending plan for which opportunity for public input is mandated.  In short, New York’s educational governance system bristles with controls to assure that certain operational standards will be met.

What sorts of exemplary programs and services showcase the results of all these legal provisions? Here is a sample:  

-- Our support for children with disabilities has far exceeded federally mandated minimums for many decades; an average of 13 percent are identified, and they account for about 30 percent of school district spending.

-- A 2010 national study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that we rank second among 47 states in health education and creating healthy school environments.

-- Outside of cities, we mandate and heavily aid transportation to and from school for all children who live more than two or three miles away, including all nonpublic and charter school children.

-- Categorical state funding for prekindergarten enables nearly 60 percent of our three and four-year-olds to participate, which puts New York in the top five states nationally.

-- Since 1948 our state has offered shared cost effective educational services through a current 37 regional boards of cooperative educational services (BOCES) whose services cover career and technical education, special education programs, and professional development for district employees.  

--Finally, all of our public school teachers must acquire masters degrees to achieve certification, which then must be maintained annually by professional development.

Some of the best news about NYS public school performance is revealed by the combination of its many facets, as reported by Education Week this year.  On average, two of every three 18- to 24-year-olds are college students or graduates.  Only two others states do better.  The national average is 56 percent.   

 On indicators ranging from chances of life success to achievement and finance, New York achieves a grade of B- (79.8 on a scale of 100), and ranks ninth in the nation.  The national average is C (74.2).  New York has remained well within the top 10 states since the beginning of Education Week profiles 20 years ago.   

Several of our performance indicators are simply outstanding.  No other state comes close to having required subject exams for high school graduation since the 1870s.  Our high school graduation rate stands at 78 percent.  Although this is only at the national average, our percentage improvement since 2012 has soared 17.5 percent, outpacing the average national  change of 8.5 percent.

 On Advanced Placement tests, for every 100 students who participate, 37 scored three or better (considered passing) in 2014.  This surpasses the national average of 29 per 100.  Were it not for the alternative cost-saving arrangements that encourage students to gain advanced (state) college credit without AP, our participation rates would be higher.    

New York invests vigorously in their public schools, as is true for all public services.  We spent 4.2 percent of our taxable resources on education as of 2014. The national average was 3.3 percent.  Most revealing, however, is the extent to which we have applied these tax revenues to level the learning field for all children.  Given the number of students involved, and the demographic diversity of the state, it is astounding that we achieve a top national benchmark of B+ (88.7) compared to the national average of C (73.9) on indexes that measure how well educational expenditures and opportunities have been equalized.  

Education is always a work in progress, and averages tell a limited story, but as this school year begins, the vitality and scope of New York’s public educational quality should reassure us that every New York student who makes it here can definitely make it anywhere.    

 NOTE: A list of sources may be obtained upon request. 

Windjammer Trip for 50th Wedding Anniversary

We'd Still Find Each Other

WE’D STILL FIND EACH OTHER

by Jeffrey M. Bowen 7/17

I don’t believe in fairy tales,

And we may not find the holy grail,

But the road ahead will never fail

Because we found each other

Steep places loom along the way.

No predicting time or day.

But we got this far and love has stayed,

Because we found each other.

Glories fail and promises lie,

While fires burn and embers die,

But we’ve believed in second tries,

Because we found each other

Our first perception, like the last,

Is right and true, and strong and vast,

Love wins out, our die is cast,

Because we found each other.

It’s hard to tell when our love began.

Through trials and troubles it still stands,

In another time or another land

We’d still find each other. 

Love Made All the Difference (50th wedding anniversary poem)

LOVE MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE  

I met you long ago it seems,

When I was very young.

My head was filled with silly dreams

Unfinished, just begun.

And only now, as years have passed,

Do I really truly see

The way you took my silly dreams,

And made them real for me.

You shared with me your questions,

Your pleasures and your pain,

Your peace as well as anger,

Your sunshine and your rain.

You built with me your castles,

Shared with me your schemes,

Forgot me not in wakefulness,

Forgot me not in dreams.

I can’t say how much that means,

Except that dream we must,

And if a dream has no real chance,

Then life can taste like dust.

You knew that years ago I think.

As you sifted through the sands,

You found the best that I could be,

And helped our life become a plan.  

Love made all the difference,

Forgiveness kept it warm.

In every yesterday we share,

Tomorrow is reborn.

By Jeff Bowen on the 50^th wedding anniversary of Jeff and Hillary Bowen

A Journey Up and Down the River (Updated)

A Journey Up and Down the River

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Rivers and other bodies of water tell very interesting stories about us.  The stories can be found in our many colorful analogies and popular expressions, best understood with tongue held firmly in cheek.

The directions of currents significantly predict our destinies. Getting sold down the river means you were cheated.  Being sent up the river suggests you went to prison.  The former probably originated from sour land deals, while the latter surely refers to the Hudson River and a trip from New York City to Sing Sing, or Ossining where an infamous prison is located.

 People in that boat find themselves in hot water, even though they are floating on a cold river.  Maybe they are up a creek without a paddle, but one cannot be quite sure why that is always so bad.  Really, being swept downstream may quite enjoyable.  It is popularly known as going with the flow.

All this is fine unless you are headed for a (water) fall.   It is best to stay philosophical about flow because, after all, pretty soon it will all be water under the bridge.

 But there is another condition where you don't go much of anywhere at all.  Encountered on lakes or oceans more often than on a river, you are becalmed.  Just remember, it is even less desirable to be stuck in the doldrums.  Then you are really going nowhere anytime soon.

  Drifting has a bunch of connotations, but I usually think of it as aimlessly wandering.  Still, drifting down a river can be positive if you think like Huck Finn; then it becomes an adventure.

 In fact, tripping downstream or upstream can be either romantic, mysterious, or both.   Otherwise, why would composers write songs like “Cruising Down the River” (on a Sunday afternoon, with birds making love up above) or “Up A Lazy River”? Why do song writers give rivers names like Moon, Swanee, and Deep?  Because it’s a great shorthand for communicating love, longing, or religious beliefs.

  Not always is the romance a beautiful thing because some people woefully croon “Cry Me A River “.  And as for “Old Man River”, well he’s just plain lazy and keeps on rolling along; that is, “Rollin’ on the River”.   Age really does have redeeming virtues.  Consider the vintage rock singer Tina Turner.  Her gyrations when rolling on the river were never lazy.

  

   What happens on the typical cattle drive or mass migrations of wildebeests?  A river crossing, of course!   At that juncture, we get into big trouble.  Just like us, the animals get caught in cross currents, or they wade into deep water that is over their heads.  Presumably they are not getting into the same kind of hot water as felon.

  But far be it from me to throw cold water on the idea because we all have rivers to cross under many different circumstances.  When we reach the point of no return, then like Julius Ceasar in 49 A.D., we “cross the Rubicon”.  If you don’t have a bridge over troubled water, then a river crossing becomes obligatory.

 The time has arrived to stop, tread water, and drop anchor.  There is no time for a river dance.  However, if you would like to continue, go ahead and walk on water.  You will find it helpful to have a rudder and to stay on an even keel.   

JMB

7/7/2017

The Devil Likes Details

The Devil Likes Details

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The old expression “the devil is in the details” rings true for those of us who don’t pay attention until he comes   back to bite us.  When I untie my shoes, for instance, the knots on each shoe look exactly alike.  Apparently, they are not.  The laces on one shoe untie easily, but on the other they turn into a nasty knot.   Inevitably, I pull harder which just makes matters worse.  The details bedevil me, but as we discovered long ago, life is a minefield of details.  Even so, the smallest slices of life make a whole pie of enjoyment.

Why are details really quite positive?   Basketball coach John Wooden said, “It’s the little things that make big things happen.”  Coaches watch for details that can trigger a win or loss.  Novelist Ernest Hemmingway observed, “Every man’s life ends the same way.  It is only the details of how he lived and died that distinguish one man from another.”  We remember individuals based as much on personal details as on big accomplishments, and even at that the whole picture is a composite of myriad details.  Finally, philosopher Alfred North Whitehead noted, “We think in generalities, but we live in detail.”  Our big ideas become meaningful or life changing only as we hitch details to them.

Success in the business world hinges on attention to details.  In his study of corporations that upscaled from good to great, author Jim Collins pinpoints the importance of getting the right people on your figurative bus, getting the others off, and giving your best riders room to excel.  When I used to interview prospective employees, little details often influenced my thinking.  What was the condition of their shoes?  Did they dress appropriately for a business environment?  Did they look at me directly and shake hands firmly?  Did they say anything that showed me they had done their homework?

Details draw out clues to greatness.  Collins tells the story of a high school cross country running team that won multiple state championships even though many other teams trained just as hard.  The coaches had discovered that the team members ran best toward the end of each race or workout, so they measured not time splits, but rather place splits.  In other words, they looked at how many competitors team members passed during the last stages of a race.  Awards for passing provided incentives to excel.  Essentially, the team focused on a single measurable detail that led to winning rather than placing.  

Recently I read that goals will often take care of themselves when we work on the system that lies under them.  Systems feed on details.  The term bureaucracy comes to mind.  Anyone who has struggled with government mandates, civil service, or the military can already feel the frustration.  But bureaucracy is the operational method of most organizations.  Perhaps because high school civics courses seldom address this topic, young people who confront the world of accountability may conclude that bureaucrats are the enemy.  Instead they should be learning how to maneuver patiently through administrative complexity.  

Admittedly, bureaucracy can make delay the deadliest form of denial.  Yet when functioning properly, bureaucracy is efficient, predictable, impersonal, and fast. If we want things to run smoothly, trained administrators can work magic with the details.

As we age, details mysteriously evaporate.  The results can be disastrous.  For one thing, safety demands attention to them.  Airline pilots and doctors are acutely aware that flight

disasters and levels of hospital infection can be reduced dramatically when simple, sequential checklists of details are used.  As Atul Gawande writes in his book “The Checklist Manifesto”, such lists ensure that stupid but critical stuff is not overlooked, while making sure that people accept responsibility, discuss, and coordinate their efforts.  I always knew there were powerful reasons why my wife and I make lists of everything we must not forget to do. When it is not on the list, usually it won’t happen.  

 What details do we remember best?  Research suggests that memories usually lock in the details of the last scene in a movie, rather than what we see at the beginning or in the middle.  Also, we remember how we felt both before (predicting) and after (recalling) an experience more than how we felt when it actually occurred.  In other words, memories lie. Recording the factual details can be helpful.  Psychologist Daniel Gilbert cautions young people not to accept the recollections of experienced experts at face value because “we tend to remember the best of times and the worst of times instead of the most likely of times.”

Despite the dysfunctions of memory, details found in the midst of an experience can nurture happiness in the long run.  Several years ago we visited a breeder of Labrador retrievers.  She showed us a new litter of five black puppies, and, of course, we fell in love with all of them.  We noticed that one was bigger than the others, and a friend suggested that probably he got a bigger share of mother’s milk because he bullied the others aside. Another, said the breeder, was a snuggler.  She picked him up and he rested contentedly upside down in her arms and looked at us.  We chose him.  The details mattered, and to this day they still do.

JMB

7/7/2017

What Became of the DARE Program (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)

What Became of the DARE Program?

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Sometimes songs and lyrics gain new meaning even as they kindle memories.  This is true for a musical message I wrote in 1995, simply called “If We DARE”.   Few Pioneer middle school students of that era may remember the song, but many more may recall a program named Drug Abuse Resistance Education and the program’s enthusiastic instructor, Deputy Wayne Krieger.

Deputy Wayne was Cattaraugus County’s official DARE officer when I arrived at Pioneer Central.  He taught middle school kids a popular 10-week curriculum designed to discourage use of controlled substances and related risky behavior.   Besides teaching, the deputy enjoyed dialogues with students and promoting DARE hats, t-shirts, mugs and sundry other paraphernalia including an old Corvette captured in a drug raid. Kids were expected to sign a pledge to resist drugs, and graduation was a celebration often attended by elected officials.

When the deputy heard that I liked to write a little music and play the guitar, he challenged me to write an official song for the program.  I accepted but asked him to share the curriculum so I could fit the right message into lyrics.   What became of the song, and the entire DARE program, confirms the saying that what goes around comes around.

By June of 1996, teacher Ron Tyrell (M. “T”) and others had corralled a group of 6^th and 7^th graders who were willing to learn the song I had composed.   Deputy Wayne convinced the county legislature to let the kids sing them the song.  Not only were the singers given a standing ovation, but the program was granted $16,000 in county funding for the next year.  To celebrate, two months later we found ourselves repeating the performance in the boxing ring at the county fair.

Although the song never made the charts, the DARE program peaked in popularity among parents, teachers, and politicians.   Born in 1983, DARE was conceived by Daryl Gates, the police superintendent of Los Angeles, who believed that the message of abstinence from drugs, gang membership, and violent behavior would be more convincing if taught directly by trained police officers.  Thousands of school districts adopted this intuitively appealing approach.  

Unfortunately, by the late 1990s, the popular slogan of “Just Say No” had been tested in multiple scientific studies and found wanting.  Critics insisted that the program was more indoctrination than education, and that it increased the awareness and curiosity of youth, but had no effect reducing abuse.  Within a few years, DARE was dropped from federal

lists of evidence-based, grant-funded initiatives.  Yet the program persists as a remarkable network of cooperative efforts still thriving in schools across the country.

There are some convincing reasons why.   One is adaptability   After evaluating and surveying more than 30 federally validated programs, two research universities produced a revised DARE curriculum best summed up by the slogan “keepin’ it REAL.”  The acronym stands for Refuse, Explain, Avoid, and Leave.  Instead of just receiving instruction about controlled substances and addiction, students now engage in dialogues and role playing.  Children are empowered by coping strategies and social-emotional ammunition to resist.  Early surveys show promising results.

Although Pioneer no longer uses the DARE program, mandated health education curriculum includes up-to-date drug abuse lessons.  Encouragements in the DARE song suggest how the message has found its way through the medium and still is working well.   Pioneer continues to nurture self-responsibility and control, self-esteem, making good choices and confident communication skills.  As the lyric says,     

“Life’s all about making decisions,

Life’s all about making a choice.

Don’t let others tell you,

Or try to fast sell you,

Cause you have to listen to hear your own voice.”

No one understood this better than Deputy Wayne Krieger who has become a memorable role model for the many school resource officers who have followed him.  As the lyric notes,

“We all need someone to look up to.

Tell me, who do you think it should be?

Is it someone who follows the others,

Or someone who asks what’s important to you and to me?”

Note: Wayne Krieger served as the county’s DARE officer from 1995-2000.  He also taught criminal justice coursework at the county BOCES.  Krieger’s family works with the Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation to support three scholarships annually for students enrolled in BOCES programs who are interested in the field of law enforcement. 

Moonrise

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The moon peers over shadowed mountains,

Creating a million shimmers on a rippling lake.

I hear gentle laps against the nearby boulders.

The dark and I become friends.

It is as if somehow I have been delivered

To the shores of a magic world

Where moonlight heals my senses.

The journey pauses.

Peace wraps me in her arms

And whispers promises only I can hear. 

Memorial Day for a Sachem Defender

Memorial Day for a Sachem Defender

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Often I think about him.

Bob was my hero.

Three classes ahead of me in high school.

A star debater.

Six feet,

Wavy hair and freckles.

I see his lettered sweater

With the big athletic L on the pocket.

White wool, buttons never done.

How I envied his quick wit,

His confident arrogance,

Delivered with the slightly snide cool

I aspired to.

He went with tall blond Pam for awhile,

Until she told him to go to hell

Because he joked about her ballet

At an LHS talent show.

But then they both grinned.

I stood behind him at the end zone.

He was a Sachem Defender.

I was in the band.

I saw the opposing fullback head straight toward him.

He never flinched.

He grabbed and rolled with the guy,

Brought him down,

But too late,

Beyond the goal line.

But so what. 

It looked so good, so cool, just right.

Bob went to Bates College on a full scholarship,

A place known for debaters.

I lost track but saw him again

At our draft physical.

An aide to Senator McIntyre,

He already had a law degree

And was headed toward an illustrious political career.

But first, the draft lottery—his number came up early.

Army enlisted was his choice.

It would be a shorter interruption

For a guy headed places.

He was on a roll, still confident, still cool,

So funny, so relaxed.

I never knew for sure.

Friendly fire?

Trapped in a typing pool

In a quanset hut on the edge of a jungle?

Maybe both?

But he never did return.

His destiny was stopped dead.

So futile, such a waste, so damned needless.

Bob was a hero – a special one for me.

He was a Sachem Defender.

I wanted to be like him.

I wanted his way with words,

His slightly lobsided smile,

His geniality,

His snide remarks,

His freckles,

His indefinable importance

Whenever he walked into a room.

His face, his presence,

They endure so vividly.

Bob will be my Memorial Day forever.

2015  Note:  Many of my classmates who served with me in Vietnam remember Bob well.  Like me, they heard rumors about his demise, but never learned the truth except to say it was bad. One woman from a class or two behind me in high school remembers Bob as a lifeguard at Weirs Beach near Laconia, N.H. where we grew up.  She was 5 years old and recalls Bob’s unfailing kindness to the little ones like her who constantly pestered him on the beach.  Often we have special memories of those larger-than-life upperclassmen who graduate ahead of us. Surely, Bob evokes those special memories, as well as a sense of tragedy given the needless circumstances of his death. 

Today's Touches

by 

Jeffrey Bowen

Today is a day of reach out and touches,

And though it won't matter to you all that muches,

I have more than one hope and maybe 10 hunches,

If you add them all up they will grow into bunches

Of time without crunches,

And sweets for your lunches,

And a day full of love 

Without any punches. 

The Unity of Time

The Unity of Time

by 

Jeffrey Bowen

May the winds of spring remind you

Of the leaves that blew last fall,

And the summer sun send warmth

When winter gives you none at all.

Let the seasons send a message

Writ like patchwork on a quilt,

When the squares are stitched together,

They show something more was built

With forethought to its purpose

And beauty of design,

A scheme of vivid reasons

For the unity of time.

WESTERN BYROADS

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The roads below weave endless lines,

While far above we love the signs

Of purpose in these random rubs

Across a sun-bleached land of scrub.

Like furrows plowed with no intent,

The routes stretch on without relent

Until a sudden end arrives

So quickly motives won’t survive.

From far above they look like Mars

Journeys lost among the stars.

Did humans really build these roads?

Perhaps they spell out secret codes?

Each groove a story line untold

Of puffs of dust on trails to gold,

Or noble moves in God’s great plan

Amidst the miles of barren land.

I contemplate their mysteries,

Knowing well that some old man

Could tell their history.

No youngster could have drawn these lines,

But old men’s faces show such signs

Of bygone life and worn out creases.

Yet nothing ever truly ceases.

All roads lead to some salvation,

But learning whose is divination.

J. Bowen 11/18/15

My Sweet Seaweed Maiden

By Jeff – July 2016

I can’t quite remember

What inspsired that day,

Or why we were thinking

You’d look good that way.

But the moment still holds me

Near when we first met,

My seaweeded maiden

Decorated by bet.

Our emotions ran strong.

Youth quickened our pace.

Now the feelings rest gently

In the smile on your face.

So the image abides

Like some digital ghost.

Even though we got lost

On the way to the coast,

The picture can find us

And bring us back home

To a place that reminds us

Of the feelings we own.

         

 Competition and Cooperation Go Together in Learning

Years ago at my elementary school, we used to play marbles at recess.  The rules were a variation on pool, and the winner took all.  What made this running competition unique was that our teacher, Miss Magnusson, a towering woman of Nordic heritage, loved to play too.  She won more than her share, and kept her winnings in a large sock.  At the end of the day, she always made us line up to shake hands with her.  She told us this was to show there were no hard feelings.    

Now I realize that Miss Magnusson was watching how we interacted as we played the game.  She was subtly guiding our social adjustment.   Her handshake was about sportsmanship.   Early on, we found that competition arouses great passions.  It tempts us to think in terms of winning or losing, good versus bad, and we/they orientations.

What is more, I learned that competitions live by rules.  Too much creativity or free thinking earns penalties because it may risk unfair advantages and muddy purposes.  Outdoing others is fruitless unless everyone is doing the same thing.  Also, I found that cooperation is built into not just team sports, but into nearly every classroom endeavor.  Nowadays this is often called project-based learning.   

 As high school students, we vied for grades and test scores, girls’ attentions, contest prizes, and ultimately for college admission.  Cooperation paid off as well.   For instance, without regular help from my math-savvy girlfriend, I never could have made it through algebra.  Thinking back, I realize that the key to success in school life was figuring out when and how to compete or cooperate to reach a goal.  I learned that winning and losing are not a zero-sum game, but that both can produce a positive and lasting result.  Teachers and parents alike can help children realize this.

About 30 years ago, Alfie Kohn’s research provided telling insights.  Cooperation, he observed, nurtures high achievement and performance, while competition among children can generate anxiety and low self-

esteem.  Nonetheless, we find or invent competitive contests for almost any activity or skill.  Think of the “Last Survivor” or the “Great Cook-Off”.   In almost any field, Americans see competition as the ideal way to measure self-worth or success.  Our cultural obsession is to win. 

Kohn distinguishes between intentional and structural competition.  Intentions, he says, are the real villain because they compel us to be number one regardless of the psychological cost to others or ourselves.  Sound familiar?

My point is that competition and cooperation are both learned, although I believe our personalities may predispose us more toward one than the other.  From our earliest years on, these two motives intertwine and share a big impact on youthful attitudes and destinies.  

I urge us to seek consistency.  It is no small task. We teach children to compete on teams and to subordinate individual interests to those of the group, but we may contradict this by glorifying individual efforts and unique performances.  Trophies may be awarded for teamwork, but scholarships are reserved for the individual and not the group. We are immensely entertained by athletic contests.  We depend on grading as the best measure of academic accomplishments.  However, we bemoan the displacement of learning goals and the psychological scars these features can create.  The winning record of the high school’s football team thrills us, yet the bullying that results from social competition may horrify us.

 Competition and cooperation are by no means opposites; they feed one another.  We can help our children gain perspective by showing them that success and failure are not truly about keeping score.  Neither winning nor losing should be as important than how the game is played.     

 

JMB

1/30/17

 Time and Money Untangled

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The relationship between time and money is both confounding and fascinating.  Recent survey research suggests that people appreciate or prefer time over money, that is unless they are truly impoverished.  Older folks opt for having more time at the expense of less money as they age.  They may be recognizing their supplies of money dwindle as their free time expands once they vacate the workday world.  As for busy unretired wage earners, the metaphor that time is money makes more sense, or maybe it's cents?  As economic configurations grow more diverse, and semi-retirement becomes a way of life, the parameters for time and money are becoming much more complicated.

  I have spent years trying to figure out what motivates people more – time or money.   Money is what some call a “complexifier” when applied to motivation. Within our minds it can be either an external (extrinsic) or an internal (intrinsic) motivator – or both!  We spend money to meet our needs for self-actualization, that is to help us become the best person we can be through self-improvement or fulfillment, or by helping others, but we also allocate our resources to on extrinsic factors like protecting ourselves, maintaining security, and certainly to gain the approval or support of others. In short, money pivots on purpose and its GPS is motivation.  But how does it relate to time?

Time and dollars are both resources, but money is more so a commodity than time.  Both are potentially available to all, so both are resources, but dollars come closer to what you can can purchase, own, and physically possess as an asset.  Both can be invested, but the payback differs in ways that highlight their differences and our values.  One can produce or shrink the other, though we usually think of time as quality, and money as quantity.  We can buy time, but not always does money make it affordable.  We lose time but inefficiency is more the cause than is money even though the result may be a loss of money.

Interestingly, recent retail sales patterns are telling us that millenials in particular are spending less on tangible goods found on store shelves, and more on experiences like trips, restaurants, or theaters.  To enable this, purchasing goods or services online, or in packaged combinations delivered to our door, is gaining broad appeal across all age groups, but in particular among those whose time is limited because of work.

 The definition of workplace is unbending the connections between time and money as technology has made earning income from home more feasible and convenient.  We can earn free time as a fringe benefit from working, but it seems that Americans tend to want or need less extra time off than in many other parts of the world, like France for instance, where a four-day work week is the norm.  The more we focus on how time is used relative to compensation, the more attention we are apparently giving to quality of life.  And at least in the financially resourced parts of the world, the less attention we are paying to earning enough money needed for survival.

The dynamic relationship between time and money is nowhere more evident or more contentious than in traditional collective bargaining.  In my experience, the benefits associated with time and the benefits of financial compensation have an inverse relationship within an overall budgetary price tag.  I found that unions like to think contracts should not be impeded by any conditional connection between time and money.  Especially where medical insurance benefits come into play at the bargaining table, the negotiations often grow intense because, as bargaining agents for both employers and employees understand, over the last decade or two, the cost of health benefits has outpaced the consumer price index for the combined cost of goods and services.

What about wasting and hoarding?  We can waste both time and money, but hoarding money is easier than doing so for time because relentlessly it passes, and it cannot really be stopped or reversed.  Time lasts forever, yet money cannot because while both are quantifiable, we like to think that the world will cruise on after we are gone, but money won't, which is why we put it in trust so those who follow us will be assured it is preserved.  Of course, putting time in a trust fund doesn't work very well, possibly because it is more of a resource than a commodity.

When we steal or take time, it is typically not considered prosecutable thievery, but the same for money may lead to jail time.  Losing or finding time has its equivalent with money, but the implications differ.  Finding time seems more directly related to personal priorities because when you find it in one activity, you may well lose it in another.  While this doesn't stop us from trying to do several things at once, people like me are sequential thinkers, that is they make a choice to focus on doing one thing at a time.  Money found, on the other hand, may be a nice discovery, but by itself it does not betoken a priority, unless a Scrooge-like mentality makes earning coin an obsession.  Losing time may not mean you gain it elsewhere, though it suggests your speed or efficiency is deficient.  In other words, it is a temporal phenomenon.  No so much for losing money, which suggests you are negligent or have made a bad investment.

 Finding money and time nested together carries double weighted implications, as does losing time and money, but beware they do not always vary in a mated way.  You can easily gain time and lose money, and conversely lose time but gain money.  The relationships, as already mentioned, revolve on purpose and motives -- and on how money and time are measured.

Do money and time link to our health?  Yes of course, but in some ways we might not expect.  With money we can pay for treatments to medical problems.  And it may take a lot of time to heal.  When money and time are restricted, it can spawn emotional as well as physical issues, but as of late our health research has concentrated on the villain of stress as a cause for poor mental and physical health.  Both lack of money and lack of time produce stress, and indeed having too much unproductive time on one's hands can also create stress.  I am less sure about having too much money because I have not experienced its emotional liabilities.  What is clearer to me, and to those conducting appropriate research on the topic, is that giving away these resources to others for so-called charitable purposes produces positive health benefits of all kinds.  Motives count for sure, so charitable work as a tax dodge may not effect positive health as readily as doing so out of the true goodness of one's heart.  In any case, both time and money work in parallel when it comes to volunteering or contributing to help the less fortunate.

So what balance between these two valuable resources of time and money can be struck?  I suggest an analogy.  Let's say you are trying to connect two rods together using two bolts at the ends of the items.  If you tighten one bolt all the way, the other gets misaligned and won't go through its channel, or tighten properly.  The solution is to leave one in place but loose, while the other is threaded.  Then tighten each in turn, little by little.  The analogy fits because money and time work well as partners when you use them together for your intended purpose, incrementally and in balance. The watchword for both time and money, particularly when used in the same sentence, is temperance.

1/27/16

 Why Is the Best Question  

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 We are much better at answering questions of who, what, when and where than answering WHY.  Motives and interpretation lurk beneath the question why and this can muddy the waters for everyone.  It is natural to seek mindfulness and reason in the acts and ideas of others.  Yet just as predictably we lie to ourselves and others when we try to explain our own actions or beliefs.   If science is applied, the answers to why can be hypothesized and proven, but pursuits like romance and religion may shroud the answers in mystery.

Consider the whys found in the old song, “Tell me why the stars do shine, tell me why the ivy twines...."  The composer credits both love and God in his lyrics, but as science fiction writer Isaac Asimov observed, nuclear fusion and tropisms provide more grounded but less exciting answers.   Whatever your perspective, for me asking why has been a lifelong journey toward understanding.  

When we ask why, mostly we hope for simple, specific answers. But when contentious problems or policy issues arise, the why question spawns not just philosophical disagreements, but sometimes warfare.  Active listening while remaining open-minded can help reduce risks.     

As a history teacher I urged my students to think long and hard about developing what we called essential questions without easy answers so their research might stimulate original thinking and real understanding.   Pushing them to ask why provoked blank stares at first but with guidance the students usually waded beyond simple yes, no, or could-be responses.  How I wish today's standardized state tests were designed to do this.

Why escapes us when we dehumanize others.  With disastrous implications given today's refugee exodus from Syria and Afghanistan, we try to answer why by assuming large groups of unidentified people have no minds at all.  We say they lack emotions, needs, or awareness like ours, and therefore may be no more than savages who could harm us.  However, when we meet and talk with them individually, a more sympathetic relationship usually comes to light.  We discover everyone is human after all.  

I experienced this revelation when I attended a multicultural education workshop some years ago.  The facilitator brought a culturally diverse group of individuals to the stage, and then, with their permission, she asked each person to state their name and tell the audience about the origins of their family.  Thus we became vividly aware of both their diversity and their universality.    

Another self-deception comes from giving human characteristics to inanimate objects or animals of all kinds.  A large photo of a silver-haired gorilla hangs on our wall.  A resident of the Buffalo Zoo, he seems to be smiling mischievously at anyone who passes by.  Actually, after taking a picture of him lying down, I hung the picture vertically, which had the effect of making him seem to smile.  I like to think he really is, but it is more likely he had a gas bubble. We want to make things human so we can explain them in our own terms.

By embracing the worlds of why, we can become depressingly negative if we focus just on ourselves ("Why me, God?"), or assertively upbeat ("Why can't we do this?").  I happen to believe that asking why is a direct route to learning.  It signals a curious mind, solves mysteries more than just creating them.  But it has its dangers when it tempts us to think we are right and others are stupid.   The best general rule for why-askers is to pose the question and then be ready to stop, reflect, and be honest about what we hear or see.