My Marriage Toast to Seth and Carrie Elizabeth Bowen (2001)

 

My Marriage Toast To Seth and Carrie Elizabeth Bowen

2001 and 2020 (19^th Wedding Anniversary)

I toast you with a wish, above all other wishes, that your marriage may be inspired by and learned from what has worked best in my own.

May you be inspired to:

 

Be honest and open, and say what’s on your mind, but say it kindly and with respect.  Make your spouse your best friend, the one you can always talk to without fear of being judged too quickly, dismissed for your stupidity, or given a quick fix.

 

Be a great listener, a sounding board.  This often means being silent, and knowing when to keep your mouth shut.

 

Encourage your mate to grow, take risks; see their potential, give them self-confidence.  Become your mate’s cheerleader. Be proud of what they accomplish.

 

Pay attention to the small things, those little symbolic gestures that are best when unexpected and really meant from the heart.  Those are romantic gestures, and they make all the difference in a relationship, especially when they are spontaneous.

 

Look for ways to create times and places for you to share excitement and peace.  Make your life together exciting, try new things, but make you home a peaceful heaven.

 

Bend with the circumstances, be flexible, because marriage depends above all else in being able to give and take, and go patiently with the flow.

 

Remember that love grows and changes as your marriage rolls into the future.

Peering into the Future Is a Fascinating Business

 

Peering into the Future Is a Fascinating Business

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Peering into the future is a fascinating business.  Humans seem uniquely suited for the task because, among all species, we are the only ones who actually contemplate the future.  Those who attempt to do this reside on a continuum.  At one end are planners who build pyramids of data-based assumptions.  At the other end are soothsayers and fortune tellers whose talents involve intuitive guesswork.  Somewhere in between live weather forecasters, poll takers, marketers, scientists, religious gurus, astrologers, science fiction writers, and most definitely politicians.       

  Taken together all these types extrapolate our minds and hearts into the unknown by building from what is known about the past and present.  A lot depends on what we want to do with the results.  My curious question is this:  When the past and future talk to each other, what do they really say?  

  Science fiction provides one entertaining answer.  The best writers of this genre have insisted that their work provides essential training for anyone who wants to peer at least a decade ahead.  I believe their creative freedom is the mother of invention.  For instance, more than 150 years ago, the French novelist Jules Verne built stories around electric submarines, helicopters, lunar modules, spoken newscasts, solar sails, tasers, and videoconferencing.  The basic technology for all of these existed back then, but Verne turned them into shocking possibilities long before inventors took out patents. 

 Another way to change the future is to rescript the past.  Historians and politicians, among others, share this strategy.  Historians revise their interpretations when they find new artifacts.  Politicians change past practices legislatively to gain power and control.  Thus heroes turn into villains.  Most recently, old statues become catalysts for protest as generational awareness and political agendas shift.      

My favorite strategy for tapping into the future is called futuring.  Unlike predictions which are usually calculated from statistical odds, and forecasts which are tied to specific time frames, futuring develops a bigger picture of broad possibilities.  It paints likelihoods that may change depending on the angle of view and the evolution of trends or changing events.  Originally conceived in the late 1940s as a Cold War gaming strategy, futuring has since become a popular planning strategy in the business world. Portraits of what may happen are enriched by technology. Different scenarios produce a composite of probabilities.

 I was introduced to futuring 50 years ago in a graduate course. Our group project was to describe what elementary and secondary education would be like today – that is, in 2020.    

We treaded through some familiar territory based on our awareness of developing issues such as nontraditional schooling beyond the classroom walls, better support for the disabled, and more responsive counseling services   Our foray into the future was more like short-term predictions extended from the status quo, and limited by the statutory mandates of the day.    

 In contrast, today’s fearless futurists think their way out of the box, and into worlds of internet-enhanced information and data, looking for curious trends, alternative scenarios, and trigger events.  They act more like generalists who scan different disciplines seeking connections among ideas that are novel and unusual.  Futuristic thinkers ask “what if” while remembering that the most specific predictions are probably the ones most likely to be wrong.

 The biggest challenge is to escape the past. When we plan into the future, psychologists tell us that much of our thinking stems from memories of our past.  Yet we gloss over the details in that past, so we may deceive ourselves and fail to learn what not to do in the future.  We also make that past much more predictable than it really was. Finally, survey research also confirms that, regardless of age, we believe that we have changed a great deal over the past 10 years, but that we will probably change very little over the next 10 years.  So we often rationalize the past and have real difficulty seeing ourselves in the long-range future.

Does this mean our attempts to fathom the future are wasted?  Not entirely, because, we benefit from certain advantages.  First, we are overwhelmingly social animals.  When we lack information about a future event, we become what psychologist Daniel Gilbert calls “surragators”.   We become much more willing to listen to and endorse the personal experience of others.  Indeed, futuring calls for collaborative thinking. 

A second advantage is that we are emotional beings.  The prospects of our future provoke strong reactions.  Psychologist Martin Seligman labels humans as homo prospectus because his research has confirmed that we spend enormous amounts of time recombining and retouching our past to imagine the future.  This helps us cope with novel situations, and deal with the unexpected.  The instant answers we get are much closer to gut feelings than to thoughtful analysis.

On balance, we spend much more time thinking about the future than about the past. This makes us uniquely human, and probably much happier.  From science fiction to strategic visioning, we never really leave the past behind, nor are we very good at “prospection”.  Still, the effort is worthwhile because the future lies not in what we learn about our surroundings, but in what we learn about ourselves.  

 

 

Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of a Unique Home for Health Services

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

Anniversaries give us wonderful opportunities to remember and celebrate beginnings, and to think about the many decision points that continue to shape our  future.  This is truly the case for the Healthy Community Alliance, headquartered in Gowanda, New York.  This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Alliance’s rock-solid foundation.

 

Figuratively and literally, that foundation is known both as Community Place and Academy Place.  The distinction gets a bit technical, but in actual fact the sturdy and spacious brick-and-granite structure at One School Street is a home to many purposes.

 

Within the walls of this vintage elementary school facility, you can find an amazing array of health, medical, counseling, nutritional, and educational services all designed to improve the quality of life in rural communities across our region.  Mission success derives from broad, inclusive partnerships that support wellness and prevention.  Here I am talking about a community focal point for programs and services. Community Place is a subsidiary of the Healthy Community Alliance, which has its own executive director, Ann Battaglia, and a board of directors on which I served for many years. 

 

Yet One School Street encompasses much more than a preeminent rural health network.  Also named Academy Place, this location serves as a living and dining space for 32 senior apartments.  The Place is directed by a locally focused housing development fund company, resourced by a combination of federal and state tax credits linked to household income guidelines.  The apartments are managed in partnership with People, Incorporated.

 

The Healthy Community Alliance has been thriving since the mid 1990’s when I came on board as a founding member of its board of directors.  It took the organization about a decade to gain inspiration from a massive closed-up former school facility in Gowanda.    At first it was thought that the old school, if refurnished, could serve as a practical headquarters for the growing Alliance capacity.

 

Thanks to the foresight and persistence of HCA executive director Sharon Mathe, guided by local consultants and attorneys, One School Street soon became a conceptual testing ground for potential uses involving wellness, community planning and services.  Many opportunities for Gowanda community input enriched the discussion.

 

 

 

 What followed was a decade of stressful, complicated funding negotiations with the Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  Once funding was reasonably assured, with loans and payments arranged, a Buffalo-based commercial contractor took on the project that finally produced today’s beautiful facility.

 

I share quite a rewarding personal history with Community Place.  As a member of the Alliance’s board of directors, I remember many meetings where sorting out bureaucratic challenges and legal technicalities tested everyone’s patience.  At times it seemed as though Community Place would become our single agenda item.  Ultimately, our investment of time and resources continues to yield growing dividends throughout the entire region.  

 

Please see what I mean for yourself.  Virtually or in person, visit the impressive facility known as Community Place, Academy Place, and One School Street in Gowanda.  It is not just a terrific architectural asset, but the symbol of a regional and statewide commitment to health promotion, disease prevention, wellness, and building quality of life.  

 

Dr. Jeffrey Bowen

Past President

Healthy Community Alliance

 

PO. Box 36

Delevan, N.Y. 14042

716-777-2383

Jeffreybowen7@gmail.com

Experience A World of Enjoyment in Photography

 

Experience A World of Enjoyment in Photography

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

Years ago I was lying flat on my back in the middle of Yosemite National Park while attempting to photograph a picturesque pine cone hanging from a nearby branch.  I heard voices nearby and glanced over to see a group of individuals with cameras being led along by an elderly white-bearded man.  He stopped the group, and asked them, “What the heck do you suppose that guy is trying to do?”  I heard a bit of laughter, but did not mind because I knew who the old man was:  the world-famous nature photographer Ansel Adams!  Quite often, I had been told, he led workshops in the park.  Apparently I inspired curiosity.

 

I think photography should be artful and inspiring.  It helps us express ourselves differently.   For me it is a journey.    I have taken thousands of photos and learned from just as many mistakes.  I started with a box camera and black and white snapshots back in the 50’s.  Over the years, I graduated to color slides and carousel projectors, then to color snapshot film processed by the local drugstore, and finally, in the 1990s, to digital photography with results processed via Lightroom and Photoshop and posted on the internet.  These days I find that my smart phone often produces fine results.  Although I have and use them, you really don’t need a fancy 35 mm camera with multiple lenses.

 

What you do need is some forethought.  What story do you want to tell? What do you want your viewer to think or feel?  Key is to frame a setting and position your subject within it.  My facebook friends call this composition.  They advise not to aim into the sun.  Maybe, but not always, because backlighted shots can be dramatically effective as long as they don’t wash out altogether. Typically, the best results come from positioning your subject sideways to the main source of light.  Also, I advocate leading lines.  In other words, guide the viewer’s eye from foreground into the background by encouraging curiosity about what lies just beyond. 

 

 Imagine a grid of four evenly spaced lines, two vertical and two horizonal, over the scene you want to shoot.  Consider placing your key subject near one of the four quarterly intersections of those lines.  Don’t always aim directly at the middle.  Another imaginary grid is called the golden spiral.  Arrange your setting so the eye is drawn first to the foreground, then circling around to the top of your scene, then spiraling back around to the middle.  If possible, have something you want people to see at all three locations—foreground, top or background, and finally in the middle.  Really, it can be dramatic!    

 

As for positioning yourself to take a photo, go low.  Get on your knees if necessary (probably not your back), but try to shoot at the same level as your subject.  It tends to capture the viewer’s interest from foreground to background, and it reduces the distortion that comes from aiming downward or upward.  Second, try to move closer to your subject than you first thought possible.  The more detail, the more expression you can capture, the better.  But be a cautious about getting too close to your subject because it can cause an unappealing fisheye effect.  Finally, before you shoot, stop and look behind you.  Maybe that beautiful scene you are ignoring is right behind you.  One more thing:  focus clearly on your subject, and decide beforehand if you want to blur part of the photo to deemphasize the background.  Camera controls called the lens aperture and shutter speed can be used to accomplish this manually or automatically.   

 

Let’s say you are considering a scenic landscape shot, but it needs to be livened up.  Put something alive into it.  It can be a person or an animal.  It need not be your main subject and can be set off to the side.  Yet it draws the viewer’s eye, creates purpose and adds interest.

 

 What if your idea is just to create the memory of a person?   In that case make them your main subject, but encourage them to smile or look happy, and ask them remove anything that may shade or obscure their face.  Reflections on glasses can be really frustrating. Avoid having them squint into the sun.  Rely on indirect light, or have them look off to the side.  Remind them stand up straight and do something with their hands.  If the photo is a selfie, hold the smart phone slightly up above you, and look up to the camera.  This compliments the face and shows the background too.

 

I advocate color in my photos.  The capability of digital cameras to differentiate colors is astounding, and post processing can add richness and nuances.  I never hesitate to manipulate or refine shades of color in my final products.  Sometimes we hesitate to shoot on cloudy days, but we should not.  Cloud variations are always intriguing. Some of the most beautiful shades derive from the color absorption experienced on overcast days.  But be cautious about too much saturation.  My facebook friends definitely prefer colors and scenes that look natural and real.

 

Whether it is about technology or technique, photography should be fun – and something you can spend your whole life learning.  One of the interesting ways to improve is to view video tutorials on You Tube.  No need to emulate Ansel Adams, just enjoy your triumphs, learn from your mistakes, share results with friends and family, and cherish the memories they create.    

 

 

We Are All Creatures of Habit

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

Every day at 3 p.m. on the dot our black lab named Goose appears in the doorway expectantly, ears cocked, tail wagging, vigorously panting, all for one purpose – dinner!  He has trained us to respond rather early to these signals.  A wave of our hand and he races to the kitchen and waits impatiently to down his bowl in about 15 seconds flat.  Then he insists on going out to defend his territory.

Why does this particular pattern repeat so regularly?  Not really because of instinct; not all dogs do this.  Goose seems to have an internal alarm clock.  He is faithfully well fed, and surely, he could wait a bit.   Instead this happens because he is a steadfast creature of habit.  We are too, because we respond habitually to his habit.

This serves as a preface to my message that all sentient beings are governed by habits.  These may be good or bad, but they are always strangely powerful.  Volumes of anecdotal advice give us ways to break or create habits.  Understanding and using them calls for more scientific scrutiny.

When situations repeat themselves during our daily activities, research tells us that, on average, 45 percent of the time we react the same way not as an actual decision, but almost automatically.   Up to 88 percent of our morning hygiene is subconsciously routine, as is about 55 percent of activity at work.  If you live to 80, according to another estimate, about 36 years of your life is spent on autopilot!   

Sometimes we think of these happenings as positive learning when the steps produce good results.  Extended habits yield comfort and stability, even when no obvious rewards are involved.  We call them rituals or traditions.  In contrast, habituation may produce a physical or psychological dependency and become an addiction.   Habits are mostly convenient; no need to think much about them.  No executive decision or concentrated self-control is required.  A cue leads to a routine, which then leads to an anticipated reward. 

Changing a habit is quite another story.  My own experience, and probably yours, confirms that habits can be very stubborn creatures.  An area in the prefrontal cortex of our brains sort of scripts out a memory to ensure that a given context will cue the same behavior each time.  With each repetition, less thought is given to the rational intention or goal, and more is given to the contextual cue.  Our subconscious mind seems to declare, “Do what you’ve always done, so you’ll get what you’ve always gotten!” 

What’s wrong with that?   No problem, unless we decide, or are pressed by circumstances, to change intentions quickly, or to give what we do a lot of forethought.  Remember those cartoons where Donald Duck faces a fiendish choice and realizes two little ducks are sitting on either shoulder.  The one with a halo says “stop” while the other one, holding a pitchfork, whispers, “Oh go ahead.”  The guardian angel is our rational mind, the source of conscious willpower, and typically he wins when a single decision is to be made.   The devilish duck is our nonconscious mentality, and if the pitchfork is applied repeatedly, he morphs into a habit. 

 Most purposes can become almost intuitive preferences when repeated often enough.  Psychologist Wendy Wood, after decades applying neuroscience to the issues, concludes that habits are almost like a second self.  Without realizing it, we reconcile ourselves to choices we have already made, cave in to the repetitive settings or context in which previous decisions were made, and perpetuate automatic steps even after taking a break from the situation or getting only an infrequent reward from doing so.

I have always praised those who exercise great self-control or self-denial since they seem to accomplish great things by means of grit.   It turns out that most self-controllers are just better at automating their patterns of behavior.  They meet goals without serious struggles because they have acquired the right habits.  Beneficial actions become their default choices.  Repetition and efficiency reinforce those choices.

Environmental changes have a dominant effect on both good and bad habits.   The current COVID pandemic provides a case in point.  For all kinds of safety or economic reasons, according to a new Pew Research Center survey, about one in five adults say they either changed their residence because of the pandemic, or they know someone who did.  Like it or not, such moves produce a change of scenery that can declutter your habitual landscape and provide fertile ground for new and hopefully better habits.  Meanwhile, when confined to our current home environments, daily routines may be altered drastically.  Everything from hygiene to technology, and from home-school connections to organizing closets is changed.  As a result, the virus may be moving us toward new habits that no reforms could ever mandate.  

Unfortunately, there is ample data to suggest that old habits die hard.   When change is forced upon us, we may revert to thinking without thinking.  Feelings of vulnerability, depression, and poor assessments of risk begin to distort our perspective.

Habits can be curse or a benefit, but they are not a fixed destiny.  Simply put, they are embedded in a loop that begins with a cue and ends with a reward.  In between lie routines.  The best route is to examine the routine, develop a plan to shake it up with a new goal in mind, and you will start to like your life a lot better. Soon you won’t even have to think about it.   

 

 

The Universe in a Spider’s Web

By Jeffrey Bowen

 

Yesterday I discovered the universe

In a spider’s web,

Perfectly constructed to give but hold.

With constellations in the center,

Every strand holds a drop of dew,

Lighting the route to imagination,

A black hole in my back yard

From which nothing will escape,

And time can disappear.

 

JMB

915/2020

The Power of Nonverbal Communication

 

The Power of Nonverbal Communication

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

 Recently I was chatting with a young Vietnamese woman whose English-speaking ability was limited.  A face mask muffled her voice.  As she struggled with words, I concentrated on what she was trying to say.  Suddenly I realized I was reacting as much to her eyes as to her words, while watching her posture and gestures for clues.

 

I noticed her eyebrows furrowed when she was puzzled, and the corners of her eyes crinkled and narrowed when was smiling.  Surprise widened her eyes at certain points.  Her thumbs turned up with approval when she liked my praise.  She looked up and to the side when confounded by an unfamiliar word.  Her whole package of nonverbal expression helped me react despite never seeing her lips or hearing clearly what she actually said.    

 

In fact, research suggests that we judge people almost instantly by their whole visual package.   Upwards of 93 percent of all interpersonal communication is said to be nonverbal.  Much of it depends on the face, which is key to our grasping impressions that may last only a blink.  

 

Our ability to discern facial emotions quickly is amazing.  Thought to be innate, and proven to be culturally universal, the emotion of happiness is the easiest to spot, followed with increasing difficulty by sadness, anger, disgust, and fear.  It is easy to believe that eyes are windows to the soul because they have great capacity to give as well as receive emotions.

 

The corona pandemic challenges us to communicate with body language.  Social isolation has rapidly improved video technology.  Zoom meetings or the equivalent on the internet set the stage for awesome networking.  But certain nonverbal concerns may be missed during a meeting.  Posture, hand gestures, facial expressions, and definitely direct eye contact may complement or interfere with your Zoom partner’s heard message.  

Many years of trial and error in social relationships have enabled me to develop a stock of reliable nonverbal practices.  Most are aimed at encouraging and sympathizing with individuals instead of rejecting or criticizing what they have to say.  Teachers and parents should try these out in either live or video situations:  (1)  don’t blink too much and maintain consistent, but not overtly constant, eye contact with your subject; (2) stand up straight, face your subject directly, and lean slightly forward when engaging; (3) nod a lot because it shows you are attentive and listening; (4) smile plenty but remember there are 17 different kinds of smiles, and only six communicate happiness (you should rehearse which ones); (5) appear thoughtful by holding your chin and tilting your head; (6) keep your arms open because this welcomes ideas and indicates acceptance; (7) use a variety of attention-getting gestures.

 On the other hand, I avoid folding my arms, shrugging, and shaking my head.  There are dozens of vocal techniques to keep your subject’s attention.  One of the best is to expressively vary your voice.  Remember, monotones and monotony go together.  

At the beginning I mentioned face masks.  These need not hinder communication.  Their main purpose is protection from disease.  However, masks also have a varied and colorful history, one well worth investigating. It is reassuring that up to 80 percent of us can detect emotions like happy, sad, or angry even when someone is wearing a mask. All by itself a mask sends a telling nonverbal message.  In the throes of a worldwide pandemic, a protective mask demonstrates our mutual commitment.  Think of it as a personal billboard saying we stick together and care about each other.        

 

Resurrecting the Vasa

By Jeffrey Bowen

 

Under a bright blue sky on August 10, 1628, a day with pleasantly light winds, a massive 226-foot warship, towering four stories or 172 feet above the waterline and loaded with rigging and sails, eased its way into the Bay of Stockholm, Sweden on its maiden voyage. 

 

The ship had been built on orders from Sweden’s King Gustavus Adolphus.  Named after the royal house, the Vasa was viewed by the king as an imposing symbol of his country’s intention to dominate the Baltic, both militarily and economically.

 

 At the time, Sweden was engaged in an eight-year war with Poland-Lithuania.  The naval battles had not been going well.  A single storm had destroyed 10 of Sweden’s best ships.  Along with sister ships under construction, the Vasa was an artillery-laden attempt to turn the tide.  

 

The galleon was uniquely armed with two full decks of 62 bronze cannons, and was richly decorated with about 500 sculptures and cultural ornaments.  It must have been quite a colorful sight for the excited spectators who lined the shore.

 

Excitement shifted to horror as the Vasa drifted several hundred feet offshore, encountered a modest breeze, listed steeply onto its side, took on water through its open gun ports, and sank in 105 feet of water.

 

Four centuries later, the Vasa is quite intact and marvelously restored, sitting in a naval museum on the shore of the harbor.  The vessel is visited by millions of tourists annually.  My wife Hillary and I were among those visitors in 2016.

The four floors of the Vasa are accessible by stairs or elevator.  Each floor highlights different aspects of 17^th century Swedish life.  What truly captured our imagination is the story of the ship’s destiny after its watery demise, and the lessons we have learned from it.  

 

The seaworthiness of the Vasa was questionable long before its launch.  There was too much elevated construction above the water line, with a narrow hull, heavy cannons, and little ballast in the hold.  The king had repeatedly interfered with construction and had impatiently pushed for an early launch.

 

 The potential lurch of the ship was tested by 30 crew members who were told to run fast from one side of the ship to the other.  After three times, the test was terminated because the tilt became potentially disastrous.  

 

A naval inquest was conducted, but ultimately no official was blamed and punished.  Perhaps this was because the specifications and armaments had been repeatedly revised by the king himself.  The investigators concluded, “Only God knows.”

 

Although its valuable cannons were removed not long after the sinking, the galleon lay in murky obscurity for several hundred years.  Not until 1956 was the vessel finally relocated by an amateur archeologist.  Anaerobic conditions preserved most of the wood, cloth, and leather on the ship.  Heroic dredging and thousands of dives eventually brought the Vasa to its museum location where it has undergone continuous restoration since 1961.   

 

The preservation of the Vasa represents an impressive combination of marine archeology, advanced technology and engineering, national willpower and inspiration. When we visited Stockholm, we nearly overlooked the opportunity to visit a ship that never went to war, sank ignominiously, and lay mostly forgotten in the salty mud for centuries.  It seems that history may be neglected, but its symbols eventually return to us with valuable lessons about who we really are. 

 

6/2020          

 

A Cup of Tea Makes Everything Better

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The tranquil pleasures of tea have special relevance for many of us with British family backgrounds.  My mother and grandmother, both born in England, were inveterate tea drinkers, with plenty of milk and sugar in the mix.  Naturally, I prefer tea this way.  

On both sides of the Atlantic, the history of tea is steeped in turbulence.  Although the American colonists adored tea, they resented the mother country’s tax on it.  Following the Tea Act of 1773, 30 cheeky Bostonians thinly disguised themselves as Indians and dumped 342 barrels of British tea leaves into the harbor. In retaliation, Parliament closed down the port, insisted on restitution, and forbade town meetings.  Within two years, moves like this triggered our war of independence.

Recently I rediscovered the sturdy role tea plays in the mental and emotional health of the United Kingdom.  In his best seller, The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson documents the eccentrically heroic home life of Winston Churchill and his family during the Nazi blitz of London in World War II.  Larson devotes an entire chapter to tea, calling it the “universal balm for the trauma of war.”  He writes, “It was the thing that helped people cope.  People made tea during air raids and after air raids, and on breaks between retrieving bodies from shattered buildings.”  

When tea was rationed at two ounces daily, enough for just three cups, Churchill’s closest scientific advisor warned of a devastating effect on morale.  Somehow, as long as there was tea, there would be an England.  Thankfully, stiff upper lips prevailed until the restriction was finally removed in 1952 amid great celebration.  Nowadays 63 percent of the British drink tea daily.  

I think of the Brit’s amazing ability to carry on despite adversity every time I see the saying on my wife’s tea mug, “Keep calm and drink tea.”  Popular quotes about tea testify to its importance in our lives.  For instance, when I dislike something, I am likely to say diplomatically, “That’s not my cup of tea.” My favorite is attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: “A woman is like a tea bag—you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”

The venerable history of tea dates back to China 5,000 years ago.  The past has always reflected a balance between medicinal properties and pleasure from refreshment.  Especially in East Asia, the government traditionally maintains tight production controls.  Ceremonies around serving tea are almost sacred.  Before the 17^th century, all tea was fresh and green, but once a fermentation process was discovered, it became black tea and could be preserved.  Thereby tea could spread globally.  

Despite stiff competition from coffee, Americans consume 1.42 million pounds of tea every day.  This amounts to 3.6 billion gallons.  On any given day, more than 158 million of us drink it, including myself, morning and night.  We like it hot or cold. 

We invented iced tea at the 1904 St. Louis trade fair.  Today about 80 percent of our tea is chilled.  We also invented tea bags.  They were the ingenious adaptation of a New York City merchant in 1908.

Real tea derives from the leaves of camellia sinensis, a small tree native to Asia.  Many different varieties worldwide include orange pekoe, oolong, white, and the  expensive and rare Darjeeling grown in the mountains of India.  Herbal teas are not truly tea, but certainly they appeal when mixed with herbs, spices, and other plants like chamomile and mint.  All variations have gained a legitimate reputation for reducing the risk of liver disease, depression, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Besides water, tea is said to be the most popular drink in the world.  It shows up everywhere.  For example, Turkey is where the biggest per capita consumers of tea can be found -- 10 cups daily.  When my wife and I visited Peru recently, we were urged to guzzle coca tea to curb the ill effects of high altitude.  I am not sure it worked, but we felt better.

As I sit here with a steaming cup, I think about my family’s tea customs: the way my mom used to save and reuse old tea bags; my wife’s British cousin’s insistence on brewing tea leaves in a beautiful china teapot; the tea ceremony our son had to learn as an exchange student in Japan; and how I consumed gallons of tea for company on lonely nights as I struggled with school writing assignments.  Whatever the circumstances, a cup of tea just makes everything better.     

An Unexpected Trip Home

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

March 2020   

The minute we walked into the Quito, Ecuador air terminal on March 14, my wife Hillary and I realized something big was amiss.  We had just landed from the Galapagos islands where we had shared a week with 12 other U.S. citizens watching and learning about the island’s strange creatures.  Things were about to become strange in yet another way.  

Having been hundreds of miles off the coast and without wi-fi news about the developing coronavirus pandemic, our group was aghast when our Quito-based Avalon Tour guide greeted us by saying, “I’m so sorry, but tomorrow midnight, on orders of our Ecuador president, the airport will close!  No more flights in or out.  You will have to cancel your connections and travel back home immediately.”

 Hillary and I turned out to be the only ones in our group who were not already scheduled to return home before the deadline.  We had planned to fly on to the Amazon for a week of hiking.  While we fretted, we migrated over to a Johnny Rockets restaurant, grabbed burgers and shakes, and got on the phone.

Our bucket-list trip had been planned years ahead, with expert guidance from our favorite travel agent Mary Szafarski (Airwave Travel 716-560-9209; mary@airwavetravel.com).  She is always calm, honest, and resourceful. Within just a few minutes after calling her, Mary had set up alternate flights that same evening to Buffalo via Miami and Charlotte.  She even emailed us the electronic tickets! 

Potentially being stranded in the Amazon for weeks with no flights out had certainly worried us, but not for long thanks to Mary.  Conversations with nearby travelers, especially those who had arranged things on their own, suggested they would face confounding delays getting home. Fortunately for us, at 4 a.m., when very few were processing in at the Miami terminal, we moved quickly through immigration and flew home without a hitch.  It took 30 hours, but after standing on the steamy equator, thankfully no snow storms awaited us in the Queen City.   

 Now as we shelter in place, we hope that everyone made it home safely and in good health.  Undoubtedly, our next trip abroad will owe its efficiency and assurance to our awesome travel agent. 

4/8/20

The Coronavirus Will Make Us Stronger

The Coronavirus Will Make Us Stronger

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

We are awash in a tsunami of bad news about the spread of the coronavirus and the urgent preventive steps we must take to curb the disaster and reduce the death rate.  Not for one minute should we deny or belittle the seriousness of this monstrous thing, but it may help to think just a bit about mitigating factors.  The news is not all bad.  Here are 10 examples of possible silver linings in our storm clouds of crisis. Probably you can think of many more.

•       Americans have always been resourceful, adaptive, and creative.  It is no coincidence that we register more patents than any other country in the world.  Research institutions and retooled businesses are rapidly developing promising medical interventions, health and safety equipmen   

•    Volunteerism is burgeoning as we look for ways to help one another; for example, consider the thousands of qualified retired medical staff who are arriving to support hospitals in New York City.  Meanwhile, many residents are sewing together home-made protective face masks to share with neighbors.

• ·         Staying at home and avoiding travel is not just reducing infection, but also lowering our consumption of fuel, thereby renewing the environment and improving the climate.  Also, less dependence on motorized transport is encouraging healthy outdoor activity like walking.

• ·         Whether through schools, businesses, and social media, we are developing nontraditional communications technology.  As we become more adept with electronic connections, we are gaining impressive practical benefits while breaking down social isolation and enhancing mental health.

• ·         Family life is enriched in ways we never expected, opening up communication channels among relatives and friends, and improving relationships for the future.  Going through a trial like this together has a unifying effect, despite the many emotional stresses togetherness may create.

• ·         We are learning, perhaps the hard way, that organized preparation and planning for disaster has a massive practical payoff.  What is more, efforts like this demonstrate the need for competent, reassuring leadership across all levels of government.

• ·         We are discovering that the knowledge afforded our children in this crisis may not be measurable in test scores, but certainly can and will be in terms of authentic, relevant real-world learning.  As many parents are discovering, teachers are an invaluable bridge between home and school.

• ·         We are learning that our dependence on immigrants, “legal” or not, makes them in many ways an essential cog in the machinery of our economy and national welfare.

• ·         There is dramatic, definitive evidence of world interdependence. Urgent cues for international cooperation may inspire new configurations of diplomacy, economic reciprocity, and peaceful coexistence.   

• ·         The science of disease is percolating, with benefits that will reach far beyond Covid-19.  New medications and innovative solutions are being tested,   hopefully with bureaucratic delays minimized.

The consequences of the coronavirus are truly at a crisis level.  Yet in every terrible trial or situation there is something we can learn, something we can gain. Besides all of the above, the gain stems partly from perspective.  Perhaps when all this reaches an exhausting conclusion, we may say some good things came out of this mess after all.  Surely we are being tested, and we will grow stronger.

4/4/2020

Adaptable Educational Leadership in a Time of Crisis

Adaptable Educational Leadership in a Time of Crisis

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Is leadership during a crisis different from other kinds of leadership?  And if so, what can be learned from the difference?  Recently, I posed these questions to an elementary charter school principal for whom I have served as an evaluator and mentor for years.  Suddenly, it seems like many of her routine executive decisions have become unnervingly irrelevant.

 The current crisis of spreading coronavirus presents a terrifying challenge to the routines of our lives.  Hopefully, our responses will save lives and livelihoods, but untimely or shortsighted steps may add to the chaos.  Educators and parents are acutely aware that continued confinement in home settings may compromise children’s learning.  

The leadership we need hinges on the type of crisis we confront.  Defined as a “time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger” a crisis usually occurs in two phases:  first, a trigger event like a catastrophe or disaster; second, a smoldering rollout of responses during which policies and preventive steps are developed.  For example, 9/11 instantly killed thousands of people.  But today, anyone who checks in for their plane flight experiences the lasting effects on safety and security.

An educational example stems from a landmark report published in 1983.  Titled “A Nation At Risk,” the authors insisted our schools were trapped in a crisis of mediocrity.  They urged a national mobilization of more challenging courses and tests to preserve our economic future.  Consequently, most of our students experience a standards-based core curriculum as well as annual proficiency testing.  

The coronavirus embodies the crisis element of a viral trigger, reinforced by the growing need for resources to avoid overloading our health-care systems. Further up the road, policy and practical solutions must be clarified.  Among other things, the aftermath of the Covid-19 will demonstrate whether crisis leadership produces lasting educational results.   

 The charter principal I mentioned earlier offers a multi-faceted case study in crisis leadership.  As the chief academic officer of a K-6 charter school, she reports directly to a board and not to district administrators. 

Confronted by a quickly evolving crisis, the principal acted quickly to close her school until further notice.  She charged her staff with developing take-home learning packets to cover the basics and related practical tools.  Hundreds of packets were mailed home.  Meanwhile, she set up available online learning through Kahn Academy, and provided parents with lists of free online sites and resources.  The school’s website is updated every day with new electronic links for parents.  While the students are getting daily meals at schools located closest to their homes, the charter school is working with Feed More of Western New York to provide additional food and emergency food kits to families.   

All school staff are being paid during the closure.  Laptops for all teachers are used to conduct virtual meetings and to sustain professional development.  No teachers may enter the school, but cleaning staff sanitize the building regularly. Leadership  reports from executive staff are developed and shared with staff, the board, and the State Education Department.

Difficult as it is to profile acts of leadership mid crisis, the facts show this principal has adapted strategic choices to fit the circumstances.  A data-driven focus on school improvement is on hold, as state tests have been cancelled.  Inequitable access to technology at home remains a difficult issue.  Still, even without mechanisms for accountability, the principal is exploring options, taking careful steps forward, and learning from this harrowing experience.  

The goal of a viable curriculum has been preserved, though not guaranteed, along with reasonable ways to reinforce fundamental instruction.  Ongoing support and learning for staff are occurring; basic safety for all has been addressed; and clearly efforts have been made to extend the practical benefits of a caring community for parents and students.  Constant upward communication with the state and outward to parents and students are priorities.

Another crucial dimension to leadership in crisis is attitudinal and emotional.  The principal is enabling and empowering her staff, students, and parents by providing reassurance that a welcoming school life surely will continue.  She is capitalizing on a reservoir of trust.  By repeating the message, “We can do this together,” the principal is building what experts call social capital.  She understands that people are frightened.  Her success will be nurtured by sustained communication and a willingness to listen and act calmly and rationally.  

  

Did all these strategies materialize overnight? Certainly not, but management of resources, consultation with colleagues, existing routes of communication, and goals of continued learning for staff and students have come into play -- along with a plenty of inspiration.

 The role of the leader in this crisis is like that of an orchestra conductor who suddenly finds that unusual combinations of instruments and musicians must join together on short notice for multiple concerts using music they have not practiced.  By no means is this leadership as usual. But so far, thanks to the conductor, the band plays on.

NOTE: The leadership of chief academic officer Darci Novak at Niagara Charter School in Niagara County, New York is gratefully acknowledged and described in this article.