The following op-ed was published in Alexandria’s (Virginia) Gazette Packet on May 2, 2013.
Did you know:
Alexandria’s currently has around 146,000 residents, 30% of whom speak a language other than English at home.
Alexandria’s extraordinary arts community contributed $71 million in city economic activity, and 1,774 full-time equivalent jobs in 2010.
One of Alexandria’s most recent community health assessments ranked obesity, tobacco use, and substance abuse among the city’s greatest health challenges.
Volunteer Alexandria every year organizes “Spring for Alexandria” a one-day volunteer event to benefit our city and its non-profits. This year it happens this Friday, May 3, at locations throughout the city.
These are just a few examples of facts that can help us better understand and engage with our city. But how do we disseminate such facts to inform more city residents?
All the above facts were culled free from the websites of our city government, Volunteer Alexandria, and the U.S. Census Bureau.
However, as abundant and free is information on the internet, one still usually has to search for it to find it and use it. Those more motivated to learn and engage thus benefit disproportionately from the internet and the Information Age more generally, while those less motivated to learn benefit much less. This problem applies not just to city information, but to all kinds of information essential to personal and collective health and success.
Knowledge is indeed power. Research shows that the more knowledge or education one has, the better are one’s employment prospects, income, health and community engagement. Studies also show that people who are more informed about a given topic comprehend and problem-solve better and remember more about that topic.
Recently, I founded an educational non-profit in Alexandria called Learning Life to address this problem. Learning Life’s mission is to inform and empower more people by printing knowledge on the surfaces of everyday life (health on table tents, poetry on cup sleeves, history on wallpaper, science on cereal boxes, etc.), then linking these surfaces to an ever growing world of learning online.
Learning Life’s mission is based on three educational realities: (a) learning doesn’t just happen in youth, (b) nor just in school, and (c) learning doesn’t just happen deliberately, but also incidentally. We learn incidentally in everyday life from casual conversation with friends and family as well as from work, volunteering, television, the internet and various surfaces, like billboards and posters. However, most of public education’s focus is on schools, not everyday life, and everyday life is filled with far more advertising than learning.
So, what if we started using everyday life surfaces to inform and engage more people in and about Alexandria?
This year, Learning Life is pursuing educational partnerships using everyday surfaces like table tents, drink coasters and fortune cookies to creatively inform and engage more Alexandrians about health and other issues, as well as to encourage more D.C. metro area residents to learn about Alexandria’s rich artistic offerings. Those interested in learning more, or possibly partnering with Learning Life can contact us at email@learninglife.info.
It may come as a surprise, but Learning Life’s most faithful and generous donor is a 23-year old recent college graduate. Her name is Arielle Mohammed.
Arielle graduated in May 2012 from Stetson University with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. It is in Stetson’s Department of Sociology & Anthropology that Arielle met Learning Life’s founder, Paul Lachelier. Arielle took two courses with Paul – Sociological Theories, and Power & Evil – and through these courses and thereafter, they developed a friendship that endures to this day. (Per his request though, she now calls him Paul, rather than Dr. Lachelier.)
Despite her solid performance as a student, like many recent college graduates in our down economy, Arielle has struggled to find work she can love. Upon graduation, she initially worked full-time as a 7-11 sales associate. Her productivity, dependability and kindness at 7-11 recently earned her a better position as a receptionist at a dental office, where she is excited to work with a supportive administrative team.
At Stetson, Arielle worked for the university’s recycling program throughout her college years, becoming a team leader in her junior and senior year. As team leader, she helped Stetson achieve third place in Spring 2011 in the RecycleMania competition involving 600 schools nationwide.
As a devout yet tolerant Catholic, Arielle volunteered with the Jewish Student Organization as she helped lead Stetson’s Catholic Campus Ministry, becoming Vice-President in her junior year, and President in her senior year. In her work as a young Catholic leader, Arielle wrote letters to the imprisoned, helped fundraise for food pantries, served in soup kitchens, and traveled to Honduras to help rebuild and renovate buildings at a parochial school.
Asked why she donates monthly and generously to Learning Life, Arielle responds:
“Besides knowing Paul Lachelier for quite some time, Learning Life greatly appeals to me. I have always been drawn to learning and knowledge. Learning should not be constrained behind classroom doors. It should be free and open to all. Learning Life is bringing innovative ways of spreading knowledge, and reminding us of the importance of learning.”
For all these reasons, we at Learning Life admire Arielle, are very grateful for her support, and wish her the very best in her young career.
Want to learn how you can help Learning Life? Contact us at email@learninglife.info.
Asking Bigger, Deeper Questions
Are people inherently good, bad or blank slates? Why are some people so poor, and others so rich? What causes people to commit crimes? What makes for long, happy marriages?
Many of us have opinions on important and interesting questions about a host of topics, from human and animal behavior, to the environment, economy, politics and history.
But what do researchers who patiently pursue these questions think and find in answer to these questions? It’s easy to spout opinions; it’s much harder and more valuable for informed decision-making to carefully, systematically pursue answers.
Fortunately, there are plenty of well-trained researchers pursuing answers to many important and interesting questions, whether these be university scholars, think tank experts, museum or government specialists, or else.
Unfortunately, researchers’ answers are routinely published in ever growing numbers of books, academic journals and reports few people read, and they’re often written in dull, jargon-filled prose. Occasionally, the researchers’ answers are publicized in newspapers, magazines, on radio, TV, or online, but still the audience for these are often limited to those interested enough to seek them out.
That’s the status quo we take for granted, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Learning Life’s mission is to inform and empower more people by printing knowledge on the sufaces of everyday life, like placemats, posters, napkins and cup sleeves, then linking these surfaces to an ever growing world of learning at our website.
As our readers may already know, one way we pursue this mission is to pose questions online and off, linked to a growing array of five-question quizzes at Learning Life’s website which offer brief facts on everything from food psychology to the U.S. Constitution.
In September 2013, we inaugurated our Big Questions series offering clear, 1-2 paragraph answers each from two or more experts on questions of wide public importance, like those posed at the start of this post. You can read the questions to which we’ve gathered expert answers so far, and those upcoming on our Facts & Views page.
In so doing, we aim not only to advance our mission to inform wider publics, but to publicize the considered opinions and research of experts and scholars.
We invite our readers to contact us at email@learninglife.info to propose questions, and experts on those questions with whom Learning Life might work.
As always, if you like what Learning Life is doing, we encourage you to support our work, like us on Facebook, and/or follow us on Twitter. Thank you for your interest and support!
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or “Obamacare,” has and will affect millions of Americans. The ACA was signed into law on March 23, 2010, and is being implemented gradually over four years. The ACA is big and does many things, but there are resources online to help Americans understand the law and how it affects individuals, families and businesses. This quiz introduces you to some of the ACA’s key provisions, with links to more information online.
Note: Special thanks to Learning Life intern, Kane Boynton, for conducting the research for this quiz, and drafting the questions and answers.
These are just a few examples of facts that can help us better understand and engage with our city. But how do we disseminate such facts to inform more city residents?
