The third party

 

The Internet is very involved in our relationships, but what’s it up to?

 

By Jim Paterson

 

Americans are on their phones nearly a third of their waking hours and texting much more often than talking. Email has replaced letter writing and of the 30 kids in any classroom, probably only three aren’t on social media regularly.

When the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda researchers asked 200 students to avoid electronic media for one day, the comments were telling: “I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening,” said one student. “I felt quite alone and secluded,” another said. “Although I go to a school with thousands of students, the fact that I was not able to communicate with anyone via technology was almost unbearable.”

Despite all that involvement, we often blame Facebook or online games for failing family connections and poor grades, we are suspicious of dating sites, and we see a string of social and emotional ills – from pornography addiction and ADHD to depression and infidelity –  as being fed by online communications.

So, can the three of us get along? Probably most of the time, researchers say.

“The Internet sits side-by-side with offline relationships, weaving in and out of them,” says. Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher at Pew Research Center, which has done extensive research on the topic. “These spaces are hard to interpret, but generally they are making things better for us.”

Lenhart and other researchers say while it has its pitfalls, the Web can renew old relationships, create new ones  – and can build the good ones we have. Perhaps, they say, the Internet has not so much changed things as given our relationships a new platform where they can develop.

 

The first concerns…

About 30 years ago – 10 years before “You’ve got mail” and 20 years before Facebook – some pioneers in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University wanted to examine one facet of the Internet that not many people had thought of yet but today isn’t far from our minds: how it changes the way we connect with each other.

The new Human-Computer Interaction Institute had hired Robert Kraut, a pioneer in Internet communication, whose research initially suggested that while only about five percent of us we were using it in the mid-90’s, the Internet was likely to become a dominant communications tool. “We understood that communications is key to relationships and happiness, and it appeared communications might go online,” he says.

Kraut and a team of researchers in 1998 gave about 100 families computers and tracked their behavior in a well-publicized study that asked “Internet Paradox. A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?”  And the response to that query seemed to be “yes”.

“For our purposes, the most important finding is that greater use of the Internet was associated with subsequent declines in family communication.” the study concluded, also noting that it seemed to narrow one’s social circle and increase loneliness and depression. Others research supported those views as did books like “Silicon Snake Oil” by Clifford Stoll and articles like one in the New York Times in 1998 entitled “Sad, Lonely World Discovered in Cyberspace”.

Other research was suggesting that online communications lacked the “bandwidth” of traditional face-to-face communications, producing a “deindivuating effect”, along with self-centered and “socially unregulated” behavior” and isolation, according to John Bargh and Katelyn McKenna in their 2004 article in The Annual Review of Psychology titled “The Internet and Social Life”.

It may have been that early research – and our worry about something so invasive an unknown – that gave us the early impression the Internet was dangerous to relationships, Bargh and McKenna say.

“It has been vilified as a powerful new tool for the devil, awash in pornography, causing users to be addicted to hours each day of “surfing” – hours during which they are away from their family and friends, resulting in depression and loneliness for the individual user, and further weakening neighborhood and community ties,” they reported. “Some welcome it as a panacea while others fear it as a curse, but all would agree that it is quite capable of transforming society.”

 

But attitudes changed

Patti Valkenburg and Jochen Peter, writing in 2009 about “Social Consequences of the Internet for Adolescents”, said newer research was finding other results. “Whereas several studies in the 1990s suggested that Internet use is detrimental, recent studies tend to report opposite effects,” the two wrote in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

In The “Internet Paradox, revisited” in 2002, Kraut also explained that follow-up studies of his computer users found less concern about depression or loneliness , and in “Growing Closer on Facebook” in 2013, he studied more than 3,600 social media users to find out how the Internet fit into “ecology of communications” and the results were also more positive.

“.”

Kraut explains that while we may not need to communicate online with our closest friends and family, more frequent online connections “make us closer”. “Having Facebook communications seems to boost psychological well being and improve strong relationships,” he says, noting that it probably also reduces the likelihood of depression.

In our less significant online acquaintances the communications does less, but keeps them active. “Sometimes,” he says, “it helps the relationship and how we feel, to be in touch and simply know what is happening with someone. The Internet makes this easier.”

What he calls “broadcast” connections online are less likely to improve well being, and browsing without communicating may be damaging because it can makes some feel left out or envious of what another person has, a result that has been supported by two recent studies in ScienceDaily by University of Houston researcher Mai-Ly Steers. She found “people who spent more time on Facebook reported higher depressive symptoms due to social comparisons”.

In the end, Kraut says, online relationships are very much like the ones we have always had – though the platform has changed. “It is a matter of degrees. “Writing a personal message or a text is different than ‘liking’ something or responding to a simple birthday announcement on Facebook. It’s like the difference between a phone call or a personal note and a Hallmark card with just a signature.”

Another way of looking at it, according to Bargh and McKenna, is by examining the purpose of the communication along with the means. “The evidence suggests that while the effects are largely dependent on the particular goals that users bring to the interaction – such as self-expression, affiliation, or competition – they also interact in important ways with the unique qualities of the Internet communication situation.”

 

Less worry about damage

Those ideas have been supported by other studies, including work by Michael Chan, a communications professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who, wrote “Mobile Phones and the Good Life: Examining the Relationships Among Mobile Use, Social Capital and Subjective Well-being” in 2013 for the journal New Media and Society.  

Chan found cellphone use is “positively related to various indicators of subjective well-being and bonding, but that activities where users simply sought information or passed time had a negative effect.”

“With Internet connectivity and the mobile phone, individuals have perpetual connectivity with others, affording them the ability to develop and maintain meaningful relationships unbound by time or location and obtain and provide social support,” Chan said.

A 2010 study, “Internet Use and Psychological Well-being: A Meta-Analysis” appearing in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, summarized 43 studies with more than 21,00 participants. The author, Chiungjung Huang, a researcher at National Changhua University of Education in Taiwan, concluded that communications online created “only a small detrimental effect on psychological well-being.”

The research that Huang evaluated suggested online communication increases community involvement and face-to-face contact with friends, and improves long distance relationships, family relationships, the quality of life for the elderly and connections for lonely teens. Lenhart and colleagues at Pew also recently found about three quarters of adult Internet users say it had a positive effect on their romantic relationship.

Despite that, some experts say we don’t yet know the effect, and there are reasons for concern.

“It is here to stay, and somehow we adjusted to the telephone and the television – so our brains will need to figure this out too,” says Ramani Durvasula, a psychologist who works with couples and professor at California State University, Los Angeles. “These advances have been so fast, and they’re affecting all ages, especially kids whose brains are still developing. The jury is out on how it will impact neurodevelopment and emotions.”

 

A damaging distraction?

One way Internet communications differs from other communications methods is its mobility – with cellphones. Durvasula says we joke about being on our phones excessively, but there is a real danger for romantic partners and parents, noting she sees “chronic distraction” with her clients.

“Too many couples at dinner stare at their cellphones rather than at their dining companion,” she says.  “Being in the same room no longer means getting and keeping the other person’s attention.  In fact, we may give our ‘A game’ to the people on social media and not those right in front of us.” She also worries that distracted parents are “missing a critical developmental window and not taking enough time to teach children key tools of empathy, compassion, and emotional regulation.”

       Lenhart says that increasingly couples complain about such distraction. Her study also showed that 25 percent found their partner distracted by a cellphone and a third of them reported it resulted in an argument. The numbers are much higher for 18- to-29-year-olds, with almost half saying their partner has been distracted.

Another 2013 report by

Some therapists suggest that couples should set boundaries for Internet use, and research by Aaron Norton and Joyce Baptist in Cyberpsychology: the Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, suggests “while there appears to be some set of rules and boundaries that apply to offline relationships, it is unclear how or if these rules apply to Internet behaviors”.

“The act of sharing information such as passwords to social networking sites can be reassuring to one’s partner and send the message that one has nothing to hide,” their study found. “Curbing flirtatious communication can be construed as an act of fidelity thereby helping to maintain the relationship.”

 

 Quality control

Lenhart worries that communications online is confusing, and can lead to misunderstanding, uncertainty or jealousy. “There is often ambiguity – even about a picture. It might seem totally innocent to a person who posted it, but have an entirely different meaning to someone else and cause conflict”.

And we also might be avoiding healthy conflict, says Alex Lickerman, author of the book “The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self”.

“We relate differently online,” he says. “For instance, it blocks us from registering the negative emotional responses a confrontation might engender, which provides us the illusion we’re not really doing harm.”

Psychologist Linda Bloom, who works with couples in Santa Cruz, CA, is concerned about “ghosting”, where people disappear from relationships quickly and entirely, which is amplified online because it is so complete and so quick. A recent study showed that half of us have been ghosted – and half have done it.

“It’s very painful for the person left behind,” says Bloom. “I’m concerned that large numbers will isolate as a result of feeling betrayed, or may end up being the one who does the ghosting.”

Jennice Vilhauer, an author and director of the a therapy program at Emory University in Atlanta, in a recent Psychology Today article on ghosting says that a “lack of social connections to people who are met online means there are less social consequences to dropping out of someone’s life”.

“The more it happens, either to themselves or their friends, the more people become desensitized to it and the more likely they are to do it to someone else.”

While early ideas about online communications being “impoverished” have been disputed, Lickerman nonetheless also believes communications online is deficient, and is particularly worried about young people, more than half of whom now say they would prefer to communicate online. “Not using or losing the ability to read social cues, which should develop in adolescence, will change us fundamentally.” Successful relationships involve reading and understanding those subtle cues, he says.

 

Not the end
The Internet also can unfortunately keep a connection alive for one party when a relationship has ended, says Elias Aboujaoude, a Stanford psychiatrist and author of “Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the e-Personality”.

“

Durvasula agrees. “Clients are becoming destabilized by social media, especially in the wake of a relationship breakup when they will obsessively monitor a former partner’s behavior and have to mourn and re-mourn a loss.”

Research by British psychologist Tara Marshall shows two-thirds of Facebook users checked on a former partner, which, she says, “is associated with poorer emotional recovery and personal growth following a breakup.”

 

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sidebar

 

Making a match

More than one-in-four young people use online dating sites and a study by Pew has found online dating no longer has the stigma it once did. A survey of 19,000 people who married between 2005 and 2012 found that 35 percent met online, about half through an online dating site.

Researchers have generally found that the results on social media were mixed and that that Facebook made meeting people easier but was both a blessing and a curse to romantic relationships.

“Beyond the stages of initiating and experimenting it seems that Facebook often becomes a burden to users in romantic relationships, said researchers in the 2013 report “The Role of Facebook in Romantic Relationship Development” appearing in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

The study found that courting online helps people sort through and connect with potential partners faster but “many aspects of online dating do not appear to improve romantic outcomes and might even undermine them”.

Research by Aditi Paul in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, And Social Networking in 2014 reports people who date online were more likely to have romantic relationships, but less likely to get married. Paul also showed  that the breakup rates for married and unmarried couples was higher if they met online.

In addition, Monica Whitty, a professor of contemporary media at Britain’s University Of Leicester, says that online dating has increased jealousy and mistrust in many cases, and made relationships more fragile. 

“Technology has impacted the courtship ritual,” says Durvasula. “It provides an illusion of a large swath of options, which may make people more likely to keep looking for a ‘perfect’ partner or focus on superficial characteristics that are easier to communicate online. It replaces a deeper level connectivity that is more meaningful and important in the long run.”

 

Jim Paterson is a writer living in Lewes, DE.

 

Are you a self starter when it comes to learning? If not, you should be.

 

Jim Paterson

 

When Bob Paterson got his engineering degree from Rochester Institute of Technology two generations ago, he was being trained for life – the material he learned would generally apply most of his career, though some facets of the job would be automated.

Today Bob would likely find that if he doesn’t retrain pretty extensively, his four-year degree might lose its value… in two years.

And whether you are planning to be an engineer or not, research is continually showing that to be successful, satisfied and happy, you have to be a self-directed learner.

Bob Paterson was my dad. He worked for two companies during his 50 years of employment, and when he stopped he was doing tasks very similar to when he started, although he had moved from designing parts for equipment used in World War II to parts for Xerox copiers.

But according to Lucy Madsen Guglielmino, the author of a lot of the comprehensive research about the topic and a prominent member of the International Society for Self Directed Learning (SDL), research shows today, the “half life” of an engineering degree is two to eight years,

“Why have these learner characteristics and the process of SDL become so critically important in recent years? The primary answer to that question is change: the massive, escalating proliferation of information and technology.”

Guglielmino and others studying SDL have been focusing on how education must change to prepare students for a world where engineering degrees lose value in half the time it took to get them, and online information grows at a rate that ads the equivalent of the 17 million books at the Library of Congress’s about 37,000 times a year. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that every two days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization until 2003.

According to Daniel Pink, in his book DRiVE: The surprising truth about what motivates us, access to that information changes how we think and work,  and the motivation to learn and use information independently requires three attributes:

• Autonomy—the desire to direct our own lives.
• Mastery—the urge to get better and better at something that matters.
• Purpose—the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

The good news — Guglielmino and her cohorts say the process of self directed learning can, itself, be learned. And, she says, it leads to “satisfaction, academic achievement, workplace performance, conscientiousness, resilience, strategic thinking, creativity and flexibility, and cross-cultural adaptability.”

Just being aware of the need to self-educate is helpful, but here are a few other tips Guglielmino and others recommend.

• Understand your learning style. Do you know if you learn by reading something, hearing about it or watching it demonstrated – or just diving in and doing it. Knowing that will keep you from getting frustrated and self directed learning is hard enough without nowing what’s best for you. There are assessments that will help.
• Have goals and a plan. Long term (I’m going to change careers.) and short term (I’m going to research this topic for two hours before I take a break.)
• Stay motivated and disciplined. In whatever way you can. Think about the things you’ve achieved and how you accomplished it, paying particular attention to the distraction that occur on one screen or another.
• Develop and use networks. For key information in the area you are studying and for support when you get hit a bump
• Keep going. Over those bumps. Successful self learners understand there will be some tough spots, but they are prepared for them and can keep moving,
• Assess your success. Give yourself credit for hard work (There may not be someone around to assess you and give you a report card) but be honest when you examine your effort – and keep pushing.
• Build executive function skills. They are key (staying focused and organized and using time well) and if you lack them, get some help and practice them.

 

  completing work; one who enjoys learning and has a tendency to be goal-oriented.

 

Jim Paterson is a writer living in Lewes DE.

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Alex Castro pauses for a moment, gazing down at 21 large round cement platforms that drop gradually in terraces to the harbor. They’ve been at the center of his panoramic and potent mind for months now, but he almost seems to be looking at them for the first time

He crosses one of the newly resurfaced, raised pads, explaining that they once held huge storage tanks full of Proctor and Gamble’s popular soaps, stairways curling around their metal hulls. Then he hops down to another level of this “industrial ruin” and carefully examines the precisely aligned grooves and cross-hatched scratches that he’s carefully put in the new surface of one of the larger 18-foot wide discs. Comfortable leather shoes, light blue shirt open at the collar and tweed jacket. His head is down and his hands are thrust deep into the pockets of his well-worn khaki pants except when they shoot quickly backward through his hair. He reminds you of that charming, empathetic professor you wanted to share a beeer with.

\This place he’s doting on is Liberty Garden, a bit less than an acre of a unique park-like sculpture alongside the new Tide Point office park in Locust Point built by his friend and prominent developer Bill Streuver of Struever Brothers, Eccles and Rouse. The pads, which are raised a foot or so from the surface, have been carefully etched and scored and stained and mingle with huge cement balls, and 10-feet high cement cones on a floor of black gravel.

At the shore, a water taxi stand with 10-foot “light cone” will mark the spot where immigrants once came ashore in the mid-1800s before being shepherded off to a busy processing center. He stops near the water and looks back up the hill “I’m really enjoying this,” he says. “This is getting me back to something I lost along the way.”

In his remarkable search, if Alex Castro has found something else important, it will be very interesting to watch where it takes him. And where it takes us. He is by any measure a renaissance man.

—

He is a fine artist who has works in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington (where one installation he displayed there was mentioned prominently by a famous critic in a review of the noted museum’s 100-year highlights) the Brooklyn Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art. — He does world-class publication design, having produced books for the biggest shows by leading museums, including the Smithsonian, the Walters Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Corcoran, the Chicago Institute of Art, the Folger Shakespeare Library and BMA. Five leading publishers of coffee table books in New York once each put Castro on their short list of top designers.

— He gets rave reviews for his design of museum spaces for top instutions nationwide. — He is a building designer whose work is among the most memorable in Baltimore – the Visionary Art Museum (where he collaborated with Architect Becky Swanston) and Baltimore’s beloved art cinema, the Charles Theatre. Other stirring projects are in the works. “When this question comes up about what I really am, I usually change the subject. But if I have to define it, I consider myself an artist first, and that’s the way I approach anything I do” Whatever he does, the acclaim from clients is persistent and often almost as difficult to fully believe as the resume. “He is more brilliant spatially, intellectually and conceptually than anyone I’ve ever met,” says Jane Livingston, a former curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington who displayed his art and gave him some of his first major book design projects 20 years ago, “He wants people for whom he works to take ownership in the product, but he is the master. He becomes a teacher and you never know you are getting an education.,” says Vera Hyatt, project director for the Smithsonian’s Office of International Relations who has worked with Castro for 12 years on projects throughout the world. “He seduces with his genius rather than beat you over the head with it. It’s always collaborative, but also uncompromising,” says Cara McCarty, curator at the St. Louis Museum of Art, who has worked with Castro on a number of exhibition and book design projects.. “And the work is always right.” If his name isn’t a household word, some say its because Castro doesn’t promote himself. “”The only negative thing you can say about this guy is that he is too self-deprecating., That has held him back from getting the incredible attention and fame that he deserves,” says Jane Livingston. Others suggest he is not better known because he spreads himself so thin. It might be that he is succeeds with a subtle but intoxicating pluck and spirit and word-of- mouth from exuberant clients, which doesn’t require intense self promotion. “No matter what, he is a very important guy,” says Buzz Cusak, co-owner of the Charles Theatre. “I don’t think Baltimore understands what they have here or what he can do.” Alejandro Fransico Castro was born in Washington, D.C., in 1943. One grandfather was the ambassador from El Salvador and the other a Irish American congressman from Michigan. His father was a world-renowned colo-rectal surgeon, practicing at the Mayo Clinic and heading a prominent national society in his field. “Heavy hitters, and it was a lot to live up to,” he says. Early on young Alex showed this interest in a broad spectrum – sports teams, the astronomy club – founder of the drama club and literary magazine at his private school. He studied English Literature and Spanish at Yale, got his masters in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 and upon graduating supported a young family by creating his own art and teaching. With his second wife and collaborator, Caroline, he founded what would become Castro Arts in 1978, designing books and producing short films. Livingston, for whom he had done a critically- acclaimed installation that covered the floor of the famous museum’s rotunda with a metal jig-saw puzzle-like pieces, suggested the two try their hand a museum catalogs. “I thought he could pretty much do anything he wanted to,” she says, Over the next decade, Castro designed big beautiful books for the Corcoran, the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, the Walters and the Los Angeles County, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Baltimore Museums of Art and for publishers like Abbeville and Rizzoli International. (I DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT PUBLISHERS, BUT YOU MENTIONED THOSE TWO.)That work led to the development of some 50 major museum exhibition spaces throughout the world. The popular design of the American Visionary Art Museum in the early 1990s gave him his entrée into architecture. It’s another example of someone – in this case AVAM director and founder Rebecca Hoffberger – sensing Castro was up to the task. “He’d never designed even a doghouse when he did this building, but I knew he would do it beautifully,” she says. There is no question in my mind that he’s a genius.” Castro was ready for the challenge. “Architecture was a way for me to meet the world with ideas, Castro says, explaining why he he shies away from the formal “architect” He isn’t formally registered as an architect and would rather “remain in the world of ideas about architecture.” “I don’t pretend to be a full architect. I’m interested in the place you begin. There are other folks who can do the construction documents much better than I can.” When you speak with those other architects, they praise Castro’s design, but there is a hint that they don’t entirely accept him. Many simply just don’t know his name. But plenty of people, including critics, love his work. “Baltimore has much to gain from Alex Castro,” says Struever, “and he will eventually do something that will knock our collective socks off.” Castro, with Buzz Cusak, is walking through the Charles Theatre, recalling the various stumbling blocks in the expansion and restoration. He wanted to maintain the “spirit” of the old structure, where the world’s most famous jazz bands once played. However, he also wanted to create something new and he needed to wring a lot of functional space out of a limited one. He hoped to make the audience to feel as though it was part of the process – backstage at the theatre – so he allowed the workings of the place to be visible, most notably with 2nd floor catwalks for use by projectionists weaving through the lobby and above and amidst the theaters “Anyone who gets into truly creative work with another individual gets into a dialogue with their inner spirit. You have to know that, read it and understand it or else you’re just creating a programmed solution that you then give somebody. “For me the hardest part of doing the Charles was knowing that people held it in their hearts. If it didn’t still have that heart – or if that feeling wasn’t enhanced – it was going to be total failure. Buzz wanted to do that so much – and if it turned out okay it’s because of his spirit.” Cusak gazes around happily and gushes about the place. “I love to be in this building. I just love to come in here,” he says. “It’s remarkable what he did with it. It meets all our needs in a truly beautiful space.” Castro grasps the railing for a portion of the catwalk that stretches above the concession and looks down at the public’s room – the lobby. His jaw is clenched and his eyes are shifting around as he studies the exposed brick, deco-style fixtures and unique cafe where people waiting for a movie can congregate. “I think this all works pretty well,” he finally says. Clients say that Castro has a remarkable talent for finding a unique solution that not only deals with limits but incorporates them — at the Charles the space produced the untraditional long open lobby and use of stadium seating; at AVAM, a unique existing round building, eliminated in all other design proposals, was incorporated in Castro’s and led to the important spiral the building now suggests, At Tide Point the huge pads are transformed. Tight budgets spur creativity and limiting space is exploited. “The eventual delight in the form often comes from the generating forces of the problems you meet. Problems are springboards to good design,” Castro says JOHN — I KEPT A BIT OF THE FOLLOWING ABOUT HIS PERSONALITY. When you hear the accolades you can’t help but wonder if it isn’t just the engaging personality or the handsome, empathetic face that wins people over. One female curator said Castro can be overpowering. Important professional women who have worked with him call him “riveting” and “devastatingly handsome.” “He is a real charmer. A total charmer,” says Cara McCarty “He makes everybody involved feel good.” “He’s almost boyish in his earnestness,” says Leslie Greene Bowman, director of the Winterthur Museum In Wilmington Del., who repeatedly hired Castro for displays when she was a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the late 1990s. “He says something like ‘you know, I really wanted to do this’ and you just sort of melt. And then it’s right.” And that is the key. The people who at first may appear to simply be swayed by this charm also point to results. They say they got work they love that perfectly met their needs – but work that very clearly is Alex Castro’s. Cara McCarty says Castro wins people over because he becomes “totally involved.” “He thinks and breathes it. It becomes his project too and you sense that,” she says. “He’ll call you up and since the last time you’ve talked he’s had several brilliant new ideas. How can you not like someone who seems to be so passionate about your work.” The creativity is sometimes a careful stew, simmering for a while with lots of ingredients poured in by Castro, who friends say never heard an idea he didn’t like or at least wouldn’t consider. But often it’s pure front-burner inspiration. Castro was once struggling with the cover for a catalogue featuring important photographers. A photo one of his children had taken accidentally of a sibling lay in the corner of his desk. “I looked down and there was the fuzzy photo of my daughter. No question There was the cover. It worked, and no photographer would be offended because a rival got the front of the book.” The Corcoran and the photographers loved it. Cara McCarty was supervising a photography session for a catalog for an important show about masks, using a model in a Caribbean costume. “No matter what we did, something was wrong with the photos. We faxed them to Alex and he called in a few minutes saying that they were too static. He said ‘Look why don’t you just turn on some music and let him dance.’ It worked perfectly. This guy leaping into the air is the best image in the catalog.” Struever sees it all the time. He points to Castro’s idea to paint horizontal and vertical stripes on the water towers near Struever’s development at Tindeco Wharf, an interesting, engaging solution to enliven this older piece of architecture. “I like it when the solution is something simple,” Castro says. “Those towers are enough — an economy of moves.” Castro is at Beacon Garden again. He is talking about how it melds sculpture and architecture and how he likes this direction for his work.. He is involved in projects to ad a $3.2 million unique new inn to the Black Olive restaurant, revitalize the National Bohemian Brewery building in XXXX and he has ideas about developing a small kiosk at the inner harbor with an illuminated floor, which would continuously show new images from the Hubble Space Telescope He also talks a lot about designing private space for individuals. “They would be somewhere between a habitable sculpture and an architectural space that promotes thought and reflection. I think of these places as situations.” “I have what is perhaps an outdated notion that that space around one very much affects the thinking space within. We are overcome with stimuli and it seems to me that we very much need a way to at least get some respite from a very stressful, bombarding world,” he says Alex Castro seems determined to provide us with space that inspires us and makes us feel at home, the places where we want to be. Then the question becomes – will he find his. end Jim Paterson 301-774-8329 1 6 date:12/3/01 Jim Paterson 301-774-8329 for: Baltimore Magazine fax: 301-570-3221 subject: new art space email: mypat@radix.net length: 2400 file name:art spaces paterson 6/01 1

The confusing college payoff conversation

One of the most popular college conversations today has a couple of stages: first a discussion about those unsubstantiated estimates of its the dollars-and-cents value, and then a review of the “experience”.

These chats – with everyone from your counselor or advice-spewing uncle to the recently-graduated neighbor working at the local coffee shop or shoe store – perhaps first  review the data about the financial value of college then always touch on how it enhances one’s life.

And right in the middle of those discussions now is a new book by University of Pennsylvania business management professor Peter Cappelli, who suggests we should take a long, hard look at the financial payoff of college and perhaps trumpet its other benefits. (Will College Pay Off?: A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You’ll Ever Make.)

Cappelli should know – he heads the department that teaches human resources to top business students at the respected Wharton School.

In his book, he carefully reviews the many opinions about whether college pays for itself, which today seem to suggest it isn’t a great financial investment. He derides “unqualified statements about the big payoff to a college degree that are pushing so many students and their families who can’t afford it to jump into the deep end of college expenses, taking on debt that they cannot afford for experiences that are unlikely to pay off.”

That well-meaning push, experts say, has meant some people who can’t afford school attend, some who might be interested in another path feel compelled to enroll, while, meanwhile, colleges create programs to handle the load and new, often less-beneficial for-profit colleges proliferate. Even more-specialized majors also grow, Cappelli argues, though those degrees may be less marketable and more difficult to shift from – “career paths” like adventure education, artic engineering or auctioneering, just to name the first three at a site championing them.

Such narrow choices also add stress to 18-year-olds who sometimes have had little time to explore careers or have much real-world experience beyond scooping ice cream or taking fast-food orders for a few months.

Cappelli also clearly notes that careers that are popular and promise to offer jobs at one point may not be as promising in four years because the economy shifts and because there are a glut of grads flooding that field simply because of the chatter about it. Some “STEM” jobs, he notes, which are still widely ballyhooed, are very hard to find and, in one example, even pay less than jobs in social services. Only one-in-five science grads got a job in their field in 2009, he says.

He and other suggest that in the past a college degree was, for better or worse, a sort of filter which indicated that the graduate had shown him or herself capable of handling the rigor of college.  Now, he says, that’s not the case for a number of reasons – and while employers still look at the “prestige” of some schools, they’re often most concerned about work experience.

“It has to do with internships and summer jobs and extra-curricular activities. That’s what they care more about than the academic material,” he says.

Cappelli, of course, doesn’t suggest we shouldn’t go to college – just that prospective students should take their time and make careful, practical choices related to college selection, their major and the job market. He says a year of service or a gap year or a year off working could be a good idea. “It is important to find it whether a student is ready for college before they go, and taking a year off to do something independent is a good way to do that.”

And, he says, young people should think about the real value of the degree – that other “experience”.

“There is no guarantee of a payoff from very practical, work-based degree, yet that is all those degrees promise. Liberal arts…will enrich your life and provide lessons that extend beyond any individual job. There are centuries of experience providing support for that notion.”

 “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain

Winging it

International travel is growing, and changing the students who participate.

Jim Paterson

Sarah Niles heard it again as she wearily walked through the busy airport through a crowd of parents, siblings and friends bearing homemade signs and balloons welcoming back her equally weary traveling partners.

“It was awesome. It was the best thing I’ve ever done,” said one of Niles’ traveling companions, an excited, teary, tall blonde girl who initially had been her most reluctant traveler.

“I love to hear that,” Niles says. “She and her parents were beaming, and I really believe it was the best thing she’s ever done – and may be one of the best things she’ll ever do.”

Niles, executive director of the Oregon Association of Student Councils, encourages international travel for students in leadership positions across the state. And the students credit her with helping them find and prepare for the best opportunities, and make the most of them

More students are traveling and studying abroad today as it becomes less often a lark for the privileged few, and more often part of the traditional educational experience – from middle school through college. And proponents say its benefits are evident in the heightened maturity and better grades of the students, in their understanding of the world, and often in the work they do on behalf of other cultures.

Research shows the value of students having an experience in a foreign country – whether it’s a year of study in a Chinese school, a month of work in an African village helping establish a clean water system or even a week visiting popular tourist locations in Paris. They will inevitably tell you how much they enjoyed it and others who know them will tell you they’ve changed.

“I believe the most effective way to help students gain new perspectives, overcome adversity, make connections and develop new skills is through experiencing it first hand.  What better way than through travel,” says Miles.

“I’ve led student groups to many states across the nation and internationally to Japan and the Dominican Republic – whether its for three days or two weeks, students have always come home with a new appreciation for not only where they come from but where others come from.  It’s opened their minds to viewpoints different than their own.”

Ryan Findley was an active high school student leader and was involved in international experiences at a young age. Eventually he became a leader in helping U.S. students work and study in Africa and in helping African student leaders enhance their skills. He is now the global programs manager at the growing African Leadership Academy and speaks broadly to students in this country about involvement in Africa – including at NHS and NASC conferences.

“I think international experience is a game changer for young people. To get outside of their context and see life from another angle –  ­ this is the sort of thing that I think should be required learning for any American teenager,” he says “You see the entitlement drop little by little; you see the self-centeredness drop too.  Even more impressively, you see empathy kick up quickly.”

 

Travel abroad grows

There is both anecdotal and statistical data about the growth and value of international study or travel, which dates back at far as Holland in 1190, when school records show students traveled to Oxford University in England for study. It has always been recognized as a valuable experience.

The number of young people studying abroad rose to well over 300,000 in 2014, including college students studying for credit, and the number of programs offering international study has expanded widely.

One of the oldest and largest companies helping schools with international travel, EF Educational Tours, now works with more than 500 schools in 50 countries, and another, American Institute for Foreign Study, which also started in the mid-60’s, says it has sent 1.5 million students abroad and has grown to annually helping about 50,000 students travel to foreign countries and come here.

Colleges in several studies regularly reported that students with international experiences were more likely to graduate (and graduate more quickly), and likely to have a higher GPA.

“Among all groups, at least 80% reported moderate to high growth in independence, cultural sophistication, awareness of international issues, overall maturity, self-confidence, and flexibility/adaptability,” a study at the University of Delaware reported.

One report says five years after graduation the unemployment rate for European students who had been “internationally mobile” was 23 percent lower than for other students, and another in this country reports that 97 percent of college students studying abroad found employment, in a year, nearly double the rate for all students. It offers a variety of other data about benefits of study in foreign countries.

The Obama administration, based on what it says is its value to education and our economy, has been a strong supporter of International Travel with the Department of State, Department of Education and Commerce Department offering programs to support it.

First Lady Michele Obama put it this way last year, citing research supporting international travel for students

“…studying abroad isn’t just an important part of a well-rounded educational experience. It’s also becoming increasingly important for success in the modern global economy. Getting ahead in today’s workplaces isn’t just about the skills you bring from the classroom. It’s also about the experience you have with the world beyond our borders with people, and languages, and cultures that are very different from our own.”

 

The value to students

It is hard to measure the ways international experiences affect students, but ask a group of them about their trips (after a week of rest) and they’ll generally bubble with enthusiasm.

“Traveling to Europe was such a life-changing experience. Seeing all of the different cultures really opened my eyes.” That’s what recent graduate Jody Trevino told Floresville, TX, High School NHS sponsor Anthony Warzecha, who took a group to Greece and Italy.  Warzecha himself called the trip “life changing” for the students. As a history teacher he says it can make his subject “come alive.”

Students traveling abroad and the adults who work with them suggest the experience helps young people understand themselves better, learn to be more resourceful and solve problems, all skills that help in leadership. They can learn another language, learn about art or history in another location and expand their understanding of other cultures and improve their resumes for college or employment.

August Harrison, a senior at Tualatin, OR, High School, says his travel helped him think more broadly

“I learned how big the actual world is, and how similar all teenagers really are, even if they are on the other side of the planet. As teens we get so caught up in our little bubble and don’t realize how big the world really is out there”

Michael Hagan, former president of the Maryland Association of Student Councils, said his international study experience in England with others from throughout the world included formal learning opportunities, but also more personal moments.

“The most important experiences I had were those moments, be they in a structured or unstructured settings, when the universal languages of laughter, compassion, solidarity, and empathy reached across cultural gaps. These remain immeasurably valuable in leadership and, as those things at the heart of leadership always are, in life.”

Others found their work in student leadership paid off.

“My time abroad taught me a lot about myself and my personal qualities. Problem solving was a key component and I can certainly thank my previous leadership training for the way I handled it.” That’s how Malory Turner, a student at Oregon State University, explains the impact of her two trips and its connection to working for four years on her high school student council. “It also gave me the confidence to go above and beyond experiences that I was normally used to and it allowed me to put the communications skills I had learned to use.”

Austin Milne, a student leader in 11^th grade in San Diego, said he learned to make decisions for himself during the three weeks he spent in Santiago, Chile through Quest Exchange. “The experience of studying abroad had a huge impact on my independence. I needed to quickly adapt to being able to understand people with a language barrier.”

He says that helped him understand others and, he hopes, might help others understand our culture.

“I believe that studying in another country opens eyes to the expansive variety of the rest of the world. Also, I was able to get other people interested in the culture of my own country and possibly motivated them to study abroad themselves.”

Casey Siddons, an NJHS adviser at Argyle Middle School in Silver Spring, MD, has taken students on two international trips and is about to travel on a third. He says even middle school students are changed by the experience, becoming more self reliant and more confident.  They are at a point in their lives when they are open to understanding new cultures before they develop preconceived ideas about them.

 

Value more broadly

Adam White is founder and director of Atlas Workshops, a unique program that takes high school students abroad to study and undertake “international field research and trips that tackle contemporary issues and real world problems”. He says Atlas students “move beyond tourism,” and “engage in real research and produce meaningful work through trip-based projects.”

“Each trip is framed by a question or problem and our goal is to seek answers and craft an idea. Projects might include new software designs, social media campaigns, photo exhibits or business plans. Each trip demands a unique project that has the potential to impact communities near and far.”

Students also return with plans.

Tessa Houser was a junior the NHS at Quaker Valley High School in Leetsdale, PA. when she was a winner in the Global Travel Scholarship Program, which allowed her to spend a summer in Tanzania and form close relationships with her host family, which saw two members contract malaria.

When she returned to the Pittsburgh area, she worked with her NHS chapter to raise more than $1000 for a program called Nothing But Nets, which provides mosquito netting in regions where malaria is a problem. She and the chapter continue to work on the cause.

“Coming back into the United States, I knew I had to do something to try to fix this problem,” she said in a blog.

White and Findley both say they often find that students who travel abroad come back, like Tessa, energized about doing other work to support other countries, and often through their leadership groups.

White says it can cause students to “pick-up on the nuance of a global issue”.

“Connecting with people with different backgrounds and experiences as equals and partners, not just guides or aid recipients, can charge students and give them purpose and understanding,” he says. “This perspective can help students relate the root issues to their global impacts. I’ve seen trips like this shape the way a student sees the world … and major issues facing it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

<SIDEBAR 1>

 

Why fly?

Five reasons to take students abroad

 

1. A different world. They get real-life experience speaking in a different language and understanding a different culture, which broadens their way of thinking about this country and other lands for a lifetime. They can see art and history and culture first hand. Things they see in pictures or hear about in the classroom come to life. They make emories they will never forget.
2. Handling stuff. They have to manage a budget, get their laundry done, use public transportation, and keep their stuff organized. It’s like a summer camp experience – but with so much more opportunity They will have to make decisions about how much they rest, what they eat, where they go.
3. Friends and contacts and…themselves. They’ll become very close with the students and adults with whom they are traveling – and will make connections in the countries they visit. It all is valuable experience socio-emotionally, and the contacts may pay off later in other ways. Students often report they “got to know” themselves, which often means how they relate to others.
4. The resume. While it doesn’t guarantee admission to an Ivy League school, an international experience looks good on the resume for colleges and future employers. It apparently helps the GPA and interest in school.
5. Giving back.There are a lot of opportunities to help in the communities students visit through a variety of programs, and ways that the experience abroad can be brought back to fuel a service project at home or for another country from home.

 

<SIDEBAR 2>

 

Take off

Some places to start — carefully

 

There are A LOT of places offering international travel opportunities for young people – and just as many places rating them. Here are a few sites to check out.

(Obviously, advisers and families must be careful when choosing an organization to work with, looking at their history and talking to others who have used their service.)

 

– Federal government has some travel abroad tips.

https://travel.state.gov/content/studentsabroad/en.html

 

– Princeton Review – summer study programs

http://www.princetonreview.com/study-abroad/college-abroad/summer-programs

 

– GoOversees has two articles about study and travel

• High school travel programs:

http://www.gooverseas.com/blog/best-high-school-travel-programs

• High school study programs:

http://www.gooverseas.com/blog/best-high-school-study-abroad-programs

 

– The Globalist, a Seattle-based online publication that offers information about international connections, has this article with tips and lists: http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2013/04/02/guide-for-high-school-study-abroad/11862