[Laughter]
so I want to dedicate this talk today to
my dad who’s in the audience right here
somewhere my dad is a lifelong fan of
the New York Mets and as such he
instilled in me a deep empathy and
respect for the underdog and I hope that
that empathy and respect is reflected in
the talk today there’s a growing body of
scholarship that highlights the cultural
downside of our obsession with
innovation I first got wind of it while
driving home from school I’m here and I
was listening to the radio interview and
these two scholars came on well these
two scholars came on Andrew Russell and
leave in Seoul are sort of the leading
lights of critical innovation studies I
didn’t even know there was such a thing
but it was one of those interviews where
you’re in your car you’re thinking like
yes someone is saying exactly what I’ve
been wanting to say for so long I was so
like screaming to myself and looking
probably fairly crazy in any case I’m
going to develop some of their ideas
today they’re the ones that inspired
this talk and I’m going to personalize
them tell some stories ultimately with
the emphasis on highlighting what I’m
going to call the four hidden costs of
innovation one of their main point was
that in an age when we celebrate
innovation we tend to devalue
maintenance we lionize someone like Elon
Musk for his innovative automobile ideas
and we under appreciate the mechanic who
actually fixes the cars we can afford we
you know balk when we have to go get an
oil change and do preventative
maintenance on the car because we’d much
rather go buy a new gadget like let’s
spend the money on something fun and
exciting maintenance isn’t really sexy
an innovation is maintenance is kind of
a drag an innovation is like the bright
future we can also call this the shiny
object problem and that is the new the
now in the Wow seduced us and at the
same time they distract us from
maintaining the infrastructures that
support and facilitate our lives which
leads me to the first point
the first hitting cost of innovation is
that our obsession with innovation is
not only coincidental with our neglect
of maintenance it actually enables our
neglect of maintenance and I want to
drive this point home by telling two
stories the first is a singular tragedy
and the second is an ongoing crisis on
August 1st
2007 in Minneapolis Minnesota a bridge
spanning the Mississippi River collapsed
and killed 13 people
I myself was here in Providence when it
happened but I just recently moved from
Minnesota because I went to the
University of Minnesota and walked by
that bridge every single day I remember
that day so well because I was calling
my loved ones making sure everyone was
okay and just like frantically trying to
like figure out what happened how this
bridge could have collapsed it had been
deemed structurally deficient for years
there were internal memos that said this
bridge should be closed or replaced but
the Department of Transportation
ultimately determined that it was a
design flaw nonetheless this tragedy set
off a wave of maintenance projects
across the nation you may have noticed
in the last 10 years an increase in
gasoline tax those tax dollars are going
towards these maintenance projects and
as far as I’m concerned that’s what
taxes are for to make our lives better
to make our roads safer right however
after 10 years 10 years after the
Minneapolis bridge collapsed 54,000 259
bridges are in need of repair and
replacement in this country in little
row D our state right here
twenty-three point two percent of the
bridges are structurally deficient
Ray LaHood the former Transportation
Secretary has even been quoted as saying
that America’s infrastructure is like a
third world country
so these stats and statements force the
question how can the world’s wealthiest
nation the one that prattles on about
its greatness have such a poor int of
infrastructure
why have we neglected to maintain our
roads our bridges and our transit system
I think the next story will hopefully
lead us closer to an answer this one’s
about the T Boston’s public transit
system the winter of 2015 was a brutal
winter in fact the snowiest winter on
record in Boston I remember hearing then
about massive delays in the transit
system the T breakdowns people not being
able to get to work their lives
livelihoods jeopardized and even their
lives were jeopardized I myself live in
Providence my partner Jim he’s out here
too lives in Boston hi Jim so I go to
Boston and use the t take it the
commuter rail from Providence to Boston
but my life in my life livelihood was
not at stake in this in these you know
breakdowns nonetheless I remember I
wanted to go to the Institute of
Contemporary Arts in Boston which is in
the Seaport District the bustling new
Seaport District called you guessed it
the innovation district now I arrived at
the Amtrak station the train station in
Providence bought my ticket for the tea
waited for my first train canceled okay
I’ll wait another hour no problem like
it’s not that big of a delay cancelled
also second train cancelled third train
rolls around and like come on we can do
with this nope cancelled it’s like okay
I’ll suck it up I’ll pay through the
nose by the Amtrak ticket just to get to
Boston to go to this museum now this was
supposed to be like a cheap day John to
Boston you know quick round trip just to
go see some stuff at a museum and it
turned into a really expensive day and I
thought of all the Bostonians who had to
do this in the past year right the many
Bostonians who had to like because the
public transit system wasn’t working
they had to go for these private transit
systems which cost like three to four
times more moreover when I arrived at
the new innovation district the sort of
enmeshment of how how much were
celebrating innovation and devaluing
maintenance it became so clear how much
we’re investing in private innovative
corporations and simply neglecting our
infrastructures it was just like
all right there what I saw were these
high-rise condos going up beautiful
luxury high-rise condos scraping into
the sky on that side on this side there
were these new headquarters for these
innovative corporations that Boston bent
over backwards to court and I thought
what about the lowly tee that lowly
little tee just sort of chugging along
they’re like the little engine that
could it seemed as if those high-rises
were mocking that little tee saying I’m
innovative you’re loser and the poor tee
just saying please fix me this one that
makes this city move I later learned
that the relationship between these two
things was intricately woven in fact all
that money that was used to court those
innovative corporations with tax
incentives all the money from those tax
incentives was diverted from those
maintenance projects so this in fact
begets this that’s what I meant by it
enables our obsession with innovation
enables our neglect of maintenance
Boston’s not unique in this you’ve heard
about New York City’s transit systems
public problems problems with their
subway system and I was just recently
reading that the ones most affected by
that city’s problems are the home health
care workers the ones who take care of
the sick and elderly in their homes so
that’s going to become an increasing
health care crisis in New York
especially to sum it up the urban
planning strategies of the last ten
years four major American cities seems
to be don’t maintain innovate and what
that innovation is doing is diverting
all the money from the maintenance
projects the onion recently brilliantly
parodied this phenomenon confident
Philadelphia officials preemptively
raise Center City to make room for
Amazon headquarters it’s funny because
it’s this close to being true we’re
willing to destroy our cities to save
them with innovation the truth of the
matter is the majority of the people who
live in these
city’s the native Bostonians the native
New Yorker is the ones who make that
city run give it its lifeblood give it
its character would benefit so much more
from maintenance than any sort of future
promise of innovation this leads me to
the next hitting cost of innovation
which is that we’re innovative labor
thrives
so does social inequality now it’s not
only that Bostonians are having a harder
and harder time getting from point A to
point B they’re having a hell of a time
paying rent because when innovation
comes to town life gets expensive and
regarding the business of innovation the
profits seem to have trickled up into
the very hands of the social groups that
have historically held wealth and power
in this nation our visionary innovators
are white and male our unsung maintain
errs women and people of color one need
only do a google search to see it’s just
social inequality in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley being our innovation
shangri-la to see how bad it is this is
just an I mean I understand the irony of
doing a Google search to critique Google
but you know so be it
when one does a Google search of social
inequality and Silicon Valley this when
it comes up Silicon Valley’s wealthy
lead have made social inequality worse
opposition to gender equality is rising
in Silicon Valley Silicon Valley’s race
gap is getting worse not better
and finally San Francisco has become one
huge metaphor for economic inequality in
America now my sister who’s also here
used to live in San Francisco and I was
lucky enough to get to go visit her in
the Mission District which was at that
time a multicultural hub a place of
interracial mingling inter-class contact
now it’s essentially just a playground
for the nouveau Tech reach and that tech
reach is making Bank San Francisco has
one of the highest per capita incomes in
the nation and yet when we break that
down in terms of race we’ll see that all
that that tech wealth is skewing white
Hispanic and Latino families have
than half the per-capita income of white
families the innovators like to think
that their disruptors that the really
the game changers are going to really
shake things up and transform things my
questions if innovation is disruption
why hasn’t our social hierarchy been
shaken up if innovation is disruption
why is there still an enormous wage gap
between men and women and whites and
people of color
why hasn’t wealth been distributed more
equitably okay so I’ve been critical of
innovation it’s my job I’m a critical
studies person but now I’m going to give
it a fair shake let’s give the word a
fair shake I’m going to need your help
for this one so innovation what’s the
first thing that comes to mind when you
hear the word innovation first
Association go okay I know I heard
religious heresy right was that one
no I did definitely hear political
revolution I think I heard that
something along those lines but I know
for a fact that I heard someone yell
botany that had something to do that
when I hear innovation I hear botany
that’s in fact these are the three first
definitions of the word historically
speaking the three first derivation of
the word innovation are religious heresy
political revolution in botany but I
would wager my dog on that you all and
me because we’re all swimming in the
same water here had something to do with
product development tech development you
know the bright future of progress right
we shouldn’t be surprised by this
association since the 1950s business
leaders politicians economists have been
telling us that innovation equals tech
development equals product development
and that’s going to equal the good life
that’s going to equal not just more jobs
it’s going to equal a better society and
I got to thinking about this Association
this deep Association almost that
innovation is so intricately tied to
product development to tech development
and I thought this fuels a pretty
dangerous narrative and that narrative
goes something like this
although innovation in the past has had
so many meanings most of them negative
by the way now it’s simply just
doublespeak form or capitalism at any
cost we just seem to invest in the same
systems and practices and think we’re
going to get different results as the
earth warms as the Seas rise and as our
landfills swell we continue to believe
that global innovative capitalism will
save us what I’m going to be thinking
about for the rest of this talk is how
to disengage ourselves from these
present practices and systems so that we
can think of truly innovative solutions
and that and by that I mean radical
solutions but first I have to tell you
about the new buzzwords I came up with
to counter innovation so I was talking
to a friend my friend Mark in Ottawa and
he was like yes I understand what you’re
saying the innovation is about this
relentless push forward that’s always
about like more and more
or and you want to say less less lesson
like yes yes yes and he’s like slow
vation that’s where we’re good that’s
the new buzzword it’s going it’s going
viral you’re the first to hear it I
thought that’s cool that’s pretty cool
but then I was like I want something a
little more radical not just slowing
things down but just like let’s get off
the hamster wheel all together let’s
like cut the cord get off the grid
throw our cell phones in the water so
how about Novation nothing like done no
one’s gonna be on board that one I
thought okay I’m a philosopher I teach
philosophy we reflect we think we try to
honestly assess a problem how about
reflective ation and then I realized I
sounded more like a marketer trying to
invent a product named for some 1950s
household appliance or some bizarre
product with and I thought forget it no
more buzz words but the idea of
disengaging from these present systems
and practices is still very much what I
want to drive home today as a teacher in
the age of innovation in the innovation
frenzy we’ve been encouraged and as
students you know to do use all kinds of
technological doodads in the classroom
flip the classroom use your phone to do
instant polling what else yeah various
forms of like teaching you how to thrive
within these systems teaching not
teaching you digital natives how to
flourish within our present-day
environment my teaching philosophy it’s
pretty old-school I go well it’s more
than old-school it’s ancient it’s like
from before Christ
it comes from Cicero Cicero is quoted as
saying the purpose of education is to
free the students from the tyranny of
the present and I love that phrase
because the present can be tyrannical we
don’t even realize that we’re swimming
in it in these discourses and these
ideologies and I think the point of
Education is to sort of disengages from
it get us out of it so that we can think
better we can think about actually
innovative solutions my hidden costs of
innovation for then is specifically
about teaching that innovative so-called
innovative pedagogy in bed students
firmly in the presence
now there’s good news the silver lining
the people have spoken and the people
don’t want innovative pedagogy what do
the people want work with me here
what publicly available educational
forum has attracted millions and
millions of viewers in the last ten
years I’ll say a public event Ted X you
pub right so TEDx has attracted millions
and millions of our tisanes will full
participants they didn’t pay to do what
they’re said Internet access and they
watched a lecturer and think of the
setup of the TED talk it is as old
fashioned as the day is young it is a
lecturer and listeners it’s like I could
be Cicero right now and you guys could
be like you know in togas I mean it is
so ancient what we’re doing here and I’m
trying to emphasize the fact that TED
talks are not at all innovative TED
talks are on the side of the maintainer
and that’s obviously a compliment coming
from me I’m saying TED talks are not
innovative
they’re ant they’re like maintaining who
we are as a species they’re maintaining
our oral tradition that’s grounded in
speakers and listeners students and
teachers they’re also maintaining what I
like to call the five pillars of
democracy those pillars civil discourse
rational argument clear articulation
active listening interdependency those
five pillars might be our most
innovative things that we can do here
and the fact that we’re in a forum
that’s emphasizing these that’s allowing
us to work through some of these we’re
also now working toward and trying to
maybe fulfill the dream of democracy so
give yourself a round of applause for
participating in these five pillars of
democracy thank you for your time I
appreciate everything and I hope you
have a great day
so I want to dedicate this talk today to
my dad who’s in the audience right here
somewhere my dad is a lifelong fan of
the New York Mets and as such he
instilled in me a deep empathy and
respect for the underdog and I hope that
that empathy and respect is reflected in
the talk today there’s a growing body of
scholarship that highlights the cultural
downside of our obsession with
innovation I first got wind of it while
driving home from school I’m here and I
was listening to the radio interview and
these two scholars came on well these
two scholars came on Andrew Russell and
leave in Seoul are sort of the leading
lights of critical innovation studies I
didn’t even know there was such a thing
but it was one of those interviews where
you’re in your car you’re thinking like
yes someone is saying exactly what I’ve
been wanting to say for so long I was so
like screaming to myself and looking
probably fairly crazy in any case I’m
going to develop some of their ideas
today they’re the ones that inspired
this talk and I’m going to personalize
them tell some stories ultimately with
the emphasis on highlighting what I’m
going to call the four hidden costs of
innovation one of their main point was
that in an age when we celebrate
innovation we tend to devalue
maintenance we lionize someone like Elon
Musk for his innovative automobile ideas
and we under appreciate the mechanic who
actually fixes the cars we can afford we
you know balk when we have to go get an
oil change and do preventative
maintenance on the car because we’d much
rather go buy a new gadget like let’s
spend the money on something fun and
exciting maintenance isn’t really sexy
an innovation is maintenance is kind of
a drag an innovation is like the bright
future we can also call this the shiny
object problem and that is the new the
now in the Wow seduced us and at the
same time they distract us from
maintaining the infrastructures that
support and facilitate our lives which
leads me to the first point
the first hitting cost of innovation is
that our obsession with innovation is
not only coincidental with our neglect
of maintenance it actually enables our
neglect of maintenance and I want to
drive this point home by telling two
stories the first is a singular tragedy
and the second is an ongoing crisis on
August 1st
2007 in Minneapolis Minnesota a bridge
spanning the Mississippi River collapsed
and killed 13 people
I myself was here in Providence when it
happened but I just recently moved from
Minnesota because I went to the
University of Minnesota and walked by
that bridge every single day I remember
that day so well because I was calling
my loved ones making sure everyone was
okay and just like frantically trying to
like figure out what happened how this
bridge could have collapsed it had been
deemed structurally deficient for years
there were internal memos that said this
bridge should be closed or replaced but
the Department of Transportation
ultimately determined that it was a
design flaw nonetheless this tragedy set
off a wave of maintenance projects
across the nation you may have noticed
in the last 10 years an increase in
gasoline tax those tax dollars are going
towards these maintenance projects and
as far as I’m concerned that’s what
taxes are for to make our lives better
to make our roads safer right however
after 10 years 10 years after the
Minneapolis bridge collapsed 54,000 259
bridges are in need of repair and
replacement in this country in little
row D our state right here
twenty-three point two percent of the
bridges are structurally deficient
Ray LaHood the former Transportation
Secretary has even been quoted as saying
that America’s infrastructure is like a
third world country
so these stats and statements force the
question how can the world’s wealthiest
nation the one that prattles on about
its greatness have such a poor int of
infrastructure
why have we neglected to maintain our
roads our bridges and our transit system
I think the next story will hopefully
lead us closer to an answer this one’s
about the T Boston’s public transit
system the winter of 2015 was a brutal
winter in fact the snowiest winter on
record in Boston I remember hearing then
about massive delays in the transit
system the T breakdowns people not being
able to get to work their lives
livelihoods jeopardized and even their
lives were jeopardized I myself live in
Providence my partner Jim he’s out here
too lives in Boston hi Jim so I go to
Boston and use the t take it the
commuter rail from Providence to Boston
but my life in my life livelihood was
not at stake in this in these you know
breakdowns nonetheless I remember I
wanted to go to the Institute of
Contemporary Arts in Boston which is in
the Seaport District the bustling new
Seaport District called you guessed it
the innovation district now I arrived at
the Amtrak station the train station in
Providence bought my ticket for the tea
waited for my first train canceled okay
I’ll wait another hour no problem like
it’s not that big of a delay cancelled
also second train cancelled third train
rolls around and like come on we can do
with this nope cancelled it’s like okay
I’ll suck it up I’ll pay through the
nose by the Amtrak ticket just to get to
Boston to go to this museum now this was
supposed to be like a cheap day John to
Boston you know quick round trip just to
go see some stuff at a museum and it
turned into a really expensive day and I
thought of all the Bostonians who had to
do this in the past year right the many
Bostonians who had to like because the
public transit system wasn’t working
they had to go for these private transit
systems which cost like three to four
times more moreover when I arrived at
the new innovation district the sort of
enmeshment of how how much were
celebrating innovation and devaluing
maintenance it became so clear how much
we’re investing in private innovative
corporations and simply neglecting our
infrastructures it was just like
all right there what I saw were these
high-rise condos going up beautiful
luxury high-rise condos scraping into
the sky on that side on this side there
were these new headquarters for these
innovative corporations that Boston bent
over backwards to court and I thought
what about the lowly tee that lowly
little tee just sort of chugging along
they’re like the little engine that
could it seemed as if those high-rises
were mocking that little tee saying I’m
innovative you’re loser and the poor tee
just saying please fix me this one that
makes this city move I later learned
that the relationship between these two
things was intricately woven in fact all
that money that was used to court those
innovative corporations with tax
incentives all the money from those tax
incentives was diverted from those
maintenance projects so this in fact
begets this that’s what I meant by it
enables our obsession with innovation
enables our neglect of maintenance
Boston’s not unique in this you’ve heard
about New York City’s transit systems
public problems problems with their
subway system and I was just recently
reading that the ones most affected by
that city’s problems are the home health
care workers the ones who take care of
the sick and elderly in their homes so
that’s going to become an increasing
health care crisis in New York
especially to sum it up the urban
planning strategies of the last ten
years four major American cities seems
to be don’t maintain innovate and what
that innovation is doing is diverting
all the money from the maintenance
projects the onion recently brilliantly
parodied this phenomenon confident
Philadelphia officials preemptively
raise Center City to make room for
Amazon headquarters it’s funny because
it’s this close to being true we’re
willing to destroy our cities to save
them with innovation the truth of the
matter is the majority of the people who
live in these
city’s the native Bostonians the native
New Yorker is the ones who make that
city run give it its lifeblood give it
its character would benefit so much more
from maintenance than any sort of future
promise of innovation this leads me to
the next hitting cost of innovation
which is that we’re innovative labor
thrives
so does social inequality now it’s not
only that Bostonians are having a harder
and harder time getting from point A to
point B they’re having a hell of a time
paying rent because when innovation
comes to town life gets expensive and
regarding the business of innovation the
profits seem to have trickled up into
the very hands of the social groups that
have historically held wealth and power
in this nation our visionary innovators
are white and male our unsung maintain
errs women and people of color one need
only do a google search to see it’s just
social inequality in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley being our innovation
shangri-la to see how bad it is this is
just an I mean I understand the irony of
doing a Google search to critique Google
but you know so be it
when one does a Google search of social
inequality and Silicon Valley this when
it comes up Silicon Valley’s wealthy
lead have made social inequality worse
opposition to gender equality is rising
in Silicon Valley Silicon Valley’s race
gap is getting worse not better
and finally San Francisco has become one
huge metaphor for economic inequality in
America now my sister who’s also here
used to live in San Francisco and I was
lucky enough to get to go visit her in
the Mission District which was at that
time a multicultural hub a place of
interracial mingling inter-class contact
now it’s essentially just a playground
for the nouveau Tech reach and that tech
reach is making Bank San Francisco has
one of the highest per capita incomes in
the nation and yet when we break that
down in terms of race we’ll see that all
that that tech wealth is skewing white
Hispanic and Latino families have
than half the per-capita income of white
families the innovators like to think
that their disruptors that the really
the game changers are going to really
shake things up and transform things my
questions if innovation is disruption
why hasn’t our social hierarchy been
shaken up if innovation is disruption
why is there still an enormous wage gap
between men and women and whites and
people of color
why hasn’t wealth been distributed more
equitably okay so I’ve been critical of
innovation it’s my job I’m a critical
studies person but now I’m going to give
it a fair shake let’s give the word a
fair shake I’m going to need your help
for this one so innovation what’s the
first thing that comes to mind when you
hear the word innovation first
Association go okay I know I heard
religious heresy right was that one
no I did definitely hear political
revolution I think I heard that
something along those lines but I know
for a fact that I heard someone yell
botany that had something to do that
when I hear innovation I hear botany
that’s in fact these are the three first
definitions of the word historically
speaking the three first derivation of
the word innovation are religious heresy
political revolution in botany but I
would wager my dog on that you all and
me because we’re all swimming in the
same water here had something to do with
product development tech development you
know the bright future of progress right
we shouldn’t be surprised by this
association since the 1950s business
leaders politicians economists have been
telling us that innovation equals tech
development equals product development
and that’s going to equal the good life
that’s going to equal not just more jobs
it’s going to equal a better society and
I got to thinking about this Association
this deep Association almost that
innovation is so intricately tied to
product development to tech development
and I thought this fuels a pretty
dangerous narrative and that narrative
goes something like this
although innovation in the past has had
so many meanings most of them negative
by the way now it’s simply just
doublespeak form or capitalism at any
cost we just seem to invest in the same
systems and practices and think we’re
going to get different results as the
earth warms as the Seas rise and as our
landfills swell we continue to believe
that global innovative capitalism will
save us what I’m going to be thinking
about for the rest of this talk is how
to disengage ourselves from these
present practices and systems so that we
can think of truly innovative solutions
and that and by that I mean radical
solutions but first I have to tell you
about the new buzzwords I came up with
to counter innovation so I was talking
to a friend my friend Mark in Ottawa and
he was like yes I understand what you’re
saying the innovation is about this
relentless push forward that’s always
about like more and more
or and you want to say less less lesson
like yes yes yes and he’s like slow
vation that’s where we’re good that’s
the new buzzword it’s going it’s going
viral you’re the first to hear it I
thought that’s cool that’s pretty cool
but then I was like I want something a
little more radical not just slowing
things down but just like let’s get off
the hamster wheel all together let’s
like cut the cord get off the grid
throw our cell phones in the water so
how about Novation nothing like done no
one’s gonna be on board that one I
thought okay I’m a philosopher I teach
philosophy we reflect we think we try to
honestly assess a problem how about
reflective ation and then I realized I
sounded more like a marketer trying to
invent a product named for some 1950s
household appliance or some bizarre
product with and I thought forget it no
more buzz words but the idea of
disengaging from these present systems
and practices is still very much what I
want to drive home today as a teacher in
the age of innovation in the innovation
frenzy we’ve been encouraged and as
students you know to do use all kinds of
technological doodads in the classroom
flip the classroom use your phone to do
instant polling what else yeah various
forms of like teaching you how to thrive
within these systems teaching not
teaching you digital natives how to
flourish within our present-day
environment my teaching philosophy it’s
pretty old-school I go well it’s more
than old-school it’s ancient it’s like
from before Christ
it comes from Cicero Cicero is quoted as
saying the purpose of education is to
free the students from the tyranny of
the present and I love that phrase
because the present can be tyrannical we
don’t even realize that we’re swimming
in it in these discourses and these
ideologies and I think the point of
Education is to sort of disengages from
it get us out of it so that we can think
better we can think about actually
innovative solutions my hidden costs of
innovation for then is specifically
about teaching that innovative so-called
innovative pedagogy in bed students
firmly in the presence
now there’s good news the silver lining
the people have spoken and the people
don’t want innovative pedagogy what do
the people want work with me here
what publicly available educational
forum has attracted millions and
millions of viewers in the last ten
years I’ll say a public event Ted X you
pub right so TEDx has attracted millions
and millions of our tisanes will full
participants they didn’t pay to do what
they’re said Internet access and they
watched a lecturer and think of the
setup of the TED talk it is as old
fashioned as the day is young it is a
lecturer and listeners it’s like I could
be Cicero right now and you guys could
be like you know in togas I mean it is
so ancient what we’re doing here and I’m
trying to emphasize the fact that TED
talks are not at all innovative TED
talks are on the side of the maintainer
and that’s obviously a compliment coming
from me I’m saying TED talks are not
innovative
they’re ant they’re like maintaining who
we are as a species they’re maintaining
our oral tradition that’s grounded in
speakers and listeners students and
teachers they’re also maintaining what I
like to call the five pillars of
democracy those pillars civil discourse
rational argument clear articulation
active listening interdependency those
five pillars might be our most
innovative things that we can do here
and the fact that we’re in a forum
that’s emphasizing these that’s allowing
us to work through some of these we’re
also now working toward and trying to
maybe fulfill the dream of democracy so
give yourself a round of applause for
participating in these five pillars of
democracy thank you for your time I
appreciate everything and I hope you
have a great day
Please follow and like us: