Creativity, Wanderlust, and the Mind

On November 3, 2018November 3, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Adventure, Motivation, Travel, Wanderlust, Weekend, WritingLeave a comment

Let me know what you think.

There are plenty of things to be gained from going abroad: new friends, new experiences, new stories.But living in another country may come with a less noticeable benefit, too: Some scientists say it can also make you more creative.

Writers and thinkers have long felt the creative benefits of international travel. Ernest Hemingway, for example, drew inspiration for much of his work from his time in Spain and France. Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, moved from the U.K. to the U.S. in his 40s to branch out into screenwriting. Mark Twain, who sailed around the coast of the Mediterranean in 1869, wrote in his travelogue Innocents Abroad that travel is “fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

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In recent years, psychologists and neuroscientists have begun examining more closely what many people have already learned anecdotally: that spending time abroad may have the potential to affect mental change. In general, creativity is related to neuroplasticity, or how the brain is wired. Neural pathways are influenced by environment and habit, meaning they’re also sensitive to change: New sounds, smells, language, tastes, sensations, and sights spark different synapses in the brain and may have the potential to revitalize the mind.

“Foreign experiences increase both cognitive flexibility and depth and integrativeness of thought, the ability to make deep connections between disparate forms,” says Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia Business School and the author of numerous studies on the connection between creativity and international travel. Cognitive flexibility is the mind’s ability to jump between different ideas, a key component of creativity. But it’s not just about being abroad, Galinsky says: “The key, critical process is multicultural engagement, immersion, and adaptation. Someone who lives abroad and doesn’t engage with the local culture will likely get less of a creative boost than someone who travels abroad and really engages in the local environment.” In other words, going to Cancun for a week on spring break probably won’t make a person any more creative. But going to Cancun and living with local fishermen might.

In Galinsky’s latest study, published last month in the Academy of Management Journal, he and three other researchers examined the experiences of the creative directors of 270 high-end fashion houses. Combing through 11 years’ worth of fashion lines, Galinsky and his team searched for links between the creative directors’ experience working abroad and the fashion houses’ “creative innovations,” or the degree “to which final, implemented products or services are novel and useful from the standpoint of external audiences.” The level of creativity of a given product was rated by a pool of trade journalists and independent buyers. Sure enough, the researchers found a clear correlation between time spent abroad and creative output: The brands whose creative directors had lived and worked in other countries produced more consistently creative fashion lines than those whose directors had not.

The researchers also found that the more countries the executives had lived in, the more creative the lines tended to be—but only up to a point. Those who had lived and worked in more than three countries, the study found, still tended to show higher levels of creativity that those who hadn’t worked abroad at all, but less creativity that their peers who had worked in a smaller number of foreign countries. The authors hypothesized that those who had lived in too many countries hadn’t been able to properly immerse themselves culturally; they were bouncing around too much. “It gets back to this idea of a deeper level of learning that’s necessary for these effects to occur,” Galinsky says.

Cultural distance, or how different a foreign culture is from one’s own, may also play a role: Surprisingly, Galinsky and his colleagues found that living someplace with a larger cultural distance was often associated with lower creativity than living in a more familiar culture. The reason for that, they hypothesized, was that an especially different culture might come with a bigger intimidation factor, which may discourage people from immersing themselves in it—and no immersion, they explained, could mean none of the cognitive changes associated with living in another country.

Traveling may have other brain benefits, too. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, an associate professor of education and psychology at the University of Southern California, says that cross-cultural experiences have the potential to strengthen a person’s sense of self. “What a lot of psychological research has shown now is that the ability to engage with people from different backgrounds than yourself, and the ability to get out of your own social comfort zone, is helping you to build a strong and acculturated sense of your own self,” she says. “Our ability to differentiate our own beliefs and values … is tied up in the richness of the cultural experiences that we have had.”

Cross-cultural experiences have the potential to pull people out of their cultural bubbles, and in doing so, can increase their sense of connection with people from backgrounds different than their own. “We found that when people had experiences traveling to other countries it increased what’s called generalized trust, or their general faith in humanity,” Galinsky says. “When we engage in other cultures, we start to have experience with different people and recognize that most people treat you in similar ways. That produces an increase in trust.”

This trust may play an important role in enhancing creative function. In a 2012 study out of Tel Aviv University, researchers found that people who “believe that racial groups have fixed underlying essences”—beliefs the authors termed “essentialist views”—performed significantly worse in creative tests than those who saw cultural and racial divisions as arbitrary and malleable. “This categorical mindset induces a habitual closed-mindedness that transcends the social domain and hampers creativity,” the study authors wrote. In other words, those who put people in boxes had trouble thinking outside the box.

Of course, although a new country is an easy way to leave a “social comfort zone,” the cultural engagement associated with cognitive change doesn’t have to happen abroad. If a plane ticket isn’t an option, maybe try taking the subway to a new neighborhood. Sometimes, the research suggests, all that’s needed for a creative boost is a fresh cultural scene.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Ode to the Digital Detox

On October 1, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Gear, Life, Monday, Motivation, Review, Therapy, TravelLeave a comment

I have written about the benefits of a kind of “digital detox” before. Especially within the context of traveling. Like this; From Cartagena with love.

Stowing our devices from time to time allows us to be more connected to the moment, and especially to the people around us. Thinking about the process of building new habits, this recent post by Aj Jones struck a chord with me.

the full article can be found here: https://medium.com/s/story/the-digital-detox-is-dead-but-we-still-need-to-use-technology-more-wisely-31f7964a96d8

Jones argues that the detox is dead, and that instead we simply need to be more responsible with our technology use. What say you? Is the detox dead?

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“Who amongst us hasn’t heard of the “digital detox”? In essence, the digital detox is the process of ridding oneself of toxins and unhealthy substances generated by prolonged technology use. In the past few years, digital detoxing has grown from an idea to a brand to, for many, a guide for how to think and live.

Today I’m writing to note that the digital detox should die, and for good reason.

Let’s get to the facts: There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that in our current era of TVs, computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets, we overuse technology. These tools of technology have fundamentally changed how we communicate. Today, these tools function as essentials for completing everyday tasks at home and in the workplace.

The usage figures themselves are more than a little shocking:

In the U.S., 87 percent of people in their twenties use two or more digital devices simultaneously.
67 percent of people in their thirties spend more than five hours each day on a digital device, also in the U.S.
90 percent of adults in the U.S. aged from 18–29 use social media — this is a seven percent increase over a 10-year period.
99 percent of people in the U.K. between the ages of 16 and 24 use social media weekly.
The majority of Norwegians between the ages of 13 and 39 spend 46.6 minutes using technology in bed every night.

For personal research, I’ve even used an online survey to assess how much technology people I know use per day, with over half of my participants reporting a daily use of over five hours.

This technology overuse is increasingly, though often indirectly, linked to conditions including stress, anxiety, social isolation, depression, and insomnia. All of these are known to contribute to burnout, but I predict that the digital detox is just the wrong solution to this problem of technology overuse.

Personally, I’m not addicted to technology per se, but I do use it to work remotely, stay connected with friends and family, and stream movies, which, in hindsight, may seem like a lot. I had noticed not long ago that through my technology use I had unknowingly developed a pattern of bad habits, a few of which I have listed below:

I would reach for my phone as soon as I woke up (about 8 a.m.) to check Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, emails, and LinkedIn.
I’d then grab my laptop from under my bed where I stashed it the night before, head to my desk, and start working. First, I’d respond to emails and messages, then make plans for the day, and finally begin my work (I do work from home quite often).
By 6 p.m. I would try and finish for the day, sit on the couch with the TV on for background noise, and then scroll through Facebook on my laptop while chatting with friends via WhatsApp on my phone.
At around 8 p.m., I’d grab dinner with some friends before getting into bed at about 10 p.m. Since I’d often struggle with getting to sleep, I would end up watching Netflix until my eyes were sore enough that they’d close on their own.
Almost every night for about a year on end, I would wake up at 3 a.m. and struggle to get to sleep again. This would mean that I’d watch more Netflix until my tiredness overwhelmed me, and fall asleep at about 5 a.m., ready to repeat the whole process for another day.

In short, I was exhausted all the time.

The image you probably have of me in your head right now is someone who looks a little like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, and my friends may jokingly argue that this is a pretty accurate representation! But in reality I am a healthy, exercise-conscious person, and always have been. My current lifestyle contrasts with the 10 years of my life which I spent in an elite military unit where my office was the outdoors, and I would literally live for weeks at a time directly under the stars in places all over the world. It wasn’t until I left that career and became a full-time student at a prestigious U.K. university that I began to use technology for hours on end without a break, every single day.

In short, I developed these bad habits during my time as a student, and left them unchecked for so long that I carried them with me into my work life.

So what were the physical and mental effects of all this technology overuse? Well, physically I lost weight. The lack of sleep affected my eating habits and decreased my energy levels. My eyesight, which had always been 20/20, deteriorated. I began to struggle to see objects that were far away, simply because I was spending long periods staring at a digital screen only a few inches from my face.

Mentally, the effects were much worse. My confidence plummeted, and I stopped seeing friends and spending time with my girlfriend. I was exhausted all day, everyday, and used the little energy I did have just to stay on top of my work. I gradually became depressed without even realizing it, which only prevented me from stepping outside more and being around other people. In short, I came dangerously close to being burnt out.

It was at this point that I knew something had to change, so I reflected on my bad habits and tried to begin addressing them; not by detoxing from technology use altogether, but by trying to be more careful about my use.

Be in control of your technology use — don’t let it control you.

Gradually, I began to set boundaries and stick to them. I started going to the gym every morning and didn’t check my phone until I was done with my workout, learning in the process that the world is not going to end if I don’t reply to every email right away. I made a point of meeting and spending time with friends, just chatting and drinking. I now have a definite cutoff time in the evenings for when I stop using my laptop. I also only read in bed now, which has led to deeper, longer, and unbroken periods of sleep.

Very quickly I started noticing myself becoming healthier, happier, and having much more energy. This period of change differs from a “digital detox” the way we understand it today because I didn’t lock all my devices in a box and abstain from technology use altogether, or delete all my social media accounts entirely, or put myself at the metaphorical top of a mountain for longer than a weekend.

My experience teaches me that the “digital detox” needs to die because it is a fundamentally flawed concept. Three reasons explain this: First, the term “detox” has several negative connotations. It implies addiction and dependency, which removes your agency in decision-making and practicing sound judgement over your health and happiness. This, in turn, renders you subject to your digital addiction, unable to make clear decisions and take control without outside support.

Secondly, the idea of surrendering your devices, or deleting your social media and going cold turkey, is actually a rather oppressive and unnecessary approach. It almost creates a prison-like environment in which you can only control your behavior when your distractions are taken away.

Ironically, this in turn creates a situation in which you are rewarded with your devices or apps at the end of your detox period if you are good and obey the rules. If you delete your social media and abstain from using your devices, you get to use them once the detox period is over. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.

Thirdly, it implies that without outside support to motivate you, a detox is, by definition, difficult to achieve. This is wrong, and belief in this prevents most people from managing their technology use much better. For example, 65 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly agree that periodically unplugging is important for their mental health, but only 28 percent of those actually report doing so.

Now, spas and boutiques offer more affluent clientele opportunities to digitally detox while partaking in their services, and companies prioritizing employee health have started treating their staff to bespoke packages or retreats in order to get them away from their devices for certain periods of time.

A more practical approach to the digital detox is to work with the simple fact that most of us do not suffer from a severe addiction to technology and do not actually need, or are not realistically able to, engage in a hardcore detox from it. For those who do suffer from an actual addiction to technology, help can come in the form of professional behavioral therapy, or a rehabilitative experience that promises the necessary services and support to address issues of addiction.

Instead of detoxing, many of the rest of us should get comfortable with the idea of detaching from our technology periodically.

Instead of detoxing, many of the rest of us should get comfortable with the idea of detaching from our technology periodically. Detaching means keeping our devices and social media apps, but using them only when necessary or within an ordained limit. Many of us, for example, don’t need to aimlessly scroll through our phones on a bus or train to help pass the time, since it is bad for our eyes and is almost always unrewarding. Instead, read a book and expand your mind. I’m currently reading The Worst Journey in the World — a true story about the early Antarctic explorers and Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated final expedition — which is pretty fascinating and inspiring stuff.

Unlike a digital detox where you either surrender your devices, delete all your social media apps, or, ironically, use an app to block all your other apps (a digital response to a digital problem?!) a detach requires you to make conscious decisions about when and how you use your technology. In this is a more powerful lesson which gives you the power to pull back at any time or context.

When you detach you are in control all the time. It is a mind game in which you play against you, and in which there can only be one winner in the end.

I challenge you to forget about detoxing and embrace the concept of detaching. Choose a time when you would usually use your device; for example, just before bed. Rather than pulling out your device to watch Netflix or scroll through the news, make the choice to read a book in bed. Instead of taking your laptop to a café to work or catch up on social media, make the choice to go for a coffee with a friend, leaving your laptop at home and putting your phone on silent, so you can really be in the moment without any digital distractions.

In short, be in control of your technology use—don’t let it control you. I think you’ll find, as I did, that you’ll be much healthier and happier as a result.”

Back in the saddle…featuring new writing tips!

On August 13, 2018August 13, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Education, Life, Monday, Motivation, Therapy, Travel, Writing2 Comments

I know, I know. Its been a month. A few days ago, I received a distressed Whatsapp message from a friend letting me know how much they missed my occasional posts. I have some projects in the works, but wanted to share something I came across recently that both made me smile, and inspired me to write more.

The below excerpt is from James Altucher. (www.jamesaltucher.com) I stumbled over his stuff a few months ago. I was struggling with some melancholic bullshit, and I hit the web hard to read through it, as I often do. One late night trek down the web based rabbit’s hole I discovered Mr.Altucher. Hes quite an eclectic character, but his stuff gave me a good old fashioned and much needed jolt of inspiration.

I want to be creative, I want to write, travel, and push myself as far as I can go.

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“Back in college, Sanket and I would hang out in bars and try to talk to women but I was horrible at it.

Nobody would talk to me for more than 30 seconds and every woman would laugh at all his jokes for what seemed like hours.

Even decades later I think they are still laughing at his jokes. One time he turned to me, “The girls are getting bored when you talk. Your stories go on too long. From now on, you need to leave out every other sentence when you tell a story.”

We were both undergrads in Computer Science. I haven’t seen him since but that’s the most important writing (and communicating) advice I ever got.

33 other tips to be a better writer:

1) Write whatever you want. Then take out the first paragraph and last paragraph

Here’s the funny thing about this rule. It’s sort of like knowing the future. You still can’t change it. In other words, even if you know this rule and write the article, the article will still be better if you take out the first paragraph and the last paragraph.

2) Take a huge bowel movement every day

You won’t see that on any other list on how to be a better writer. If your body doesn’t flow then your brain won’t flow. Eat more fruit if you have to.

3) Bleed in the first line

We’re all human. A computer can win Jeopardy but still not write a novel. If you want people to relate to you, then you have to be human.

Penelope Trunk started a post a few weeks ago: “I smashed a lamp over my head. There was blood everywhere. And glass. And I took a picture.” That’s real bleeding. My wife recently put up a post where the first line was so painful she had to take it down. Too many people were crying.

4) Don’t ask for permission

In other words, never say “in my opinion” (or worse “IMHO”). We know it’s your opinion. You’re writing it.

5) Write a lot

I spent the entire ’90s writing bad fiction. Five bad novels. Dozens of bad stories. But I learned to handle massive rejection. And how to put two words together. In my head, I won the Pulitzer prize. But in my hand, over 100 rejection letters.

6) Read a lot

You can’t write without first reading. A lot. When I was writing five bad novels in a row I would read all day long whenever I wasn’t writing (I had a job as a programmer, which I would do for about five minutes a day because my programs all worked and I just had to “maintain” them). I read everything I could get my hands on.

7) Read before you write

Before I write every day I spend 30-60 minutes reading high quality short stories poetry, or essays. Here are some authors to start:

Denis Johnson
Miranda July
David Foster Wallace
Ariel Leve
William Vollmann
Raymond Carver

All of the writers are in the top 1/1,000 of 1% of writers. What you are reading has to be at that level or else it won’t lift up your writing at all.

8) Coffee

I go through three cups at least before I even begin to write. No coffee, no creativity.

9) Break the laws of physics

There’s no time in text. Nothing has to go in order. Don’t make it nonsense. But don’t be beholden to the laws of physics. My post, Advice I Want to Tell My Daughters, is an example.

10) Be Honest

Tell people the stuff they all think but nobody ever says. Some people will be angry that you let out the secret. But most people will be grateful. If you aren’t being honest, you aren’t delivering value. Be the little boy in the Emperor Wears No Clothes. If you can’t do this, don’t write.

11) Don’t Hurt Anyone

This goes against the above rule, but I never like to hurt people. And I don’t respect people who get pageviews by breaking this rule.

Don’t be a bad guy. Was Buddha a Bad Father? addresses this.

12) Don’t be afraid of what people think

For each single person you worry about, deduct 1% in quality from your writing.

Everyone has deductions. I have to deduct about 10% right off the top.

Maybe there are 10 people I’m worried about. Some of them are evil people. Some of them are people I just don’t want to offend.

So my writing is only about 90% of what it could be. But I think most people write at about 20% of what it could be. Believe it or not, clients, customers, friends, family, will love you more if you are honest with them. We all have our boundaries. But try this: For the next 10 things you write, tell people something that nobody knows about you.

13) Be opinionated

Most people I know have strong opinions about at least one or two things… write about those. Nobody cares about all the things you don’t have strong opinions on.

Barry Ritholz told me that he doesn’t start writing until he’s angry about something. That’s one approach. Barry and I have had some great writing fights because sometimes we’ve been angry at each other.

14) Have a shocking title

I blew it the other day. I wanted to title this piece: “How I torture Women” but I settled for “I’m Guilty Of Torture.” I wimped out. But I have some other fun ones, like “Is It Bad I Wanted My First Kid To Be Aborted” (which the famous Howard Lindzon cautioned me against).

Don’t forget that you are competing against a trillion other pieces of content out there. So you need a title to draw people in. Else you lose.

15) Steal

I don’t quite mean it literally. But if you know a topic gets pageviews (and you aren’t hurting anyone) than steal it, no matter who’s written about it or how many times you’ve written about it before. “How I Screwed Yasser Arafat out of $2mm” was able to nicely piggyback off of how amazingly popular Yasser Arafat is.

16) Make people cry

If you’ve ever been in love, you know how to cry.

Bring readers to that moment when they were a child, and all of life was in front of them, except for that one bittersweet moment when everything began to change. If only that one moment could’ve lasted forever. Please let me go back in time right now to that moment. But now it’s gone.

17) Relate to people

The past decade or more has totally sucked. For everyone. The country has been in post-traumatic stress syndrome since 9/11 and 2008 only made it worse. I’ve gone broke a few times during the decade, had a divorce, lost friendships, and have only survived (barely) by being persistent and knowing I had two kids to take care of, and loneliness to fight.

Nobody’s perfect. We’re all trying. Show people how you are trying and struggling. Nobody expects you to be a superhero.

18) Time heals all wounds

Everyone has experiences they don’t want to write about. But with enough time, its OK. My New Year’s Resolution of 1995 is pretty embarrassing. But whatever… it was 16 years ago.

The longer back you go, the less you have to worry about what people think.

19) Risk

Notice that almost all of these rules are about where the boundaries are. Most people play it too safe.

When you are really risking something and the reader senses that (and they WILL sense it), then you know you are in good territory. If you aren’t risking something, then I’m moving on. I know I’m on the right track if after I post something someone tweets, “OMFG.”

20) Be funny

You can be all of the above and be funny at the same time.

When I went to India I was brutalized by my first few yoga classes (actually every yoga class). And I was intimidated by everyone around me. They were like yoga superheroes and I felt like a fraud around them. So I cried, and hopefully people laughed.

It was also a case where I didn’t have to dig into my past but I had an experience that was happening to me right then. How do you be funny? First rule of funny: ugly people are funny. I’m naturally ugly so its easy. Make yourself as ugly as possible. Nobody wants to read that you are beautiful and doing great in life.

21) The last line needs to go BOOM!

Your article is meaningless unless the last line KILLS.

Read the book of short stories “Jesus’ Son” by Denis Johnson. It’s the only way to learn how to do a last line. The last line should take you all the way back to the first line and then “BOOM!”

22) Use a lot of periods

Forget commas and semicolons. A period makes people pause. Your sentences should be strong enough that you want people to pause and think about it. This will also make your sentences shorter. Short sentences are good.

23) Write every day

This is a must. Writing is spiritual practice. You are diving inside of yourself and cleaning out the toxins. If you don’t do it every day, you lose the ability. If you do it every day, then slowly you find out where all the toxins are. And the cleaning can begin.

24) Write with the same voice you talk in

You’ve spent your whole life learning how to communicate with that voice. Why change it when you communicate with text?

25) Deliver value with every sentence

Even on a tweet or Facebook status update. Deliver poetry and value with every word. Else, be quiet.

26) Take what everyone thinks and explore the opposite

Don’t disagree just to disagree. But explore. Turn the world upside down. Guess what? There are people living in China. Plenty of times you’ll find value where nobody else did.

27) Have lots of ideas

I discuss this in “How to be the Luckiest Man Alive” in the Daily Practice section.

Your idea muscle atrophies within days if you don’t exercise it. Then what do you do? You need to exercise it every day until it hurts. Else no ideas.

28) Sleep eight hours a day

Go to sleep before 9pm at least four days a week. And stretch while taking deep breaths before you write. We supposedly use only 5% of our brain. You need to use 6% at least to write better than everyone else. So make sure your brain is getting as much healthy oxygen as possible. Too many people waste valuable writing or resting time by chattering until all hours of the night.

29) Don’t write if you’re upset at someone

Then the person you are upset at becomes your audience. You want to love and flirt with your audience so they can love you back.

30) Use “said” instead of any other word

Don’t use “he suggested” or “he bellowed,” just “he said.” We’ll figure it out if he suggested something.

31) Paint or draw.

Keep exercising other creative muscles.

32) Let it sleep

Whatever you are working on, sleep on it. Then wake up, stretch, coffee, read, and look again.

Rewrite. Take out every other sentence.

33) Then take out every other sentence again.

Or something like that.

Sanket didn’t want to go to grad school after we graduated. He had another plan. Lets go to Thailand, he said. And become monks in a Buddhist monastery for a year. We can date Thai women whenever we aren’t begging for food, he said. It will be great and we’ll get life experience.

It sounded good to me.

But then he got accepted to the University of Wisconsin and got a PhD. Now he lives in India and works for Oracle. And as for me…

I don’t know what the hell happened to me.”

find the link here :

https://jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/33-unusual-tips-become-better-writer/

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Detroit News!

On June 17, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Corktown, Detroit, Ford, History, TravelLeave a comment

Great piece from the Detroit News, tons of solid links and material here. Get stoked! The Gypsy Professor will be heading down Tuesday for more press coverage!

How Ford plans to resurrect the train station

IAN THIBODEAU AND DANIEL HOWES | THE DETROIT NEWS

Ford Motor Co.’s restoration of the Michigan Central Depot by 2022 would bring 5,000 employees to Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, where the Blue Oval aims to create what it calls “the next generation” of automotive mobility.

Plans for the Corktown campus, to be announced Tuesday, would deliver 1.2 million square feet of mixed-use development spread over multiple parcels and at least three recently acquired buildings. Ford expects to move 2,500 of its employees — roughly 5 percent of its southeast Michigan workforce — to the campus, with space for an additional 2,500 entrepreneurs, technology companies and partners related to Ford’s expansion into Autos 2.0.

“It’s not just a building,” Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. told The Detroit News in an interview at Ford World Headquarters. “It’s an amazing building, but it’s about all the connections to Detroit, to the suburbs, and the vision around developing the next generation of transportation.”

More: Ford may build Corktown parking deck

More: Ford aims to keep train station lobby open to public

More: Central Depot message: ‘A sentinel of progress’

More: Ford depot purchase could give new life to symbol of Detroit’s decline

More: Ford aims to keep train station lobby open to public

The company’s goal is to establish its Corktown site at the east end of an evolving mobility corridor evoking Michigan Avenue’s earlier road to the Arsenal of Democracy. The campus would be a critical node in a circuit running from Detroit through Ford’s Dearborn headquarters, to Detroit Metropolitan Airport and the American Center for Mobility at Willow Run, ending at University of Michigan research sites.

“This will be the biggest thing to happen in Detroit since Dan Gilbert brought Quicken down,” Mayor Mike Duggan told The News. Ford’s Corktown plan promises to bring thousands of new tax-paying jobs to the city, as well as complementary investment to satisfy growing demand in a part of town best known for bars, restaurants and coffee shops — not big business.

Michigan Central Depot would be a “magnet” on that corridor, CEO Jim Hackett said, attracting a new kind of automotive talent Ford expects to deliver fatter profits and higher margins in the future. And that’s precisely what shareholders and industry analysts say they want to see from Ford, whose share price comparatively lags those of its peers.

More: Podcast: Howes on Ford’s Corktown vision

More: Purchase of train depot adds new chapter to long history

More: Detroit must gear up for Ford’s Corktown boom

More: Howes: Ford’s play for train station to build Auto 2.0 campus would transform Corktown

The building would be restored and reimagined to attract new employees to help develop the mobility, autonomy and electrification technologies considered the biggest disruptors to the auto industry since Henry Ford began making Model Ts for the masses.

That magnet isn’t intended to pull Ford from Dearborn. All but Ford’s electrification and autonomous driving teams would remain in Dearborn and occupy its sprawling sites. An estimated $1 billion campus redesign there is slated to be completed by the mid-2020s.

“This is our home,” Bill Ford Jr. said. “We’re not leaving by any means. By the end of this we’ll have a large multiple of employees in Dearborn versus Detroit. This is in no way abandoning Dearborn.”

The Corktown site is meant to supplement Ford’s work on its Dearborn campus. The automaker intends to redirect cash set aside two years ago for its Dearborn facilities renovation to the station purchase and renovation of its Corktown site.

Ford’s vision

Ford’s plan for the depot is evolving. Bill Ford Jr. envisions the soaring lobby of the train station, its Guastavino-tile ceiling hovering almost 55 feet above the floor, to be a bustling public space akin to San Francisco’s Ferry Building Marketplace.

More: Ford’s new beginning for the old train station

More: Corktown neighbors brace for Ford arrival

More: Purchase of train depot adds new chapter to long history

More: Finley: Sell train station or tear it down

More: Detroit must gear up for Ford’s Corktown boom

The ground floor lobby of the 18-story, 500,000-square-foot building would be open to the public. That space could house markets, coffee shops, restaurants, retail and gathering spaces. A hotel and residential space are not being ruled out.

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“One thing I don’t want to do is take a beautiful building and put something that’s garish on there,” Bill Ford Jr. said. “Not that the Blue Oval is garish, but I wouldn’t want to put some giant modern emblem up that just didn’t fit. We don’t want to be isolated, and we don’t want to be seen as taking over the community by any means.”

Part of that community involvement means asking Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Detroit, Peter Cummings’ The Platform and Redico Management Inc., among other developers, to scout and undertake other Corktown projects that would further the revitalization of the historic neighborhood.

The automaker also is considering erecting a public parking garage on parcels of land acquired along the I-75 service drive and north of Michigan Avenue. That could answer parking concerns for the Detroit Police Athletic League, which recently opened its youth sports stadium on the old Tiger Stadium site, and provide general parking problems in the hip Corktown neighborhood.

“This wouldn’t necessarily be Ford-ville,” Ford Land Co. CEO Dave Dubensky said in an interview. “This could be something bigger than that. We don’t necessarily have to own (everything). I’m in it to fulfill the vision of Bill and the Ford Motor Company. If I can invite others in, and they can actually bring their thinking to the space as well, it’s all better.”

How they plan to do it

Reviving the depot and establishing Corktown in a potential mobility corridor would require tax incentives to renovate the building at its heart, Bill Ford Jr. said.

The company, pointing to previous projects in the city, expects roughly a third of the up-front renovation costs would be covered by tax breaks for restoring the historic depot. Ford, the city and the former owners of the building have declined comment on how much Ford paid for the station, or how much Ford will spend on the renovation.

The News acquired a now-deleted public document filed online that indicated an entity linked to Ford paid Matthew Moroun’s Crown Land Development Co. LLC $8 million on May 22, the day Dubensky said Ford officially closed on the purchase of the depot and adjacent book depository building.

Hackett said the Corktown project won’t cost Ford any more than what it budgeted for the Dearborn transformation plan, estimated to be roughly $1 billion. Money for the Corktown project is being redirected from that original budget.

Bill Ford Jr., Dubensky and other ranking officials declined to discuss those figures. But the executive chairman did concede that the expected cost of restoring the depot “dwarfs the purchase price.”

Part of Dubensky’s job during the months-long negotiation was to be Bill Ford’s “sanity check.” Over a roughly seven-month period, Dubensky met with Moroun and the president of the Moroun family’s Crown Enterprises Inc., Michael Samhat, at area restaurants to discuss a possible sale. Bill Ford Jr. met with Moroun in Ford’s Dearborn office, from which Ford can see the western flank of the depot.

Between early 2018 and the May 22 closing, Dubensky’s team tested everything from the soil to the facade of the station to determine an estimated cost of a renovation. The Ford Land team did financial modeling to determine if the investment was feasible with future market conditions.

“I didn’t want this to be an emotional purchase,” Bill Ford Jr. said. “This had to be the right business decision. I couldn’t be happier. But was I prepared to walk away if it was the wrong deal? Yes, I was.”

The result

On a hot June afternoon, the guy whose name is on Dearborn’s Glass House pulled up to the train station in his navy blue Mustang GT convertible. He got out and walked into the station that would be the biggest project of his career, if only for what it represents:

A potentially sustainable revival of Detroit, the restoration of an authentic witness to the 20th-century history of Detroit. It would be bigger than the deal to build Ford Field downtown, he said, bigger than the renovation of the Rouge complex.

“Isn’t this just incredible?” Bill Ford Jr. said, standing on the concourse of Michigan Central Depot as crews set lights and erected scaffolding in a space that witnessed the Great Depression, soldiers heading off to war and welcoming home the fortunate who returned.

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The company plans to announce officially its plans for Corktown and the station at 11 a.m. Tuesday followed by a party in Roosevelt Park north of the long-vacant building. Ford will also host an “open house” Friday, June 22 through Sunday, June 24 to take the public inside the station before renovations begin.

When renovations are complete, the public would have access to 300,000 square feet on the ground floor of the station and other Corktown properties. Roughly 2,500 Ford employees and another 2,500 partner employees would occupy the remaining 900,000 square feet come 2022.

Those partner employees could include Ford suppliers and partners of autonomous vehicle, mobility and electrification businesses. Partners currently include Postmates delivery service, several Silicon Valley companies, Pittsburgh-based Argo AI, and ride-hailing service Lyft.

The Corktown site would give Ford’s teams access to a true urban landscape to test autonomous technology, and how those vehicles would need to communicate with traffic systems, delivery destinations and other infrastructure.

“This is kind of the test track of the future,” said Hackett, Ford’s CEO. Ford employees will have to solve mobility problems for themselves to more efficiently travel to Dearborn and back, for example, and how vehicles could interact with infrastructure along that route.

“This is an exclamation point” for Detroit’s resurgence, Bill Ford Jr. said. “Ford and Detroit have seen good times, we’ve seen bad times, and this is a tough region. We’ve been through it together. This is an authentic move for the city and for us. Frankly, it’s where it all began.”

While the public would 300,000-square-feet on the ground floor of the station and other Corktown properties, 2,500 Ford employees and 2,5000 partner employees would occupy the remaining 900,000 square feet come 2022. This is the top floor.

DAVID GURALNICK, THE DETROIT NEWS

ithibodeau@detroitnews.com

daniel.howes@detroitnews.com

Colombia, Getting old, Fried chicken and Serendipity.

On May 22, 2018May 23, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Adventure, Caribbean, Colombia, Life, Medellin, South America, TravelLeave a comment

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice…”

Apt words to begin the plunge into Colombia. Gabriel Garcia Marquez began his famous book with these words. I’m back in the abaco cafe. My favorite in Cartagena. I’ve arrived back after ten days in the mountains, submerging myself into the glory that is Medellin. Unwrapping a few of those mysteries and getting it straightened out in my mind, and even getting some it down on paper. I wrote about the first few days in the Andes, and now that I’ve left back to the heat, it’s time to push it a bit farther.

dragging my sorry ass to the airport yesterday with my beat ass passport had me thinking. The previous days had been an enthralling digestion of the city, neighborhood by neighborhood. Over the three weeks I was averaging 8-9 miles a day walking the valley as well as the mountains. Spectacular views, savage flavors, and incredible people. I fucking love the layers here. I woke up early a few days before departure and noticed my right foot felt extra tender. After showering and leaving my place I had a bit of a limp! What was this? I tried stretching and walking it off, but the heel of my right foot just ached. It throbbed with every step. This proved a true calamity! I hobbled back to the hotel to deduce I had essentially pulled a muscle. I was walking a ton more, and had brought shoes that had been through the shit so to say. I decided that I would take it easy, and head down to the Parque lleras in the evening to edit photos and get some writing in. I find this amazing trendy chic cafe. Surely I will do my best work here. This is the preconceived image. All digital nomads and creative types only work in super cool cafes and on beaches of course. I sat down, ordered a hipster inspired beverage and waited for the greatness to flow.

surely this is where the magic happens…until the rockstar looking barista informs me that they close at 7…which gave me 10 minutes to channel said magic.

Obviously that wasn’t going to happen. I packed my things quickly finished my cafe con something or other and with some difficulty limped out of there.

Where was I going to find the creative muse now? I think we fall for the myth that to do our best work we need some set that looks like it was made for a Harry Potter film. That’s bullshit. This is what you need; good WiFi, a decent seat, and a not too awful vibe. Sit down, shut up, and get it done. Rents due.

So, where do I end up?

Motherfuckin’ KFC. They had excellent WiFi, everyone there was a local, and they had Postobon. My favorite Colombian sugary beverage.

I know, but how could I do that?!

Well, because I had to get over myself. I’m getting older, and I was limping. I was hosted by the the gracious colonel Sanders for about an hour. I did what I had to do, and it was great. Finished my notebook piece, edited photos, plotted some stuff for this site and enjoyed my time. at the end of the day, I’ve realized travel…especially by country number 70, isn’t about insisting to find the top ranked/ most reviewed location. This often leads to epic disappointment. By the time I returned to my place, my friends had also returned, and invited me to sit down to catch up over beers. Perfect timing. Traveling is about the most authentic experience possible. Embrace the unknown, keep a positive outlook and have faith in serendipity.

Even when it involves fried chicken joints.

More soon to come!

What do you think? Leave some love!

From Cartagena with love.

On May 7, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Adventure, Caribbean, Cartagena, Colombia, History, Monday, Travel, Wanderlust3 Comments

So, now 5 days into this charmed city on the Caribbean and what have we learned? We arrived famished and eager, taking it all in and pushing forward despite all odds. What an absolute blast. This is a kick ass city. Effortlessly grand, historic, bustling and hot. Stupendously hot. This city practically pulses with a beat, salsa in nature, well into the early hours. The ceviche is fresh, bursting, addicting.

I switched it up for this run, slowed it down and dug deeper into the places I’m in. 3 weeks in Colombia should give an ample snapshot of this incredible place. A few of the benefits of this approach will be discussed here. First and foremost, I’ve been treated to an absolute dream in wandering the walled city after an epic storm.

I slept late to the rain and thunder, then ventured out to explore the famed “walled city”. This is the first Spanish settlement on the South American continent. Built to protect against Sir Francis Drake and other British pirates as the quest for new world riches began in earnest. this place bleeds history, and walking these streets is an experience in itself. No all inclusive triple sec high fructose soaked pool bar here, surrounded by people who look, talk, and act like you…leave that shit for the cruise ships. Get lost. Find something amazing.

one amazing thing I encountered is when traveling alone…do me a favor, and throw your phone in airplane mode. At this point all the wireless carriers offer day passes or data allotments…but try this for a day. Only check your phone a few times a day when WiFi is avail. Be ACTUALLY present in the moment. By face fucking your phone, and taking more pictures of your beer than drinking it, you are missing out on everything around you. Strike up conversation, engage someone, ask for directions and struggle with the language, that is the very essence of traveling. You will be pleasantly surprised by this miniature “digital detox”. Through the process above I’ve met some amazing people. Even in the few days here. By staying a bit longer, it’s allowed me to dig in deeper to the culture with the help of some local awesomeness. Case in point, a few nights ago, my buddy Alejandro and I, who I met randomly asking for directions came across an amazing couple in a local market. They decided since it was my first time in Cartagena, that I must have their favorite arepas. A matter of pride and graciousness. I didn’t need to consult trip advisor, or Facebook, or read a damn review. We walked and chatted with them for a few hours and indulged local history, cultural insight and amazing street food. when we arrived at this stand, I was the only non local there. This is exactly what it’s all about. Meet some locals, fall in love with a location. Struggle a bit, find your groove, put your phone away and enjoy.

Cartagena, it’s people, it’s architecture, history and flavor all prove intoxicating. Warm and easy, this place has it all. I leave tonight for the mountains, as they are always calling. Medellin coming up next!

No surrender, no retreat.

As featured on NPR…

On April 16, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Adventure, Education, History, Monday, Motivation, Travel, Wanderlust2 Comments

Super stoked to announce that I was able to sit down for a chat with NPR local station affiliate WMUK 102.1! I made the short trek over to Kalamazoo, to sit with Zinta Aistars, for the Between the Lines program. This program focuses on writing and the creative. The hour I was in the studio seem to blast by. The link is live and up now.

Gypsy professor on between the lines

This was so much fun! Zinta’s interview style is easy and engaging. She picked a great picture for the cover of the piece. Me, eyeballs deep in the mighty chicken fish, the local legend of the hawker stalls of Kuala Lumpur.

We chatted motivation, culture, history, writing, the blog, and a few things in between. I’ve been waiting to announce this, and find this timing perfect, as I leave for Iceland on a twisted weekend adventure this week! If you dont remember that story is here: A Note on Spontaneity

Listen to the interview if you need a smile on your way to wherever, and leave me some Monday motivation! Hopefully not the last time I find myself on the airwaves. I would love feedback.

Cheers!

A Note on Spontaneity

On April 6, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Adventure, Europe, Life, Motivation, Travel, Wanderlust, Weekend, Writing9 Comments

Just fucking go.

Seriously.

There will always be a thousand excuses not to. Some more pliable than others. Is it the perfect time? Probably not. Do you have wads of disposable income with no other designated purpose than making you smile? Probably not. On the flip side, however, do you need to eat out 3~ days a week? Probably not. Lease and drive a new wanker mobile? Most likely not. Do you really need that 5$ a day latte habit? Certainly not. Do any of these things actually make your life better?

Find a way, buy the ticket, take the ride. adventure is the one purchase that will always make you richer. Set the goal, embrace the unknown, and love taking the plunge. Love yourself enough to say “Lets do this”! Even if this means finding yourself post leap, hurdling toward certain disaster, then at the last minute building your wings on the way down, and coasting into bliss. I’ve never encountered anyone, late in life that said “I wish I didn’t adventure as much” or “I wish I would have spent more time at the office”…because that shit simply does not exist. This is your life, and its ending one minute at a time. Why are you wasting these precious minutes on shit relationships, craptastic jobs, or toxic friendships? There is a freaking world out there to discover. Literally billions of people, crazy flavors, insanely great cultures, traditions, and collective experiences.

Temple Street Night Market

I want to help you. In fact, I am dedicated to helping you. In this vein, I want you to maximize those travel dollars and inspire you to get up, get moving, and get into having your mind blown. I have posted about some crazy airfare deals in the past, its one of the main pillars for cheap travel. In recent years there’s been a monsoon of activity for the LCC (Low Cost Carrier) segment. What is this all about?

Funny you should ask.

I will take the plunge for you. I’ve just booked 200$ (USD) roundtrip flights to Iceland…for a weekend…Two weeks from now. This is exam season, and I don’t have a ton of time. Who goes to Iceland for a weekend?! Who books transatlantic travel less than two weeks out!?

The GypsyProfessor, that’s who. I’m going to detail the experience, and let you know how twisted it gets, and how bare bones it can be. Savage plastic lawn chairs aboard an airbus for 6 hours. Will it prove worth it?

This way when the next dirt cheap fare pops, you will have all the info you need to pull the trigger. Just a mini weekend run before we prep for a run through the jungle after the semester finishes!

Reykjavik! Prepare for my triumphant return!

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Wish me luck, and leave some love!

The Power of Failure…and Resurrection

On April 1, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Life, Motivation, WritingLeave a comment

Every one falls.

Creative types especially. Nothing great comes easy. Turns out that failure is an absolute necessary component to the equation.

Some Easter Motivation comin at you.

Why Writers Must Practice Resurrection

by Jeff Goins

It’s almost Easter, which is a pretty good time to get reborn, if you ask me. Especially if you’re a writer. What do I mean by that?

Photo of a tree

Every writer as a creative entity “dies.” And every writer, in a manner of speaking, must be resurrected. If you choose to ignore or avoid this fact, it could be mean the end of your art and even, possibly, your life.

Let’s unpack this a little.

Every writer dies

To create is to suffer. Just ask any mother. It is a painful, grueling task of bringing new things into existence. This is why, among many reasons, there is an unmistakable sadness to most creatives, even God.

And this is also why writers commit suicide, why painters cut their ears off, and why actors go through serial divorces. Creativity is a hard business.

There is an inherent frustration to it. And if you don’t know what to do with the inevitable pain, it could be the end of you. (It was for Hemingway.)

Ironically, those who destroy themselves never learn to die — they don’t know how to grieve loss and let go of past seasons. Are you struggling to let go and reinvent yourself as a writer and an artist?

Every writer must be reborn

When you write, you share a piece of you with the world. You put your very soul on display for all to see.

Sometimes, the world doesn’t reward creativity. Sometimes, it stones prophets and crucifies saviors. Sometimes, the world scowls at genius and scoffs at insight.

Every creative has critics, and every critique is an arrow. There is no getting around this. Creating is painful, and every writer gets wounded. In order to move out of wounded-ness (“My God, why have you forsaken me?”), we must face the injustice of unfair criticism, and heal.

We must get reborn and become whole again.

The art of practicing resurrection

This is the season in which we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Even in non-Christian contexts, the earth is teeming with rebirth. It’s hard to ignore.

Trees are budding. Flowers are sprouting. All of creation is collaborating to share one message: New life is here.

I struggle with these cycles — the ebb and flows of the seasons. My creative self wants to camp out in the wilderness, to to sulk in its travail. It’s been hurt, and it wants to wallow in its pain. It’s scared of trying again.

Currently, I’m coming out of a season of death — of letting go of what once was familiar and beginning to walk in newness of life. But I’m taking these first few steps slowly.

There is grief that needs to happen — losses to be mourned, disappointments to be acknowledged. We must grieve before we can move on. We must acknowledge what was before we can welcome what will be.

Death before life

We writers must acknowledge failure. We must come to grips with death. And we must practice resurrection. There is hope beyond the story of a tragic hero. There is health. There is freedom.

If this describes you (and it might), I hope you can move out of the pain of dwelling of what’s been lost and start creating beautiful art once again. It begins with honesty — with acknowledging the rejection you’ve experienced without excuse or justification.

As an exercise, try writing it all down. Then, if you’re comfortable, give it to God. Receive healing. And welcome a new day. Like I said, this is a great time to get reborn.

Walk out!

On February 25, 2018 By TheGypsyProfessorIn Academia, Adjunct, Education, Higher Education, Labor, Politics1 Comment

Teacher Pay

Here we go! as last posted here Labor lessons from former coal country

We are now in the midst of a genuine walk out. Best of luck educators throughout West Virginia!

This is a pre-K through college fight and we need to have each other’s backs–adjuncts, Pre-K teachers, K-12, and the post-secondary tenured, together, are a mighty, mighty force in this country. Let’s have some solidarity.

From Dissent.com (Full article here)

“When Logan County special education teacher Leah Clay Stone entered the West Virginia capitol building on February 2, she saw a sea of teachers from the chamber doors of the Senate and House all the way back to the rotunda. Her county was part of the first work stoppage this month that saw public school teachers flock to the capitol building in Charleston to protest continued low wages, spiking insurance premiums, and poor working conditions.

The teachers flooding the galleries that day came from schools in just three counties. But since February 2 the rebellion has spread. Today marks the second day of a statewide work stoppage, with schools closed in all fifty-five counties. The teachers—who don’t even have legal collective bargaining—wear red T-shirts with the outline of West Virginia and the word UNITED emblazoned across them, a visual that calls to mind not only the Chicago teachers’ strike of 2012 but also the Wisconsin capitol occupation in 2011, against Governor Scott Walker and the Republican legislature’s move to take away collective bargaining rights from the state’s public employees. Now West Virginia public employees are showing that even without collective bargaining rights, they too can make a heck of a lot of noise.

On Thursday morning, thousands of teachers headed to the capitol, carpooling because the walkout included bus drivers. Others stayed close to home to make sure they had a presence in their schools, where they were met with support from students and parents. That support has been building over recent weeks: Ashlea Bassham’s ninth- and tenth-grade students and others had already held their own walkout in Logan County, wielding signs that read “I’m in the bleachers for my teachers.” Parents have held informational pickets and walk-ins, standing outside schools in the cold and the snow to support the teachers. The movement has spread from county to county, neighbor to neighbor, as teachers who live in one county and work in another talk to friends at home and on the job. “It literally was like a fire just catching and going,” says Stone, who is the local vice-president for the Logan County Education Association, one of the two associations in the state.

At the beginning of the legislative session, the executive committee of the association called an emergency meeting to discuss changes to their insurance plan and other bills being introduced in the legislature. The teachers called for a vote to walk out. “I don’t think there was anybody still seated. It was a resounding yes,” Stone said. She then put her production-management background to use pulling together a voting process, getting representatives from every school to collect ballots. “We managed to get ballots into every school and all three bus garages and had them back into my hands and counted in twenty-four hours,” she said. “I literally was creating a ballot as I was walking out the door of the building. I was like ‘somebody else needs to drive, I need to take care of this.’”

The teachers were trying to avoid the district getting an injunction to halt their action, but instead the superintendent closed the schools, a pattern that would repeat itself in every county across the state as teachers stood up to join the statewide day of action. A movement organized by teachers on the ground was able to spread in part through existing networks, in part through social media. “A lot of people blame Facebook for all the bad things in 2016 with the election, but it has actually been really helpful here because West Virginia is so rural and spread out,” said Jay O’Neal, who teaches in Charleston.

Like other teachers who have resorted to stopping work in recent years, the West Virginia teachers have emphasized that their goal is to make education better for every child in West Virginia. “Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions” has become the byword in these campaigns. The West Virginia teachers have demonstrated this commitment not only with their demands—for filling teacher vacancies, for smaller class sizes—but with immediate action. “As soon as we called the work stoppage for Thursday and Friday our locals took it upon themselves to start working with churches and food banks and different places to provide day care for the parents who needed it, to provide meals for the many students who get their hot meals at school,” said Dale Lee of the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA).

The legislature and the board of the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) have begun to make some noises about conceding some to the teachers’ demands, but nothing is concrete and the work stoppage is set to continue at least through Monday.

The teachers began to notice trouble in January, right at the beginning of the legislative session. In that first session, Bassham noted, there were over thirty bills introduced that seemed ominous. When it comes to salaries, West Virginia teachers are already some of the worst off in the country—forty-eighth, according to Lee—and their health-insurance premiums had increased so much over the last year that it amounted to a pay cut. “I keep seeing this number thrown around—$45K is the average teacher salary. I’ve been teaching for seven years and I am nowhere near that,” Stone said. O’Neal added, “I moved here in 2015 and my second year teaching, I made less than my first.”

That pay cut came from a change to how PEIA insurance was calculated—it shifted from being based on the individual teacher’s income to total family income. That could effectively double the already-high premiums for insurance that used to be seen as a counterbalance to low wages. On top of that, the teachers would be penalized if they did not participate in a wellness program.

Those issues already left teachers feeling undervalued and disrespected. And that came on top of legislators proposing bills that threatened public education—such as introducing charter schools, “education savings accounts” (giving parents public funds to spend on educating their children, or a “backdoor voucher” in Lee’s words), so-called “paycheck protection,” which restricts the ability for automatic deduction of union dues, and other attacks on the already deeply restricted unions. Anger at the anti-union proposals opened the door to bring up other issues that had been frustrating teachers for much longer, like sky-high class sizes in secondary schools and a lack of electives for students.

Despite it all, Lee noted, “We have great schools. We’re right at 90 percent graduation rate, and for a rural state that is exceptional.” To him, legislators’ complaints about spending are disingenuous—the state is paying for past underfunding of retirement benefits and counting those dollars as education spending. Because West Virginia’s population is quite spread out, that also means that transporting students costs more than it would in more densely populated states—more dollars that aren’t going to the classroom but are still necessary to spend.

Meanwhile the state has a shortage of certified teachers because it’s hard to convince people to enter a job when starting salaries for people with advanced degrees are still in the $30–35,000 range. “You’re sold the idea of, hey, go to college, get a degree, get an advanced degree, and then you still really can’t make ends meet,” Bassham said. “Obviously we do it because we like the kids, but I also like to be able to pay my bills and not have $8 to last me six days until payday.”

Leah Clay Stone is a second-generation member of the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA)—she and her walked picket lines with her mother during a 1990 teacher strike. Her father was a coal miner through the 1980s. West Virginia is a state with a proud labor history that gets lost in the “Trump Country” profiles. Many of the teachers in today’s fight have personal experiences like Stone’s. It was not lost on anyone I spoke with that the first teachers to stop work were from coal country, from Mingo and Logan Counties, the sites of the great mine wars.

Stone also recalls, as a teenager, going to party with friends on top of the infamous Blair Mountain, the site of what historian Elizabeth Catte, in her new book What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, calls “the largest show of armed resistance in the United States since the Civil War—and the most significant labor uprising in the United States.” Immortalized in part in the 1987 movie Matewan and in memorable labor ballads, the Battle of Blair Mountain pitted workers and their allies—like venerable labor agitator Mary Harris “Mother” Jones—against a “private army” that would later be praised by the National Rifle Association (yes, the same one that currently wants to arm teachers against school shooters). It is a stark reminder that West Virginians died to organize the unions that the state’s officials are currently bad-mouthing in the press.

Today’s action is the first statewide walkout of teachers in almost thirty years. “If you look at what teachers and their allies are posting on social media, you can see that they are connecting the upcoming action to the state’s important history of labor uprising, from Blair Mountain to Widen.” Elizabeth Catte told me via email. She pointed to a tweet from Richard Ojeda, a candidate for Congress from the state, who posted a photograph of himself in a red bandanna with the caption, “The term redneck started when WV coal miners tied red bandanas around their necks during the bloody battle of Blair mountain to unionize. Today, our teachers channeled their history. #UnionStrong”

“It’s rather impressive to me that people don’t have the knowledge of what it means to be union proud. Or what it means to be involved in an organization,” Stone, who recalled doing a school project on Mother Jones, said. “For the past few years we’ve struggled to keep membership even in our organization. But in this moment and this movement people have been finding out that they are the movement. If they want something done they have to speak up.”

These days, of course, the labor movement is a shadow of its former self in terms of both militancy and membership. With collective bargaining banned for West Virginia teachers and public-sector workers, unions are voluntary associations—meaning that teachers at any given school might be members of the WVEA or the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia (AFT-WV), or neither. Without collective bargaining, the WVEA’s Dale Lee explained, mostly the associations fight to get work issues that unions might bargain over—like duty-free lunches and planning periods—written into state law.

There is a separate association for school service personnel, the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association, who have also backed the job action—cooks, custodians, maintenance workers, and bus drivers. Beyond that, Bassham told me, they are standing for all public employees who are struggling. “It’s not just a teacher issue, it’s not just a school issue, it’s our state not wanting to take care of the people who are trying to make our state a better place.”

Their message is a reminder that despite pollsters’ tendency to make a college degree the dividing line between “working” and “middle” class, the categories are often not so clear cut. The reality is that college-educated workers too have to fight for decent wages and benefits. That the teachers all cite Blair Mountain’s miners as inspiration is an act of class solidarity and a reminder that the so-called knowledge economy we have been told to prize over manual labor doesn’t come with a guarantee of good pay any more than coal mining did.

West Virginia’s government has long been dominated by coal and other extractive industries. In fact its sitting governor, Jim Justice, is a second-generation coal tycoon and a billionaire who owes his own state millions in back taxes. But Jay O’Neal is heartened that teachers and their supporters—including the mine workers’ union—are now calling for raising taxes on those extractive companies in order to fund education. In a literal sense, the teachers are fighting the same companies that the coal miners were, decades ago.

On Thursday teachers from all three education workers’ associations took to the streets and the capitol halls, dressed in red, bearing handmade signs, some of them wearing those red bandannas. They waved to passing drivers and marched with other unionists. Schools throughout the state remained shuttered Friday, and at an afternoon press conference, union representatives said they were prepared to continue the walkout until the state commits to address their demands: higher pay, fully funded insurance benefits, and rejection of the regressive bills.

Teachers had already driven to the capitol on snow days, on treacherous mountain roads. “Our colleagues in the northern panhandle and the eastern panhandle have to come so much further,” Bassham said. “They drove on some crazy mountain roads to holler at legislators, and it was fabulous.”

Those legislators are slowly beginning to take action, Stone said, though there is also “quite a bit of grandstanding. . . . They want you to think that they’re doing everything they can for you but their voting record doesn’t show that.”

Public-employee strikes in West Virginia, as state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has stated, are illegal. And yet the teachers have gone out anyway, taking the risk because it can’t get much worse for them. With the Janus case looming before the Supreme Court, potentially decimating every public-sector union in the nation, and right-wing governors looking for additional ways to punish unions, the West Virginia teachers’ situation is a bellwether.

These teachers recall that there were no laws protecting the mine workers in the 1920s either. Stone said, “West Virginians have a long background of doing what’s expected until it gets to be too much, and then we make sure we do what’s right, and we really want our legislators to do what’s right instead of what’s expected.”

Mother Jones would be proud.”

Hell yes she would.

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The Gypsy Professor

Tag: progress