Friday's Follow-Up

Guess what folks...money CAN buy happiness!
Read Tony's blog about what the threshold is for the correlation between money and happiness. For those of you who make more than that, how about you help non-profits like YMC! :)

Surfing 9/12/10
Check out pictures from our last surfing session!

Tuesday with Mentor & Mentee- Derrion and Karen
Karen thanks her mentor Derrion for always being there for her and providing her helpful advice.

Act Now: Support the Dream before we lose another opportunity
Read about the new developments concerning the DREAM Act and how vital it is for everyone to support it.

It's Friday! YMC's blog is finally back in full effect! Thanks for reading :)

Agueda

Act Now: Support the Dream before we lose another opportunity

We just learned that The DREAM Act will be added as an amendment onto the Defense Authorization Bill going through Congress now – by far the best chance we have to get this through.  Please help us push for enactment.

This bipartisan effort is beyond politics.  The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors act would provide undocumented students the opportunity to earn permanent resident status through completion of higher education or military service.  This is essentially for young people who were brought into this country at a young age by their parents. If they were able to overcome all the obstacles in front of them, graduate high school, go on to college and demonstrate “good moral character” (no trouble with the law) they may qualify. 

This should be an easy one as we are only talking about people who stand a great chance of significantly contributing to society. Further, this is really the only place that they have ever called “home”. So, why shouldn’t they be able to fully participate in this society?

Once we get this through then we can begin to push for an intelligent, compassionate and comprehensive immigration policy.  But for now, let’s stop punishing these model young citizens for something their parents did.

Call or e-mail your senators and representatives to urge them to support this amendment.

contact info for your senator

contact info for your house rep

Learn about California's version of the Dream act and petition Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA) (he has vetoed it 5 times)

Please don't miss this real opportunity,

Tony

Tony LoRe
Founder/CEO, Youth Mentoring Connection

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee- Derrion & Karen

Dear Derrion,

Thank you for being my mentor and thank you for being there for me all the way. You showed me you cared because you gave me advice to stop and think about how I was hurting my mom. Through this program I learned to sometimes give a chance to people you do not know.

-Karen

Surfing 9/12

The below average temperature didn't stop mentees and mentors from coming to the beach to catch some waves. Whenever we're on the beach, the dolphins join our community and this session was no exception. We also had a special performance by the Back Pack Boyz, featuring several of our more experienced surfers.

Don't miss our last surf session on 9/26!

Guess what folks...money CAN buy happiness!

up to a point. 

In a program session last year I took one of my typical forays off the path of our intended agenda as the discussion became about understanding the importance of using money wisely; understanding the concepts of budgeting, equity, etc., etc.

After what I thought was a good eye-opening conversation, one of the adults in the room dismissed the whole thing and lectured us all that “money doesn’t buy happiness”, and warned the youth not to focus so much on money as we had for the past 20 minutes. While I agree (and the research does too) that focusing exclusively on money and material things makes us more solitary and selfish, I have also seen the pain and struggles that our youth go through because of the lack of financial resources in their homes and communities. I have also seen poor money management cause extreme financial hardship and jeopardize entire families’ abilities to stay in their homes. There is a definite correlation between homelessness and lack of happiness. Be careful of simple bromides.

So, I was interested to read about a new study by two Princeton economists (Kahneman and Deaton) who claim to have discovered the threshold where money and happiness part ways.  They claim that the number is an annual income of $75,000. They aren't saying that you need to make that amount of money to be happy.  You can be happy at any level.  However, happiness seems to increase as income increases until you hit that number.  Once income increases above 75k there is no concurrent increase in reported levels of happiness. 

My suggestion then is, if you are making more than 75k per year, the excess doesn’t buy you any more happiness so why not donate it to Youth Mentoring Connection ;-). Of course, I’m kidding. This is more complex than that. There are differences in cost of living from one locality to another and one needs to plan for a secure future when income may drop and many other factors.  And I certainly know many very happy people who are making far less than $75,000. The important thing is to understand that once our basic needs are met we should be conscious of factors in play that cause us to overemphasize acquisition and material things and understand that life fulfillment will come from our participation in our shared humanity. You see, other studies indicate that forgoing the bigger house, fancy watch and status car in lieu of spending one’s money on things that bring ineffable rewards tend to lead to more positive feelings. True harbingers of happiness are more tied to being a part of something good, feeling respected, being in control of your life and having the love and support of friends and family.

Respectfully,


Tony

Tony LoRe
CEO/Founder, Youth Mentoring Connection/Urban Oasis
Founder, Boarding House Mentors

Tony's Blog: "The next voice you hear...will be your own"

The struggle for teen agers is often described as the struggle to “find your voice”. When Jackson Browne sang those words at a fund raiser for our surfing program three years ago everything seemed to be in alignment. His was a voice of integrity that aligned with the integrity of our efforts to help marginalized youth heal from the traumas of their daily lives.


Sometimes I fear for the ways that our youth go about finding the words to describe life’s experience. Little plugs in their ears feeding them a constant stream of violent, misogynistic, homophobic rap messaging that they walk around for hours mimicking. It’s easy to sit in judgment of the music that young people listen to today. I do it all the time. (I even wrote my own rap about it.) But if we stop there we are simply complaining about a problem and doing nothing to help solve it. What are we doing to change the hopelessness that pervades their lives and encourages them turn to such forms of expression? Every curse word is a cry for recognition and acceptance.

Some of us dream of leaving a more hopeful narrative regarding the possibilities of life to our youth and culture. One such person is Jackson Browne, music idol for five decades now, who decided at some point to offer his talents in a way that could help leave this world better than he found it. So he began offering his gifts to causes that he believes in.

YMC's Jovan freestylin' with Jackson Browne

A few years ago, an organization that I co-founded, Boarding House Mentors, which teaches inner—city youth to surf reached out to him. I knew that this man was ‘for real’ when he showed up at an event we were holding to check us out before giving us an answer. This wasn’t for his public image. He really wanted to help causes that he could believe in. I remember looking over at our silent auction tables and doing a double-take. I turned to one of my board members and said: “that’s Jackson Browne” over at table 5! We approached him and had a soulful conversation where he mentioned that he had seen an LA Times article about us and was impressed with what he read. He ended up taking the stage and then, in a moment that I will always remember he invited our young people to come up on stage with him. There they were, two of the youth that I now dedicate my life to as they rapped with Jackson Browne playing back up. The show ended with over twenty hip-hop generation youth jamming to the music of my youth brilliantly and extemporaneously fused with a contemporary beat (reminding us that it all comes from the same source). They had no idea that their back-up band was a multi-platinum, award winning, Rock N Roll Hall of Fame legend. But what they do know on sight is ‘authenticity’ and Jackson Browne is the real thing…and that was a real moment when young people, who are too often given the message that 'there is no place for you here', were invited to take their place at center stage.

Jackson Browne is at it again. He has offered his own form of genius in a private acoustic performance this October to help Youth Mentoring Connection raise funds to promote our Urban Oasis for youth.

So, please lend your voice to our cause. Think about how you can share your gifts to help young people struggle for the dignity of their lives. If you have been blessed with some success in life, give back so that others may have a chance for the same. If you have been blessed with financial success, please consider passing some of that on by supporting our upcoming “Evening Under the Stars” with Jackson Browne. These are hard times for the youth we serve and we need all the help we can get to assist them to find their voice.

To get tickets for the performance with Jackson Brown, or to simply support our efforts click here.

“everyone I know, every where I go...

People need some reason to believe”

Jackson Browne

Respectfully,

Tony

Tony LoRe
CEO/Founder, Youth Mentoring Connection/Urban Oasis
Founder, Boarding House Mentors

Friday's Follow-Up

Possible Reform But in the Wrong Place
Read about the potential new format for standardized testing and what it really means.

Enjoy your long weekend!

Possible Reform But In The Wrong Place

California Joining Efforts to Overhaul Student Testing

Ideally, standardized testing produces results that demonstrate the learning that has occurred on behalf students throughout the year. In an ideal world, standardized testing would serve as a great asset to identify student’s strengths and weaknesses but unfortunately, many times, the tests are not reliable sources.

One of the many reasons why standardized testing does not work in favor of the students is because it does not account for the small improvements students make throughout the academic year. For instance, a student can begin the 4th grade at a 1st grade reading level and by the end of the year be reading at the level of a 3rd grader. This improvement would not be accounted for in the standardized testing done at the end of the year because the student would be tested at a 4th grade level and their results would be poor. If these same results are used to "grade" and "review" teachers then there's a problem and unfortunately this is the reality of too many inner-city and low-income students and teachers.

The proposed new format for standardized testing would be computer based and very much like the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). In this test, the computer is basing its next question on your previous response. For example, if you answer correctly several times consecutively the questions get harder and harder. Conversely, if you answer incorrectly the questions get easier. Such format is argued to keep teachers from teaching the exam because they will not know what will be asked on the exam as it will not longer be in scantron form.

The main question is, will the new format of this $330 million exam provide any beneficial results? Or will it just be another way to show case the poor academic performance that exists in the California educational system?

I would argue that instead of focusing energy on changing the format of an exam whose content has proven to be culturally irrelevant to many low-performing groups, time and money should be spent on resources and training that would allow students to perform well no matter what the format of the test it.

Agueda