Critical Question: How can candidates solve Deficits of Thought?

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty appeared on this week’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press. The  clip was taped Thursday when NBC News anchor David Gregory came to Minneapolis to moderate a hour-long discussion with Pawlenty,  coverage that implies he’s one to watch for a 2012 Presidential run.

Pawlenty deferred declaring his candidacy, but did demonstrate his considerable rhetorical skills, smoothly navigating Gregory’s runs at his controversial positions while simultaneously warming up would-be voters with snappy sound-bites.

Such as christening “common-man” identities like “Sam’s Club Republicans” and inciting populist passions by saying social movements like The Tea Party for having the necessary “creative energy for the next generation” of government.

No doubt Tea Party tactics turn media pundits and policymaker’s heads. But whether their polarized ideological agendas reflect the actual ideals of real people, however, remains a critical question.

Pawlenty also wove in linguistical inferences which play well in educated vernaculars, like those of academics who attended the event, which was sponsored by University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute.

Including the term “high order government,” necessary, he said, for prioritizing a sustained “turn-around” of US policies. And an antidote to what Pawlenty referred to as the “phony effect” of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package, which has produced, he acknowledged, “near-time” economic gains.

“It’s simple math” Pawlenty explained, suggesting his Jr. High daughter has a better grasp of macro budgetary issues than Democratic leaders do. He went on to defend his rejection of federal education funds in favor of performance pay for teachers using standardized testing methods to measure results.

Pawlenty’s demeanor touched audience member’s nerves. “You carry yourself as if you’re the only adult in the room,” said one, calling Pawlenty out for distain of people who don’t agree with his policies.

Triggering impassioned exchanges like these make for attention-getting press, a fact of which politicians like Pawlenty are well aware. But long-term proof shows they are effective for producing little more than further polarized political positions.

It’s a point Pawlenty made in his closing remarks. “I see a corrosion in the discourse” in public leadership. “I worry about how we can be more thoughtful.”

His statement resonates with research implicating political upheaval as a key factor fueling “a sense that society has lost its way.” And showing nearly 90% of Minnesotan’s don’t trust government, data outlined in a recent report by Humphrey Institute’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance.

Such indicators should sound the alert for the critical importance of “higher order thinking,” an education term referring to advanced knowledge that transcends rote repetition of one-dimensional facts.  Such thinking requires the employment of analytical, evaluative and creative abilities that seek and find connections between diverse concepts to synthesize effective solutions.

A key characteristic of higher order thinking is the ability to reflect on critical questions that trigger deeper understandings of complex issues and isolate the most authentic and accurate answers to them.

Pawlenty’s Meet the Press appearance triggers some such questions:

How can creative energies be employed to overcome deficits of thought which incite people’s lower order impulses?

How can leaders stimulate the next generation of government to prioritize the kind of common wealth corrosive discourse has failed to achieve?

How can authentic public leaders raise the standards of achievement for the pro-social skills we should have all learned when we were in Jr. High?

© 2010 Andrea Grazzini Walstrom, Nonpartisan/Nonidealogical Productive Dialogue

Football players teach professors

©2010 Andrea Grazzini Walstrom

Wednesday evening 800-some influential business and civic leaders met at a fundraiser for Minneapolis-based Center for the American Experiment, one of the most respected conservative think tanks in the country. The dinner program, featuring a cerebral talk by a Fox News commentator, started with a military color-guard escorting a young woman to the podium to sing the national anthem and was capped off with a rousing auction for the use of a private suite at a local stadium, which fetched a high sum.

Over lunch Thursday 1200-plus influential women’s leaders met at a fundraiser for the Minneapolis YWCA. They heard moving talks by a teen girl who credits a committed mentor for supporting her after she had been abandoned by her parents, and a single mother who credits the YWCA for providing an embracing community her family has come to rely on. While she goes to college and work, her children attend the YWCA’s Early Childhood Education Program which was recently recognized as one of the top ten accredited programs in the country.

But perhaps the most stunning talk of the week occurred at a small gathering at Tom’s Drugstore in Minneapolis Thursday evening featuring star athletes who, when they aren’t filling expensive stadium seats, are quietly influencing younger men and boys.

The scene couldn’t have been more contrasted: six hulking black University of Minnesota football players who, along with the white University of Minnesota volleyball players and civic engagement students who invited them to the talk, sitting in a circle with cerebral educators from local universities and visiting scholars from South Africa and China.

As elderly educators applauded the athletes for showing up and taught them about the tough work of civil rights leaders and leader-athletes of the past, the players leaned in, listening closely.

The discussion was, by design, not scripted. None came with prepared notes. But when the young athletes spoke all were as articulate as the cerebral intellectuals.

The players spoke of the complicated culture that informs collegiate football. Of the disconnect between the consumer-driven institution of sports which entices them with hopes of NFL sized-salaries and spoils them things like plasma screen TVs and far better facilities than women’s or other teams get.

More significantly, they said they wanted to be recognized more for their substance and intelligence than their physical prowess and the public personas largely created for, not by, them. They talked of hidden pressures and sacrifices their families have endured so they can get an education.

“Many of us are the man in our house,” said one who had been raised by a single mother. “I worry about my sisters and mom everyday.” Another said: “When I came to college we lost our house,” to pay tuition. Yet another spoke of missing the largely black Atlanta, Georgia community he left for the largely white Minnesota institution he plays for.

They spoke with uncanny honesty about the stereotypes that diminish their aspirations and abilities with reductive cultural scripts that sum them up as either, in the words of one: “slaves” for heavily funded sports organizations or, as another put it, “thugs.” And of the pedestals they are propped on which suppress their full potentials to serve as productive citizens.

Not surprising, these poised young men are positioned by the university to share their gifts in community service efforts where they speak from podiums to audiences of students about the importance of putting studies before sports.

What was surprising was what the players do without being asked. When questioned if they personally mentor students, their answers demonstrated integrity and insight no floodlights can adequately capture.

Senior defensive back Marcus Singletary proudly explained how he informally mentors freshmen to teach them how to evolve from “boys to men,” while defensive lineman Brandon Kirksey smiled broadly. “You don’t know this,” Kirksey said to his teammate, “But I overheard you talking about “boys to men” in the locker room and I am doing it, too.”  Another player piped in, “I am the product of a Boys to Men program in Chicago!”

These young men are changing far more then freshmen. An elderly professor who has long taught a popular American history course, tried to capture the point: “I’ve seen many students, but this is the first time I’ve seen black athletes speaking in an open and frank discussion.”

To which quarterback Marquis Gray, demonstrating his keen read of reality, responded by calling out his esteemed elders.  Who—for all their experience—utterly underestimated his and his teammates’ wisdom.

When white female athlete Tabi Love suggested her black fellow athletes might have something to prove, he agreed. Addressing the assembled scholars, Gray noted their surprise at realizing the players’ intelligence: “As soon as we opened our mouths you guys were shocked.”

Their daring discourse proved powerful lessons: when people sit down in respectful dialogue with very different others long enough to discover the real, complex person behind faux cultural caricatures, superficialities can be surmounted and begin to breakdown the larger cycles that destabilize our culture.

These athlete-leaders showed star-leadership strengths. More compellingly, they proved that the most powerful influence can’t be bought or taught from a high-minded podium—but must rather be persistently practiced with real people.

And when it is, everyone wins.

–Andrea Grazzini Walstrom is founder and co-leader Nonpartisan/Nonidealogical Productive Dialogue