The mission of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is to provide information on key international issues that are not reported, under-reported, or mis-reported.  The mission of Civitas is to promote critical thinking and active citizenship.  The Pulitzer Center and Civitas combined efforts with an outstanding group of teachers from seven local high schools for the first Global Gateway program of the 2007-2008 school year.

Journalists David Enders and Jon Sawyer from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting came to St. Louis last Thursday - Saturday to meet with students and teachers about the refugee crisis in and around Iraq.  The topic has become very timely as more people are becoming aware that of the twenty-six million people in Iraq prior to the beginning of the current war and occupation in March, 2003, some 4.5 million of them are now refugees or displaced.

David and Jon met with approximately 200 students from Collinsville, Crossroads, Maplewood-Richmond Heights, Parkway West,Rosati-Kain, Soldan, and St. Joseph's high schools last Thursday and Friday.  While each had a few prepared remarks, for the most part they responded to questions and comments that students had previously posted on the Global Gateway blog as well as questions for the audience.  Students and teachers (who had their own workshop with Jon and David on Saturday) will continue to blog with them as the story further evolves.  Several students expressed interest in initiating something so that St. Louis area high school students could help Iraqi refugees and their families.  We are working on trying to establish such a program.

All of the sessions were videotaped by filmmaker Frank Popper ("Can Mr. Smith Get To Washington Anymore) with soundman Dan Schneider (see photo above).  While the nature of the final product is still in the discussion stage, you can be assured that there will be a wonderful presentation available for all in the near future.

The Global Gateway program will have two more projects in St. Louis this school year.  In January, the focus will be on "Liberia: Scars and Stripes" -- the stories of former child soldiers in Liberia, some of whom are still living in Liberia; others are actually in the United States (Staten Island in NYC to be exact).  The liberation of the soldiers is not an entirely pretty story.

In April, the program will continue as the HIV / AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean is explored.

Blogs are still available for each school to continue communicating with David Enders -- questions and comments alike.  The link to the blog web site is: http://pulitzercenter.typepad.com/global_gateway_students/welcome/index.html.  Thanks to everyone who has already contributed; there is still time for others!

Photos from last week's Global Gateway project

Finally for teachers, thanks to the following teachers who came to and actively participated in last Saturday's workshop: Amber Booth (Parkway South), Kristen Collins (Parkway West), Jane Garvin (St. Joseph's Academy), Margene Jerrolds (Lift for Life Academy), Darlene Kellum (Hoech Middle School), Kenya Madison (Vianney High School), Christine Marshall (John Burroughs School), Dawn McClain (Soldan International Studies),  Kelly Moore (Soldan International Studies), David West (Soldan International Studies), and Ronni Zagora (Lindbergh).

Everyone can access more information on the Global Gateway Project by clicking here.

 Applying Critical Thinking to Campaign 2008

Essentially everything that Civitas does is to promote critical thinking and active citizenship about issues -- international, national, and local.  Final decision-making in the United States is limited to 545 individuals (1 president, 435 members of Congress, and 9 Supreme Court members).  While they presumably have "checks and balances" on one another, the most powerful check is from the American public (often assisted by the press).

The stakes are too high for us to make decisions about which candidates we support if we have inadequate information.  Within the next week Civitas will be launching a campaign to encourage students to study candidates, their positions, and their campaign tactics.  There will even be a creative component involved -- a contest in which students will be able to win prizes if they demonstrate the ability to apply critical analysis to Campaign 2008.

We hope that if students get involved, it will provide them with some measure of "inoculation against cynicism."

We will have more information on this project at this Saturday's discussion group and in next week's newsletter.