Effective fights for freedom - by Judge Jim Gray

This week I will continue to discuss the recent Freedom Fest convention in Las Vegas, where one of the speakers was Greg Mortenson.

You probably know of Mortenson as the co-author of the book "Three Cups of Tea," which describes his experiences in building about 50 schools for boys — and girls — in mountain villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His new book, "Stones into Schools," provides an update on this amazing success.

Mortenson is a fairly shy, humble and self-effacing man who stumbled upon his life's work project that is bringing a measure of peace to those two troubled and unstable lands. As was descending from his attempt to climb K-2, the second highest peak in the world, Mortenson became lost, sick and disoriented, whereupon he was nursed back to health by the people of one of the villages.

In gratitude, Greg promised to come back and build them a school, which he learned, was the most closely held desire of the villagers. Thereafter he kept his promise, and that began his story.

Mortenson does it right by employing the methods I was actually taught during my training for the Peace Corps. He understands that no program will be really successful unless it addresses what we in the Peace Corps called the "felt needs" of the community.

That means that the people in the community must actually want the project, and be materially involved in the decision-making and implementation process. And then the project only has a real chance to become permanent if it will continue to prosper without us.

In that regard, during training we were told the hypothetical story of a Peace Corps Volunteer, who was asked by one of the visiting Peace Corps staff members what he had accomplished during his two years of service.

The volunteer responded by pointing to some people working in a field and growing some drought-resistant grain, which he had introduced into his village, and pointing in another direction to the people working to install a new water treatment plant that he had initiated.

Finally, he pointed to a neighboring house in which a woman was working on her loom. She was doing work for the coop he had helped to start and that weaved native cloth in traditional designs to be sold in the tourist trade. And all of this was happening while he was sitting down and having breakfast.

In his work in building schools in remote mountainous villages, Greg Mortenson considers it essential to take the time to build up relationships with the tribal elders in the communities, listen to them, work with them, and be guided by them.

And he will not build a school unless the village is completely involved by donating the land, the necessary wood and the labor. As a result, none of his schools have been attacked by the Taliban, because the elders have influence and a strong following in their villages, and the Taliban does not want to alienate the villagers.

One example he discussed involved his being approached by the elders from a remote village in Afghanistan that was heavily infiltrated and controlled by the Taliban. Nevertheless, these elders requested that he help build a school in their village. Given the location, Mortenson was naturally skeptical of being able to do this, but he invited the elders to visit a school that he had built about 50 miles from their village.

When these elders met him at the school a few weeks later, they were all dressed in robes and turbans, and each was heavily armed with a machine gun. But, as he tells it in the book, when they saw the playground, the men dropped their guns on the ground and each man started playing on the swings and slides. And it was a sight to behold, with turbans flying in the wind and big smiles all over these stately and (for us) normally terrifying-looking men.

After a full hour and a half, Mortenson told them that it was time to stop playing and to address the issue at hand. So they sat down with him and soon invited him to come to their village to discuss the building of a school. Although it would normally be quite dangerous for a Westerner to go to that area, he later traveled there safely as their guest.

When Greg arrived the village elders unanimously agreed to his terms and requested a school — as long as it would have a playground! Mortenson agreed, but remained humorously concerned that the adults would be using the swings and slides so much that they might not be available for the children.

Before he left the village, Mortenson asked the chief elder (who is almost always the one who has the most silver in his beard) why they so badly wanted a school. The man responded that when he was 12 years old, the Soviets invaded the country.

So he was pulled out of school, and taught to hate and to fight, which he had been doing ever since. Thus he never really had a childhood. But now he not only wanted to make up for his own loss, he also wanted his children to have the childhood and education that he never had.

Our government actively solicits Greg Mortenson's advice, and, as a military veteran, he gives it openly and freely. But he goes out of his way not to accept any money from our government. If he were to do that, he would be seen as an arm or instrument of the government, and that would in effect terminate his effectiveness. And unfortunately, the government does not often follow his advice about developing relationships with the elders in the various villages.

But there is no reason why each of us cannot fight for freedom like Greg Mortenson — each in our own way. Obviously most of us cannot affect an entire world, but we can be effective in the smaller worlds that we do live in. And, like Greg Mortenson, we can begin by listening better to the people around us.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "A Voter's Handbook: Effective Solutions for America's Problems" (The Forum Press, 2010) and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at http://www.judgejimgray.com.

Exploring new worlds: the Peace Corps - by Judge Jim Gray

Between graduating from college in 1966 and entering law school in 1968, I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica.

Many times since my return, people have told me that they always had wanted to be in the Peace Corps.

My response almost always has been, well it was a great experience, and it’s not too late for you to do it now.

But invariable the people then come up with some sort of explanation as to why they can’t do it, at least not now.

Well, in 2011, the Peace Corps will be celebrating its 50th birthday, and it is continuing to do good work. In fact, according to its website, the number of applicants grew by 18% more than a year ago, although I recognize that the economy might have had something to do with it.

The mission statement is in three parts: 1) Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women; 2) Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served; and 3) Helping promote a better understanding of other people on the part of Americans.

Obviously, the Peace Corps is certainly not for everyone. In fact, if you even have to ask why someone would want to be involved in such a thing “for two whole years,” you probably would never understand. People either have an intuitive understanding about what it is to be a volunteer, or they don’t.

When I went to Costa Rica, I requested the smallest town in the country that had a high school, and they gave it to me.

The reason was in part that it was completely inconsistent with my vision of a Peace Corps experience to take a bus to work, like some of my colleagues did in the capital city.

My town of Palmar Norte was on the Inter-American Highway, about half way from the point south of the capital city of San Jose where the paving on the highway ended, and the Panamanian border, where it resumed.

It is amazing to me that Costa Rica is now a tourist destination, because when I was there people were mostly ignorant of even where it was — often confusing it with Puerto Rico.

But I was a “profesor de educación física” in the high school, and I also taught physical education in the local elementary schools, as well as general health and community recreation in my extended community.

In fact, I probably still hold the world’s record for brushing my teeth in front of more elementary school classes than anyone else in history.

My biggest tangible success sometimes seemed to be teaching some of the elementary school students to take turns while “up at bat” in our kickball games, because mostly everyone was first in line, all of the time.

But actually, my most general success probably was being able to show the people in my small community that North Americans could work hard at a project, perspire and get dirty.

Clearly my biggest failure was my inability to establish the practice with most families of boiling their drinking water.

When I was there, Costa Rica was believed by many actually to lead the world in birth rates per capita. Nevertheless, their population generally was not expending because of the high infant mortality rate.

And the reason for that mostly was the parasites in their drinking water.

Thus, it was not unusual for me to see a funeral service for an infant in an open casket, in which the mother or someone else had to brush aside the worms that were crawling out of the mouth and nose of the deceased child (I am sorry if this offends, but it’s true — and I grieve about it).

I also tried to spread information about natural birth control to the adults in my town by handing out literature, and encouraging the female home economics teacher in our high school to help me with the discussions.

But that was right at the time that the Papal Encyclical was issued that forbid Catholics even from discussing this subject.

So after this was issued, Padre Samuel Stewart, who was our community’s Catholic priest and a friend of mine, told me that if I didn’t stop, he would take the pulpit against me. What could a Peace Corps volunteer do against a force like that? So I stopped.

By the time my two-year term was completed, I think I was able to make a contribution in keeping with the mission statement.

I helped our Peace Corps group teach a clinic in San Jose that was able to pass along some needed skills and approaches to virtually all of the physical education professors in the country; I led some of my students into various careers that they might not otherwise have pursued; and I became friends and colleagues to quite a few Costa Ricans, with whom I communicated for decades.

For my part, I believe that I learned more from the Costa Ricans than they did from me.

And I also learned to speak a second language, such that years later as a judge I was able to try some of my small claims court cases in Spanish.

And you should have seen the eyes of some of the litigants grow large when this gringo started talking Spanish.

Since the Peace Corps began, about 195,000 volunteers have served in 139 host countries.

But over time the Peace Corps has changed substantially. When I was involved, there was a virtual prohibition against a volunteer being married, and if those who were married ever were expecting children, they were sent home immediately. In addition, most of the volunteers were like me: recent college liberal arts graduates who had lots of idealism, but few skills.

And most of our assignments were either to teach English, or to be involved in “community development.”

So look at it this way: Most of us were young, without real practical skills, not adept in the local language or really understanding the local culture or history, and were being sent down to other people’s countries to help them “develop their communities.” So all of this was a bit arrogant of us back then, if you think of it in that context.

Fortunately, many of those things have changed over time, because more older and wiser volunteers are being recruited, and are serving. And these are people who not only have more life skills, but they also can pass along much of their practical experience, maturity, and demonstrated abilities to the locals.

So if you are one of those people who have frequently thought to yourself that you would like to join the Peace Corps, or a similar domestic program like Teach for America, give some serious thought about doing it now. And if you are married or even if you have children, so much the better.

From my own personal experience, I can tell you that it is one of the most gratifying experiences that you could ever have.



JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .

SCHOOL UNIFORMS ARE THE RIGHT CHOICE - by Judge Jim Gray

SCHOOL UNIFORMS ARE THE RIGHT CHOICE - by Judge Jim Gray 04/28/08

 Having been raised in the public school system, my first exposure to school uniforms took place when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching in the smallest town in Costa Rica that had a high school.  


Some of the students in our school were the children of the “jefes” or bosses of the United Fruit Company, so they could afford more expensive school clothes, but most of them came from quite humble circumstances. But all of our schools required that their students wear uniforms, which consisted of a pair of khaki pants and white shirt for the boys, and a khaki skirt and white blouse for the girls. And that system worked wonderfully.  


  What were the benefits that I observed? Well, since the uniforms themselves were quite a bit less expensive than the wide array of other clothes that children would normally wear, all families could afford them. Plus students could get by on one or two pairs of clothes instead of much more. This resulted in the “have nots” being able to keep up with the “haves.” In other words, all students looked the same regardless of the income disparities. This also meant that competition in wearing more pricey “designer labels” and other exotic apparel simply disappeared. And the same was true with the more sloppy clothing.


  Beyond the issue of cost, school uniforms took a great deal of pressure off the parents and the school administrators. Instead of fighting with the students about what they could not wear, there was a common understanding about what they actually would wear. This naturally reduced a great deal of the pressure on students and adults alike, and brought greater peace both to the home and to the school. An added feature was that it took the students a great deal less time to get dressed in the morning.


  Importantly, I also observed the enormous benefit that school uniforms were able to keep the children younger longer. Particularly in today’s world with all of the pressures on our kids to grow up quickly, I think we can all agree that this is clearly a good thing.  


For example, I never will forget the time that we had an annual high school dance at my Costa Rican high school. One of the girls present was stunningly dressed in a fairly low-cut top, short skirt and make-up. I wondered who that “looker” could be, until it dawned upon me that this was “little Leda,” one of my wonderful young ninth-grade students. Of course all of the boys were distracted by her, and vied for her attention. So if she had been allowed to wear clothes like that to school, it was clear to me that everyone’s attention level to sex and flirting would have increased dramatically, to the detriment of the entire scholastic atmosphere of the school.


Finally, but critically, most people generally tend to act in keeping with the manner in which they are dressed. If one wears sloppy attire, that person naturally tends to act more casually. But if people are dressed more formally, their actions generally tend to be more controlled and refined. So if students are wearing the uniform of their school, they will be much more likely to behave themselves as representatives of their school. In a similar fashion, they will be “dressed for learning,” and act accordingly. This also has the additional benefit of showing respect for learning, and disrespect for sloppiness.


The same is true for the rest of us. I know I have a definite tendency to act more formally and cautiously when I am wearing my working “uniform,” which is to say my judicial robe. And I venture to say that most other people have the same tendencies. If people are wearing shirts that display the name of their company on them, they are more likely to be careful about their demeanor. The same is true for men who are wearing a coat and tie, or women who are wearing more formal business attire. They tend to be more business-like than people wearing jeans and sweatshirts.


So what are the drawbacks of this program of school uniforms? From my perspective, there really is only one, and that is a limitation upon individual expression. But that is really a small price to pay for the other benefits. In fact, many people believe that this would also be a benefit in itself. The children can “express themselves” all they want to, within parental limits, once they get back home. But while they are in school, they are literally working at the most critical job of their lives, which is to get an education. This is not the time for diverting their attention to who looks more “cool” or sexy. Instead their focus should be on learning, and school uniforms strongly promote that focus.


So why aren’t more schools in our country requiring uniforms for their students? I believe that most of them would like to do so, but are hindered by resistance from the parents, who in many ways seem to be afraid of the wrath of their own children. But there is a difference between being your children’s friends, as opposed to being their parents. Appropriate wearing apparel is not a decision to be made by children; it is to be made by concerned parents.  


Accordingly, in my view it is time for parents to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of school uniforms. When they do so, I believe they will decide that the benefits discussed above strongly outweigh the one so-called drawback. And then the parents should assert themselves for a program of school uniforms for the good of the education and future of all of our children.  

James P. Gray is a Judge of the Superior Court in California, the author of Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It - A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs (Temple University Press, 2001) and Wearing The Robe - The Art And Responsibilities of Judging In Today's Courts, has a blog at http://judgejamesgray.blogspot.com/. http://www.judgejimgray.com, and can be contacted at www.judgejimgray.com.