Facing History and Ourselves hosted a Day of Learning "Reimagining Self and Others" at Harvard Law School on May 10, 2013. This is a summary of the "When Identities Turn Violent" segment featuring historian of genocide Omer Bartov and sociologist of religion Jose Casanova.

Facing History and Ourselves hosted a Day of Learning "Reimagining Self and Others" at Harvard Law School on May 10, 2013. This is a liveblog of the opening presentation by Anthony Appiah, a philosopher at Princeton University, whose latest book is The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen.

Appiah begins by framing the ethics of diversity with motivating questions that go back to Aristotle's ethics: 1) What is it for a life to go well? 2) What is human well-being? These are tied to Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia, which is poorly translated as 'happiness' but is more robust, representing the successful life, or flourishing life.

To work through the ethics of diversity, Appiah suggests three ethical principles:

1. Everybody matters (this was not true in Aristotle's Athens, he only spoke of free, adult males)
2. We owe everyone respect for their human dignity: we must bear in mind the facts about them that should shape how we treat them
3. Each person is in charge of managing his or her own life

On Monday, I attended the conference Civics Education: Why it Matters to Democracy, Society and You co-presented by Harvard Law School and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. I liveblogged all four panels for the Center for Civic Media:

• Knowledge: What should young Americans know about democracy?
• Practice: What barriers stand in the way of better civic learning?
• What’s at stake? Why civic matters to me, and to you
• Engagement: How can we encourage youth to participate in democracy?

I want to summarize some of the key points made by panelists and in questions from the audience. But more importantly, I want to respond to what I think were some glaring omissions in the discussion.

Liveblog of the fourth and final panel of the conference Civics Education: Why it Matters to Democracy, Society and You at Harvard Law School, April 1, 2013. Willow Brugh contributed to these notes.

PANEL 4: Engagement: How can we encourage youth to participate in democracy?
(#vizthink by @willowbl00)

Panelists:

• Meira Levinson (Professor & Co-convener, HGSE Civic and Moral Education Initiative, Harvard Graduate School of Education)
• Diana Hess (Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• Scott Warren (Executive Director, Generation Citizen)
• Justin Reich (Director of Online Community, Practice and Research at Facing History and Ourselves, Harvard University)
• Richard Freeland (Commissioner of Higher Education for Massachusetts)
• Carlos Rojas (Education Policy Associate, Youth on Board)
• Moderator: Richard Weissbourd (Lecturer in Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education)

Hi, I'm Willow, and I'm new to the Center for Civic Media. I'm a research affiliate, which I'm still not clear on the meaning of[1], but I'm looking at how flat organizations scale and I love it here. I used to think it was decentralized groups, but then I read Charlie's excellent blog post and knew better (Charlie, who has recently shaved his beard and it is freaking me out). Before I was here, I was in Seattle - another Geek Promised Land - working with hackerspaces and education. I still juggle digital disaster and humanitarian response work with a group called Geeks Without Bounds. This is my first blog entry on the Center's roll, and is flavored with my own ranty-pants tendencies - if you're looking for the live notes of the event itself, they are linked below or back a few entries on this blog.

Liveblog of the third panel of the conference Civics Education: Why it Matters to Democracy, Society and You at Harvard Law School, April 1, 2013. Willow Brugh contributed to these notes.

PANEL 3: What’s at stake? Why civic matters to me, and to you

Panelists:

• Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (former Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States)
• Justice David Souter (former Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States)
• Judge Kenneth Starr (President, Baylor University)
• Larry Tribe (Professor, Harvard Law School)
• Moderator: Martha Minow (Dean, Harvard Law School)

MM: The bet of the democracy is that we can govern ourselves. The risk is that we will not be prepared to do so. [Introduces Sandra Day O’Connor] She has dedicated herself most recently to looking at the critical role of education in democracy. Why have you decided to make this such an important focus of your attention?

Liveblog of the second panel of the conference Civics Education: Why it Matters to Democracy, Society and You at Harvard Law School, April 1, 2013. Willow Brugh contributed to these notes.

(#vizthink by willowbl00)

Panelists:

• Under Secretary Martha Kanter (Under Secretary, U.S. Department of Education)
• David Hiller (President & CEO, McCormick Foundation)
• Gene Koo (Executive Director, iCivics)
• Kathleen McCartney (Dean of the Faculty of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education)
• Mabel McKinney-Browning (Director, Division for Public Education at American Bar Association)
• Moderator: Chief Justice Margaret Marshall (former Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court)

Liveblog of the first panel of the conference Civics Education: Why it Matters to Democracy, Society and You at Harvard Law School, April 1, 2013.

(#vizthink by @willowbl00)

Panelists:

• State Senator Richard Moore (Massachusetts State Senator)
• Howard Gardner (Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education)
• Peter Levine (Professor, Tufts University and Director of CIRCLE)
• Robert Gallucci (President, MacArthur Foundation)
• Romero Brown (Vice President of Program & Youth Development Services, Boys and Girls Club)
• Moderator: Tomiko Brown-Nagin (Professor, Harvard Law School)

Data visualization is all over the place. On the hype curve, we’re clearly up in the area of inflated expectations. If you listen to the reporting, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking dataviz is going to bring world peace! I’m writing to beat the drum in favor of more informal presentations.  You can tell better data stories, and engage your audience more, by creating less formal data presentations.

Some Examples

What do I mean by "informal visualization"?  To start, toss out your computer, printer and graph paper. Pull our your crayons, big paper, tape, and your imagination.

From top-left, clockwise: 

In a guest post published today on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Head Count” admissions and enrollment blog (for which I myself have written), Jack Baworowsky, VP of enrollment management at Dominican University, warns his colleagues that it “is not a question of if but when will there be a major shift in the way we think about student recruitment.”