Three Thoughts: Simple, Welcoming Gestures

It’s simple.  Clap while a group of kids walk into a building. 

Four years ago, a friend invited me to join a clap-in ceremony at a youth gathering. I did.  Now, I’m hooked. 

My friend was opening my eyes to a broader way to reach a future workforce and an audience receptive to learning the value of STEM skills.  

For 20 years, our Port Authority has made it our job to reach STEM learning audiences and boost industry engagement.  

Tewahedo Social Services brings over 500 young people from its summer camps together each year for a youth summit.  This August saw the 16^th consecutive year of the ETSS Youth Summit in Central Ohio. 

First Thought: Simple welcoming gesture

The clap-in is a great way to open the Youth Summit.  As kids get off their buses and walk to the auditorium, the clappers do what they do—clap their hands. 

We clappers quickly learn that some of the kids are lifted by our clapping right away while some need a little more effort and attention.  As a four-year veteran clapper, I know I can focus my claps on a kid to see if I can turn a snarl into a smirk. 

A simple clap is a signal of welcoming. 

The clapping welcomes the children to a place to learn about each other’s cultures, gain community appreciation, and hone their leadership skills.  It’s a metaphor for something bigger: welcoming young people into new possibilities. 

Another Thought: A spark with STEM learning

Sharing the value of science, technology, engineering, and math skills with the youth can be just as simple.  It’s another simple, welcoming gesture. 

This year, our Port Authority brought industry partners along with us.  Young people explore everything from the physics of gyroscopes with a spinning bike wheel to engineering by mixing colored polycarbonate plastic pieces. 

Just as clapping can change a young person’s mood, seeing STEM skills at work can change how they imagine a future career. 

STEM learning is happening alongside burning off energy in soccer and volleyball.   Among the kids dreaming of becoming the next Lionel Messi may be some who discover they want to be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

Third Thought: Seeing a future

Not every spark to a future career comes from inside the four walls of a classroom.  I know from experience that industry engagement can be, and is, inspiring.   I’ve watched the learners of 2006 become the engineers and scientists of 2026. 

Sometimes, simple industry engagement is all it takes to inspire.   It’s worth it if you inspire just one kid. 

STEM learning can give a young person hope for a future career.  The local relevance from meeting companies in their own community plants seeds for those future careers right here in Central Ohio. 

Five hundred young people gathered at one place.  Welcomed with a clap. Introduced to real-world STEM. Encouraged to imagine their future. 

Call me an optimist.  I believe these simple, welcoming gestures translate well. 

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This column is a regular column in The Columbus Dispatch.

Necessary Immigration

Andrew Alfred Baker, circa 1909

My great grandfather was born in Germany in 1876.  He came with his mother and sisters to America in 1884, finding his way to Cleveland.

He would go on to join the infantry in the Spanish-American War, become a draftsman working for manufacturers, and raise a family in Northeast Ohio.

Then, the country needed immigrants like Andrew Baker.  It's hard to imagine the industrial revolution happening in the U.S. and in Ohio in particular without a major influx of immigrants.

We need immigration now too. Pragmatism needs to win out if we are to experience the 21st Century version of industrial revolution.

Thus, President Trump faces what Joel Kotkin calls "The Immigration Dilemma."  Kotkin writes:

"Like most high-income countries, the United States’ fertility rate is below that needed to replace the current generation. If the U.S. cuts off its flow of immigrants too dramatically, we will soon face the labor shortages, collapse of consumer demand and drops in innovation already seen in the European Union and much of East Asia."

Without immigration in the mix of our population growth, we could struggle to grow our economy at a time when the shrinking working age populations of Germany, Japan, China, and the EU are giving our country a chance to grow.

See the whole Kotkin piece at JoelKotkin.com.

A Melting Pot of Issues

The Shopfloor column put online by the National Association of Manufacturers reports on the status of an immigration-related bill containing language related to STEM skills.

The bill would increase availability of H-1B visas for people with STEM skills while establishing a fund to domestically improve STEM skill efforts.

This is one to watch for manufacturers.

And it makes for a melting pot of issues--STEM, immigration, and manufacturing.

Lessons From The Election: Embrace Immigration Reform

I think there were lessons galore in Tuesday's election.  I think one, though, stands out.  It's time to embrace an immigration reform policy that favors more working visas and more legal, working class immigration.

For Republicans, a more moderate stance on immigration could have turned enough key swing states that the whole Presidential election could have turned the other way.  Though that's arguable, as one piece says.

Cuyahoga County almost single-handily pushed President Obama over the top in Ohio.   You can't spend two minutes in Cleveland, the county seat, and not sense the ethnic culture that abounds. Though most of the current residents are multi generations in the U.S., they still value their ethnic roots.  An anti-immigration stance doesn't appeal to them.

Does anyone want to bet Florida turns too if the immigration issue moderates?  New Mexico? Colorado? Nevada?

Secure borders for security's sake make sense, but blanket opposition to immigration reform does not.  There are workforce development reasons that immigration reform makes sense, especially when a skills gap exists in this country.

Opposition to immigration reform especially doesn't make sense in the Midwest. This region has seen two generations without significant immigration and, not without coincidence, has seen two generations of population and economic decline. Immigrants start businesses and create jobs.

The economic development benefits of immigration are there too.  A recent study commissioned for the St. Louis region found that income growth and job growth there would have been greater had they experienced more immigration.

This is an election lesson that can't be ignored.  It's a national issue that needs to be addressed too.  It's past time.