This is a quick note to self, in a way, and it rehearses ideas that have been out and about for some time now in journalism and blogging circles. And here is the heart of the note: what if a school, a high school, a college or university made publishing skills as central to the general curriculum as reading, writing, public speaking, and mathematics usually are? The skills to operate publishing platforms, to draft and edit, to design, to bring a piece to a wider audience, to publicize. The knowledge that adds depth and context to every part of the process, especially the writing and editing but also the work of bringing something before a growing audience. The attitudes, maybe the most important of all, the attitudes that would be implied by this work: that you are a citizen and a citizen is someone who writes and speaks and publishes. That you live in a country with that kind of tradition of activism. That this is normal and that you contribute to the greater good when you practice the craft. Otherwise, I look at the essentially private lives lived by the most vulnerable among us and see how much their silence cements the life they are living and the world as they, as we, know it.

12/15/13; 08:27AM

Last built: Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 10:53 AM

By Ken Smith, Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 8:27 AM.