Nicholas+S.

Phase I: Who Am I? What's My Place?


 * What __really__ makes up your identity?
 * My identity is made up two characteristics: loyalty and trust. I believe that I am one of the most loyal and trustworthy people that I know. I believe that I can really be myself when I know that I am somewhere that people can trust me and also when I can trust them. When that bond is created with someone, whether it is a family member, a close friend, or even a runner that I coach, I can feel like myself and really begin to make a difference in their life and also learn from them. When either of these traits are missing in a relationship I am extremely reserved and uncomfortable making the situation/relationship one that can be negative to both myself and everyone involved.


 * What __really__ makes up your sense of place?
 * If sense of place were a physical location of my identity, I find myself on the track or on the trail. On the track, I am a coach and I can feel that bond with my kids when they trust me to be knowledgeable about their workouts and the path to their goals. They know that if they trust me then they can succeed, and if I trust them, I can allow for a successful team. When I'm running on the trail, I get into the zone where I know everything stressful about my day can be suspended and I can allow myself to let go and feel right. If I can get right, I can give myself to people in terms of loyalty. They can have my undivided attention because the trail allowed me to bring everything back into perspective.


 * What roles do your identity and sense of place play when you work with others in a group project?
 * Loyalty and trust combined with the track and trail have created in me a coaching personality. As a coach, when I work with others, I know that people can trust me and look to me for ways in which to be successful. I am much more of a facilitator in that I try and pave a path for others so that they can fulfill their roles in order to complete one group product. I throw out thought-provoking questions and possible directions to help others. When I am given a task, I complete it with the knowledge that my task will be equally as important in the end as the others', and I do my work with the full trust that, once given a path, my group members and I will come together with a finished product.


 * What are the qualities that you bring to the GLIP conversation that will help you make a contribution to your global group?
 * Again, with my background as a coach, I can simultaneously lead a group and complete tasks asked of me. I believe that I am open-minded, tolerant, and flexible. My experience with leading a multitude of kids from different backgrounds to achieve common goals allows me to see problems from different perspectives, see the best qualities in each perspective, and to create an environment where those different perspectives can be used to achieve success.


 * What is one local problem (where you live) that you believe needs to be addressed? Suggest some steps could you take to try to solve it?
 * Parent involvement. There are two sides to this: lack of and too much. A lack of involvement traditionally involves the lower academic student or the over-worked parent. Because of this, only one side of the parent-teacher dynamic is deeply involved in pushing the student towards graduation. The teacher has one class period a day to take on the lesson, the motivating, the practicing, the confidence building, and the basic skills-checking for every student in class. On the opposite end of parent-involvement, some parents are too involved and therefore do not allow for the student to create his own adult relationships which would allow him to establish his identity. The parent begins to push the teacher away from actually teaching the student (not the parent). The student has no room to make mistakes or even struggle and learn from that experience. This type of parent believes that they know more than the teacher about the content and the needs of each student which can ruin the credibility of the teacher to the student. There is no trust in the teacher to do what they have been licensed to do, and the teacher begins to question himself.
 * Weekly contact with parents to communicate the needs that the teacher sees and the needs felt by the parents. A strong relationship with the teacher's administration could help reinforce that the teacher is truly doing what they need to do, and allow the parent to speak their needs while also being told that they need to trust the teacher. Specifically, websites like Blackboard allow very involved parents to track the class and lesser involved parents can be strategically notified of assignments.


 * Finally, some problems have been around for a long time. What qualities do you think a person must have to step up and try to solve them?
 * Tolerance towards different perspectives in order to mediate the differing sides of long-term problems. A Strong conviction of one's self to allow for sure decision-making, especially about problems with a deep history. Character helps one live with the decisions that they have made. Originality gives new insights to old problems. Ability to communicate with others through direction and explanation of ideas to redirect roles and provide new paths for problems that have an entire population stuck.

Phase II: Sense of Place

Upload image (s) here: Three facts about each country/home location that contributes to its sense of place. For example, what is special or unique about your home location?
 * In 2008, Cary was named one of six municipalities to participate in the NCAA Championship Cities Program. As part of this multi-year pilot program, Cary will host various NCAA Championships in the sports of soccer, baseball, cross country, and tennis through 2012. The championships awarded will bring national exposure to Cary’s top notch sports venues including the Cary Tennis Park, WakeMed Soccer Park and the USA Baseball National Training Complex.
 * Since 1959, the oldest marching band competition in the southeast includes an annual downtown parade and field competition.
 * Cary is the largest municipality in the state to fully fund its own traffic signal system, reducing air pollution caused by frequent stops and delays. The system includes closed circuit cameras at key intersections, allowing the Town to change signal timing and keep traffic moving smoothly, and real-time traffic information via dynamic message signs at Town gateways and rush-hour programming on Cary TV 11.

A special project of charitable __work__ (Is there an area of need that is special to your home location? Or is there a group that provides special support?)
 * Currently I help coach Cross-Country/Track & Field at Cary High School and one of the many charitable programs that I have recently worked with was the Olimpics, spelled that way after Cary's mascot which is the Imps. The faculty and the different grade classes competed in games and events all the while raising money that would be dedicated to the Special Olympics of North Carolina.

Use these questions to help you determine which picture shows someone else why your “place” is so special to you.
 * Does a scenic picture represent the beauty you believe that your town has? Yes/No. My small town of Cary has many different picturesque environments that if you use one for a symbol or a picture to represent the beauty that it can show the beauty of the town but it would leave out the other environments and this forum does not have enough room to show all of them.


 * Does a picture of a group of people represent and show a warmth and friendliness that your town has? Yes, as we begin to move towards spring/summer here in Cary, NC, people become more active outside and move around more often. Our downtown has a great old town feeling to it and I think a picture of a group of people somewhere in the downtown area can represent the warmth that people have here.


 * Does a statue or building convey the feeling of history that makes your place important and unique? Yes, in the first picture on the left is the original building of the first installment of Cary High School, which was established as the first punlic high school in NC in 1896. It went onto become a Cary Elementary School and is now our Cultural Arts Center. Although it has been renovated multiple times, it is a building that everytime you see it, you can see/feel the history emanating from its walls wishing to tell you everything that has experienced through its time.


 * Is there a cultural event that represents the values of your home location? The town of Cary holds various events at different locations during random parts of the year that try to reach many different cultures that are represented by the population of the people. The town of Cary is a diverse population having various groups of ethnicities and people from different parts of the world. To say that if there is one cultural event that represents the values, I would say there is not just one but many.

What are your initial thoughts about how your image addresses the questions above? The pictures that I have included in this phase are as close to representing the beauty of my home location that I can think of. I have already explained the one of the left as how it relates to the history of the town that I live in. The picture on the rights is being used as more of a beauty landscape of the state in which I live in. North Carolina is one of the few states that has beaches and mountains, but I relate to the mountains more. The picture on the right is called the "Sliding Rock." It is a tourist attraction near Asheville, NC where you can climb to the top and ride down the rock like a slide into a pool of water. It has great scenery and is very popular during the summer months, the water is usually in the 50s then and is a great representation of the beauty of North Carolina.

Later, you will be working with the members of your group to create a travel package that includes visits to each group member's home location (see Phase II)

Phase III: Identify Local Issue:

What is your local issue? The local issue that I believe that exists here in Cary, NC is the inequality between the socioeconomic status of the population of this town and the fact that people ignore this to actually being an issue. It is the ignorance that people think that if you live in Cary then you have some sort of wealth and therefore there is not a discrepancy and no other problems where in reality, the majority of Cary's residents live in the lower levels of the socioeconomic status and things are just being swept under the rug.

What can you do to be address the issue?

What is the global impact of your local issue? This could continue to lead to a fractured awareness globally of different societies in how that you can not understand societies outside of your own if you do extend yourself to communicate with others. This then contributes to students having blindfolds and/or blinders when trying to discuss other societies thus enforcing stereotypes and making ti difficult to tear down the invisible barriers that are being so hard fought to be brought down.

Add these thoughts to your Group's Discussion Forum on Local Issues