Smithsonian.com

Bill Drayton is this year’s recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Creativity Laureate Award. Courtesy of Ashoka

In the spirit of Mark Twain who famously said he never let his schooling interfere with his education, Bill Drayton grew up enthusiastic at school, but not so much about school. He enjoyed a few subjects, but he admits, his energies were in things like, starting a series of newspapers or being an active member of the NAACP. Now, Drayton, who is credited with having coined the phrase “social entrepreneur,” hopes to create a network of global changemakers (empowered with skills embracing empathy, teamwork, leadership and problem-solving) with his organization Ashoka: Innovators for the Public to reshape education all together.

For more than a decade, Ashoka has partnered with young people with its Youth Venture program, but it’s only in the past year that it began partnering with schools to introduce the concept of empathy into the curriculum. Dozens of schools in the U.S. are already on board and, according to Drayton, “Last week, Scotland said, this is going to be in all of our schools and even though the Irish Ministry is cutting back, they’ve just made a huge commitment.”

Ashoka’s network of changemakers includes 3,000 fellows working more than 70 countries, who place a high premium on supporting those bringing about change in their communities. Among others, they’ve supported a Japanese girl, who founded a website to connect with other children whose parents were going through a divorce, and an activist in Calcutta, who helped to found a school for the children of factory workers. Drayton’s hope is that by teaching empathy in elementary schools we can create a generation of changemakers.

For his own work as a changemaker, Drayton has been awarded the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Creativity Laureate Award and will be speaking with the Smithsonian Associates Friday, April 19 at 7 p.m.

We talked with Drayton about how to teach empathy and why he thinks top-down solutions aren’t the answer.

How has the landscape of social change evolved since you founded Ashoka in 1980?

If you go to Harvard Business School you will now find more people in the social enterprise group than in the marketing or finance group, which is wildly different from even ten years ago or five years ago. That’s very satisfying. We are at a different stage.

The world really has to go through this transition from being organized around efficiency and repetition, think assembly line, to a world where the real value comes from contributing to change. That requires a different way of organizing—fluid, open teams of teams. And it requires a different set of skills—empathy, teamwork, a very different type of leadership and changemaking.

How do you implement that new paradigm?

Any child who has not mastered cognitive empathy at a high level will be marginalized. Why? Because, as the rate of change accelerates and it’s an exponential curve, that means every year there is a smaller and smaller part of your life covered by “the rules.” They haven’t been invented or they’re in conflict, they’re changing. You’re going to hurt people if you don’t have this skill and you’re going to disrupt groups. You cannot be a good person, just by diligently following the rules, it’s not possible anymore.

That’s the first step in a reformulated paradigm for success in growing up. We have 700 Ashoka fellows, leading social entrepreneurs around the world, focused on young people, and so we have many different ways of doing this. I was just talking with a Canadian fellow, I was on her board actually, Roots of Empathy.

She’s able to take children, first through third grade, who did not get empathy in their schools or on the street, or in their family and if she’s given three hours a month for eight months, all the kids will have advanced empathy. Bullying rates come down and stay down. We know what to do with 8th grade girls, who lose their self confidence and become mean girls, we know how to have kids practice and play at recess and in the classroom.

How many elementary school principals do you know who have ever even thought about this? It’s not on their agenda. They are measured by information transfer on tests. And you can’t have mayhem in the hallways. Well this is perfectly designed for a world in which you’re training people to master a body of knowledge, or a set of rules. And you’re defined as a baker, or a banker, or whatever it is. And you’ll repeat that for the rest of your life. Fine, but it just is not relevant now.

So what does she do to teach empathy?

She brings an infant, two to four months old from the neighborhood at the beginning of the year. The infant wears a T-shirt labeled “The Professor.” The Professor resides on a green blanket and there’s a trainer. The teacher sits at the back and does not really engage that much. The first graders or third graders or whatever have the responsibility of figuring out; what is the professor saying, what is he or she feeling. Of course, they’re absorbing a very high empathy level.

How does this foundation of empathy inform the work that you do internationally?

They have exactly the same problem in India and in Japan, here and in Nigeria.

Any country that falls behind has just bought a one-way ticket to Detroit. It’s hard to realize that 50 years ago, Detroit was the top of our technology. Now it’s bottomed-out, in informal bankruptcy, has lost 25 percent of its population in the last ten years. Well that took 50 years. With an exponential curve, you don’t have 50 years. If India does this right and we don’t, we’re Detroit. That’s true for a family, a city, a community, a country. The key factor of success going forward is what percentage of your people are changemakers.

This is like the new literacy.

How did you learn these skills?

I didn’t realize what was going on then, but in retrospect, I’m very grateful. I had parents who had this skill. They knew it was important. And they took the trouble, not just to enforce skills, but to ask, how do you think it made him feel when you did that? I was really lucky.

I’m not particularly well-suited for football. I couldn’t imagine why I was being tortured by Latin and math and things that had no relevance at that point. I love history and geography. My energies went into starting things, which was fine for me. I had a principal, who advised my parents not to be worried, and not to show that they were worried when I was not where I was supposed to be. Because I was busy doing these other things. What a gift.

Ashoka has something called Ashoka’s Youth Venture, which is designed to do precisely this for young people. I would like to have every young person grow up in that sort of a school, community environment. We have a summit ever summer. Last summer it was at American University, four or five days.

What about huge resource inequities and people like Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University who advocate the idea of a Big Push to get countries out of poverty?

You tell me whenever you can find a place that you have sustainable development if it isn’t led by people who have this sort of power. The central lesson of development is that it’s in people’s heads. As Gandhi said, India will be independent when it’s independent in our heads. There’s a classic Harvard Business Review article in the context of big American corporations: you want a change? You think the chairman’s idea is going to fly by itself? Forget  it, it’s never going to happen. It has to be a team of people.

You don’t put people on it because of their position: that’s a committee and committees never get anything done. It has to be a team where everyone on the team wants it and then, you know, it’s a good thing that the chairman is with you.

Learn how to knit! Classes run by Smithsonian Associates start on Tuesday. Photo by terribomb, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Tuesday, April 15: Pottery and Knitting Classes

Kick start spring with some beautiful crafts to show off to guests when they visit on sunny days. Smithsonian Associates runs a whole variety of art classes that start this evening. Drawing and photography are sold out (click links to join the wait list), but there’s still space for pottery and knitting. Make some fantastic presents for your friends and family, or something for yourself to satisfy that creative itch. Prices vary, see links. Pottery: Tuesdays from April 15 to June 4, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Knitting: Tuesdays from April 15 to June 4, 7:15 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. Ripley Center.

Wednesday, April 16: Wash, Wring, Repeat: 19th Century Laundry

If you think loading up your washing machine is a pain, wait until you see all the steps families had to take in the 19th century to keep their clothes clean! Before you run away screaming from this hands-on demonstration, though, think of how much easier your laundry at home will be once you figure out how much of a task it used to be. After the wash, you can learn more about 18th century domestic life in Within These Walls . . ., an exhibit that features a full-size, partially reconstructed Georgian-style house. Free. 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. American History Museum.

Thursday, April: 17: Peacock Room Shutters Open

Want a taste of luxury? The Freer Gallery’s Peacock Room, once an opulent British dining room, now hosts more than 250 ceramics from Egypt, Iran, Japan, China and Korea that museum founder Charles Lang Freer collected on his travels. At noon, the museum opens the room’s shutters to bathe the collection in sunlight, and the room glows blue, green and gold. The shimmering colors won’t fade any time soon, either; special filtering film on the room’s windows prevents the sun’s effects on the ceramics. Free. Noon to 5:30 p.m. Freer Gallery.

Also, check out our Visitors Guide App. Get the most out of your trip to Washington, D.C. and the National Mall with this selection of custom-built tours, based on your available time and passions. From the editors of Smithsonian magazine, the app is packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Like the fictional agents on the CBS show, NCIS officials travel the world solving crimes. Courtesy of CBS

Though the long-running CBS television show, “NCIS,” is based on the real-life activities of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Lou Eliopulos, NCIS division chief of forensic sciences, would rather compare his work to another show: “Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.”

“If you ever watch, Ramsay in the kitchen where he comes in and analyzes a restaurant, we’ll do the same thing,” he says of the organization’s case work.

The job is a bit more complicated than inattentive wait staff and messy prep stations. A team of 1,876 special agents travel the world solving everything from violent crimes to espionage plots. Though they are specifically tasked with working with the Navy, the group’s global reach and special technological expertise means law enforcement agencies often ask NCIS to partner with them on difficult investigations. Unlike other military investigative branches, NCIS is almost entirely civilian, meaning they’re able to operate in the civilian world of law enforcement much more freely.

Occasionally, NCIS calls on the Smithsonian to help crack a case. “If we have a tough case or a tough question, we go to the best,” says Eliopulos. In particular he says, the Institution’s anthropological expertise aids in identifying skeletal remains, a critical part of the investigation that helps agents understand the timeline of and activities surrounding the crime.

Eliopulos and special agent David Lobb stopped by the Institution for a sold-out Smithsonian Associates event Wednesday, but we spoke with them by phone to bring you the behind-the-scenes story about the job’s challenges and rewards.

A map of field office locations. Courtesy of NCIS

What are the challenges of the job?

LE: The entire job is a challenge, it’s unique. When you talk about cold cases, for example, those are cases no one else has solved. If they were easy, they would have been solved. So you’re working cases that are difficult to resolve, that have resisted solving for years and years. You have problems associated with witnesses memories and evidence, so that presents a challenge yet we’ve been tremendously successful not only in our own cases involving 64 cases since we started the cold case program but we go out and train three times a year for local law enforcement and stage agencies. And they’ve been successful using our methods. That’s one of the great benefits of working for NCIS, our job is different, and it’s very challenging, and that’s one of the reasons that drew me here to begin with.

DL: I agree. The expectation that’s levied on our agents and our professional staff is great. You talk about taking a special agent and dropping them in a foreign country, where they’re working and they’re there to support a Navy ship or an exercise that’s taking place in that country, and their job is to meet the local law enforcement, the mayor or the local governor of that region or that country and ensure the safety of the personnel coming into that country and making a call if they think it’s not safe.

Most common misconception? 

DL: The biggest eye-opener is how much writing you do. For all the fun stuff you see on TV and for all the fun stuff you get to do in the field, there’s paperwork and other things that go with that, which is an important part of documenting your cases and seeing them through to prosecution.

LE: For me, it’s having everything readily available. . .It’s a little bit more work involved. We are not really permitted to tap into the CIA databases and other databases like that to obtain information.

Do you have a favorite case?

LE: I’ve never won a Super Bowl, I’ve never won a World Series, but when you solve a case it’s got to rival that feeling. That’s like trying to decide which child you like best.

Any one of us that has ever stood over a dead body or put a body into a body bag, that’s ever made the notification of next of kin and heard that primal scream that you can’t hear or duplicate anywhere else, it literally stands that hair up on the back of your neck and to be able to sit there and unravel that mystery and put the case together. . .being able to get the conviction, it would be hard to rival.

We just had a recent case; 28 years unsolved of a ten-year-old that was abducted, a Navy dependent. While her family was moving and her dad is deployed, someone comes and abducts this child and rapes and murders her and we literally had no suspects. Since 1999 we’ve worked the case as a cold case and waited for our first break, knowing that we were due one. Through the different forms of DNA testing and latest technology, we were able to resolve that and going to tell the parents that we made an arrest on the case, all of those are tremendous achievements for our agency.

What was their reaction?

LE: When I came in to talk with them, it had been ten years since we had spoken last. I had already known an arrest was made about 30 minutes before. I went through the process of everything we did in the past ten years, it took about 20 to 25 minutes to go through that. I could see the parents listening to all this, like, here’s the excuses and more excuses and 28 years and it’s still unsolved. Then I told them we did Y-STR [DNA analysis] and we identified the killer, and he was just arrested, and literally you saw the mom’s jaw just drop to her chest and you could see their eyes welling up with tears.

They made me repeat the news and I went into the details. They spoke to me about this person that was arrested and that they knew them. The dad actually has cancer now and I asked if they had any questions and the mom said, “I just have one.” I said, “What’s that?” And she said, “Can I hug you?” I said, “Absolutely and I want the big guy over there to hug me too.”

And your favorite case?

DL: One that stands out for me was a terrorism case that I worked. . .This was an interesting case because it was an insider situation where we had a Muslim convert on one of our Navy ships, who had been turned to extremism. We’re not sure exactly why. He began giving and selling classified information about the movement of the ship and its vulnerabilities to two al-Qaeda financiers and operators in London, with the hope that they would be able to use that to plan an attack on one of our Navy vessels. . .Through years of work and joint work with the FBI we were able to, in 2007, arrest the individual and have him sentenced a year later. He’s serving ten years in federal prison on an espionage charge in New York.

He hasn’t told us much about why he joined the Navy in the first place, that’s one of the things that we continue to monitor as we look at the threat of an insider, and what they can do to damage and bring down our own military. It was an eye-opener for a lot of folks.

When the captain of the ship. . .learned about this, his immediate concern was: ‘How many other people do I have that are trying to do this?’ And the Navy’s concern is: “How many people in the Navy are trying to do this?” You can imagine the pressure that that, then, puts on our agency to make sure that we’re watching those things, and covering those gaps, and it’s a difficult thing to do.

Tile art in Iran. Learn how to make ornate designs like this — from carving to installation — in Tuesday night lessons at the Ripley Center. Photo by Amy Stempel, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

Tuesday, January 22: Persian Tile Art Lessons

Looking for something creative to do after work? Smithsonian Associates launches the Tuesday edition of its 8-week night art lesson series this evening, and you can still reserve a spot in “Handmade Tiles in the Traditional Persian Style.” Ceramic tile art adorns public spaces, palaces and places of worship in Iran, and its styles are incorporated into many contemporary Western designs. The class offers a unique glimpse of Persian culture by teaching the technical aspects of tile-making, from carving methods to glazing and installation. No previous art experience required! $336, $290 for members (supplies included). 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays from January 22 to March 12. Ripley Center.

Wednesday, January 23: Handi-hour

If you don’t want to commit to an 8-week art course (or even if you do but just can’t wait until next week for more art), you can still get creative at Handi-hour, the craftiest happy hour in town. The evening event provides craft supplies and instructions, and plays up art’s social side by serving craft beers, featuring live music and organizing a scavenger hunt through Renwick Gallery’s permanent collection. “Crafty” prizes promised. $20 cash (includes two beers and art supplies). 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Renwick Gallery.

Thursday, January 24: I Have a Dream book signing

Cap off your Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebrations this week with I Have a Dream, a children’s book that illustrates King’s famous speech on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. The book’s illustrator  Kadir Nelson, an award-winning artist, is on site today to sign copies, and to encourage young readers to connect with the speech’s perennially important message. The book is available at the museum’s store. Free. 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. American History Museum.

Also check out our specially created Visitors Guide App. Get the most out of your trip to Washington, D.C. and the National Mall with this selection of custom-built tours, based on your available time and passions. From the editors of Smithsonian magazine, the app is also packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

NBA Commissioner David Stern is in the building, along with Wolf Blitzer, Michael Lee, the Washington Post’s Wizard’s beat writer, Mike Wise, the Post’s sports columnist. Photo by Cody Mulcahy, courtesy of Wikimedia

Tuesday, January 8: Sketching at American Art

You bring the pad and pencil and they’ll bring the art. With more than 3,300 artworks on display for inspiration, join fellow art enthusiasts for an afternoon of sketching. You’ll talk first with museum staff about the role of everything from studied drawings to on-the-fly doodles from artists over the years. Then you’re free to wander the museum, turning a renowned institution into your own personal studio. Dare we say it’s the sketchiest the American Art Museum has ever been? Free. 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. American Art Museum.

Wednesday, January 9: Raise Your Voice: The Smithsonian Encore Chorale for Older Adults

When’s the last time you belted out your favorite tune? If the answer is, this morning in the shower, then you may be the perfect candidate for the Smithsonian Encore Chorale, the nation’s largest and fastest-growing choral program for older adults. This Wednesday marks the start of a 15-session weekly rehearsal schedule courtesy of the Smithsonian Associates, culminating in a public performance. Learn breathing techniques and tone production secrets from Jeanne Kelly, former conductor of the Georgetown University Concert Choir and music director of the U.S. Naval Academy Women’s Glee Club. No auditions required, you just have to be 55 years or older and ready to sing. Tickets here. 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Ripley Center.

Thursday, January 10: Behind the Scenes with NBA Commissioner David Stern

In David Stern’s 30-year reign, we’ve seen championship teams come and go, from the Pistons to the Bulls and most recently the Miami Heat, and an entire league transformed. Along the way, Stern witnessed his fair share of controversy, from referee gambling to rumors of draft rigging to trade blocking. Now hear from the man himself as he is joined by Michael Lee, the Washington Post’s Wizard’s beat writer, Mike Wise, the Post’s sports columnist, and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, a B-ball superfan. Another great Smithsonian Associates event allows fans to reminisce about the last 30 years of basketball. $20-$25, tickets here. 7:30 p.m. American Indian Museum.

Also check out our specially created Visitors Guide App. Get the most out of your trip to Washington, D.C. and the National Mall with this selection of custom-built tours, based on your available time and passions. From the editors of Smithsonian magazine, the app is also packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.