An American Moment: Your Vision

Response from Change.gov to Art

Automatic Reply: Thanks for sharing your vision -- now invite your friends. It's going to take all of us working together to fix this economy and get the country back on track.

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Personal e-mail:

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Dear Art,

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Thank you for your interest in the incoming administration and the Obama-Biden Transition project. On November 4th, millions of Americans challenged the status quo by standing for change. The change that Americans called for was not just new policies – but a new type of politics in Washington. The Obama-Biden Transition Project is working to build the staff and the policy agenda of the new administration to make the promise of change into a reality.

We value your message and welcome your thoughts, stories and questions as President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden prepare to take office. We hope you’ll continue to be active and we have set up many places on the website where you can give us your input.

To learn more about the Obama-Biden policy agenda and share your ideas, please click here:http://www.change.gov/agenda/

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To share your American story, please click here: http://www.change.gov/page/content/americanmoment

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For updates from Obama-Biden Transition Project, including video of President-elect Obama’s weekly address, please click here:http://www.change.gov/newsroom/blog/

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For the latest news about the President-elect’s and Vice-President elect’s preparations to take office, please click here:http://www.change.gov/newsroom/

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We appreciate hearing from you and hope you will continue to participate. Although we may not be able to address each message individually, your input and the input of millions of other Americans will continue to guide President-elect Obama.

Again, thank you for your message.

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Sincerely,

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The Obama-Biden Transition Project

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written Nov. 15 -2008

An American Moment: Your Vision

Start right now. Share your vision for what America can be, where President-Elect Obama should lead this country. Where should we start together?

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Art's Vision:

You already started at the right point: invitation to share Your Vision.
Then the Question is “Will you stay in contact with the person who shared the Vision?”

Why is it important? ENGAGEMENT!
It is easy to collect and disseminate information in current internet age.
It is a challenge to stay engaged especially in the tough periods.

Other night I listened to Transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett, found her talk engaging and decide to contribute. I’d like to share my vision for America in conversational manner, so here we go.

There are many things need to be done in the US and worldwide, but most important one is to give our kids tools to survive in the years ahead. What are those tools?
Math is one of them. Math of the investment world may be as fun as math of the basketball game. In current market turmoil everybody talks about losses, but the knowledgeable people place their put and call option orders to protect themselves and benefit from down turn movements. With knowledge and discipline you may be positive in such markets. Related contests and games may develop necessary skills.

Let’s start with youth voices, which find their rightful place on UNICEF discussion board http://www.unicef.org/voy/discussions/index.php.
UNICEF organized annual J8 Summits, held parallel to the G8 Summits. By following the J8 Summits, we already may gather youth dreams, intentions and even demands for current governments. It’s not only the peaceful place to spend reading time there. You feel real challenges behind their posts. Can we solve everything? Not, BUT…

In 2012 US will be holding G8 Summit and J8 Summit will take place here as well. By preparing toward it, we will may better prepare our youth to survive future turmoil. How?

As a member of the NCTM*, I care about current state of education and so many students dropping out of high school. It is ironic to see that often only sports and socializing with friends keep students coming back to school. By introducing special classes of virtual trading stocks, futures and forex, we may not only have opportunity to teach students math applications, but also have tremendous fun to compete against each other or in teams. We may engage Yahoo, CBOE, other leading financial companies to bring daily competitions such:
- School vs. School, District vs. District, Junior HS vs. HS, HS Students vs. Professionals, Professionals vs. Non-Professionals
- US team vs. UK team and then spread to G8, G20 and all around the world.

The IOC^ just this year announced Youth Olympic Games and it can be good forum for such competitions to evolve. With gradually moving toward applied math education, we will see that there are indeed similarities between risks on the basketball court, markets and life itself. You have timing and reflection issues, protective positions, game plan and strategy etc. As I watched on Youtube, President-Elect Barack Obama handles well his priorities on basketball court . The only advice there would be to lower dribble during change of direction. As we see, it also as specific skill as timing of placing put or call option.

The important point: there is a place for each of us in such educational model and we may indeed may be united in spirit and body by it.

As we read headlines around the world, so much hope lies with Mr. Obama doing the best he can. Wish President-Elect strong health and all the energy to work on our behalf.

Art

NCTM* - National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
IOC^ - International Olympic Committee