You should click on these pictures to see them larger.

A question I'd like to ask the incumbent President Obama and the challenger for his job would be about the future, not about the present or the past.  I would like to know what each of them thinks America will look like ten or twenty years from now... not for the one percent but for "normal" people with everyday concerns like paying the electric bill and getting to work on time.   This week I'm getting a hint about the future as I work in a summer program in one of San Diego's villages, the one called "Normal Heights."  I'm guessing there was a teacher-training college in the area once upon a time.

Grandson Michael helped me herd two groups of kids out from our meeting place into the community.  His comment was that it was a bit like herding cats, and he was absolutely right, especially when we took sixteen children ranging from age four to ages seven for a walk on Adam's Avenue.  Wondering how kindergarten teachers do it, we agreed that the older kids are easier.

Our program is designed to help the children hone some skills that will be useful to them when they begin school again next month.  I've designed my part of it to help the kids gain a clear sense of community.  We are using photography as a vehicle for discovering and identifying aspects of community.  Portraits were a logical photographic starting place.  We used the cameras to take portraits of each other as we talked about the importance of knowing that each individual is the center of his/her community.  We experience community, wherever in the world our community happens to be, from  inside ourselves.  We talked about the importance of respecting ourselves and respecting each other. I tried to give them a reason to want to make a photographic portrait of another person with great care... to portray him or her the way the person wants to be seen by others.  That was yesterday.  I like the way it developed.

Today we made group pictures after talking about the responsibility of each individual to make the group look as good as possible.  Holding up two fingers behind the head of someone in front can be fun if everybody in the group wants to seem silly and make people who see the picture laugh, but they agreed that if the goal is to make a picture that suggests dignity for everybody, silliness is inappropriate.  We had fun with the exercise.  Even the youngest children got it.

Everybody gets a chance every day to take pictures.  We came across some wonderful sunflowers in an alley.  For the next couple of weeks these kids will make amazing pictures.