ABC Legacy Launch: What's It All About?

Welcome… It's so nice to see so many people here to learn about ABC Legacy and TextLess Live More. Hartley and Reed will speak first, and I will follow with more information about ABC Legacy, but first I’d like to give you a little history about my relationship with TextLess Live More. Some of you may know that I began researching teens, technology and mindfulness last winter after I attended Wisdom 2.0, a conference that brought the technology worlds and the mindfulness worlds together. At first one might think that these are polar opposites, but in many ways the mindful use of technology is the best use of technology.

When I began to research the issues and problems with technology, and by this I mean digital or Internet technology, I felt as if I fell into a rabbit hole of information, vast with many studies by doctoral and post-doctoral students, professors and experts. Nomophobia, Digital Dementia, Email Apnea and Partial Continuous Attention were just some of the new terms to describe the many problematic side effects of the overuse of these digital devices. Did you know we are the first generation of Digital Immigrants who are parenting Digital Natives. We can almost think of it as being in a strange new world, just like the parents in New York City on the Lower East side in the 1880s during the Industrial Revolution.

I learned of TextLess Live More on Facebook, a positive use of social media, and I felt as if I’d found the ideal model for solving society’s problems with not just teens and technology, but other issues. After I attended the Kick Off Assembly for TextLess Live More this fall, I knew I had found the model. Here was a group of students passionately working toward solving the problem with not only texting and driving, but they are sending a much needed message to their peers, to us, that we need to put our phones down, text less, and live more, mindfully, face to face, fully engaged in life with each other, not with our digital devices. Teens solving the teen issue with technology. What could be better, and they are doing it with Presence. Passion. And Purpose. I’m so happy to introduce two of the Members of the TextLess Live More Team, a brother and sister team, please give a warm welcome to Hartley and Reed Bingham.

Hartley and Reed Bingham shared the TextLess Live More story by first showing a video and relaying their personal story with Merritt Levitan, TextLess Live More and Merritt's Way. It takes 4 seconds to read a text. What we may not know is that on July 2, 2013, it took one driver 4 seconds to take his eyes off the road, read a text and kill a young biker, Merritt Levitan. Merritt's closest friends from childhood and Milton Academy seniors developed TextLess Live More to encourage other teens to put down their phones, engage face to face, and avoid the temptations to text and drive. They began this with TextLess Live More days, one day a month, but they have extended it with a larger message.  Although the TextLess Live More campaign is designed to prevent texting and driving, Hartley and Reed claim they want this movement to be bigger than that: “our goal is to decrease excessive phone-use and encourage people to focus on the interactions taking place right in front of them.” In essence, they hope to shift the culture away from the technologically driven communications and relationships to the more humane ones. It's not the abolition of technology, texting and digital devices, but the integration of them for a more present and aware existence. 

And now ABC Legacy. 

How do they connect? Rich and Anna Levitan, Merritt’s parents and I met, after Milton’s Kick Off Assembly, and we talked about ways to extend the TextLess Live More mission? How can we create programs that raise awareness of the negative side effects of too much technology and promote the benefits of mindfulness practices that actually train us to quiet the mind, calm this distractibility addiction, enjoy life in the moment more as well as use technology purposefully and mindfully. This is so important. This is not about not using technology. This is about a healthy use of technology.

At first I began with Live More, Tech less, T – E – C - H and as I developed this process I began to see that if we tech less, we need to replace that loss with something else. What about passion? Bear with me as I make the connection here.

CCHS has a requirement for 40 hours of community service. In 2007 when Brittany, my daughter, was a freshman, I began to notice that some students had an intrinsic passion for the service they were doing and who will be the same teens on college campuses become catalysts for change? How can we connect our passions to service? I began working with some of my former Fenn students who were juniors and seniors at CCHS at the time as I created the concept for ABC Legacy. The Alliance for Building Connections to Change, thus Catalysts for Change. We worked together to find role models to illustrate this concept. Ideally the 40 hours of required community service becomes an intrinsic internal passion that no longer feels like a requirement.

I worked with the Interact Club, the service club, at CCHS for the past two years on this issue, and last spring we presented this concept to graduating eighth graders to prepare them for the High School community service program. We will do that again this year.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve connected this idea Passion for Service to the concept of Live More, Tech Less with a process I am currently calling: Power Down to Power Up for Presence. Passion. And Purpose. How do we identify our passions? In Howard Thurman’s words, “Don’t ask for what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” How do we access this information deep inside us? How do we know what makes us come alive? We need to get space in our brain. Quiet contemplative time away from the noise and distraction of a rapidly busy life filled with constant information and the distraction from our digital devices and social media.  If we switch gears and power down in order to power up internally for connection to ourselves in the present moment, we might be able to find the answers to these questions. Who am I? What are my passions? What makes me come alive? ABC Legacy is developing three programs to do just this.

High School Passion Projects 

During February and April break as well as in the summer, students will have a chance to put their technology away for a few hours a day, learn mindfulness tools including yoga and meditation and begin to identify those passions. Then connect them to an individual purpose that could involve an impact project and/or community service.

Mornings or afternoons during these week-long breaks will become a springboard for further exploration.

Senior Projects: 

Similarly, ABC Legacy will provide a structure and a space for Seniors to work on their Senior Projects with mentorship and a communal workspace in our Millennial Incubator. The model of Power Down to Power Up will be taught as students create their vision for their projects, and then carry them out. This could almost be thought of as Rivers and Revolutions Extension.

In the Gap: 

And this fall we will be offering an In the Gap program for college students choosing to delay or take a break from college and learn more about themselves. Students embark on their own Hero's Quest and ask the bigger existential questions "Who Am I?” and “Why Am I Doing What I’m Doing?" as they work together with other students. By taking the time to get to know themselves and their interests, they may have clearer intentions and purpose when they move into the next stage of their lives. This will be combined with time and opportunity to explore, volunteer, and intern in their world beyond Concord.

In the Gap teaches the process for Presence, Passion and Purpose. Opportunities to shadow professionals and work on projects in the Bradford Mill Community will be an integral part of the program.

We are in development with a September 2015 launch date, and there will be more specific information later this winter. At this time we are seeking students currently delaying college or taking a break who would like to attend focus groups and help develop and pilot the program.

At this time we are all happy to answer any questions you may have...