It is my impression that Gothamites are positively changing our world every day.  Whether we are supporting charities, helping one another, or helping those we do not even know.  We raise our families and we contribute to our communities.  Sometimes we can even change the world a bit.

Many of you know that I am the Pickman in “Because People Lie … Pickman, PI.” However, some of you know that for many years I have taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) and have over many years have been involved in changing Law Enforcement, Education and other large public sector programs and agencies.

Last month however, something very different happened. I was invited to speak at a Symposium of the Turkish High Council of Judges and Prosecutors. I was honored. The High Council wanted to know what I thought. I was humbled. So, I wrote a paper requested by the High Council (I am an academic after all), talking about what John Jay does to train students and provide a broad education in preparation for all manner of public sector careers and how criminal justice programs work in the United States to train students in critical thinking and other skills necessary to become the best and most open minded citizens and professionals that they can be.

When I arrived in Turkey though, it was clear that here was a whole country that is seeking to have their judiciary enter the modern world and invited individuals from twenty-one countries to help them understand how to make those changes. I know that many Gothamites have been to Turkey. It is one of the world’s most spectacular displays of vast civilizations that have come and gone. However, in the last ten years, the economy has boomed and the population has had “rising expectations” of similar modernization and fairness in the justice sector.

So, I offered formally (and informally over food and sufi music) my sense of the need for critical thinking that demands challenging traditional precepts. In Turkey, as in many countries, when the best and brightest finish their equivalent of our high school they take qualifying exams and if they pass well, they go directly to law school and then become a judge or a prosecutor. I offered that we had a period of four years after high school where we trained students in the arts, humanities, social sciences and culture in colleges and universities. Then, those individuals go on to become professionals and it can take many more years to become a judge.

I developed a relationship with those in Turkey bringing about positive change in all areas and a renewed respect for our mode of educating and training our future leaders in our country’s colleges and universities.

Happy Thanksgiving Gotham !