The goal of all craft training is to build new knowledge, skills and abilities in our craft workforce. The best way to ensure this happens is to build programs that include both passive and active forms of learning activities. Passive learning occurs during lectures, videos, readings, and demonstrations. The learner is engaged with the content but only in a passive manner through observation. Passive instruction is a good way to deliver knowledge but doesn’t work on building skill or ability. Active learning, designed to build skill and competency, includes learning activities like group discussions, practice by doing, immediate use in real world simulation or application, and through the teaching of others.

If passion, energy and heated rhetoric could solve our immigration issues, then Congress would have long ago passed a comprehensive reform bill. Instead, as slogans grow more bitter, workable solutions recede. Civil discourse, not inflammatory speech, ultimately propels progress. Thankfully, the Center for Houston's Future, a non-profit, has stepped into the breach with a series of films directed by Gregory Kallenberg that aim to create a common ground and spark conversation among the silent majority of Americans who largely agree on a mix of immigration reform policies, including a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants.

In an event that brought tears to the eyes of some in attendance, the filmmakers behind The Rational Middle Immigration Documentary Series unveiled their newest work to Houstonians Wednesday night at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Pointing to the magnificent setting for the evening’s discussion, CEO of MAREK Construction, Stan Marek, said “Everything you see here, my team of immigrants built.”

Construction executives from around the Houston area gathered this week to learn more about how they can create “a robust craft training program in your organization and link it to a career path” through an initiative that continues to grow. Those were the words of Chuck Gremillion, Executive Director of the Construction Career Collaborative, as he kicked off an event at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston designed to give contractors more information about the kind of help available to them to invest in and retain their workforce.