Can You Build a Better Brain?

Blueberries and crossword puzzles aren’t going to do it. But as neuroscientists discover the mechanisms of intelligence, they are identifying what really works.

by Sharon BegleyJanuary 03, 2011

Illustration by Peter Arkle for Newsweek

This would be a whole lot easier—this quest for ways to improve our brain—if scientists understood the mechanisms of intelligence even half as well as they do the mechanisms of, say, muscular strength. If we had the neuronal version of how lifting weights increases strength (chemical and electrical signals increase the number of filament bundles inside muscle cells), we’d be good to go. For starters, we could dismiss claims for the brain versions of eight-second abs—claims that if we use this brain-training website or practice that form of meditation or eat blueberries or chew gum or have lots of friends, we will be smarter and more creative, able to figure out whether to do a Roth conversion, remember who gave us that fruitcake (the better to retaliate next year), and actually understand the NFL’s wild-card tiebreaker system.

But what neuroscientists don’t know about the mechanisms of cognition—about what is physically different between a dumb brain and a smart one and how to make the first more like the second—could fill volumes. Actually, it does. Whether you go neuro-slumming (Googling “brain training”) or keep to the high road (searching PubMed, the database of biomedical journals, for “cognitive enhancement”), you will find no dearth of advice. But it is rife with problems. Many of the suggestions come from observational studies, which take people who do X and ask, are they smarter (by some measure) than people who do not do X? Just because the answer is yes doesn’t mean X makes you smart. People who use their gym locker tend to be fitter than those who don’t, but it is not using a gym locker that raises your aerobic capacity. Knowing the mechanisms of exercise physiology averts that error. Not knowing the mechanism of cognitive enhancement makes us sitting ducks for dubious claims, since few studies claiming that X makes people smarter invoke any plausible mechanism by which that might happen. “There are lots of quick and dirty studies of cognitive enhancement that make the news, but the number of rigorous, well-designed studies that will stand the test of time is much smaller,” says neuroscientist Peter Snyder of Brown University Medical School. “We’re sort of in the Wild West.”

A 2010 evaluation of purported ways to maintain or improve cognitive function, conducted for the National Institutes of Health, shows how many of the claims for cognitive enhancers are as sketchy as a Wild West poker player with a fifth ace up his sleeve. Vitamins B6, B12, and E; beta carotene; folic acid; and the trendy antioxidants called flavenoids are all busts, and the evidence for alcohol, omega-3s (the fatty acids in fish), or having a large social network is weak. The Mediterranean diet is associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline, find observational studies, but that hasn’t been confirmed in more rigorous, randomized controlled studies, and no one knows whether the benefit comes from what the diet includes (olive oil, fish, vegetables, wine) or what it excludes (red meat, refined sugars, dairy fat). Statins don’t help, and neither do estrogen or NSAIDs (aspirin, ibuprofen). Be skeptical of practices that promise to make you smarter by increasing blood flow to the brain—there is no evidence that’s the limiting factor in normal people. Yes, you can find individual studies concluding that one or another hype-heavy intervention helps your brain, but the conclusion of any single study is more likely to be wrong than right. (For one thing, scientists and journals prefer positive findings and bury negative studies.) Only by assessing all the evidence from all the studies, as the NIH evaluation did, can you get the true picture.

The quest for effective ways to boost cognitive capacity is not hopeless, however. The explosion in neuroscience is slowly revealing the mechanisms of cognition. “We have accumulated enough knowledge about the mechanisms and molecular underpinnings of cognitionat the synaptic and circuit levels to say something about which processes contribute,” says James Bibb of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who organized a symposium on “cognitive enhancement strategies” at the 2010 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Greater cognitive capacity comes from having more neurons or synapses, higher levels of neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons, especially in the memory-forming hippocampus), and increased production of compounds such as BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which stimulates the production of neurons and synapses, says neuroscientist Yaakov Stern of Columbia University. Both neurogenesis and synapse formation boost learning, memory, reasoning, and creativity. And in people who excel at particular tasks, Stern’s neuro-imaging studies show, brain circuits tend to be more efficient (using less energy even as cognitive demand increases), higher capacity, and more flexible.

One of the strongest findings in neuroplasticity, the science of how the brain changes its structure and function in response to input, is that attention is almost magical in its ability to physically alter the brain and enlarge functional circuits. In a classic experiment, scientists found that when monkeys repeatedly practiced fine-tactile perception, the relevant brain region expanded, just as it does when people learn Braille or the violin. Similarly, a region of the auditory cortex expands when we hear a particular tone over and over. (Yes, the spot that processes your ringtone is encroaching on next-door areas.) But when monkeys simultaneously touched something and listened to tones, only the brain region controlling the input they were trained to focus on expanded. In other words, identical input—tactile sensations and sounds—produces a different result, expanding a brain area or not, depending only on whether attention is being paid.

That might explain why skills we’re already good at don’t make us much smarter: we don’t pay much attention to them. In contrast, taking up a new, cognitively demanding activity—ballroom dancing, a foreign language—is more likely to boost processing speed, strengthen synapses, and expand or create functional networks.

By nailing down the underpinnings of cognition, neuroscientists can separate plausible brain boosters from dubious ones. With apologies to the political-correctness police, nicotine enhances attention—that key driver of neuroplasticity—and cognitive performance in both smokers and nonsmokers, scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported in a 2010 analysis of 41 double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. Nicotine, they found, has “significant positive effects” on fine motor skills, the accuracy of short-term memory, some forms of attention, and working memory, among other basic cognitive skills. The improvements “likely represent true performance enhancement” and “beneficial cognitive effects.” The reason is that nicotine binds to the brain receptors for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine that are central players in cortical circuits. (Caveat: smoking also increases your risk of dementia, so while cigarettes may boost your memory and attention now, you could pay for it later. To be determined: whether a nicotine patch delivers the benefits without the risks.

Neuroscience supports the cognitive benefits of stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin, too, at least in some people for some tasks. Both drugs (as well as caffeine) raise the brain levels of dopamine, the juice that produces motivation and the feeling of reward. On balance, finds psychologist Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania, studies show that both drugs enhance the recall of memorized words as well as working memory (the brain’s scratchpad, which plays a key role in fluid intelligence). They do not improve verbal fluency, reasoning, or abstract thought, however, nor provide much benefit to people with a gene variant that keeps dopamine activity high, Farah found in a recent study.

These limitations suggest two things. First, if you’re naturally awash in dopamine and are highly motivated to, say, deduce from its source code how a website was built, then increasing dopamine levels pharmacologically is unlikely to help. Farah found no difference between the performance of volunteers given Adderall and volunteers given a placebo on a battery of cognitive tasks, suggesting that you can get the same dopamine-boosting benefits of the drug by simply believing that you’ll do well, which itself releases dopamine. Second, the divide between the mental functions that drugs do and don’t improve suggests that psychological factors such as motivation and reward help with memory, but not higher-order processes such as abstract thought. The drugs “will help some people some of the time, but maybe not by a whole lot,” she concludes. Fun fact for anyone hoping for IQ in a pill: a recent survey of doctors finds they’re more comfortable prescribing sex drugs than smart drugs.

Knowing that Adderall and Ritalin work, when they do, by giving you motivation and a sense of reward from, say, solving a Sudoku puzzle implies that other ways to achieve those feelings will also boost mental performance. That’s probably the mechanism by which a whole slew of tricks work. Take, for instance, the “ancestor effect.” As a paper to be published in the European Journal of Social Psychology reports, “thinking about our genetic origin”—how Grandpa survived the Depression, how Great-Grandma eluded the Cossacks, et al.— “enhances intellectual performance.” The mechanism responsible for that is an increase in confidence and motivation—Adderall without the prescription. Along the same lines, a positive mood—even the kind that comes from watching “Sneezing Panda” on YouTube—can enhance creative problem-solving, finds a new paper in Psychological Science. In this case, reducing stress and the resulting cortisol, which attacks the myelin sheath that coats neurons and thus impairs signal transmission, allows underlying abilities to reach their full potential. Finally, being told that you belong to a group that does very well on a test tends to let you do better than if you’re told you belong to a group that does poorly; the latter floods you with cortisol, while the former gives you the wherewithal and dopamine surge to keep plugging away.

But there’s a difference between reaching your natural potential by removing impediments such as stress and actually raising that potential. The latter requires tapping into one of the best-established phenomena in neuroscience—namely, that the more you use a circuit, the stronger it gets. As a result, a skill you focus and train on improves, and even commandeers more neuronal real estate, with corresponding improvements in performance. London cabdrivers who memorize that city’s insanely confusing streets (25,000 of them) have a larger posterior hippocampus, the region that files spatial memories, than the average Londoner, neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire of University College London discovered in 2003. Conversely, if we offload our navigational ability onto GPS, we’ll lose it.

The rule that “neurons that fire together, wire together” suggests that cognitive training should boost mental prowess. Studies are finding just that, but with a crucial caveat. Training your memory, reasoning, or speed of processing improves that skill, found a large government-sponsored study called Active. Unfortunately, there is no transfer: improving processing speed does not improve memory, and improving memory does not improve reasoning. Similarly, doing crossword puzzles will improve your ability to?.?.?.?do crosswords. “The research so far suggests that cognitive training benefits only the task used in training and does not generalize to other tasks,” says Columbia’s Stern.

The holy grail of brain training is something that does transfer, and here there are three good candidates. The first is physical exercise. Simple aerobic exercise, such as walking 45 minutes a day three times a week, improves episodic memory and executive-control functions by about 20 percent, finds Art Kramer of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His studies have mostly been done in older adults, so it’s possible the results apply only to people whose brain physiology has begun to deteriorate—except that that happens starting in our 20s. Exercise gooses the creation of new neurons in the region of the hippocampus that files away experiences and new knowledge. It also stimulates the production of neuron fertilizers such as BDNF, as well as of the neurotransmitters that carry brain signals, and of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. Exercise stimulates the production of new synapses, the connections that constitute functional circuits and whose capacity and efficiency underlie superior intelligence. Kramer finds that a year of exercise can give a 70-year-old the connectivity of a 30-year-old, improving memory, planning, dealing with ambiguity, and multitasking. “You can think of fitness training as changing the molecular and cellular building blocks that underlie many cognitive skills,” he says. “It thus provides more generalizable benefits than specifically training memory or decision making.”

The second form of overall mental training is meditation, which can increase the thickness of regions that control attention and process sensory signals from the outside world. In a program that neuroscientist Amishi Jha of the University of Miami calls mindfulness-based mind-fitness training, participants build concentration by focusing on one object, such as a particular body sensation. The training, she says, has shown success in enhancing mental agility and attention “by changing brain structure and function so that brain processes are more efficient,” the quality associated with higher intelligence.

Finally, some videogames might improve general mental agility. Stern has trained older adults to play a complex computer-based action game called Space Fortress, which requires players to shoot missiles and destroy the fortress while protecting their spaceship against missiles and mines. “It requires motor control, visual search, working memory, long-term memory, and decision making,” he says. It also requires that elixir of neuroplasticity: attention, specifically the ability to control and switch attention among different tasks. “People get better on tests of memory, motor speed, visual-spatial skills, and tasks requiring cognitive flexibility,” says Stern. Kramer, too, finds that the strategy-heavy videogame Rise of Nations improves executive-control functions such as task switching, working memory, visual short-term memory, and reasoning in older adults.

Few games or training programs have been tested to this extent, and many of those that have been come up short. Those with increasing levels of difficulty and intense demands on attentional capacity—focus as well as switching—probably do the most good … as does taking a brisk walk in between levels.

With Ian Yarett

പ്രണയമെഴുത്തുകള്‍ വായിക്കാം,കേള്‍ക്കാം

പ്രണയമെഴുത്തുകള്‍ വായിക്കാം,കേള്‍ക്കാം

Posted on:11 Feb 2011

പ്രണയമെഴുത്തുകളില്‍ നിന്ന് തിരഞ്ഞെടുത്ത ഭാഗങ്ങള്‍ പേര്‍ത്തുമെന്‍ കണ്ണില്‍ നിന്നെപ്പോഴു വീഴുന്ന നീര്‍ത്തുള്ളി പിച്ചകമാകുമെങ്കില്‍ .. തങ്കമേ, ഞാനൊരു മാലയായ്‌ക്കോര്‍ക്കത്തതു നിന്‍ കരിക്കൂന്തലില്‍ച്ചാര്‍ത്തിയേനേ..-ഉള്ളൂര്‍ ശിരസ്സുയര്‍ത്താനാവാതെ നിന്റെ മുഖം കൈകളിലൊതുക്കി നെറ്റിയിലമര്‍ത്തി ചുംബിക്കാനാവാതെ ഞാനിരുന്നു നീണ്ട യാത്രയുടെ ആരംഭത്തില്‍ കടിഞ്ഞാണില്ലാത്ത കുതിരകള്‍ കുതിക്കുന്നു തീക്കൂനയില്‍ ചവുട്ടി വേവുന്നു, ഇനി നമ്മളെങ്ങോട്ടു പോവാന്‍? എനിക്കിനി മടക്കയാത്ര. എന്നെ തളര്‍ത്തുന്ന നിന്റെ കണ്ണുകളുയര്‍ത്തി ഇങ്ങനെ നോക്കാതിരിക്കൂ നിന്നെത്തേടിയൊരു ജ്വലിക്കുന്ന അശ്വമെത്തുമെന്ന് ഇരുളിനപ്പുറത്ത് നിന്നെത്തുന്ന കുളമ്പൊച്ചയും, കിഴക്ക് പടരുന്ന അഗ്‌നിയുമെന്നോട് പറയുന്നു. സാഗരത്തിന്റെ അനന്തതയില്‍ പൂക്കുന്ന സ്വപ്നങ്ങള്‍ അറുത്തെടുത്ത് ഞാനിനി തിരിച്ചു പോകട്ടെ -നന്ദിത ചാടിമരിക്കുവാന്‍ ആഴങ്ങളിലേക്ക് നോക്കും പോലെ അവളുടെ കണ്ണുകളിലേക്ക് നോക്കി ഞാനിരുന്നു. വികൃതിയായ ഒരു സ്‌കൂള്‍കുട്ടിയെ ഒറ്റനോട്ടം കൊണ്ട് കവിയും കാമുകനും ഭ്രാന്തനുമാക്കി മാറ്റി കാലത്തിന്റെ അനന്തമായ ഭ്രമണപഥത്തിലേക്ക് ചുഴറ്റിയെറിഞ്ഞ മാന്ത്രികനായനങ്ങള്‍. അവയുടെ നക്ഷത്രവെളിച്ചം എന്റെ ശൂന്യാകാശങ്ങളില്‍ നിറഞ്ഞൊഴുകി- ബാലചന്ദ്രന്‍ ചുള്ളിക്കാട് രാത്രി വളരെക്കഴിഞ്ഞിരുന്നു. പ്രഭാതം വളരെ അടുത്തടുത്ത് വരുന്നത് ഞങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് കാണാമായിരുന്നു. ഞാന്‍ കട്ടിലിലിരുന്നു. എന്റെ കാല്‍ക്കല്‍ വെറുംനിലത്തായി ലോലയും. ഇടയ്ക്കിടെ എന്റെ കൈകളില്‍ അവള്‍ മൃദുവായി ചുംബിച്ചു. മറ്റു ചിലപ്പോള്‍ നിശ്ശബ്ദയായി അവള്‍ എന്റെ മുഖത്തേക്ക് നോക്കി. അവള്‍ ഒരമേരിക്കക്കാരിയാണെന്ന് വിശ്വസിക്കാന്‍ ആ നിമിഷങ്ങളില്‍ പ്രയാസം തോന്നി. രാവിലെ തമ്മില്‍ പിരിഞ്ഞു വീണ്ടും കാണുക എന്നൊന്നുണ്ടാവില്ല. നീ മരിച്ചതായി ഞാനും, ഞാന്‍ മരിച്ചതായി നീയും കണക്കാക്കുക. ചുംബിച്ച ചുണ്ടുകള്‍ക്ക് വിടതരിക.-പത്മരാജന്‍ നമുക്ക് വയലുകളിലേക്ക് പോയി ഗ്രാമങ്ങളില്‍ രാപാര്‍ക്കാം. അതിരാവിലെയെഴുന്നേറ്റ് മുന്തിരിത്തോട്ടത്തില്‍ ചെല്ലാം. അവ തഴച്ച് വളര്‍ന്നോയെന്നും മുന്തിരിപ്പൂക്കള്‍ വിടര്‍ന്നുവോയെന്നും നോക്കാം. മാതളനാരകംപൂവിട്ടോയെന്നും നോക്കാം. എന്നിട്ട്, അവിടെ വെച്ച് നിനക്ക് ഞാന്‍ എന്റെ പ്രേണയം നല്കും- സോളമന്റെ പ്രണയഗീതങ്ങള്‍ ചാലില്‍ കഴുത്തോളം വെള്ളത്തില്‍ നില്ക്കുന്ന ചേലുറ്റ വെള്ളാമ്പല്‍ കൊണ്ടുനല്‍കാന്‍ വന്‍ ചെളിയെത്ര ചവിട്ടി ഞാന്‍, തീരത്തു പുഞ്ചിരിയൊന്നു വിരിഞ്ഞുകാണാന്‍ .. എന്‍ തോഴി ചൊല്ലുകില്‍ ചന്ദ്രനെക്കൂടിയും തണ്ടോടറുത്തു ഞാന്‍ കൊണ്ടുചെല്ലും.. വൈലോപ്പിള്ളി ഒരു സ്ത്രീയെ സ്‌നേഹിക്കുകയെന്നാല്‍ അവളെ കല്ലിനുള്ളില്‍നിന്ന് ഉയിര്‍ത്തെഴുന്നേല്പിക്കുകയെന്നാണര്‍ത്ഥം അടിതൊട്ടു മുടിവരെ പ്രേമത്താലുഴിഞ്ഞ് ശാപമേറ്റുറഞ്ഞ രക്തത്തിന് സ്വപ്നത്തിന്റെ ചൂടു പകരുകയെന്നാണര്‍ത്ഥം ഒരു സ്ത്രീയെ സ്‌നേഹിക്കുകയെന്നാല്‍ കരിയും മെഴുക്കും പുരണ്ട അവളുടെ പകലിനെ സ്വര്‍ഗ്ഗത്തിന്റെ പൂമ്പൊടി ഉച്ഛ്വസിക്കുന്ന വാനമ്പാടിയായി മാറ്റുകയെന്നാണ് രാത്രി ആ തളര്‍ന്ന ചിറകുകള്‍ക്കു ചേക്കേറാന്‍ ചുമല്‍ കുനിച്ചു നില്ക്കുന്ന തളിരു നിറഞ്ഞ മരമായി മാറുകയെന്നാണ് ഒരു സ്ത്രീയെ സ്‌നേഹിക്കുകയെന്നാല്‍ കാറ്റും കോളും നിറഞ്ഞ കടലില്‍ മേഘങ്ങള്‍ക്കു കീഴില്‍ പുതിയൊരു ഭൂഖണ്ഡം തേടി കപ്പലിറക്കുകയെന്നാണര്‍ത്ഥം സ്വന്തം വീട്ടുമുറ്റത്തുണ്ടായ ഒരു നാലുമണി ആരും കണ്ടിട്ടില്ലാത്ത ഒരു വന്‍കരയില്‍ കൊണ്ടുചെന്നു നട്ടുപിടിപ്പിക്കുകയെന്നാണര്‍ത്ഥം -സച്ചിദാനന്ദന്‍ യാത്രയാക്കുന്നൂ സഖീ നിന്നെ ഞാന്‍ മൗനത്തിന്റെ നേര്‍ത്ത പട്ടുനൂല്‍പൊട്ടിച്ചിതറും പദങ്ങളാല്‍ .. വാക്കിനു വിലപിടിപ്പേറുമിസ്സന്ദര്‍ഭത്തില്‍ ഓര്‍ക്കുക വല്ലപ്പോഴും എന്നല്ലാതെന്തോതും ഞാന്‍ ... - പി.ഭാസ്‌കരന്‍ മേലിലുച്ചലംവാനം താണു വന്നതായ് തോന്നി ഭൂമിയെന്‍കാല്‍ക്കല്‍ കുതിച്ചോള മാര്‍ന്നതായ് തോന്നി താരകളൊരുപിടിപ്പൂവായി വന്നെന്‍ മാറില്‍ പാറിവീണതായ് തോന്നി ഞാനൊരു വെറും കാറ്റായ് മാറിയുല്‍ക്കടമേതോ സുഗന്ധമൂര്‍ച്ഛ യ്ക്കുള്ളി- ലാകെ വീണലിഞ്ഞതായ് മാഞ്ഞു പോയതായ് തോന്നി- സുഗതകുമാരി ഒരു കൊല്ലം അടി തേഞ്ഞ് അകം തേഞ്ഞ് വള്ളി പൊട്ടി. ഇനി നിനക്ക് എന്റെ കാലില്‍ നടക്കാം. ഒരു കൊല്ലം കഴിഞ്ഞ് ചെരിപ്പിന്റെയും പ്രേമത്തിന്റെയും വ്യത്യാസം അവസാനിക്കുന്നില്ലെങ്കില്‍ എനിക്ക് നിന്റെ കാലില്‍ നടക്കാം.- ഡി.വിനയചന്ദ്രന്‍ ഇന്നലെ പുതുമഴ പെയ്തു വീട്ടിലേക്കുള്ള വഴിയില്‍ വയല്‍വരമ്പില്‍ എന്റെ കാല്‍വഴുതി, ഇന്നു ഞാന്‍ നിന്നെ കണ്ടു മുളംകാടുകള്‍ക്കിടയില്‍ ഇന്നോളം വരാത്ത വഴിയില്‍ ഞാനിതാ, ആകാശം നോക്കി കണ്‍തുറക്കുന്നു.- ടി.പി.രാജീവന്‍ ഇത്രനാള്‍ നാമിണങ്ങീ പരസ്​പരം അത്രമാത്രം പ്രപഞ്ചം മധുരിതം അത്രമാത്രമേ നമ്മുടെ ജീവനും അര്‍ഥമുള്ളെന്‍ പ്രിയങ്കരതാരമേ. - അയ്യപ്പപ്പണിക്കര്‍

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പ്രിയനേ നിൻ വിളി കേൾക്കാൻ

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പ്രിയമുള്ളൊരാളാരോ വരുവാനുണ്ടെന്നു ഞാന്‍ വെറുതേ മോഹിക്കുമല്ലോ

വരുവാനില്ലാരുമിന്നൊരുനാളുമീവഴിക്കറിയാം അതെന്നാലുമെന്നും
പ്രിയമുള്ളൊരാളാരോ വരുവാനുണ്ടെന്നു ഞാന്‍
വെറുതേ മോഹിക്കുമല്ലോ
ഇന്നും വെറുതേ മോഹിക്കുമല്ലോ
പലവട്ടം പൂക്കാലം വഴിതെറ്റി
പോയിട്ടങ്ങൊരുനാളും പൂക്കാമാങ്കൊമ്പില്‍
അതിനായി മാത്രമായ്‌ ഒരു നേരം
ഋതു മാറി മധുമാസമണയാറുണ്ടല്ലോ

വരുവാനില്ലാരുമീ വിജനമാമെന്‍ വഴിക്കറിയാം അതെന്നാലുമെന്നും
പടിവാതിലോളം ചെന്നകലത്താവഴിയാകെ
മിഴി പാകി നില്‍ക്കാറുണ്ടല്ലോ
മിഴി പാകി നില്‍ക്കാറുണ്ടല്ലോ
പ്രിയമുള്ളൊരാളാരോ വരുവാനുണ്ടെന്നു ഞാന്‍
വെറുതെ മോഹിക്കാറുണ്ടല്ലോ

വരുമെന്നു ചൊല്ലിപ്പിരിഞ്ഞുപോയില്ലാരും അറിയാമതെന്നാലുമിന്നും
പതിവായി ഞാനെന്റെ പടിവാതിലെന്തിനോ
പകുതിയേ ചാരാറുള്ളല്ലോ
പ്രിയമുള്ളൊരാളാരോ വരുമെന്നു ഞാനെന്നും
വെറുതേ മോഹിക്കുമല്ലൊ

നിനയാത്ത നേരത്തെന്‍ പടിവാതിലില്‍
ഒരു പദവിന്യാസം കേട്ടപോലെ
വരവായാലൊരുനാളും പിരിയാത്തെന്‍ മധുമാസം
ഒരു മാത്ര കൊണ്ടു വന്നെന്നോ
ഇന്നൊരുമാത്ര കൊണ്ടുവന്നെന്നോ
കൊതിയോടെ ഓടിച്ചെന്നകലത്താവഴിയിലേക്കിരുകണ്ണും നീട്ടുന്ന നേരം
വഴിതെറ്റി വന്നാരോ പകുതിക്കു വച്ചെന്റെ
വഴിയേ തിരിച്ചു പോകുന്നു
എന്റെ വഴിയേ തിരിച്ചു പോകുന്നു
എന്റെ വഴിയേ... തിരിച്ചു പോകുന്നു..

To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor By TINA ROSENBERG

To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor
By TINA ROSENBERG
Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.

The city of Rio de Janeiro is infamous for the fact that one can look out from a precarious shack on a hill in a miserable favela and see practically into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium. Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world.

Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than that of almost any other country. Between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians. Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.

Contrast this with the United States, where from 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent of earners. (see this great series in Slate by Timothy Noah on American inequality) Productivity among low and middle-income American workers increased, but their incomes did not. If current trends continue, the United States may soon be more unequal than Brazil.

A single social program is transforming how countries all over the world help their poor.

Several factors contribute to Brazil’s astounding feat. But a major part of Brazil’s achievement is due to a single social program that is now transforming how countries all over the world help their poor.

The program, called Bolsa Familia (Family Grant) in Brazil, goes by different names in different places. In Mexico, where it first began on a national scale and has been equally successful at reducing poverty, it is Oportunidades. The generic term for the program is conditional cash transfers. The idea is to give regular payments to poor families, in the form of cash or electronic transfers into their bank accounts, if they meet certain requirements. The requirements vary, but many countries employ those used by Mexico: families must keep their children in school and go for regular medical checkups, and mom must attend workshops on subjects like nutrition or disease prevention. The payments almost always go to women, as they are the most likely to spend the money on their families. The elegant idea behind conditional cash transfers is to combat poverty today while breaking the cycle of poverty for tomorrow.

Most of our Fixes columns so far have been about successful-but-small ideas. They face a common challenge: how to make them work on a bigger scale. This one is different. Brazil is employing a version of an idea now in use in some 40 countries around the globe, one already successful on a staggeringly enormous scale. This is likely the most important government anti-poverty program the world has ever seen. It is worth looking at how it works, and why it has been able to help so many people.

In Mexico, Oportunidades today covers 5.8 million families, about 30 percent of the population. An Oportunidades family with a child in primary school and a child in middle school that meets all its responsibilities can get a total of about $123 a month in grants. Students can also get money for school supplies, and children who finish high school in a timely fashion get a one-time payment of $330.

A family living in extreme poverty in Brazil doubles its income when it gets the basic benefit.

Bolsa Familia, which has similar requirements, is even bigger. Brazil’s conditional cash transfer programs were begun before the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but he consolidated various programs and expanded it. It now covers about 50 million Brazilians, about a quarter of the country. It pays a monthly stipend of about $13 to poor families for each child 15 or younger who is attending school, up to three children. Families can get additional payments of $19 a month for each child of 16 or 17 still in school, up to two children. Families that live in extreme poverty get a basic benefit of about $40, with no conditions.

Do these sums seem heartbreakingly small? They are. But a family living in extreme poverty in Brazil doubles its income when it gets the basic benefit. It has long been clear that Bolsa Familia has reduced poverty in Brazil. But research has only recently revealed its role in enabling Brazil to reduce economic inequality.

The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank are working with individual governments to spread these programs around the globe, providing technical help and loans. Conditional cash transfer programs are now found in 14 countries in Latin America and some 26 other countries, according to the World Bank. (One of the programs was in New York City — a small, privately-financed pilot program called Opportunity NYC. A preliminary evaluation showed mixed success, but it is too soon to draw conclusions.) Each program is tailored to local conditions. Some in Latin America, for example, emphasize nutrition. One in Tanzania is experimenting with conditioning payments on an entire community’s behavior.

The program fights poverty in two ways. One is straightforward: it gives money to the poor. This works. And no, the money tends not to be stolen or diverted to the better-off. Brazil and Mexico have been very successful at including only the poor. In both countries it has reduced poverty, especially extreme poverty, and has begun to close the inequality gap.

The idea’s other purpose — to give children more education and better health — is longer term and harder to measure. But measured it is — Oportunidades is probably the most-studied social program on the planet. The program has an evaluation unit and publishes all data. There have also been hundreds of studies by independent academics. The research indicates that conditional cash transfer programs in Mexico and Brazil do keep people healthier, and keep kids in school.

In Mexico today, malnutrition, anemia and stunting have dropped, as have incidences of childhood and adult illnesses. Maternal and infant deaths have been reduced. Contraceptive use in rural areas has risen and teen pregnancy has declined. But the most dramatic effects are visible in education. Children in Oportunidades repeat fewer grades and stay in school longer. Child labor has dropped. In rural areas, the percentage of children entering middle school has risen 42 percent. High school inscription in rural areas has risen by a whopping 85 percent. The strongest effects on education are found in families where the mothers have the lowest schooling levels. Indigenous Mexicans have particularly benefited, staying in school longer.

Bolsa Familia is having a similar impact in Brazil. One recent study found that it increases school attendance and advancement — particularly in the northeast, the region of Brazil where school attendance is lowest, and particularly for older girls, who are at greatest risk of dropping out. The study also found that Bolsa has improved child weight, vaccination rates and use of pre-natal care.

When I traveled in Mexico in 2008 to report on Oportunidades, I met family after family with a distinct before and after story. Parents whose work consisted of using a machete to cut grass had children who, thanks to Oportunidades, had finished high school and were now studying accounting or nursing. Some families had older children who were malnourished as youngsters, but younger children who had always been healthy because Oportunidades had arrived in time to help them eat better. In the city of Venustiano Carranza, in Mexico’s Puebla state, I met Hortensia Alvarez Montes, a 54-year-old widow whose only income came from taking in laundry. Her education stopped in sixth grade, as did that of her first three children. But then came Oportunidades, which kept her two youngest children in school. They were both finishing high school when I visited her. One of them told me she planned to attend college.

Outside of Brazil and Mexico, conditional cash transfer programs are newer and smaller. Nevertheless, there is ample research showing that they, too, increase consumption, lower poverty, and increase school enrollment and use of health services.

If conditional cash transfer programs are to work properly, many more schools and health clinics are needed. But governments can’t always keep up with the demand — and sometimes they can only keep up by drastically reducing quality. If this is a problem for medium-income countries like Brazil and Mexico, imagine the challenge in Honduras or Tanzania.

For skeptics who believe that social programs never work in poor countries and that most of what’s spent on them gets stolen, conditional cash transfer programs offer a convincing rebuttal. Here are programs that help the people who most need help, and do so with very little waste, corruption or political interference. Even tiny, one-village programs that succeed this well are cause for celebration. To do this on the scale that Mexico and Brazil have achieved is astounding.

On Saturday, I’ll respond to reader comments. I’ll also explain why this idea is so remarkably successful — and what we can learn from it.

Tina Rosenberg
Tina Rosenberg won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism.” She is a former editorial writer for The Times and now a contributing writer for the paper’s Sunday magazine. Her new book, “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World,” is forthcoming from W.W. Norton.

*
Pushkar Ranade
NJ
January 3rd, 2011
10:33 pm
Don't we have AFDC which does more than double the income of most recipients? I feel what other countries have in addition is that the programs verify/enforce the 'conditions' ruthlessly tolerating no excuses, and there is as yet no feeling of 'entitlement' among the recipients making them obedient, but this will change say in another 10-15 yrs.
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2.
Frunobulax
Chicago
January 3rd, 2011
10:41 pm
Since we're well on our way to third-world status we might as well start talking about it now since it will take another fifty years of broadening abject misery for US politicians to take notice of anything beyond the next election season, particularly when it remains far more immediately satisfying to further enrich the best off, the top one-percent of which would likely never notice if the final two naughts were removed from the tally of their total net worth. Let me suggest this: never refer to these conditional wealth transfers as "redistributive": such, of course, may rouse the ever watchful "creeping socialism" police who are vigilant about naysaying any program that might actually be of use to anyone, and particularly to the poor.

Actually, from what I've read about the Brazilian stipend system it sounds as if they managed to strealinethe administrative aspect of the program prety well. Brazil is a big country; it has a federal-like set-up: so why can't it work here, at a cost of whatever 2 percent of all federal spending is? Relieve misery; know this money will go back into the local economies; and invest sensibly in human capital. Sure. Much too rational for us though.
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3.
Nishki
Seattle, Washington
January 3rd, 2011
10:42 pm
I know that USA is not used to thinking of itself as being in the same category, poverty-wise, as developing nations. Yet poverty persists here too.

Given USA's different conditions, and the political groundswell against spending any government money, let lone money for people who have suffered misfortune (whether or not of their own making), I would love to hear about how a similar concept could work here.
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4.
Marie Burns
Fort Myers, Florida
January 3rd, 2011
10:47 pm
The programs you describe sound excellent, & some version of them would work well in this country. Now, go try to sell them to House Republican leaders John Boehner & Paul Ryan, who are pledging to cut $100 billion -- or about 20% -- out of U.S. domestic spending programs.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com
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5.
taxed
VT
January 4th, 2011
9:23 am
Since the mid 1960's the US has spent $16 Trillion dollars on means tested welfare programs. It hasn't worked yet. In this country we have found that if you pay people to be poor they will stay poor. In VT we just rebuilt some welfare housing that had been trashed since it was last rebuilt for several million dollars in the late 1980's. This time the taxpayers spent $237,000 PER APARTMENT so the poor would have a nice place to live. Now the taxpayers are paying their rent, food, health care, taxes and even providing spending money to some of the tenants. The average house in VT is worth less than $190,000. In this country it is too easy to for the professional welfare crowd to "qualify" for somebody else's earning to even consider carrying their own weight in society. It has been going on for too long. Look at the second and third generation welfare families for any proof you may need. Like most in this country I am the first in line to help those who have had a string of bad luck, that can happen to anybody. The problem is the huge section of the population that wants every stupid irresponsible decision they make to be paid for with somebody else's hard earned money. Giving them money or services at the taxpayer's expense is not helping them, it is punishing the responsible taxpayers and prolonging and growing the problem.
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6.
Casey
Santa Fe, NM
January 4th, 2011
9:23 am
Given that today's money is nothing more than an artificial system put in place for the benefit of those who put together the rules of the game, it is refreshing to see money being used as the tool that is meant to be and to be administered by the government to insure that the "least" among us has the wherewithal to live a decent, respectable life.
The fact that money is not a natural resource but is an artificial system designed in part by the darker side of humanity, namely greed, and how we are all manipulated by that artifice. Man made, the monetary system can be fixed if there is a will to do so. We are not talking about natural, real value items such as fruit and vegetables that have been provided through Nature to sustain us. We are talking about what has now been reduced down to digits as ledger entries to the benefit of those who know how to play the game. It is all a fantasy that there isn't enough money in the world for everyone.
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7.
johnnymorales
Harker Heights TX
January 4th, 2011
9:23 am
Our anti-poverty programs are designed by opponents with flaws on purpose in order to make sure they end up looking like failures or fail outright.

That is the difference between here and Brazil.

Their politicians freshly familiar with the price all society pays for ignoring and debasing the poor knew solving the problem was good for them not just the poor.

Here with our remote wealthy who never see anyone poor unless they choose to walk on the wild side, poverty is not a problem they know exists except in the abstract, which means they have little or no motivation to fix a problem that doesn't affect them,
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8.
Lifelong reader
Brazil
January 4th, 2011
9:24 am
Another important point is that businesses are greatly benefited from the grants, which allow people to buy food, clothes and other goods, repair their houses etc. Whole communities have improved thanks to this economic stimulus.

But as a Brazilian I would like to add that many middle class and rich people here hate those programs. They claim that they make the poor too lazy to work, and stimulate poor women to have children just to earn the grants. According to unconfirmed rumors, in some small towns in the more impoverished regions it's impossible now to get anyone to work as a maid or ra ural laborer, for people prefer to just sit on park benches all day, content to receive those 50 dollars or so for their children attending school.

If this is true at all, this shows how miserable those recipients really were before the grants, and how low are the salaries they might be earning as maids and laborers - lower than those grants. And most of all, it shows how selfish middle class people can be, begrudging those tiny sums that allow millions of mothers to put food on the table. The total cost of the program is certainly much lower than what the middle class and the rich steal from the country by routinely evading income taxes. And much, much lower than what the politicians routinely steal from the country with their institutionalized corruption.

For those who can read Portuguese I highly recommend a much-discussed article by journalist and psychoanalist Maria Rita Kehl in the Estadao newspaper: http://www.estadao.com.br/estadaodehoje/20101002/not_imp618576,0.php
Kehl combats the widespread idea that the 60% who reelected Lula were poor people who "only thought about their own interests" - i.e., just wanted to continue receiving the government grants. Supposedly the other 40% who did not vote for Lula were educated middle class people who "thought about the country as a whole", never about themselves. (M.R. Kehl was dismissed from the Estadao newspaper for writing this article, and is now proudly speaking truth to power elsewhere.)

I add those comments just to warn the American readers who claim for a similar program to be launched in the U.S. that the opposition to any kind of help to the poor is indeed very strong. It took a very popular president as Lula - who was a hungry child himself - to deliver it successfully.

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9.
HG
Bowie, MD
January 4th, 2011
9:24 am
We have a better way here in the U.S. We give massive tax cuts to the most wealthy, because they know what to with the money and will create jobs for everyone. Soon, we'll all be rich and get massive tax cuts. Ronald Reagan wouldn't have lied, would he?
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10.
Kenneth Thomas
St. Louis
January 4th, 2011
9:24 am
Pushkar, AFDC was replaced by TANF during the Clinton Administration. T is for temporary, and that factor makes it impossible for it to work as well as the Mexican and Brazilian programs.
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11.
Steven Shafarman
Washington, DC
January 4th, 2011
9:25 am
Not mentioned is the fact that Brazil's Bolsa Familia was inspired by 1960s-era proposals in the United States. Among the supporters were Martin Luther King Jr., and more than 1200 economists, including Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith. Richard Nixon and Daniel Patrick Moynihan presented a plan to provide a guaranteed income for all poor families -- it passed in the House by two-to-one, but was narrowly defeated in the Senate.

A young Brazilian was in Michigan during those debates, working on his Ph.D. in economics, and after returning home he became a co-founder of the Worker's Party with Lula da Silva. Elected to the Brazilian Senate in 1992, Sen. Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy was the prime sponsor of a law that President Lula signed in 2004 declaring that every Brazilian has a right to a minimum income. In recent years, Sen. Suplicy has been working with the Basic Income Earth Network, www.BasicIncome.org and traveling to Iraq, South Africa, East Timor, Ireland, China, and other countries to promote basic income. He'll be in New York in February for the next meeting of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, www.usbig.net.

Here in the United States, early proponents of some type of guaranteed income included Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Calls for some form of income security helped spark the progressive and populist movements of the 1890s, and motivated the drive that led to Social Security in 1935. A complete history of guaranteed income ideas in the United States is at www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

Basic Income, also called Citizen Dividends, is in the platform of the Green Party of the United States. Similar ideas are attracting support from some conservatives and libertarians, such as Charles Murray, who see it as the vehicle for radically reducing the size and scope of government -- Tea Party members take note. Cong. Dennis Kucinich recently introduced the "National Emergency Employment Defense Act of 2010" which would end the Federal Reserve Board, promote economic growth and national security, and provide funds for Citizens Dividends.

So this idea is deeply-grounded in American history and attracting transpartisan support. Perhaps we can reimport it from Brazil and Mexico, reclaim it, update it, and enact it.

Steven Shafarman, Washington DC.
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12.
Bob Prentiss
San Francisco
January 4th, 2011
9:25 am
Before such programs could be instituted in the U.S., you would need to satisfy those brainwashed voters who insist on paying poor people only to perform services or go through the motions of performing service in return for token wages that allow only a sem-catfood existence. A lot of it is let's make believe they are doing a "real" job before paying them anything even when there are no jobs. Only a gigantic public education program that instills facts and reasonable arguments rather than old nostrums about welfare would have any chance of making such programs succeed. If there's any other way to do it, I'd be happy to hear it as such programs make a lot of sense to me. It's the old "teach 'em how to fish" with more humanity.
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13.
Phillip
Portland, OR
January 4th, 2011
9:26 am
This is a great article, well-written and about possibilities that are exciting to imagine, but the thing is, the powers-that-be in the U.S. have no interest and absolutely no desire to help the poor or do anything besides enrich themselves, no matter what the cost in environmental damage or human suffering. And from their point of view, if in the process they destroy the Earth and bring humanity to the brink of extinction so much the better, because it will just be "god's will," and anyway, they expect to spend eternity in heaven while the rest of us suffer a perpetuity in hell. So, in their minds they have nothing to lose, though to me the power elites in this country pose a greater threat than al-Qaeda, Iran, or even North Korea.This mindset explains everything.

They just don't care, at all, about anybody but themselves, period, and their actions prove it, so don't expect any programs other than those that enrich Wall Street or the corporate fat cats. The rest of us can go sleep under a bridge - in fact more than 800,000 of us already do. Since globalization gives big business carte blanche to set up operations wherever they find it most profitable, they don't have to care about Americans; they can just move on. But here's the thing: Globalization didn't just happen. Rather, it is the product of specific, official policies, though politicians speak of it as though it were beyond our control.

It isn't, though apparently it is beyond our will.
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14.
Gandoo
Brooklyn
January 4th, 2011
9:26 am
Why isn't anybody referring to them by their real names,. The Banana Republicans?
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15.
a guest
california
January 4th, 2011
9:26 am
I find it interesting that this article doesn't talk about where the money ultimately comes from. How do the tax systems in Mexico and Brazil work? Are they running a trillion dollar deficit like the United States? If you want to pay the poor in the United States you need to get the money from somewhere. Sure, you can tax the "rich" more, but is it the role of the government to "equalize" people?
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16.
JLK
Taiwan
January 4th, 2011
9:26 am

It strikes me that one of the big effects of this program is to turn having a child in school from an economic liability to an immediate economic asset, if the kids bring in more money by attending school than they would by dropping out to work or help at home.

This however, would be unlikely to translate to a similar benefit for poor children in the US, as we are often talking about completely different levels and types of poverty.
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17.
Justin
Denver, CO
January 4th, 2011
9:26 am
I agree with Marie that this is a great idea, however, I find it depressing that our country is becoming less and less concerned with its people and increasingly more consumed with money (or the lack thereof). Even more harrowing, is how representitves of our government have managed to plant the evil seed of getting the public to cringe at the simple mentioning of the word "social program." And as for this so called "pledge," all I hear is "congress will continue to barely, if not get absolutely nothing done at all, and will be fighting back and forth about spending or not spending all of our money money on the people of United States of America." They want to cut spending, but would never consider cutting their own salaries, which they decide collectively. I'm not suggesting that the amount would solve any of our current problems, but on principal alone, it proves my point. And what do they expect? If they cut federal funding to education and social programs on as big of a scale as they're planning, that starving families, helpless seniors and newely homeless and foodless people are going to cheer them on? Yeah, go ahead and try to apease the Tea Partiers and the far right at the cost of Americans' well-being and their very lives. "I'll wait in line for this soup kitchen, just as long as that darned deficit is lower..." I can't tell anymore if its politics that I'm seeing, or purely satire.
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18.
joedog46
las vegas
January 4th, 2011
9:26 am
I live near to section a string of section 8 housing, where many folks collect AFDC. Although AFDC eligibility should make such housing impossible to own. Most have fairly new cars and a variety of expensive electronic toys. The young teenagers have expensive sports shoes, football jerseys and can be seen and heard listening to IPods and the like. Their children receive free breakfast and free lunches at school along with a free education and free health care: glasses, inoculations, etc. Poverty is so well treated in some places. It might even be called an embarrassment of riches by some truly poor folks.
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19.
Eliza
Close to the sea...
January 4th, 2011
9:26 am
I would love to see this program in the USA. Alas I believe our government is out of touch with the general public and the fact that poverty is actually a major problem in the USA. I drove cross country twice in the last year and it is evident that a lot of people are not thriving financially just by looking out the window. Politicians might not know this as they don't seem to be looking out their window very much and don't have much sympathy for the poor. Greed is rampant in the government...it's not what can I do for the country but what can the country do for me...how can I benefit. It is so sad the lack of generosity in our government. This program (with all its conditions) would be wonderful...get out of the war and start concentrating on the home front.
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20.
juandeonis
sao paulo brazil
January 4th, 2011
9:28 am
What´s "infamous" about living in a favela next to a highrise apartment building where your employment as doorman, window cleaner, domestic employe or repairman depends on proxmity to the employer with minimum transport costs? What is "infamous" is the lack of public services in the favelas, but that problem requires investments in public safety, education and health which are not solved by cash transfers to families. Conditional cash tranfers mitigate poverty and improve childhoods in the most needy social sectors. That´s good. But Bolsa Familia has not been the main factor reducing income inequality in Brazil. The big change in income distribution has come from high employment, productivity gains leading to better pay for skilled workers, a steady increase in the real minimum wage and expanded social security benefits. This is all spelled out in studies by the Fundacao Getulio Vargas, IPEA and IBGE, which are government think tanks. Bolsa Familia needs to "graduate" from poverty alleviation to income creation by the poor. This can only happen through innovative enterprise and education of the labor force--two of the main goals of the new government of President Dilma Rousseff. Juan de Onis
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21.
Amanda M.
New York, NY
January 4th, 2011
9:29 am
Should such a program actually be implemented in the US it would enrich the lives of us all. There is a direct correlation between how much poverty exists in a community with how much crime is prevalent. The $40,000 it would cost per year to incarcerate an individual would have been more soundly utilized had it been directed at food, housing, and or educational costs.

Our government bails out corporations with enough money to make every American family well off, yet we scoff at programs that provide poor families with food or medical coverage or other basic necessities in order to survive.

When we finally wake up and realize that poverty adversely affects us all we will start seeking ways to erradicate it.
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22.
Jane
New Jersey
January 4th, 2011
9:29 am
Keeping children in school is a good thing - but what happens when they get out if there are no jobs for them at their (new) educational level, or even lower down the scale? That is reality in far too many countries and ends by producing a class of disaffected youth. Fixing one part of a complex social machine can't be done in isolation.
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23.
Mr Alex Weir
Harare zimbabwe
January 4th, 2011
9:30 am
Using low cost electronic banking systems it is possible to limit such social payments to food, education, medicine and health only. Roll out such systems to the third world and also to those parts of the west which are not politically to the right of ghengis khan. Read at cd3wd.Com/sps. Alex weir. Harare
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24.
flprof
Miami
January 4th, 2011
9:30 am
Of course, this has another up-side--it is stimulative to the economy, since every dollar (or peso or real) gets spent quickly on basic goods and services. But in the US this seems about as likely as a major cut in the defense budget.
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25.
Gary W
Lawrenceville, NJ
January 4th, 2011
9:30 am
No matter how effective these programs may be if tailored correctly in the US, I do not think you would be able to get Republicans to go for an entitlement program that is NOT aimed at the already wealthy.
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Fixes explores solutions to major social problems. Each week, it examines creative initiatives that can tell us about the difference between success and failure. It is written by David Bornstein, author of “How to Change the World,” and founder of dowser.org, and Tina Rosenberg, contributing writer for The New York Times magazine and author of the forthcoming “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World.”

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Lincoln's Letter to his Son's Teacher

എല്ലാ അധ്യാപകരും വായിച്ചിരിക്കേണ്ട ഒരു കത്ത്‌

അമേരിക്കന്‍ പ്രസിഡണ്ട് അബ്രഹാം ലിങ്കണ്‍ തന്റെ മകന്‍ പഠിക്കുന്ന സ്‌കൂളിലെ അധ്യാപകനെഴുതിയ കത്തിന്റെ മലയാളം ചുവടെ. എല്ലാ അധ്യാപകരും നിര്‍ബന്ധമായും വായിച്ചിരിക്കേണ്ട ഒന്ന്. എങ്ങനെയായിരിക്കണം തന്റെ വിദ്യാര്‍ത്ഥി വളരേണ്ടത് എന്നതിനുള്ള വലിയ ഉത്തരം കവിത തുളുമ്പുന്ന ഈ ചെറിയ കത്തില്‍ കാണാം. കത്തിന്റെ ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് രൂപവും താഴെ കൊടുക്കുന്നു.

''എല്ലാവരും
നീതിമാന്മാരല്ലെന്നും
സത്യസന്ധല്ലെന്നും
അവന് പഠിക്കേണ്ടിവരും,എനിക്കറിയാം.
പക്ഷേ ഓരോ തെമ്മാടിക്കും
പകരമൊരു നായകനുണ്ടെന്നും
ഓരോ കപടരാഷ്ട്രീയക്കാരനും
പകരം അര്‍പ്പണബോധമുള്ള
ഒരു നേതാവുണ്ടെന്നും അവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കണം.
എല്ലാ ശത്രുക്കള്‍ക്കുമപ്പുറം
ഒരു സുഹൃത്തുണ്ടാവുമെന്ന് അവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.

അസൂയയില്‍ നിന്നവനെ
അകറ്റി നിര്‍ത്തുക, നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കാവുമെങ്കില്‍
നിശബ്ദമായ പൊട്ടിച്ചിരിയുടെ മൂല്യമവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.

വഴക്കാളികളെയാണ് തോല്പിക്കാനെളുപ്പമെന്ന്
ആദ്യമേയവന്‍ പഠിക്കട്ടെ.
പുസ്തകങ്ങള്‍ കൊണ്ട്
അല്‍ഭുതം സൃഷ്ടിക്കാനാവുമെന്ന് അവന്റെ കാതുകളിലോതുക.

പക്ഷേ അവന്റെ മാത്രമായ ലോകം
അവന് നല്കണം.
ശാന്തിയില്‍ മുങ്ങിയൊരു
ലോകം.
അവിടെയിരുന്ന്
ആകാശത്തിലെ പക്ഷികളുടേയും
പച്ചക്കുന്നിന്‍ചെരിവുകളിലെ
പൂക്കളുടെ നിതാന്തവിസ്മയത്തെക്കുറിച്ചും
അവന്‍ ചിന്തിക്കട്ടെ.

സ്‌കൂളില്‍ തോല്‍ക്കുന്നതാണ്
ചതിച്ച് നേടുന്നതിനേക്കാള്‍
മാന്യമാണെന്നവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.
എല്ലാവരും തെറ്റാണെന്ന്
തള്ളിപ്പറഞ്ഞാലും
സ്വന്തം ആശയങ്ങളില്‍ വിശ്വസിക്കാനവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.

മൃദുലരായ മനുഷ്യരോട്
മൃദുലമാകാനും
കഠിനരായവരോട്
കഠിനമാകാനും പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.
നാടോടുമ്പോള്‍
നടുവേ ഓടാതിരിക്കാനുള്ള കരുത്ത്
എന്റെ മകനേകുക.

എല്ലാവരും പറയുന്നത്
ശ്രദ്ധിക്കാനവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക,
പക്ഷേ നന്മയെ മാത്രം സ്വീകരിക്കാന്‍ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.
നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കാവുമെങ്കില്‍ ദു:ഖിതനായിരിക്കുമ്പോള്‍
പൊട്ടിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നതെങ്ങനെയെന്നവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.
കണ്ണീരില്‍ ലജ്ജിക്കാനൊന്നുമില്ലെന്നും
അവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക. ദോഷൈകദൃക്കുകളെ
ആട്ടിയകറ്റാനും
അതിമധുരം പറയുന്നവരെ സൂക്ഷിക്കാനുമവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.

സ്വന്തം ബുദ്ധിയും ശക്തിയും
ഏറ്റവും വില പറയുന്നവന് വില്ക്കാന്‍ അവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.,
പക്ഷേ സ്വന്തം
ആത്മാവിനും ഹൃദയത്തിനും വിലയിടാതിരിക്കാനും.

ആര്‍ത്തലയക്കുന്ന ആള്‍ക്കൂട്ടത്തിന്
നേരെ ചെവിയടച്ച് വെച്ച്
തനിക്ക് ശരിയാണെന്ന് തോന്നുന്ന
കാര്യത്തില്‍ ഉറച്ച് വിശ്വസിക്കാനും
അതിന് വേണ്ടി നിലകൊള്ളാനും
പോരാടാനും അവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക.
അവനോട് മാന്യതയോടെ പെരുമാറുക,
പക്ഷേ അമിതസ്‌നേഹം കൊണ്ട് വീര്‍പ്പുമുട്ടിക്കരുത്.
അഗ്നിയോടടുക്കുമ്പോഴേ ഈടുറ്റ ലോഹമുണ്ടാവുകയുള്ളൂ.

അക്ഷമനായിരിക്കാനുള്ള ധൈര്യമവന് നല്കുക.
ബുദ്ധിമാനായിരിക്കുവാനുള്ള ക്ഷമയവന് നല്കുക.
തന്നെക്കുറിച്ച് വലിയ രീതിയില്‍
സ്വയം
വിശ്വസിക്കാനാവനെ പഠിപ്പിക്കുക, എന്നാല്‍ മാത്രമേ മനുഷ്യരില്‍
വലുതായ വിശ്വാസമുണ്ടാവൂ.

എനിക്ക് വിശ്വാസമില്ലെങ്കിലും
നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കെന്ത് ചെയ്യാനാവുമെന്ന് ഞാന്‍ നോക്കട്ടെ.
എല്ലാത്തിനപ്പുറം അവന്‍ മിടുക്കനാണ്.
ഞാന്‍ അവനെ ഏറെ സ്‌നേഹിക്കുന്നു.''


Lincoln's Letter to his Son's Teacher

He will have to learn, I know,
that all men are not just,
all men are not true.
But teach him also that
for every scoundrel there is a hero;
that for every selfish Politician,
there is a dedicated leader…
Teach him for every enemy there is a friend,
Steer him away from envy,
if you can,
teach him the secret of
quiet laughter.
Let him learn early that
the bullies are the easiest to lick…
Teach him, if you can,
the wonder of books…
But also give him quiet time
to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky,
bees in the sun,
and the flowers on a green hillside.
In the school teach him
it is far honourable to fail
than to cheat…
Teach him to have faith
in his own ideas,
even if everyone tells him
they are wrong…
Teach him to be gentle
with gentle people,
and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son
the strength not to follow the crowd
when everyone is getting on the band wagon…
Teach him to listen to all men…
but teach him also to filter
all he hears on a screen of truth,
and take only the good
that comes through.
Teach him if you can,
how to laugh when he is sad…
Teach him there is no shame in tears,
Teach him to scoff at cynics
and to beware of too much sweetness…
Teach him to sell his brawn
and brain to the highest bidders
but never to put a price-tag
on his heart and soul.

Teach him to close his ears
o a howling mob
and to stand and fight
if he thinks he's right.
Treat him gently,
but do not cuddle him,
because only the test
of fire makes fine steel.

Let him have the courage
to be impatient…
let him have the patience to be brave.
Teach him always
to have sublime faith in himself,
because then he will have
sublime faith in mankind.

This is a big order,
but see what you can do…
He is such a fine little fellow,
my son!
~ Abraham Lincoln

A Light in India By DAVID BORNSTEIN

January 10, 2011, 7:25 pm
A Light in India
By DAVID BORNSTEIN
*****************************************
See the following link too:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/illuminating-thoughts-on-power/
*************************************************************************
FixesFixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.
Tags:

electricity, India, innovation, Poverty, power

Students in the village of Tahipur in Bihar used kerosene lanterns for studying.© Harikrishna Katragadda/GreenpeaceStudents in the village of Tahipur in Bihar used kerosene lanterns for studying.

When we hear the word innovation, we often think of new technologies or silver bullet solutions — like hydrogen fuel cells or a cure for cancer. To be sure, breakthroughs are vital: antibiotics and vaccines, for example, transformed global health. But as we’ve argued in Fixes, some of the greatest advances come from taking old ideas or technologies and making them accessible to millions of people who are underserved.

One area where this is desperately needed is access to electricity. In the age of the iPad, it’s easy to forget that roughly a quarter of the world’s population — about a billion and a half people (pdf) — still lack electricity. This isn’t just an inconvenience; it takes a severe toll on economic life, education and health. It’s estimated that two million people die prematurely each year as a result of pulmonary diseases caused by the indoor burning of fuels for cooking and light. Close to half are children who die of pneumonia.

In vast stretches of the developing world, after the sun sets, everything goes dark. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 70 percent of the population lack electricity. However, no country has more citizens living without power than India, where more than 400 million people, the vast majority of them villagers, have no electricity. The place that remains most in darkness is Bihar, India’s poorest state, which has more than 80 million people, 85 percent of whom live in households with no grid connection. Because Bihar has nowhere near the capacity to meet its current power demands, even those few with connections receive electricity sporadically and often at odd hours, like between 3:00 a.m and 6:00 a.m., when it is of little use.

This is why I’m writing today about a small but fast-growing off-grid electricity company based in Bihar called Husk Power Systems. It has created a system to turn rice husks into electricity that is reliable, eco-friendly and affordable for families that can spend only $2 a month for power. The company has 65 power units that serve a total of 30,000 households and is currently installing new systems at the rate of two to three per week.

What’s most interesting about Husk Power is how it has combined many incremental improvements that add up to something qualitatively new — with the potential for dramatic scale. The company expects to have 200 systems by the end of 2011, each serving a village or a small village cluster. Its plan is to ramp that up significantly, with the goal of having 2,014 units serving millions of clients by the end of 2014.
A biomass gasifier owned and operated by Husk Power Systems.© Harikrishna Katragadda/Greenpeace A biomass gasifier owned and operated by Husk Power Systems.

Husk Power was founded by four friends: Gyanesh Pandey, Manoj Sinha, Ratnesh Yadav and Charles W. Ransler, who met attending different schools in India and the United States. Pandey, the company’s chief executive, grew up in a village in Bihar without electricity. “I felt low because of that,” he told me when we met recently in New Delhi. He decided to study electrical engineering. At college in India, he experienced the Indian prejudice against Biharis — some students refused to sit at the same table with him — which contributed to his desire to emigrate to the U.S.. He found his way to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y., where he completed a master’s degree before landing a position with the semiconductor manufacturer International Rectifier in Los Angeles. His job was to figure out how to get the best performance from integrated circuits at the lowest possible cost. This helped him develop a problem-solving aptitude that would prove useful for Husk Power.

He was soon earning a six-figure income. He bought his family a diesel-powered electric generator. As a single man living in Los Angeles, he enjoyed traveling, dining out and going to clubs. “I was basically cruising through life,” he recalled. “But along with that pleasure and smoothness was a dark zone in my head.” He began meditating — and he realized that he felt compelled to return home and use his knowledge to bring light to Bihar.

Back in India, he and his friend Yadav, an entrepreneur, spent the next few years experimenting. They explored the possibility of producing organic solar cells. They tried growing a plant called jatropha, whose seeds can be used for biodiesel. Both proved impractical as businesses. They tested out solar lamps, but found their application limited. “In the back of my mind, I always thought there would be some high tech solution that would solve the problem,” said Pandey.

One day he ran into a salesman who sold gasifiers — machines that burn organic materials in an oxygen restricted environment to produce biogas which can be used to power an engine. There was nothing new about gasifiers; they had been around for decades. People sometimes burned rice husks in them to supplement diesel fuel, which was expensive. “But nobody had thought to use rice husks to run a whole power system,” explained Pandey.

In Bihar, poverty is extreme. Pretty much everything that can be used will be used — recycled or burned or fed to animals. Rice husks are the big exception. When rice is milled, the outside kernel, or husk, is discarded. Because the husk contains a lot of silica, it doesn’t burn well for cooking. A recent Greenpeace study (pdf) reports that Bihar alone produces 1.8 billion kilograms of rice husk per year. Most of it ends up rotting in landfills and emitting methane, a greenhouse gas.
The mini-power plant during the day.Courtesy of Husk Power SystemsThe mini-power plant during the day.

Pandey and Yadav began bringing pieces together for an electric distribution system powered by the husks. They got a gasifier, a generator set, filtering, cleaning and cooling systems, piping and insulated wiring. They went through countless iterations to get the system working: adjusting valves and pressures, the gas-to-air ratios, the combustion temperature, the starting mechanism. In they end, they came up with a system that could burn 50 kilograms of rice husk per hour and produce 32 kilowatts of power, sufficient for about 500 village households.

They reached out to people in a village called Tamkuha, in Bihar, offering them a deal: for 80 rupees a month — roughly $1.75 — a household could get daily power for one 30-watt or two 15-watt compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs and unlimited cell phone charging between 5:00 p.m and 11:00 p.m. For many families, the price was less than half their monthly kerosene costs, and the light would be much brighter. It would also be less smoky, less of a fire hazard, and better for the environment. Customers could pay for more power if they needed it — for radios, TVs, ceiling fans or water pumps. But many had no appliances and lived in huts so small, one bulb was enough. The system went live on August 15, 2007, the anniversary of India’s independence.

It worked. Back in the United States, their colleagues Sinha and Ransler, who were pursuing M.B.A.s at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, put together a business plan and set out to raise money. They came first in two student competitions, garnering prizes of $10,000 and $50,000. The company received a grant from the Shell Foundation and set up three more systems in 2008. It has since raised $1.75 million in investment financing. In 2009, they had 19 systems in operation; in 2010, they more than tripled that number.

Technically, most of the problems were solved by 2008. But to make the business viable has required an ongoing process of what has been called “frugal innovation” — radically simplifying things to serve the needs of poor customers who would otherwise be excluded from basic market services due to their limited ability to pay.
Shops in the Sariswa Village market use power generated by Husk Power Systems.© Harikrishna Katragadda/GreenpeaceShops in the Sariswa Village market use power generated by Husk Power Systems.

In order to bring down costs, for example, the company stripped down the gasifiers and engines, removing everything non-essential that added to manufacturing or maintenance expenses, like turbocharging. They replaced an automated water-aided process for the removal of rice husk char (burned husks) from gasifiers with one that uses 80 percent less water and can be operated with a hand crank. They kept labor costs down by recruiting locals, often from very poor families with modest education levels (who would be considered unemployable by many companies) and training them to operate and load machines, and work as fee collectors and auditors, going door-to-door ensuring that villagers aren’t using more electricity than they pay for. (Electricity theft is a national problem in India, resulting in losses to power companies estimated at 30 percent. Husk Power says it has managed to keep such losses down to five percent.)

When the company noticed that customers were purchasing poor-quality CFL bulbs, which waste energy, they partnered with Havells India, a large manufacturer, to purchase thousands of high quality bulbs at discount rates, which their collectors now sell to clients. They also saw that collectors could become discount suppliers of other products — like soap, biscuits and oil — so they added a product fulfillment business into the mix.

And they found ways to extract value from the rice husk char — the waste product of a waste product — by setting up another side business turning the char into incense sticks. This business now operates in five locations and provides supplemental income to 500 women. The company also receives government subsidies for renewable energy and is seeking Clean Development Mechanism benefits.

With growth, human audits have proven inadequate to control electricity theft or inadvertent overuse. So the company developed a stripped-down pre-payment smart-card reader for home installation. The going rate for smart-card readers is between $50 and $90. Husk Power is near completion of one that Pandey says will cost under $7.

Alone, none of these steps would have been significant. Taken together, however, they make it possible for power units to deliver tiny volumes of electricity while enjoying a 30 percent profit margin. The side businesses add another 20 percent to the bottom line. Pandey says new power units become profitable within 2 to 3 months of installation. He expects the company to be financially self-sustaining by June 2011.

From a social standpoint, there are many benefits to this business model. In addition to the fact that electricity allows shop keepers to stay open later and farmers to irrigate more land, and lighting increases children’s studying time and reduces burglaries and snakebites, the company also channels most of its wages and payments for services directly back into the villages it serves.

For decades, countries have operated on the assumption that power from large electricity plants will eventually trickle down to villagers. In many parts of the world, this has proven to be elusive. Husk Power has identified at least 25,000 villages across Bihar and neighboring states in India’s rice belt as appropriate for its model. Ramapati Kumar, an advisor on Climate and Energy for Greenpeace India, who has studied Husk Power, explained that the company’s model could “go a long way in bringing light to 125,000 unelectrified villages in India,” while reducing “the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.”

It’s too soon to say whether Husk Power will prove to be successful in the long run. As with any young company, there are many unknowns. To achieve its goals, it will need to recruit and train thousands of employees over the next four years, raise additional financing, and institute sound management practices. Many companies destroy themselves in the process of trying to expand aggressively.

But the lessons here go beyond the fortunes of Husk Power. What the company illustrates is a different way to think about innovation — one that is suitable for global problems that stem from poor people’s lack of access to energy, water, housing and education. In many cases, success in these challenges hinges less on big new ideas than on collections of small old ideas well integrated and executed. “What’s replicable isn’t the distribution of electricity,” says Pandey. “It’s the whole process of how to take an old technology and apply it to local constraints. How to create a system out of the materials and labor that are readily available.”

Let me know if you’ve come across other examples of innovations that follow this pattern.

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David Bornstein

David Bornstein is the author of “How to Change the World,” which has been published in 20 languages, and “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and is co-author of “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.” He is the founder of dowser.org, a media site that reports on social innovation.

‘Markets with search frictions’ theory creators win the Nobel Prize in Economic Science

Published on Oct 11, 2010 - 6:42:33 AM


By: AlphaGalileo Foundation

Oct. 11, 2010 - The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2010 jointly to:

* Peter A. Diamond (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA)
* Dale T. Mortensen (Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA)
* and Christopher A. Pissarides (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK) "for their analysis of markets with search frictions"

This year's Laureates have developed a theory which can be used to answer some of the questions about the labour market. The DMP model “have substantially improved our understanding of markets with search frictions”, especially in areas where goods or services are not standardise, according to the Academy. This theory is also applicable to markets other than the labour market, like housing.

Frictions occur in both sides of the market, and we often see that sellers and buyers have difficulties in finding each other. On the one side we see that there are many unemployed people and on the other a large number of job openings. Employers often struggle to find suitable candidates and these to find available positions. In the same way we see families looking for suitable accommodation and many empty properties that are not sold easily.

“The three Laureates have formulated a theoretical framework for search markets. Peter Diamond has analyzed the foundations of search markets. Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides have expanded the theory and have applied it to the labour market. The Laureates' models help us understand the ways in which unemployment, job vacancies, and wages are affected by regulation and economic policy. This may refer to benefit levels in unemployment insurance or rules in regard to hiring and firing. One conclusion is that more generous unemployment benefits give rise to higher unemployment and longer search times.”

The Academy described the model as an important policy tool that can be used to interpret data and implement better policies regarding unemployment and housing, for example.

During the press conference, Pissarides described that his reaction to the phone call announcing the prize was a “mixture of surprise and happiness and generally satisfaction”. He explained that he started his research at a time when unemployment in Europe was raising and he saw this as a real problem where economics could help.

A model for the labor market:

Several important studies on search and matching markets were published around 1980. Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides examined the properties of the various markets. They provided new answers to many unsolved issues and could also pose completely new questions which earlier research had not been able to formulate.

In a number of studies, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides have systematically developed and applied the theory to examine the labor market – particularly the determinants of unemployment. This has resulted in a model known as the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) model. Today, the DMP model is the most frequently used tool for analyzing unemployment, wage formation and job vacancies.

The DMP model describes the search activity of the unemployed, the recruiting behavior of firms and wage formation. When a job seeker and an employer find one another, the wage is determined on the basis of the situation on the labor market (the number of unemployed workers and the number of vacancies). The model can thus be used to estimate the effects of different labor-market factors on unemployment, the average duration of spells of unemployment, the number of vacancies and the real wage. Such factors may include the benefit level in unemployment insurance, the real interest rate, the efficiency of employment agencies, hiring and firing costs, etc.

Khan Academy

Bill Gates says of Khan's ability to teach " I kind of envy him"!

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Remarks of President Barack Obama - Back to School Speech Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

September 14, 2010

Hello Philadelphia! It’s wonderful to be here. Today is about welcoming all of you and all of America’s students back to school – and I can’t think of a better place to do it than Masterman. You’re one of the best schools in Philadelphia – a leader in helping students succeed in the classroom. And just last week, you were recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School for your record of achievement. That’s a testament to everyone here – students and parents, teachers and school leaders. And it’s an example of excellence I hope communities across America embrace.

Over the past few weeks, Michelle and I have been getting Sasha and Malia ready for school. And I bet a lot of you are feeling the same way they’re feeling. You’re a little sad to see the summer go, but you’re also excited about the possibilities of a new year. The possibilities of building new friendships and strengthening old ones. Of joining a school club, or trying out for a team. The possibilities of growing into a better student, and a better person, and making your family proud.

But I know some of you may also be nervous about starting a new school year. Maybe you’re making the jump from elementary to middle school, or from middle to high school, and worried about what that’ll be like. Maybe you’re starting a new school, and not sure how you’ll like it. Or maybe you’re a senior who’s feeling anxious about the whole college process; about where to apply and whether you can afford to go.

And beyond all these concerns, I know a lot of you are also feeling the strain of these difficult times. You know what’s going on in the news and your own family’s lives. You read about the war in Afghanistan. You hear about the recession we’ve been through. You see it in your parents’ faces and sense it in their voice.

A lot of you are having to act a lot older than you are; to be strong for your family while your brother or sister is serving overseas; to look after younger siblings while your mom works that second shift; to take on a part-time job while your dad is out of work.

It’s a lot to handle; it’s more than you should have to handle. And it may make you wonder at times what your own future will look like; whether you’ll be able to succeed in school; whether you should set your sights a little lower, and scale back your dreams.

But here is what I came to Masterman to tell you: nobody gets to write your destiny but you. Your future is in your hands. Your life is what you make of it. And nothing – absolutely nothing – is beyond your reach. So long as you’re willing to dream big. So long as you’re willing to work hard. So long as you’re willing to stay focused on your education.

That last part is absolutely essential – because an education has never been more important. I’m sure there will be times in the months ahead when you’re staying up late cramming for a test, or dragging yourselves out of bed on a rainy morning, and wondering if it’s all worth it. Let me tell you, there is no question about it. Nothing will have as great an impact on your success in life as your education.

More and more, the kinds of opportunities that are open to you will be determined by how far you go in school. In other words, the farther you go in school, the farther you’ll go in life. And at a time when other countries are competing with us like never before; when students around the world are working harder than ever, and doing better than ever; your success in school will also help determine America’s success in the 21st century.

So, you have an obligation to yourselves, and America has an obligation to you to make sure you’re getting the best education possible. And making sure you get that kind of education is going to take all of us working hand-in-hand.

It will take all of us in government – from Harrisburg to Washington – doing our part to prepare our students, all of them, for success in the classroom, in college, and in a career. It will take an outstanding principal and outstanding teachers like the ones here at Masterman; teachers who go above and beyond for their students. And it will take parents who are committed to your education.

That’s what we have to do for you. That’s our responsibility. That’s our job. But here’s your job. Showing up to school on time. Paying attention in class. Doing your homework. Studying for exams. Staying out of trouble. That kind of discipline and drive – that kind of hard work – is absolutely essential for success.

I know – because I didn’t always have it. I wasn’t always the best student when I was younger; I made my share of mistakes. In fact, I can still remember a conversation I had with my mother in high school, when I was about the age of some of you here today. It was about how my grades were slipping, how I hadn’t even started my college applications, how I was acting, as she put it, “casual” about my future. It’s a conversation I suspect will sound familiar to some of the students and parents here today.

And my attitude was what I imagine every teenager’s attitude is in a conversation like that. I was like, I don’t need to hear all this. So, I started to say that, and she just cut me right off. You can’t just sit around, she said, waiting for luck to see you through. She said I could get into any school in the country if I just put in a little effort. Then she gave me a hard look and added, “Remember what that’s like? Effort?”

It was pretty jolting, hearing my mother say that. But eventually, her words had their intended effect. I got serious about my studies. I made an effort. And I began to see my grades – and my prospects – improve. And I know that if hard work could make the difference for me, it can make the difference for you, too.

I know some of you may be skeptical about that. You may wonder if some people are just better at certain things. And it’s true that we each have our own gifts and talents we need to discover and nurture. But just because you’re not the best at something today doesn’t mean you can’t be tomorrow. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a math person or as a science person – you can still excel in those subjects if you’re willing to make the effort. And you may find out you have talents you’d never dreamed of.

You see, excelling in school or in life isn’t mainly about being smarter than everybody else. It’s about working harder than everybody else. Don’t avoid new challenges – seek them out, step out of your comfort zone, and don’t be afraid to ask for help; your teachers and family are there to guide you. Don’t feel discouraged or give up if you don’t succeed at something – try it again, and learn from your mistakes. Don’t feel threatened if your friends are doing well; be proud of them, and see what lessons you can draw from what they’re doing right.

That’s the kind of culture of excellence you promote here at Masterman; and that’s the kind of excellence we need to promote in all America’s schools. That’s why today, I’m announcing our second Commencement Challenge. If your school is the winner; if you show us how teachers, students, and parents are working together to prepare your kids for college and a career; if you show us how you’re giving back to your community and our country – I’ll congratulate you in person by speaking at your commencement.

But the truth is, an education is about more than getting into a good college or getting a good job when you graduate. It’s about giving each and every one of us the chance to fulfill our promise; to be the best version of ourselves we can be. And part of what that means is treating others the way we want to be treated – with kindness and respect.

Now, I know that doesn’t always happen. Especially not in middle or high school. Being a teenager isn’t easy. It’s a time when we’re wrestling with a lot of things. When I was your age, I was wrestling with questions about who I was; about what it meant to be the son of a white mother and a black father, and not having that father in my life. Some of you may be working through your own questions right now, and coming to terms with what makes you different.

And I know that figuring all that out can be even more difficult when you’ve got bullies in class who try to use those differences to pick on you or poke fun at you; to make you feel bad about yourself. In some places, the problem is more serious. There are neighborhoods in my hometown of Chicago, where kids have hurt one another. And the same thing has happened here in Philly.

So, what I want to say to you today – what I want all of you to take away from my speech – is that life is precious, and part of its beauty lies in its diversity. We shouldn’t be embarrassed by the things that make us different. We should be proud of them. Because it’s the things that make us different that make us who we are. And the strength and character of this country have always come from our ability to recognize ourselves in one another, no matter who we are, or where we come from, what we look like, or what abilities or disabilities we have.

I was reminded of that idea the other day when I read a letter from Tamerria Robinson, an 11-year old girl in Georgia. She told me about how hard she works, and about all the community service she does with her brother. And she wrote, “I try to achieve my dreams and help others do the same.” “That,” she wrote, “is how the world should work.”

I agree with Tamerria. That is how the world should work. Yes, we need to work hard. Yes, we need to take responsibility for our own education. Yes, we need to take responsibility for our own lives. But what makes us who we are is that here, in this country, we not only reach for our own dreams, we help others do the same. This is a country that gives all its daughters and all its sons a fair chance. A chance to make the most of their lives. A chance to fulfill their God-given potential.

And I’m absolutely confident that if all our students – here at Masterman, and across this country – keep doing their part; if you keep working hard, and focusing on your education; if you keep fighting for your dreams and if all of us help you reach them; then not only will you succeed this year, and for the rest of your lives, but America will succeed in the 21st century. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.