Word: lessing
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Modern day Pharaohs like hunger, poverty, and disease continue to enslave much of the world’s population. Eighteen thousand children die every day from hunger according to the U.N. food agency. Almost half of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day. UNICEF reports that one in every two children lives in poverty, and one out of every seven has no access to healthcare. Malaria is a curable and preventable disease that continues to kill a child in Africa every 30 seconds...
...students were also paid on the basis of attendance and behavior - two actions that are under their direct control. Under this hybrid model, the kids who got paid did better on their standardized reading tests. Because of the small size of the school system, the Washington sample was less well balanced than those in the other cities. But its results contain one remarkable finding: the kids who were helped the most by the experiment were the ones who are normally among the hardest to reach. "The typical reform helps girls more than it helps boys," Fryer says. "[This...
...Kids may respond better to rewards for specific actions because there is less risk of failure. They can control their attendance; they cannot necessarily control their test scores. The key, then, may be to teach kids to control more overall - to encourage them to act as if they can indeed control everything, and reward that effort above and beyond the actual outcome...
...working with China in a way that can protect our interests is less about direct confrontation of the sort we remember from the Cold War - when the U.S. knew it faced a very dangerous enemy - and more about what we might call co-evolution. The phrase comes from biology and describes how some species work together to become stronger over time. A textbook example is the hummingbird and certain flowers, which, scientists have found, have evolved together to serve each other's mutual needs. Think of the long beaks on the birds and the narrow funnels on the flowers...
...relations with China now offer a chance to do something enduring, historic and essential. But there's some urgency: Chinese who are friendly to the West are quick to point out that the leaders arriving in 2012 may be less inclined to cooperate with the U.S. and will sit atop a system packed with younger officials who are suspicious of America. Still, it is possible to imagine a way forward that balances U.S. interests against the need to change in the face of a changing world. It's a path that should be informed by remembering that our biggest risk...