RECENT WRITING QUESTIONS

(The topics are listed in the same order of the vocabulary units in the voccabulary
book)
For each topic, students are expected to read a relevant article of around 900 words
+ do related vocabulary exercises before they are given the question and start the
writing process.

1. EDUCATION + LANGUAGE EDUCATION

1. In the past, lectures were used as a way of teaching large numbers of students, but now
with the development of technology for education, many people think there is no
justification for attending lectures. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this
opinion?
2. The qualities and skills that a person requires to become successful in today's
world cannot be learned at a university or other academic institutions.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
3. Some people from poor and rural backgrounds find it difficult to get a university
education. Universities have to make it easier, especially for such groups, to get into them.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
4. Online education and training is becoming increasingly popular in the business world.
Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?

2. MEDIA
The mass media, including television, radio and newspapers, have great influence in
shaping people's ideas.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?

3. EMLOYMENT
These days, many people have their own computer and telephone, so it is quite easy for
them to do their job at home. Does working at home have more advantages or more
disadvantages?

Many people think that to become a successful specialist it's better to choose a career early
in life and never change it later.
To what extent do you agree with this view?
Support your opinion with relevant examples.

Some people hesitate between getting a job and starting their own business. While the idea
of not having a boss and working on one's own schedule may sound tempting, financial
risks and stress sometimes outweigh these advantages.
In your opinion what are the pros and cons of working in a company?

4. FINANCE/ECONOMICS
Many governments think that economic progress is their most important goal. Some
people, however, think that other types of progress are equally important for a
country.
Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

5. POLITICS/GOVERNMENT
Some people think that politicians have the greatest influence on the world. Other
people, however, believe that scientists have the greatest influence.
Discuss both of these views and give your own opinion.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own
knowledge or experience.

A government has a responsibility to its citizens to ensure their safety. Therefore, some
people think that government should increase spending on defense but less on social
benefits. To what extent do you agree?

6. ENVIRONMENT
1. Demand for gas and oil is increasing and so finding new sources in remote and
untouched areas is a necessity. Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
2. Fossil fuels (e.g. coals, oil and gas) are the main source of energy for most countries.
However, alternative sources of energy (e.g. wind and solar) have been encouraged to be
used by some countries. To what extent is this a positive or negative development?

3. Today much of the food people eat gets transported from farms that are thousands of
miles away. Some people believe it would be better for the environment and the economy if
people only consumed food produced by local farmers.
Would the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

4. Some people think that one of the best ways to solve environmental problems is to
increase the cost of fuel for cars and other vehicles.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?

5. Today, many people do not realise how important the natural world is.
Why is this? How can people learn more about the importance of the natural world?

7. HEALTH CARE
1. More and more people are becoming seriously overweight. Some people say that
increasing the price of fattening foods will solve this problem.
To what extend do you agree or disagree?

2. Some people believe that it is the responsibility of individuals to take care of their own
health and diet. Others however believe that governments should make sure that their
citizens have a healthy diet. Discuss both views and give your opinion.

3. Some people think that private healthcare is better for the people. Others say that
healthcare should be free of cost and run by the government.

8. TRAVEL
1. Nowadays, international tourism is the biggest industry in the world. Unfortunately,
international tourism creates tension rather than understanding between people from
different cultures. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
2. Many museums and historical sites are mainly visited by tourists rather than local
people. Why does this happen?
What can be done to encourage local people to visit museums and historical sites?

9. CRIME
1. Some people think that prison sentences should not be used in dealing with
criminals. Education and job training should be used instead.
To what extent do you agree on disagree?

2. Some countries are struggling with an increase in the rate of crime. Many people think
that having more police on the streets is the only way to reduce these increasing levels of
crime. To what extent to you agree or disagree?

10. SOCIAL ISSUES

11. TECHNOLOGY
1. These days, mobile phones and the internet are very important to the ways in which
people relate to one another socially.
Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?

12. LIFESTYLE
1. More and more people want to own items, such as cars, clothing and other things,
that are made by famous brands. What are the reasons for this? Do you think it is a
positive or negative development?
2. Experts say older people were happier and healthier in the past because they did more
exercise and spent more time with family and friends, whereas now many suffer loneliness
and health problems.
What are the causes of this and what are some solutions?
3. Nowadays more and more business meetings and business training are taking place
online. Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?
4. Young adults should contribute to their communities by doing unpaid work in
their free time. Do advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
5. In many countries people are living in a "throwaway society" where things are used for a
short time and thrown away.
What are the causes of this and what problems does it lead to?
6. Shopping is now one of the most popular forms of leisure activity in many countries for
young adults. Why is this? Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?
7. Some people say it is manufactures and supermarkets responsibility to reduce the
amount of packaging of products they sell and others say it is the consumers responsibility
to avoid buying products with too much packaging.
Discuss both views and give your opinion.
8. It is difficult for many people to create a balance between their professional and their
personal life.
What are the causes of this? What can be done to solve this problem?

13. FAMILY
1. Nowadays it is common for people to get married and have children in their
thirties rather than when they are younger. Do you agree or disagree that this trend
will benefit society?

2. It is necessary for parents to attend a parenting training course to bring their children
up. Do you agree or disagree?

3. These days many families move to other countries for work. Some people believe that the
children in these families benefit from this move. However, others believe that it makes life
more difficult for the children.
Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

4. Some people say that parents should places restrictions on the hours their children
spend watching TV and playing computer games, and encourage them to spend this time
reading books instead. Do you agree or disagree?

5. Some people think parents should supervise their children's activities closely, while
others believe children should have more freedom.
Discuss both views and give your opinion.
14. TRANSPORTATION
1. Some people believe that the increasing number of vehicles is one of the biggest
problems facing cities, while others believe that cities have bigger challenges.
Discuss both views and state your opinion.

15. ARTS
Some people argue that arts, such as paintings and music, are a waste of money and the
government should spend this money on other public services.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

16. TOWN AND COUNTRY

1. Many young people are leaving their homes in rural areas to study or work in the
cities.What are the reasons? Do the advantages of this development outweigh its
disadvantages?

2. Overpopulation of urban areas has led to numerous problems.

Identify one or two serious ones and suggest ways that governments and individuals can
tackle these problems.

17. ARCHITECTURE
1. When designing a building, the most important factor is the intended use of the building
rather than its outward appearance.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?

2. In the past, buildings often reflected the culture of a society but today all modern
buildings look alike and cities throughout the world are becoming more and more similar.
What do you think is the reason for this, and is it a good thing or a bad thing?
You should use your own ideas, knowledge and experience and support your arguments
with examples and relevant evidence.

18. GENDER ISSUES

1. Some people think that men are naturally more competitive than women.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?

19. BUSINESSES
As well as making money, businesses also have social responsibilities. To what extent do
you agree or disagree?

In some countries, governments are encouraging industries and businesses to move to

regional areas outside the big cities.
Do the advantages of this trend outweigh the disadvantages?

20. GLOBAL ISSUES

1. Demand for food is increasing worldwide.
What is the cause of this? What measures can the international community take to meet
this demand
2. At the present time, the population of some countries includes a relatively large number
of young adults, compared with the number of older people.
Do the advantages of this situation outweigh the disadvantages?

3. In many countries, the rich are becoming richer and poor are becoming poorer.
Why is this a problem? What solutions are there to tackle this problem?

21. ENTERTAINMENT
1. These days some people spend a lot of money on tickets to go to sporting or cultural
events. Do you think this is a positive or negative development?

2. Films and computer games which contain violence are very popular. Some people believe
they have a negative effect on society and so should be banned. Other people, however, say
they are just harmless and help people to relax.
Discuss both these points of view and give your own opinion.

3. Many companies sponsor sports as a way of advertising themselves. Some people think
that it is good thing, while others think that it has disadvantages.
Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

4. Many famous sports players advertise sports products. Do the advantages of this
outweigh the disadvantages?

5. These days many children spend a lot of their time playing computer games but little
time doing sports.
Why is this? Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?
RELATED ARTICLES

1.Education

200 Students, Parents & Educators Spent Two Years Thinking About How to Support
the Whole Child. Here Are 6 Things They Found (970 words)

Here are the six recommendations from the commission:

1. Define student success to prioritize the whole child

Whether it’s at the school or policy level, student success should be defined not just by
children’s academic abilities but also by how well they can demonstrate social-emotional
skills such as working well with others, managing their time, and setting and achieving
goals.

The commission recommends that states include these skills in their learning standards
and that schools and districts create action plans around teaching them. Schools can use
tools like school climate and culture surveys to gauge how well these practices are working.

Tacoma, Washington, one school district highlighted in the report, has done this work over
the span of a decade by creating a whole-child initiative, with input from the school
community and researchers at the University of Washington on how to make social-
emotional learning a priority.

2. Make the places where students learn safe and supportive

The report recommends that schools implement restorative discipline practices and
incorporate student voice to make them places where students feel heard and are safe.

Rather than filling a school with metal detectors, administrators should use social-
emotional learning as a tool to increase safety by reducing aggressive behaviors and
bullying. Teachers should also receive training that helps them support students across
diverse backgrounds.

Having teachers instruct a cohort of students for several consecutive years, holding regular
advisory meetings, and implementing mentoring programs can help students feel
connected to the adults in their school.

Students can help play a more meaningful role in their learning if they have more choice in
the types of academic projects they pursue or are allowed to help lead their parent-teacher
conferences.
“In order for all of this to work and for students to accept social-emotional learning and
succeed in schools, succeed in the workforce, and succeed in life, you just have to make the
students feel wanted, and everything will follow,” said Daniel McCutchen, a Harvard
University sophomore and adviser to the National Youth Commission.

3. Instruction should teach social, emotional, and cognitive skills and be embedded
in school practices

Some schools may have one specific social-emotional learning program, while others may
embed these lessons into academics. The commission said both methods are acceptable,
but if a social-emotional learning program is going to be effective, it can’t just be limited to
a few minutes a day or to a few grades. Adults across the school should be teaching these
skills in class, on the playground, and during extracurriculars.

“Academic learning is powerfully enhanced by the cultivation of social, emotional and

cognitive skills, like problem solving and critical thinking, and by character habits,” the
report said.

McCutchen agreed: “I think that learning and emotional management are inextricably
linked. You can’t learn without your emotions.”

An example of this is EL Education, a project-based model in which students learn and

develop character through semester-long projects that they choose. Students work
together, provide constructive feedback on one another’s work, give presentations on their
projects, and recommend changes to their local communities on issues such as river
restoration and park development.

4. Adults should become experts in child development

Teacher preparation programs should encourage such topics as the science of learning,
child development, how to teach students who have experienced trauma, and how to make
students across diverse backgrounds feel safe in school. Policymakers can create incentives
for teacher colleges to prioritize this work, the report said.

Schools and districts should consider whether applicants have a track record in
implementing social-emotional development when making hiring decisions. Licensure
requirements should support these kinds of skills, and teachers should have their own
social-emotional needs supported in schools.

5. The entire community can help support the whole child

Parents, students, and other community members can all participate in supporting whole-
child development. Parents and students can take part in advisory boards, especially
around issues like deciphering their school’s climate survey results and providing
recommendations for how to improve a school’s culture.
Schools can engage partners to make sure students have access to mental health services
and that their nutritional needs are met. Funds should be used to hire staff who can engage
these community partners. Policymakers can invest in more wraparound services at
schools.

“I think that it’s not as simple as training the teachers to do this one thing,” de Souza said.
“Everyone has to be on board and understand what’s going on and help students feel
comfortable in the classroom.”

6. Create a closer partnership between researchers and schools

Sometimes, education research is published that educators never see. That’s why the
commission recommends that scientists and teachers work more closely together — so
researchers can share best practices and educators can give feedback on how it can be
implemented in school.

One way to do this is for researchers to go a step beyond their usual research article format
and write an additional summary of how their research can be used in schools.

Poulos reached out to the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence when he wanted to
measure how social-emotional learning was being taught at his high school. The
researchers there provided him with a school climate survey and offered to analyze the
results for him. His school also sends teachers there for professional learning to help them
learn how to support social-emotional instruction.

While researchers have often been interested in making their work more applicable to real-
world questions and problems, the report provides a concrete path toward doing so, said
Harvard professor and commission panelist Stephanie Jones.

“I don’t think there has been a really explicit statement that that has to be the priority,”
Jones said. “That’s something that’s very clear in this document.”
13 Major Issues in Education at the K-12 Level

Major Issues in EducationAmerica's elementary and secondary schools are facing a myriad
of challenges. Several of the present issues of education are:

1. Government funding for education

On any list of current issues in education, school funding ranks near the top. As you may be
aware, the American public education system is composed of primary and secondary
schools that are supported by taxes. Over 90 percent of the funding for public K-12 schools
comes from state and local governments. In the wake of the Great Recession, most states
made cuts to funding for schools. That was understandable, since the bulk of state funding
comes from revenues generated by sales and income taxes, both of which drop in times of
recession.

However, many states are still giving schools less cash now than they did before the Great
Recession. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that, as of the 2017-2018
academic year, 29 states were still spending less per K-12 student than they did a decade
earlier. That's why the formulas that states use to fund schools have come under fire in
recent years and have even been the subjects of lawsuits. For example, in 2017, the Kansas
Supreme Court ruled that the legislature's formula for financing schools was
unconstitutional because it didn't adequately fund education in the state.

Less funding means that smaller staffs, fewer programs, and diminished resources for
students are common problems in school. In some cases, schools are unable to pay for
essential maintenance. A 2017 report noted that close to a quarter of all U.S. public schools
are in fair or poor condition and that 53 percent of schools need renovations and repairs.
Plus, one survey discovered that teachers spent an average of $530 of their own money on
classroom supplies.

The issue reached a tipping point in 2018, with teachers in Arizona, Colorado, and other
states walking off the job to demand additional educational funding. Some of the protests
resulted in modest funding increases, but many educators believe that more must be done.

2. School safety

Over the past several years, a string of high-profile mass shootings in U.S. schools have
resulted in dozens of deaths and led to debates about the best ways to keep students safe.
In a poll conducted shortly after 17 people were killed in the shootings at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, 57 percent of teenagers said they were
worried about the possibility of gun violence at their schools.

Figuring out how to prevent such attacks and save the lives of students and school
personnel are problems faced by teachers all across America.
President Trump and other lawmakers have suggested that allowing specially trained
teachers and other school staff to carry concealed weapons would make schools safer. The
idea is that adult volunteers who are already proficient with a firearm could undergo
specialized training in how to deal with an active shooter situation until law enforcement
can arrive. Proponents argue that armed staff could intervene to end the threat and save
lives; in addition, potential attackers would be less likely to target a school if they knew
that the school's personnel were carrying weapons.

Critics argue that more guns in schools will lead to more accidents, injuries, and fear. They
contend that there is scant evidence supporting the idea that armed school officials would
be effective in countering attacks. Some data suggests that the opposite may be true: An FBI
analysis of active shooter situations between 2000 and 2013 noted that law enforcement
personnel who engaged the shooter suffered casualties in 21 out of 45 incidents. And those
were highly trained professionals whose primary purpose was to maintain law and order.
So it's highly unlikely that teachers, whose focus should be on educating children, would do
any better in such situations.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), giving teachers guns is not the
answer. In a March 2018 survey, 74 percent of NEA members opposed arming school
personnel, and two-thirds said they would feel less safe at work if school staff were
carrying guns. To counter gun violence in schools, the NEA supports measures like
requiring universal background checks, preventing mentally ill people from purchasing
guns, and banning assault weapons.

3. Disciplinary policies

Data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights suggests that black
students face disproportionately high rates of suspension and expulsion from school. For
instance, in K-12 schools, black male students make up only eight percent of enrollees but
account for 25 percent of suspensions. So, many people believe that some teachers are
applying the rules of discipline in a discriminatory way and are thus contributing to what
has been termed the "school-to-prison pipeline." That's because research has
demonstrated that students who are suspended or expelled are significantly more likely to
become involved with the juvenile justice system.

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education issued guidelines
for all public schools on how to develop disciplinary practices that reduce disparities and
comply with federal civil rights laws. The guidelines urged schools to limit the use of
exclusionary disciplinary tactics such as suspension and expulsion and adopt more positive
interventions such as counseling and restorative justice strategies. The guidelines also
specified that schools could face a loss of federal funds if they carried out policies that had a
disparate impact on some racial groups.
Opponents argue that banning suspensions and expulsions takes away valuable tools that
teachers can use to combat student misbehavior. They maintain that as long as disciplinary
policies are applied the same way to every student regardless of race, such policies are not
discriminatory. In fact, one major study found that the racial disparities in school
suspension rates could be explained by the prior behavior of the students rather than by
discriminatory tactics on the part of educators.

In 2018, the Federal Commission on School Safety (which was established in the wake of
the school shootings in Parkland, Florida) was tasked with reviewing and possibly
rescinding the 2014 guidelines. According to an Education Next survey taken shortly after
the announced review, only 27 percent of Americans support federal policies that limit
racial disparities in school discipline.

4. Technology in education

Technology in education is a powerful movement that is sweeping through schools

nationwide. After all, today's students have grown up with digital technology and expect it
to be part of their learning experience. But how much of a role should it play in education?

Proponents point out that educational technology offers the potential to engage students in
more active learning, as evidenced in flipped classrooms. It can facilitate group
collaboration and provide instant access to up-to-date resources. Teachers and instructors
can integrate online surveys, interactive case studies, and relevant videos in order to offer
content tailored to different learning styles. Indeed, students with special needs frequently
rely on assistive technology to help them communicate and meaningfully access course
materials.

But there are downsides as well. For instance, technology can definitely be a distraction.
Some students tune out of lessons and spend time checking social media, playing games, or
shopping online. One research study revealed that students who multitasked on a laptop
during class scored 11 percent lower on an exam that tested their knowledge of the lecture.
Students who sat behind those multitaskers scored 17 percent lower. In the fall of 2017,
University of Michigan professor Susan Dynarski cited such research as one of the main
reasons why she bans electronics in her classes.

More disturbingly, technology can pose a real threat to student privacy and security. The
collection of sensitive student data by education technology companies can lead to serious
problems. In 2017, a group called Dark Overlord hacked into school district servers in
several states and obtained access to students' personal information, including counselor
reports and medical records. The group used the data to threaten students and their
families with physical violence.

5. Charter schools and voucher programs

School choice is definitely among the hot topics in education these days. U.S. Secretary of
Education Betsy DeVos is a vocal supporter of various forms of parental choice, including
charter schools and school vouchers.

Charter schools are funded through a combination of public and private money and operate
independently of the public system. They have charters (i.e., contracts) with school
districts, states, or private organizations. These charters outline the academic outcomes
that the schools agree to achieve. Like mainstream public schools, charter schools cannot
teach religion or charge tuition, and their students must complete standardized testing.
However, charter schools are not limited to taking students in a certain geographic area,
and they have more autonomy to choose their teaching methods. They are also subject to
less oversight and fewer regulations.

School vouchers are like coupons that allow parents to use public funds to send their child
to the school of their choice, which can be private and may be either secular or religious. In
many cases, vouchers are reserved for low-income students or students with disabilities.

Advocates argue that charter schools and school vouchers offer parents a greater range of
educational options. Opponents say that they privatize education and siphon funding away
from regular public schools that are already financially strapped. The 2018 Education Next
survey found that 44 percent of the general public supports the expansion of charter
schools, while 35 percent oppose such a move. The same poll found that 54 percent of
people support vouchers.

6. Common Core

The Common Core State Standards is a set of academic standards for math and language
arts that specify what public school students are expected to learn by the end of each year
from kindergarten through 12th grade. Developed in 2009, the standards were designed to
promote equity among public K-12 students, since all students would take standardized
end-of-year tests and be held to the same internationally benchmarked standards. The idea
was to institute a system that brought all schools up to the same level and allowed for
comparison of student performance in different regions. Such standards would help all
students with college and career readiness.

Some opponents see the standards as unwelcome federal intrusion into state control of
education. Others are critical of the way the standards were developed with little input
from experienced educators. Many teachers argue that the standards result in inflexible
lesson plans that allow for less creativity and fun in the learning process.

Some critics also take issue with the lack of accommodation for non-traditional learners.
The Common Core prescribes standards for each grade level, but students with disabilities
or language barriers often need more time to fully learn the material.
The vast majority of states adopted the Common Core State Standards when they were first
introduced. Since then, more than a dozen states have either repealed the standards or
revised them to align better with local needs. In many cases, the standards themselves have
remained virtually the same but given a different name.

And a name can be significant. In the Education Next 2018 survey, a group of American
adults was asked whether they supported common standards across states. About 61
percent replied that they did. But when another group was polled about Common Core
specifically, only 45 percent said they supported it.

7. Standardized testing

Issues in EducationIn the minds of many, educational reform means making changes to the
system in order to ensure that students from all over the country measure up to the same
set of standards. The theory behind standardized tests is that they provide an objective
measure of student performance and can help ensure that all students become proficient in
course material. Standardized testing was meant to hold public schools accountable if they
failed to provide effective instruction to all students. Without such measures, it was argued,
low-income and minority students would fall through the cracks and not receive the same
quality education as their more affluent white counterparts.

During the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) years, schools—and teachers—were judged by
how well students scored on such tests. Schools whose results weren't up to par faced
intense scrutiny, and in some cases state takeover or closure. Teachers' effectiveness was
rated by how much improvement their students showed on standardized exams. The Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which took effect in 2016, removed the most punitive aspects
of NCLB while maintaining the requirement to test students every year in Grades 3 to 8,
and once in high school.

But many critics say that rampant standardized testing is one of the biggest problems in
education. They argue that the pressure to produce high test scores has resulted in a teach-
to-the-test approach to instruction in which other non-tested subjects (such as art, music,
and physical education) have been given short shrift in order to devote more time to test
preparation. And they contend that policymakers overemphasize the meaning of
standardized test results, which don't present a clear or complete picture of overall student
learning.

8. Teacher salaries

In most states, teacher pay has steadily eroded over the last several years. Data from the
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reveals that across the U.S., average salaries
for public elementary and secondary school teachers actually dropped by close to five
percent between the 2009-2010 school year and the 2016-2017 one. The decreases were
especially pronounced in states like Oklahoma (17 percent) and Colorado (16 percent),
both of which saw massive teacher walkouts in the spring of 2018.
Of course, there were significant differences between states. In nine states, average salaries
actually went up over that same time frame. According to the same NCES data, Vermont
saw an increase of nine percent, and North Dakota saw salaries jump by seven percent. It's
also important to note that public school teachers generally enjoy pensions and other
benefits that make up a large share of their compensation.

But the growth in benefits has not been enough to balance out the overall low wages. An
Economic Policy Institute report found that even after factoring in benefits, public-sector
teachers face a compensation penalty of 11.1 percent relative to other college graduates.

The 2018 teacher strikes did result in some modest gains. West Virginia teachers received
a five-percent raise, and Arizona educators got a 20-percent bump spread over three years.

The Education Next 2018 survey found that Americans' support for boosting teacher
salaries was at its highest level since 2008. Among respondents who were first told what
teachers in their state earned, 49 percent said that salaries should rise. That represented a
13-percentage-point increase over the previous year.

9. The teaching of evolution

In the U.S., public school started as a means to spread religious ideals, but it has since
become a strictly secular institution. And the debate over how to teach public school
students about the origins of life has gone on for almost a century.

Today, Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is accepted by virtually the
entire scientific community, but it is still controversial among many Americans who
maintain that living things were guided into existence. A pair of surveys from 2014
revealed that 98 percent of scientists aligned with the American Association for the
Advancement of Science believed that humans evolved over time. But it also revealed that,
overall, only 62 percent of American adults agreed.

Over the years, some states have outright banned teachers from discussing evolution in the
classroom. Others have mandated that students be allowed to question the scientific
soundness of evolution, or that equal time be given to consideration of the Judeo-Christian
notion of divine creation (i.e., creationism).

Some people argue that the theory of intelligent design—which posits that the complexities
of living things cannot be explained by natural selection and can best be explained as
resulting from an intelligent cause—is a legitimate scientific theory that should be allowed
in public school curricula. They say it differs from creationism because it doesn't
necessarily ascribe the design of life to a supernatural deity or supreme being.

Opponents contend that intelligent design is really just creationism in disguise and should
not be taught in public schools because it is religiously motivated and has no credible
scientific basis. And the courts have consistently held that the teaching of creationism and
intelligent design promotes religious beliefs and therefore violates the Constitution's
prohibition against the government establishment of religion. Still, the debate continues.

10. Teacher tenure

Having tenure means that a teacher cannot be let go unless his or her school district
demonstrates just cause. Many states grant tenure to public school teachers who have
received satisfactory evaluations for a specified period of time (which ranges from one to
five years, depending on the state). A few states do not grant tenure at all. And the issue has
long been mired in controversy.

Proponents argue that tenure protects teachers from being dismissed for personal or
political reasons, such as disagreeing with administrators or teaching contentious subjects
such as evolution. Tenured educators can advocate for students without fear of reprisal.
Supporters also say that tenure gives teachers the freedom to try innovative methods of
instruction in order to deliver more engaging educational experiences. Tenure also
protects more experienced (and more expensive) teachers from being arbitrarily replaced
with new graduates who earn lower salaries.

Critics contend that tenure makes it difficult to dismiss ineffectual teachers because going
through the legal process of doing so is extremely costly and time-consuming. They say that
tenure can encourage complacency, since teachers' jobs are secure whether they exceed
expectations or just do the bare minimum. Plus, while the granting of tenure often hinges
on teacher evaluations, research has found that, in practice, more than 99 percent of
teachers receive ratings of satisfactory or better. Some administrators admit to being
reluctant to give low ratings because of the time and effort required to document teachers'
performance and provide support for improvement.

In recent years, lawsuits challenging teacher tenure laws have been brought in several
states. Suits were dismissed in California, New Jersey, and Minnesota. As of 2018, a legal
challenge is still ongoing in New York.

11. Bullying

Bullying continues to be a major issue in schools all across the U.S. According to a National
Center for Education Statistics study, 21 percent of students in Grades 6 through 12
reported having been bullied at school, or on their way to or from school, in 2015. That
figure is down from 32 percent in 2007, but it is still far too high.

The good news is that the same study revealed that the percentage of students who said
they had been bullied almost every day dropped from seven percent in 2007 to four
percent in 2015. In addition, the percentage of students who reported the bullying to an
adult increased from 36 percent to 43 percent over that same time period.
But that still means that almost 60 percent of students are not reporting bullying. And that
means children are suffering.

Bullied students experience a range of emotional, physical, and behavioral problems. They
often feel angry, anxious, lonely, and helpless. They are frequently scared to go to school,
leading them to suffer academically and develop a low sense of self-worth. They are also at
greater risk of engaging in violent acts or suicidal behaviors.

Every state has anti-bullying legislation in place, and schools are expected to develop
policies to address the problem. However, there are differences in how each state defines
bullying and what procedures it mandates when bullying is reported. And only about one
third of states call for school districts to include provisions for support services such as
counseling for students who are victims of bullying (or are bullies themselves).

12. Poverty

Student poverty is a growing problem. Data from the National Center for Education
Statistics shows that as of the 2014-2015 school year, low-income students comprised a
majority (52 percent) of public school students in the U.S. That represented a significant
increase from 2000-2001, when only 38 percent of students were considered low-income
(meaning they qualified for free or discounted school lunches).

The numbers are truly alarming: In 40 states, at least 40 percent of public school enrollees
were eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches, and 18 of those states had student
poverty rates of 50 percent or more.

Low-income students tend to perform worse in school than their more affluent peers.
Studies have shown that family income strongly correlates to student achievement on
standardized tests. That may be partly because parents with fewer financial resources
generally can't afford tutoring and other enrichment experiences that can boost student
achievement. In addition, low-income children are much more likely to experience food
instability, family turmoil, and other stressors that can negatively affect their academic
success.

All of this means that teachers are faced with instructional challenges that go beyond
students' desires to learn.

13. Class size

According to NCES data, in the 2011-2012 school year, the average class size in U.S. public
schools was 21.2 students at the elementary level and 26.8 students at the secondary level.

But anecdotal reports suggest that, today, classrooms commonly have more than 30
students— sometimes as many as 40.
Conventional wisdom holds that smaller classes are beneficial to student learning.
Teachers often argue that the size of a class greatly influences the quality of the instruction
they are able to provide. Indeed, research from the National Education Policy Center has
shown that smaller classes do lead to improved student outcomes, particularly for low-
income and minority students in the early elementary grades.

Many (but not all) states have regulations in place that impose limits on class sizes.
However, those limits become increasingly difficult to maintain in an era of budget
constraints. Reducing class sizes requires hiring more teachers and constructing new
classrooms. And, arguably, allowing class sizes to expand can enable districts to absorb
funding cuts without having to make reductions to other programs such as art and physical
education.

Critics argue that smaller class sizes do not confer as much of an advantage as proponents
claim and that the staggering cost of limiting class sizes makes such policies unworkable.
For instance, Florida amended its constitution in 2002 to cap the size of classes at both the
elementary and secondary level. A 2010 study of its effectiveness found that while the
policy costs the state around $4 billion a year, it has resulted in no significant impact on
test scores for students in Grades 4 through 8.
2. Media

Young people are not watching TV news, but they still want to know about the world
(1000 words)

If we want children to understand what they can trust online, we have to support them to
develop their own news habits

‘The way children are sourcing information has huge implications not only for their
wellbeing but also for society, for politics and for democracy.’ Photograph: Alamy Stock
Photo

Traditional ways of consuming news are dying out, that is undeniable. Ofcom tells us young
people aren’t watching TV news bulletins. We knew this: we’ve known for years that we
have to find ways to reach new audiences, and new ways to package information about the
world in an accessible way. Mainstream TV news bulletins have never been aimed at
children, and now young people are given more choice they naturally choose platforms that
speak to them, and are likely to continue to do so into adulthood. We can’t assume that
young people will ever replenish adult TV news audiences. But is this really a reason to
panic? Or could we instead celebrate the independence of young people, embrace this
change and adapt to it?

For children exposed to media from the moment they are born, they should be developing
skills throughout their education

Not watching TV news doesn’t mean that young people aren’t interested in their world.
NewsWise, a project that teaches nine- to 11-year-olds news literacy, has spent the past
year visiting primary schools in some of the most deprived and geographically remote
locations in the UK. We’ve talked to thousands of children about their views on the news,
teaching them how it is made and its role in a democracy, how to identify bias,
disinformation, opinion and rumour, and how to share stories from their own communities
in a fair and responsible way. We’ve heard whole classes boo Donald Trump, without
knowing why. We’ve seen children desperate to ask questions about the Manchester Arena
bombing, but not know who they can speak to about it. We’ve seen children furiously
debating the Windrush scandal, with a pure sense of right and wrong and a dawning
realisation that the media at its best can truly hold power to account. Children want to
understand complex news stories. They care passionately about the world, and need to
understand why things happen and what they can do about it.

But the way they’re sourcing information has huge implications not only for their wellbeing
but also for society, for politics and for democracy. The National Literacy Trust’s 2018
commission on fake news and the teaching of critical literacy skills in schools showed that
half of young people are worried about not being able to identify fake news. So instead of
despairing of the next generation who don’t copy our own news habits, let’s come together
– media, tech companies, government, teachers and families – and support them to develop
their own.

Where young people are sourcing news on platforms that aren’t curated, where it can be
difficult to identify sources and where disinformation is rife, let’s empower them with the
critical skills they need to question what they are seeing, reading and hearing. And let’s not
wait until they are 14 or 15: recent research from Ofcom has shown that one in five eight-
to-11-year-olds has a social media presence, and 77% of this age group are already on
YouTube. For children exposed to media from the moment they are born, they should be
developing these skills throughout their education. Children deserve a modern curriculum
which truly equips them for this changing media landscape.

Secondly, on platforms where it is easy to exist in filter bubbles, and where debate can be
unbalanced, non-factual and aggressive, we need to create spaces at home, in school and
online where young people can safely access and discuss news, can learn to listen to and
respect different opinions and can ask questions about a world that often doesn’t make
sense.

Where news stories are long-running and complex, and can be difficult to understand even
for adults, young people will disengage. Let’s present complicated news stories in an
accessible way, providing clear background and clarifying which reporting is factual and
which is opinion. This doesn’t mean dumbing down content for young audiences; it means
giving them access to difficult stories in a way they can understand. Who knows? Adults
may appreciate the simplicity too.

And where social media encourages a solitary consumption of the news, let’s try to revive
news as a communal activity. Perhaps not sitting around the wireless in a 1950s fashion,
but giving teachers, parents, families the knowledge and confidence to discuss news in an
open-minded way; to fact-check together; to identify trustworthy sources of news and to
encourage discussion at home, in the car, on the bus, in the playground. Young people may
not be watching TV news, but they are absorbing news all the time from radio, social media,
from newspapers in shops and at home, from overheard conversations and playground
gossip.

They have so many questions – let’s give them the time and the opportunity to ask them.

• Angie Pitt is director of NewsWise, a news literacy project from the Guardian Foundation,
National Literacy Trust and PSHE Association, funded by Google

As 2020 begins…

… we’re asking readers, like you, to make a new year contribution in support of the
Guardian’s open, independent journalism. This has been a turbulent decade across the
world – protest, populism, mass migration and the escalating climate crisis. The Guardian
has been in every corner of the globe, reporting with tenacity, rigour and authority on the
most critical events of our lifetimes. At a time when factual information is both scarcer and
more essential than ever, we believe that each of us deserves access to accurate reporting
with integrity at its heart.

More people than ever before are reading and supporting our journalism, in more than 180
countries around the world. And this is only possible because we made a different choice:
to keep our reporting open for all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to
pay.

We have upheld our editorial independence in the face of the disintegration of traditional
media – with social platforms giving rise to misinformation, the seemingly unstoppable rise
of big tech and independent voices being squashed by commercial ownership. The
Guardian’s independence means we can set our own agenda and voice our own opinions.
Our journalism is free from commercial and political bias – never influenced by billionaire
owners or shareholders. This makes us different. It means we can challenge the powerful
without fear and give a voice to those less heard.

None of this would have been attainable without our readers’ generosity – your financial
support has meant we can keep investigating, disentangling and interrogating. It has
protected our independence, which has never been so critical. We are so grateful.

As we enter a new decade, we need your support so we can keep delivering quality
journalism that’s open and independent. And that is here for the long term. Every reader
contribution, however big or small, is so valuable.
3. Employment

The alarming employment trends that the jobs report won't tell you (889 words)

The US economy has experienced growth for about a decade. Yet the share of the
population that is employed or seeking work has trended down for the last two decades.
Many regions within the United States have an alarmingly high percentage of people who
are not employed or actively looking for a job. We find this to be troubling, since the labor
force participation rate serves as a fundamental marker of the economy's performance.
Increasing participation in the labor force can play a critical role in raising living standards
of the country overall.

In a new study published by The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, we found
that some of the decline in labor force participation can be attributed to either the aging
population heading toward retirement or young people who are increasingly at school
rather than work. However, we are more concerned with the low levels of participation
among groups in the 25- to 54-year-old population that face barriers to labor market
opportunity: people without college degrees (78%), women (75%) and black men (83%),
among others.

Even more alarming, the Hamilton Project's Economic Vitality Index (which measures
income, employment, poverty, life expectancy and housing data to determine whether a
county is struggling or succeeding) reveals dramatic differences in labor force participation
among various parts of the country.

For example, counties ranking in the top 20% of economic vitality — like Chester County,
Pennsylvania and Livingston County, Michigan — have an average prime-age (25 to 54
years old) labor force participation rate of about 86%. That's pretty high. Conversely, those
counties ranked in the bottom fifth of vitality — like Fayette County, Pennsylvania and
Montcalm County, Michigan — have a prime-age labor force participation rate of about
72%, on average. This is a significant difference by any measure, considering that during
the Great Recession and its aftermath, the national average labor force participation fell by
roughly 3 percentage points to a low of 80.6% in October 2013.

While there have always been large gaps in economic performance across regions of the
United States, those gaps have become increasingly locked in place over the last few
decades. In the first 80 years of the 20th century, poorer places tended to grow faster than
wealthier places, partly because labor productivity rose faster in places that started at
lower levels and partly because Americans were more geographically mobile back then.
Those without work were able to move to places with more opportunity. While some
regions certainly featured more economic opportunity than others, the differences were
narrowing over time. However, since the early 1980s, the gaps across regions have become
increasingly entrenched.
The rapid post-2011 economic growth in urban and thriving counties has not helped
struggling places catch up with the rest of the country, with urban counties gaining jobs by
an average of 1.4 percentage points faster than rural counties, according to our research.
Following the Great Recession, the top 60% of counties by vitality have experienced job
growth in the range of 1.5% to 2% per year. Meanwhile, the bottom 20% of counties, such
as Milwaukee County, Wisconsin or Genesee County, Michigan, have seen sluggish growth
of between 0% and 1%. More recently, the gap in job growth has closed somewhat, but
high-vitality counties continue to grow faster than low-vitality counties.

What can be done to address this challenge?

Place-based policies can play a critical role in closing the geographic gaps in labor force
participation. This could include creating geographically targeted job subsidies,
establishing closer links between struggling regions and research universities (which
would allow for researchers to come up with innovative ideas for local economies), and
expanding intergovernmental grants to places that need it most (those that don't have
enough tax revenue to fund their local public infrastructure). Furthermore, policies that
encourage mobility can also help people move to places with greater labor market
opportunity.

Second, to boost employment, the United States will need to continue a robust economic
expansion — but that alone will not be enough to solve the labor market problems of
struggling groups. Inadequate child care options make it difficult for many parents
(especially women) to work. Health challenges ranging from disability to addiction keep
many others out of the labor force. Overly punitive incarceration and post-incarceration
policies leave many more out of the labor force. And failures in education and training have
also contributed to both lower wages and lower participation.

Accordingly, enacting policies that make it easier to balance employment and caregiving,
such as paid parental leave and intermittent leave for caregiving, and expanding access to
affordable child care could help caregivers to stay in the labor force. In addition, improving
access to health care and making disability less of a barrier to employment would increase
participation. Reforms to disability insurance could incentivize employers to accommodate
workers with disabilities and make it easier for them to participate in the labor force.
Finally, both tax policy changes and improved education and training can improve labor
market outcomes for groups that are often left behind.

To truly come to grips with America's economic divides across geography, policymakers
must confront the problem of localized joblessness. By increasing demand for labor and
removing impediments to working, we can build an economy that shares its benefits more
broadly and makes better use of the talents and drive of people living in struggling places.
4. Finance/Economics

Five Reasons Women Are Taking the Lead In Financial Planning

When I began my career, I was an executive leader in the uber-competitive world of

financial services. During those formative years, I had the pleasure of leading some top
women advisors. In the three major metropolitan areas I led, women consistently rose to
the top of the rankings for client acquisition, satisfaction, retention and overall productivity
during a 15-year span.

I don’t believe I was a primary catalyst of this success among women in those
organizations. They were highly talented and driven individuals, many of whom just
needed a platform to do their thing. As a third-party observer, watching them do just that
has led me to a conclusion: women are taking over the lead role with regards to financial
decisions.

When I was affiliated with successful women advisors early in my career, I was invited on
several occasions to take part in conferences and speaking panels around why women had
growth trajectories accelerating more quickly than their male counterparts. Stereotypically
and historically, finances -- in terms of planning for and providing money -- had been the
job of the man. Well, data shows that this trend is not just reversing -- the pendulum has
actually swung the other way, and it’s happening very quickly. Now, as a private client
wealth manager, I'm noticing more than ever the need to plan specifically for women.

The idea that men are the breadwinners is outdated, as 38% of women out-earn their
husbands and according to an expert from FiveThirtyEight.com, in one in three of those
cases, the husband isn’t earning anything at all. Additionally, the trend of women making
financial decisions goes beyond just the earning power. I’ve identified five reasons why this
upward trend continues to grow.

Reason One: According to a LIMRA study, women are strategically more decisive with
financial choices, specifically with regards to:

Election of Social Security benefits

Understanding their retirement expenses

Estimating the health care coverage they will need in retirement

Determining how long their funds will last

Designing a cash flow strategy during retirement

Reason Two: Women have become significant household earners and more often become
the key decision makers. One Wall Street Journal article (paywall) posits that, by 2022,
women will control over 60% of the wealth in the United States.

As of 2012, women controlled 51.3% of personal wealth in the United States (with these
assets set to increase from $8 trillion to $22 trillion by 2020).

48% of estates worth more than $5 million are controlled by women, compared to 35%
controlled by men.

Over the next 40 years, women are expected to inherit $28.7 trillion in intergenerational
wealth transfers.

90% of all women will be solely responsible for their own or their family’s finances at some
point in their lives.

Reason Three: Women are getting more engaged in their financial decisions. A study done
by Artemis Strategy Group shows that only 4% of women are not involved in financial
decisions, with the remaining 96% either sharing in, or primarily in charge of, financial
decisions. Baby boomer women are extremely focused on having a plan for the long run (76
%) and understanding their financial situation (91%).

Meanwhile, Generation X women are dealing with life events that potentially cause
financial hardship, like divorce, losing a job or making a mistake with their investment
assets, long-term care for aging parents, or grown children returning to the household. Gen
X women are more likely to face a life challenge (51%) than Gen X men (43%).

Reason Four: Women are more willing to be educated. The same Artemis Strategy Group
study showed that younger women feel strongly that they have received more financial
education and are more attuned to financial decisions than their mothers were. Websites,
podcasts and financial tools that provide information are being utilized more by women.
Married millennial women who are the primary financial decision-makers say they take on
this role because they are more knowledgeable than their partners (66%) or because they
enjoy making financial decisions (49%).

Reason Five: There is a strong underlying emotional component to money decisions, and
women are often more in tune to this. The video “It’s Not About the Nail” is a light-hearted
take on the typical key differences in communication and emotional intelligence between
men and women. One of the reasons there has been a boom in women advisors and their
success is that women reach other women in different ways. Trust is the foundation for
everything when it comes to women dealing with women.

In my observations and participation in over 2,900 meetings in my career with families,

business owners and executives, I have noticed that men tend to lean toward being more
analytic, choosing to look at numbers to make decisions. There is an emphasis with men on
getting to a "yes" or "no" decision and an idea that financial choices should be clear-cut. In
reality, financial decisions involve a lot of gray areas, because life is constantly changing
and evolving. This means that not only should plans be fluid and adjusting to the present
moment, but emotions must be considered.

I’ve seen that women tend to look at the bigger picture. Women advisors are more intuitive
to pace and tone, and they can read emotional cues in meetings much more adeptly than
men advisors.

Personal finances can be very intimate. When you do lose a job, face a major illness, or lose
a loved one, there are certainly emotional clouds that affect decision-making. Women are
generally better able to recognize these emotions, while men can tend to ignore or be
unaware of them altogether.

The need for financial education and professionals who can relate and build ongoing
relationships is crucial for this growing segment of women in the world of finance. Is your
advisory relationship attuned to this trend in women and financial decision-making? If not,
it may be time to reassess whether you’re receiving the appropriate education and
empowerment.

My philosophy is to make sure that decisions are made not just on sound logic and
numerical analysis but, more importantly, on intangible information and intuitive insight.
Those intangibles are what now put women at the head of the table when it comes to their
success and the planning I do for them.

5. Politics/ Government

What can governments and leaders do when trust evaporates?

The 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer points to an “evaporation of trust” in institutions and
leaders worldwide. The annual survey finds a decline in trust overall, with more countries
classified as distrusting than trusting.

Globally, trust in business, media and NGOs is at its lowest level since the 2008 financial
crisis. While Australia is not yet among the 48% of countries regarded as distrusters, the
public’s trust in government, business and the media has declined. Unusually, so has their
trust in NGOs.

This survey was run late in 2014, well before the federal Liberal leadership crisis and the
electoral backlash against the governing LNP in Queensland. But the February 3 Essential
poll found just 27% of those surveyed agreed that Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who
survived a leadership spill motion on Monday, was “trustworthy”.
What the Edelman survey highlights is a deeper malaise in the public’s faith in its core
institutions and leaders.

One finding encapsulates the paradox of trust facing Australian governments and leaders –
at all levels. The public has lost trust in government mainly because they do not believe
that it “contributes to the greater good”. More than 50% do not believe that the
government helps them to live a fulfilling and healthy life.

This would appear to provide government with an opportunity to act, to demonstrate it can
support people in their desire to live better lives and to intervene where citizens lack
confidence in business regulation. However, the lack of trust in government to act seems to
match the lack of confidence in government’s capacity to act.

Rise of individualism erodes idea of public good

This paradox can be explained by transformative changes in state-society relations in many

countries. Globalisation and the associated range of economic, technological, social and
political developments have supported the rise of individualism.

People appear freer to access our own sources of expertise; to exercise choice in a range of
services; to occupy multiple identities that reflect our various personal and professional
interests; and to engage with others in temporary and often virtual networks for political
and social purposes.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, this has fractured the idea of a public interest or public good. One
result is scepticism about the ability of large institutions to respond to people’s diverse
needs and aspirations, so reducing their faith in government.

Underlying this change is a pervasive doubt about governments’ capacity to deal with the
huge challenges of our time, such as climate change and inequality. The public has the
uneasy feeling that, in a globalised, networked world, no-one is really in charge.

In response, the public is refocusing on family-like relationships, based on intimacy,

familiarity and proximity. The Edelman findings suggest that in Australia family-owned
businesses have a “trust premium” over state-owned firms or “big business”.

Among governments – at least those in “developed democracies” – the doubt generated by

the failure of big government programs since the mid-20th century to transform societies
prompted a shift to “evidence-based policymaking”. This included a preference for
technical experts and arm’s-length governing organisations rather than political argument.

Consequently, governments face multiple dilemmas in their relations with citizens. As

governments and public servants grow more modest in what they might be able to achieve,
the public grows more demanding. As individuals, we want freedom to act in support of our
desires but also want to feel secure.
As service users and customers, we want government to regulate private sector excesses
but lack confidence in its capacity to do this. As voters, we want government to do more to
support our well-being but won’t vote for it if it’s going to cost us anything.

Our quest for innovation requires trust

Recent public policy innovations provide evidence of these dilemmas and show clearly the
importance of trust to innovation.

Public policy and services are increasingly delivered through innovative hybrid
arrangements – public, private and non-governmental organisations working together.
These can be simple, such as a contract between a public service organisation and a private
or not-for-profit organisation to deliver a service. But they can also be very complex,
comprising innovative organisational forms and/or legal and financial arrangements.

However, these partnership arrangements raise important questions. There are questions
about the government’s identity. How can it be both a commissioner and a regulator of
partnerships? What about transparency, particularly where commercial confidentiality
denies the public access to data?

And there are questions about accountability. How can government hold providers to
account when multiple partners are involved, all with some measure of responsibility?

The internet is another area of collision between innovation and trust in government. The
“internet of everything” points to the value that can be created through the
interconnections of people, objects, data and processes. From the personalisation of
services to the management of cities and even ensuring access to water, advocates in
business, government and the non-government sector are exploring the internet’s
innovative potential.

However, as Edelman’s data illustrates, citizens are growing distrustful. We wonder to

what extent we are our own curators of information and knowledge. Who ultimately
“owns” the internet of everything? What do these developments mean for privacy?

The lack of transparency in commissioning Victoria’s East-West Link project offers a

textbook example of how not to win public trust. AAP/Joe Sabljak

What does rebuilding trust entail for government?

Work at the Melbourne School of Government suggests ways in which governments can
create the conditions for rebuilding trust.

Government needs to lead open and transparent debate with all its communities about
policy challenges and options. Expertise comes in many forms – technical, political,
professional, lived and user expertise. All need to be included in policy debates, particularly
in an era of budget constraint.
Innovation remains the holy grail in public service reform. Public servants continue to
draw from non-governmental sectors in their efforts to improve services and outcomes.
Trusted innovation relies, however, on accessible and transparent information to users,
clear evidence of its operability and participation in development.

As governments contemplate operating more as enablers of policy and services rather than
providers, it becomes hugely important to get the commissioning right. Commissioning is
not just another form of contracting or procurement. It requires a comprehensive
framework for decision-making and resource allocation.

Clear accountability relationships are essential to secure public trust in the process and
outcomes. This suggests building accountability into the lifecycle of commissioning.

To rebuild trust in a changed environment, governments need to have the appropriate

workforce in place. When trust in leaders – political and organisational – is declining,
citizens and users look to others including frontline staff for trust signals.

In our work on the 21st-century public service workforce we identified that, in addition to
the expected analytical, professional or technical expertise, much closer attention must be
paid to developing a workforce with broader skills. These include commercial skills, design
thinking and softer skills such as relationship building, communication, negotiation and
brokering.

These skills will be essential for the depth of engagement public servants will be expected
to have with external partners, citizens and communities.
6. Environment

Oceans on brink of catastrophe

The world's oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the
great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are
degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the
cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming
and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.

The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a
catastrophe "unprecedented in human history", according to the report, from a panel of
leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International
Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The stark suggestion made by the panel is that the potential extinction of species, from
large fish at one end of the scale to tiny corals at the other, is directly comparable to the five
great mass extinctions in the geological record, during each of which much of the world's
life died out. They range from the Ordovician-Silurian "event" of 450 million years ago, to
the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction of 65 million years ago, which is believed to have wiped
out the dinosaurs. The worst of them, the event at the end of the Permian period, 251
million years ago, is thought to have eliminated 70 per cent of species on land and 96 per
cent of all species in the sea.

The panel of 27 scientists, who considered the latest research from all areas of marine
science, concluded that a "combination of stressors is creating the conditions associated
with every previous major extinction of species in Earth's history". They also concluded:

* The speed and rate of degeneration of the oceans is far faster than anyone has predicted;

* Many of the negative impacts identified are greater than the worst predictions;

* The first steps to globally significant extinction may have already begun.

"The findings are shocking," said Dr Alex Rogers, professor of conservation biology at
Oxford University and IPSO's scientific director. "As we considered the cumulative effect of
what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had
individually realised.

"This is a very serious situation demanding unequivocal action at every level. We are
looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime, and worse, in the
lifetime of our children and generations beyond that." Reviewing recent research, the panel
of experts "found firm evidence" that the effects of climate change, coupled with other
human-induced impacts such as overfishing and nutrient run-off from farming, have
already caused a dramatic decline in ocean health.
Not only are there severe declines in many fish species, to the point of commercial
extinction in some cases, and an "unparalleled" rate of regional extinction of some habitat
types, such as mangrove and seagrass meadows, but some whole marine ecosystems, such
as coral reefs, may be gone within a generation.

The report says: "Increasing hypoxia [low oxygen levels] and anoxia [absence of oxygen,
known as ocean dead zones], combined with warming of the ocean and acidification, are
the three factors which have been present in every mass extinction event in Earth's history.

"There is strong scientific evidence that these three factors are combining in the ocean
again, exacerbated by multiple severe stressors. The scientific panel concluded that a new
extinction event was inevitable if the current trajectory of damage continues."

The panel pointed to a number of indicators showing how serious the situation is. It said,
for example, that a single mass coral bleaching event in 1998 killed 16 per cent of all the
world's coral reefs, and pointed out that overfishing has reduced some commercial fish
stocks and populations of "bycatch" (unintentionally caught) species by more than 90 per
cent.

It disclosed that new scientific research suggests that pollutants, including flame-retardant
chemicals and synthetic musks found in detergents, are being traced in the polar seas, and
that these chemicals can be absorbed by tiny plastic particles in the ocean which are in turn
ingested by marine creatures such as bottom-feeding fish.

Plastic particles also assist the transport of algae from place to place, increasing the
occurrence of toxic algal blooms – which are also caused by the influx of nutrient-rich
pollution from agricultural land.

The experts agreed that when these and other threats are added together, the ocean and
the ecosystems within it are unable to recover, being constantly bombarded with multiple
attacks.

The report sets out a series of recommendations and calls on states, regional bodies and
the United Nations to enact measures that would better conserve ocean ecosystems, and in
particular demands the urgent adoption of better governance of the largely unprotected
high seas.

"The world's leading experts on oceans are surprised by the rate and magnitude of changes
we are seeing," said Dan Laffoley, the IUCN's senior adviser on marine science and
conservation. "The challenges for the future of the ocean are vast, but, unlike previous
generations, we know now what needs to happen. The time to protect the blue heart of our
planet is now, today and urgent."

The report's conclusions will be presented at the UN in New York this week, when
delegates begin discussions on reforming governance of the oceans.
The five great extinctions

The Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction (the End Cretaceous or K-T extinction) 65.5 Mya
(million years ago)

Plankton, which lies at the bottom of the ocean food chain took a hard hit in an event that
also saw the demise of the last of the non-avian dinosaurs. The giant mosasaurs and
plesiosaurs also vacated the seas. An asteroid or volcano eruptions are thought to be to
blame.

The Triassic–Jurassic extinction (End Triassic) – 205 Mya

Having a profound affect on sea and land, this period saw 20 per cent of all marine families
disappear. In total, half the species known to be living on Earth at that time went extinct.
Gradual climate change, fluctuating sea-levels and volcanic eruptions are among the
reasons cited for the disappearing species.

The Permian–Triassic extinction (End Permian) 251 Mya

A period known as the "great dying" was the most severe of the earth's extinction events,
when 96 per cent of marine species were lost, as well as almost three-quarters of
terrestrial species. The planet took a long time to recover from what has also been called
"the mother of all mass extinctions".

The late Devonian extinction 360–375 Mya

Three-quarters of all species on Earth died out in a period that may have spanned several
million years. The shallow seas were the worst affected and reefs would not recover for
another 100 million years. Changes in sea level and climate change were among the
suspected causes.

The third largest extinction in Earth's history had two peak dying times. During the
Ordovician, most life was in the sea, so it was sea creatures such as trilobites, brachiopods
and graptolites that were drastically reduced. In all, some 85 per cent of sea species were
wiped out.

Waves of destruction

Case Study One in the panel's report assesses the "deadly trio" of factors – global warming,
ocean acidification and anoxia (absence of oxygen). Most if not all of the five global mass
extinctions in prehistory carry the fingerprints of these "carbon perturbations", the report
says, and the "deadly trio" are present in the ocean today.
Case Study Two looks at coral reefs, and the fact that these "rainforests of the sea" (so-
called for their species richness) are now facing multiple threats. The panel concluded that
these threats acting together (pollution, acidification, warming, overfishing) will have a
greater impact than if they were occurring on their own, and so estimates of how coral
reefs will respond to global warming will have to be revised.

Case Study Three examines pollution, which is an old problem, but may be presenting new
threats, as a wide range of novel chemicals is now being found in marine ecosystems, from
pharmaceuticals to flame retardants, and some are known to be endocrine disrupters or
can damage immune systems. Marine litter, especially, plastics, is a huge concern.

Case Study Four looks at over-fishing: it focuses on the Chinese bahaba, a giant fish which
was first described by scientists only in the 1930s, but is now critically endangered: it has
gone from discovery to near-disappearance in less than 70 years. A recent study showed
that 63 per cent of the assessed fish stocks worldwide are over-exploited or depleted.
The big global environmental issues we need to resolve by 2030

Climate change is the big environmental problem that humanity will face over the next
decade, but it isn't the only one. We'll take a look at some of them — from water shortages
and loss of biodiversity to waste management — and discuss the challenges we have ahead
of us.

This coming decade will be vital when it comes to solving the big environmental issues
facing our planet.

The third decade of the 21st century has begun and the environmental challenges we have
ahead of us, set out in the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, are many. This
global plan of action adopted in 2015 puts forward specific measures to achieve a world
that is fairer, more prosperous and more respectful of the environment within ten years. In
this regard, the UN itself warns that we are running late, and the question now is whether
we still have time to save the planet.

Below, we sum up some of the main global environmental problems which the UN says we
must resolve this decade:

CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION

Global warming due to CO2 emissions — which according to the UN have increased by
almost 50% since 1990 — is accelerating climate change and threatens the survival of
millions of people, plants and animals by causing meteorological events like droughts, fires
and floods, which are becoming increasingly frequent and more extreme. This means we
need to take measures to mitigate its effects and adapt to its consequences which, even if
we keep global warming under 2 ºC as required by the Paris Agreements, will last for
centuries.

POLLUTION PROBLEMS AND THEIR EFFECT ON HEALTH

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 90% of humanity breathes polluted
air, so is calling for a reduction in air pollution to cut rates of respiratory illnesses, thus
preventing seven million deaths a year. Contaminated water also causes major health
problems and five million deaths a year according to Oxfam Intermó n. The UN advocates
eliminating dumping, minimising the use of chemicals and treating more wastewater,
among other measures.
PROTECTING THE OCEANS

The oceans have become the giant waste dumps for plastic. What's more, there are other
serious environmental problems related to the oceans such as damage to ecosystems due
to global warming, dumping of pollutants, wastewater and fuel spills. The UN calls for
improved management of protected areas, giving them sufficient resources, and reducing
overfishing, pollution and acidification of the ocean caused by the increase in the earth's
temperature.

THE ENERGY TRANSITION AND RENEWABLES

While energy accounts for 60% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the UN
calculates that 13% of the world population lacks access to electricity and that 3 billion
people depend on fossil fuels for cooking. This situation requires an energy transition
towards a cleaner, more accessible and efficient model based on the use of renewable
energy sources to build communities that are more sustainable, inclusive and resistant to
environmental problems like climate change.

A SUSTAINABLE FOOD MODEL

Intensive food production harms the environment by depleting the soil and damaging
marine ecosystems. What's more, overexploitation of natural resources has put food safety
and the availability of drinking water at risk. The UN considers it essential to change the
food production model and our food habits, including a more plant-based diet featuring
local ingredients to save energy and reduce CO2 emissions.

PROTECTING BIODIVERSITY

We have already lost 8% of known animal species and 22% are at risk of extinction due
mainly to the destruction of their natural habitats, poaching and the introduction of
invasive species. The UN has called for conclusive actions to put an end to these threats and
conserve our natural heritage, including our increasingly threatened forests.

SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND MOBILITY

The growth of cities, which will need to accommodate around 5 billion people by 2030,
will be another of the decade's big environmental challenges. The metropolises of the
future will need to be compact, safe, inclusive, ecological and energy efficient, with more
green spaces, more environmentally friendly buildings and more sustainable methods of
transport which put the needs of pedestrians above those of traffic.
HYDRIC STRESS AND WATER SCARCITY

The lack of this resource, vital to human, animal and plant survival, affects more than 40%
of the world population, and according to the World Economic Forum, agriculture accounts
for more than 70% of the water used in the planet's most arid countries. The responsible
use of hydrological resources will improve food and energy production, as well as
protecting the biodiversity of our water ecosystems and helping us slow climate change.

EXTREME METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA

Global warming is causing increasingly frequent, intense and devastating droughts,

hurricanes and heatwaves. Keeping temperatures stable, as has been championed in
negotiations at the highest level, as well as improving our capacity to respond to climate
emergencies, are the keys to minimising the number of these catastrophes, adapting to
them, and defending ourselves from them.

OVERPOPULATION AND WASTE MANAGEMENT

The UN expects the world population to exceed 8.5 billion by 2030, forcing us to
considerably reduce the amount of waste we generate through prevention, reduction, reuse
and recycling as part of the circular economy, with the aim of minimising the impact on
health and on the environment.
7. Healthcare

Protecting the world from infectious disease threats: now or never

Introduction

Whether by microbial mutation, movement across borders, or man-made biological

release, a new health threat is inevitable, unpredictable and potentially devastating. For the
first time, the world now has a clear picture of how prepared countries are for this
potentially catastrophic event. When the international evaluation team left Haiti in July
2019, one hundred countries had completed a Joint External Evaluation (JEE) of health
emergency readiness. The JEE is a voluntary, externally validated assessment of 19
technical areas required to prevent, detect and respond to health emergencies. This
milestone, in addition to the ongoing uncontrolled Ebola epidemic in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, makes this an opportune time to take stock of both the status of the
world’s preparedness and of what needs to be done to make the world safer.

When the JEE process began in 2016, many doubted that countries would be willing to
openly share information, or that the evaluations would be consistent. Fortunately, these
concerns were unfounded: countries—including nearly every country in Africa—were
eager to participate and openly shared detailed information on their strengths and
weaknesses. International teams, using standard measures, created a consistent rating
system.1 The results are in. JEEs have documented that, despite the certainty that the
world will face another epidemic challenge at least as great as recent outbreaks of severe
acute respiratory syndrome, H1N1 influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome, Ebola and
Zika, most countries remain woefully underprepared to manage large-scale epidemic
disease threats.

The first 100 JEEs lead to three overarching conclusions. First, no country is fully prepared
to manage disease epidemics (figure 1).2 Second, the number of preparedness gaps, and
the resulting to-do list of actions to take to fill them, is overwhelming: more than 7000
priority tasks await action. Third, JEEs have diagnosed preparedness gaps well, but few of
these gaps have been filled. To make the world safer, global institutions, partner countries
and organisations, and countries themselves must follow the assessments with urgent
action to step up readiness to prevent, detect and respond to disease outbreaks by
addressing financing, prioritisation and management.

Financing

Disease outbreaks are both lethal and costly. During 1997–2009, economic losses from six
major outbreaks averaged $6.7 billion per year, and the cost of the 2014–2016 Ebola
epidemic alone is estimated at $53 billion.3 Preparedness can prevent many outbreak-
related costs, with estimated incremental worldwide expenditure of $4.5 billion per year
needed to upgrade public health systems in low and middle-income countries, strengthen
global institutions’ abilities to prevent and respond to emergencies, and invest in research
and development of new vaccines, diagnostics and countermeasures for epidemic and
pandemic-prone diseases.4

Unfortunately, preparedness, although more effective and less costly than response,5
rarely ranks high on political agendas. Competing priorities for finite national budgets,
along with the invisible outcome of successful preparedness, have resulted in little funding,
despite an estimated 25%–88% annual return on investment.6 Vulnerable lower income
countries have bigger gaps and greater need for external financing. Of the 24 least-
prepared countries,2 20 (83%) are sufficiently low income to be eligible for International
Development Association (IDA18) from the World Bank.7 In these countries, there are
limited resources and competing demands, with the result that public health is often a low
priority.8 The World Bank has recently dedicated additional support for health security in
these settings through specific IDA projects such as the Regional Disease Surveillance
Systems Enhancement project.8 Regional development banks can develop similar credit or
grant programmes to build public health capacity in countries and protect regions from the
economic shocks of large-scale outbreaks, as the Asian Development Bank has done.9

Prioritisation

Stepping up preparedness is difficult, and requires that many incremental activities be

done to achieve meaningful change. This is nearly impossible without prioritisation, and
countries need coherent guidance and practical tools to identify where to begin. To reduce
epidemic risk, countries must ensure prioritisation of core capacities of laboratory,
surveillance, workforce and emergency response operations, as well as critical enabling
areas including emergency preparedness, risk communications, and national legislation,
policy and financing. Countries can use information collected from JEEs, annual self-
evaluations of preparedness, risk assessments and evaluations of real and simulated events
to identify specific vulnerabilities and urgent actions to take next. Recently, the WHO and
partners developed a library of key sequential activities necessary for countries to move
from one preparedness level to the next.10 By combining practical technical guidance with
improved prioritisation, countries can move more rapidly from assessment to
improvement.

Management

Preparedness activities are implemented by the government, often supported by donors,

bilateral and non-governmental organisations. Donors and governments often prefer
tangible and highly visible support, such as building Emergency Operations Centers,
without means to support ongoing operational costs and human resource requirements. By
focusing on specific key activities informed by preparedness assessments, partners can
help build the basic systems necessary to find, stop and prevent disease outbreaks. Unless
partners also support management, human resources and strengthening of administrative
systems, many countries are unlikely to efficiently and effectively implement plans.
Strengthening management, improving technical expertise and advocating for increased
long-term domestic financing should be a part of every engagement. Leadership and
management skills are essential to planning and implementation, but their development is
often eclipsed by a focus on more ‘technical’ skills. Management within health systems is
particularly important in low-income settings, where efficient use of limited resources is
critical to accomplish health goals.11–13 Those charged with leading preparedness
activities need effective tools and skills to plan, implement and report on complex
multisector National Action Plans for Health Security (NAPHS) across all 19 technical areas.
On average, it has taken 420 days for countries to conduct a JEE and then release a finalised
NAPHS, which is not yet linked to resource mobilisation. Cumbersome and lengthy
planning processes not effectively linked to resource mobilisation have hindered
implementation of gap-filling activities.

To develop expertise in preparedness, the routine evaluation of detection and response

performance in real or simulated events should be common practice. Use of after-action
reviews,14 and, where necessary, robust simulation exercises, as well as monitoring the
timeliness of outbreak detection, response and control15 enables countries to strengthen
systems for an unusual or larger event. These reviews can also help identify bottlenecks to
effective response, such as inadequate community engagement and geographic or
demographic groups that distrust government action which may require concerted, long-
term efforts to address.

At the onset of the West Africa Ebola epidemic in 2014, most countries did not have Public
Health Emergency Operations Centers (PHEOC). Since then, more than 20 such centres
have been established in Africa, with substantial support from regional and international
partners. Unfortunately, many of these structures are not fully functional and lack key
components, including information management systems and full-time, trained staff. Many
PHEOCs are used primarily as spaces to conduct large meetings, with a high threshold for
activation leading to underutilisation. Emergency response capacity, including emergency
operations centres, will be most effective if used regularly for a broad spectrum of events,
ranging from everyday ‘watch’ activities including disease surveillance, resource
management and functional exercising, to response, including incident management and
coordination of response to outbreaks and other health hazards.

Conclusion

Health cannot be protected by Ministries of Health alone.16 Many sectors need to be

involved in order to increase and sustain investment,17 build long-term capacity and
implement policies affecting health in the food, security and animal sectors. In many
countries, the JEE was the first opportunity for these sectors to work together. This group
should continue to collaborate in order to prioritise which gaps to fill first, begin
implementation, increase domestic financing and monitor progress. High-level support (eg,
from presidential or prime minister offices) is essential for countries to take action.
Engagement by journalists and civil society can convey that increased health security is
essential.18 This support can help counter the pattern of a temporary surge of activity
followed by waning interest, as typically seen after a major outbreak.

For the first time in history, the world has an in-depth understanding of how prepared
most countries are to deal with epidemic diseases and of what must be done to improve
preparedness. To save lives, funded, prioritised, well-planned actions must be
implemented at scale as soon as possible, supported by a network of partners working
together to support countries to step up their capacities to prevent, detect and respond to
public health threats and make the world safer.

8. Travel

A COMPLETE LIST OF ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF TRAVELLING ABROAD

Travelling is full of ups and downs. Rest assured that the good far outweighs the bad.
Nevertheless, here we go: all the pros and cons of travelling you’ll encounter on the road.

THE ADVANTAGES OF TRAVELLING ABROAD

Let’s start with the advantages. Travelling is full of them. Take the plunge into the unknown
and you stand to gain immensely. In no particular order, here’s how…

Meet Incredible People

It’s often the people you meet that make the experience of travel so unforgettable.

Go travelling and become the newest member of a worldwide community of travellers.

Meet people from all walks of life, with totally different backgrounds, stories and
aspirations.

You will meet people you would never otherwise have crossed paths with. Your differences
don’t matter. You’re all doing the same thing: adventuring, exploring, and seeing the world.
You can make friends in an instant on that foundation alone.

It’s ironic…

Many people don’t like the idea of solo travel through fear of getting lonely. And yep,
there’s the potential for it (more on that subject later). But, in reality, it’s all too easy to
meet likeminded, lovely people to spend time with.

If you’re like me, then you’ll sometimes yearn for a bit of time to yourself…Overall though,
you forge lifelong friendships with the people you meet on the road. Whether you stay in
touch or not, they’ll walk with you forever in memory.

Explore Somewhere New

This one’s obvious, but travel takes you to places you’ve never been before.

You grow up and hear about distant lands and exotic cultures in stories. Myths and legends
inspire wanderlust from a young age. You read books about foreign shores, first explorers,
and novel ways of life.

Then you go travelling and see it all with your own eyes. You explore the ruins you learned
about in history class, witness the images you’d only seen on TV, and spend time in magical
places you’d never even heard about.

Your entire world can feel like your house, friends, family and neighbourhood. Step outside
and have travel burst that bubble. Step outside the norm and you get a sense of how much
there is to see out there.

Ironically, the more you travel, the bigger the world seems to get.

Have an Adventure

A desire for adventure is what drives my wanderlust.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always yearned for it. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to have an
adventure. Travel is my way of having one.

It’s about independence, taking control of my life, and getting out and doing something a bit
different. For me, travel is really living. It gets to the very heart of what it is to live life in a
vibrant, engaged, intense way.

Go travelling and forge memories that will last forever. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

Witness Immense Beauty

Travel confronts you with some of the world’s most beautiful places.

Beauty is everywhere, I know. You don’t have to travel a thousand miles to find it. But
travel lays it on a plate in front of you. You simply find yourself in incredible places.

It gets to a point where you actually start losing touch with it. You find yourself thinking
‘oh, another waterfall’, or ‘ah yep, another mountain’. You end up a little spoiled!

The world’s beauty is a perfect antidote if you’re ever short on inspiration. It’s hard to be
confronted with the sublime and not feel a sense of awe and wonder.

Of the many advantages of travelling abroad, witessing immense beauty, in new parts of the
world, has to be one of my favourites.

Of the many advantages of travelling abroad, witessing immense beauty, in new parts of the
world, has to be one of my favourites.
Make Unforgettable Memories

Travelling and adventure have a habit of making memories.

Go away for any reasonable period of time and immerse yourself in the experience. You’ll
undoubtedly come away with stories you’ll never forget.

All we are is a system of memories.

Lose your memory, and who exactly are you? Our very identity is built upon the things
we’ve seen, heard, read about, and committed to memory.

In the same way, maybe we can look at making memories as a fundamental way of learning
who we are, and/or becoming someone new.

Do Something Different

Life is short.

It’s clichéd to say it, but you really never know how much time you’re going to get.

Who is more likely to be scared of dying? The person who spends their life behind a desk
for 40 years, or the one who explores the world and gets stuck into an adventure?

The purpose of life isn’t to take the less trodden path. But the less trodden path will most
definitely help you find purpose in life.

Build Your Confidence

Travel is hard.

Obviously, I’m not talking a week on the beach sort of travel.

I’m talking weeks, months or years away from home, without the comfort of friends and
family, and exploring foreign shores while living out of a backpack with minimal funds to
get by.

You will experience hardship. It will be tough-going. Among the many challenges, you’ll get
lost, lonely, homesick (and possibly physically sick), and question what you’re doing.

And one way or another you’ll get through it all. Overcoming adversity is a sure-fire way to
grow your confidence. The meekest, most insecure and mothered person in the world can
come away from travel with heaps of newfound confidence.

You travel. You suffer. You endure. You grow.

Learn About Yourself

Your confidence on the road grows at about the same rate as your self-knowledge.
There’s nothing quite like stepping out of your bubble to realise who you actually are. I can
vouch for this one. Indeed, I wanted to travel with a primary goal to learn more about
myself. Now, self-awareness is a lifelong process. But I definitely got home feeling far more
aligned with who I really am.

It’s difficult not to. All those new people you meet, ideas you come across, cultures you
learn from, things you see, and experiences you have…it all leads to self-discovery.

You get home from travel feeling distinctly different from the person who left it months
before.

Here’s another top article about the role of travel in self-development!

Recoup, Unwind, De-Stress, Move On…Heal

The road has healing qualities, I’m sure of it.

Throughout time, people have gone travelling to explore, learn, see, and live.

But there’s often deep pain, and the need to escape from it, lurking somewhere in the
background.

If you need an opportunity to stop, move on, recover your energy, and generally lick your
wounds (mental, physical or emotional), then consider going travelling. You don’t need a
plan, you just need time. You don’t need a goal, you just need to be open to the experience.

I don’t know how it works, but travel offers a soothing balm to the cuts and bruises that life
can throw at you.

Quick point of interest: some people take crystals with them for good luck and protection
on the road! Want to learn more? Here’s a guide to the best crystals for travel!

Expand Your CV

Many people baulk at the idea of travel because it means creating a gap on their CV.

How could you possibly explain that year abroad to a prospective employer? Personally, if a
future interviewer looks at my gap-filled, random-arse CV and has a problem with it, then I
probably don’t want to work for them anyway. Equally, there’s almost always a way to
bend the CV to fit your needs.

But that’s just me.

And anyway, travel can actually make you more employable. After all, it demands maturity,
tenacity, problem-solving, independence, some language skills, time-keeping abilities,
people-skills, and more.
What employer wouldn’t want a staff member with these qualities?

Remember, we don’t live in the 1950s.

Travel is exceptionally common. Most employers are used to it and may even be surprised
if you haven’t been away. Secondly, the way we’re working is changing. More and more of
us are pushing against the typical one-career-for-life mentality.

Gaps, random roles, periods of unemployment, and travel, just go hand in hand with that!
Can you articulate the value of your time overseas? Then you can justify it to a future
employer.

It might not look like it, but there are genuine disadvantages of travel as well.

It might not look like it, but there are genuine disadvantages of travel as well.

DISADVANTAGES OF TRAVEL

As much as I love being on the road, there are both travelling advantages AND
disadvantages you encounter along the way.

On to the disadvantages of travelling abroad.

It’s important to know about travel disadvantages too. But remember that they’re all,
always, possible to overcome.

And, when you do, you come away with greater confidence in yourself. You learn to fend for
yourself and stand on your own two feet.

This is actually one of the things I love most about travel!

Ironically, without the challenge, I don’t think travelling would be half as profound as it is.

Nonetheless, here are the disadvantages of travel to expect.

It’s Expensive

Travel requires money. Sure, there are ways to travel for less, and having little money
should never stop you doing it. But, in reality, without money, travel becomes far trickier.

In exactly the same way, going travelling depletes your bank balance. That nice nest egg
you’d built up can shrivel up before your eyes! Indeed, most people scrimp and save to fund
a trip.

There’s normally not a lot left when they get home.

It isn’t easy to handle. You look at your mates who’ve worked the whole time you’ve been
away. They’re buying cars, houses, and doing cool stuff. Meanwhile, you have barely a
penny to your name.

You might have to live back with mum and dad. You probably have to get a menial job to
pay the bills or rent. It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself.

You’re Out of the Loop

You’re thousands of miles away from home, separated by oceans and continents.

After an initial teething period, you get used to it. You become immersed in the experience.
And it isn’t as difficult being away from your loved ones.

Life goes on without you there though.

You don’t go to the parties, you miss out on the latest gossip, and you aren’t privy to the
goings-on. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But you get home and find that you’re no
longer up to speed with the group.

It can be easy to feel alienated and on the outskirts when you first get back.

Miss Important Events at Home

You can’t be in two places at once.

If you’re travelling, then you’ll almost certainly miss out on important events back home.

I ended up missing my Dad’s 60th birthday last year because of travel. He was great, and
didn’t make a big deal of it at all. However, I missed it. And I was painfully aware of them all
being together while I was on the other side of the world.

Similarly, this year I’ve already missed a family holiday and my brother’s birthday. I’m due
to miss multiple friend’s wedding days, more birthdays, and probably Christmas.

I’m doing cool stuff all the time, but missing these are the times when I question if travel is
really worth it. They’re some of the loneliest times on the road.

At the end of the day you have chosen to travel. It’s easy to feel guilty. It’s even easier to feel
sorry for yourself.

There’s Homesickness

Almost everyone gets homesick on the road.

It makes sense. You’re miles away from your nearest and dearest. You’re missing birthdays,
Christmasses, and pretty much everything while you’re away. You’re often lonely, out of
your comfort zone, and missing your mum’s cooking.
Feeling homesick isn’t fun at all. It can sap the enjoyment from travel for as long as it lasts.

Homesickness is a common struggle when you travel. As far as disadvantages of travelling

go, it definitely isn’t fun.

Homesickness is a common struggle when you travel. As far as disadvantages of travelling

go, it definitely isn’t fun.

You Fall Behind on the Career Ladder

Travel is good for your CV, as we’ve seen.

But you undeniably get home and have some career-catch up to do (if that’s your goal).

Your peers have had a decent head-start. While you’ve been away, they’ve been working.
They’re getting promotions, pay-rises and progressing up the ladder. You have to start
from the bottom. The longer you travel, the bigger the gap gets.

When you eventually come home, looking upwards at your friends’ success isn’t always
easy. And with travel as just a memory now, it can be difficult to feel great about your
decision-making.

It’s Tiring

Travelling is bloody tiring. You don’t expect it. You’re used to holidays where the sole
purpose is to rest up and relax. You come away feeling rejuvenated. Travel is food for the
soul. But it isn’t always a relaxing affair.

That’s because travel is about exploring. You’re on the go all the time, forever moving from
one place to the next, eager not to miss out on anything. All those new foods, people,
languages, sounds, smells and places are there to experience.

Getting to know them all tires you out.

Indeed, you can easily burn out completely and get sick. And you don’t want to be unwell in
some of the hospitals you’ll come across overseas…

There’s Potential Danger

The potential for harm is a common reason many people decide against travel.

It’s definitely the reason your mum doesn’t want you to go.

And yep, the prospect of long term (especially solo) travel is daunting. It requires a leap
into the unknown that goes against all of our innate survival instincts.
Our brains are wired to want safety. What’s known and predictable feels good. After all,
you’re less likely to die. Travelling requires a willingness to push against this need.

Look, it would be false to say there’s no danger out there.

Every year you hear horror stories of travellers going missing, or being killed overseas. The
most recent one I can think of is the British girl, Grace Millane, who was murdered in New
Zealand (statistically one of the safest places in the world) in December last year.

It’s awful and frightening and fuels the idea that travelling is dangerous. It can be, clearly.
But with appropriate precautions, and general common sense, you have to be unlucky to
come into harm’s way.

Remember, there’s danger at home too. You’re probably more likely to die crossing the
road outside your house than travelling in some distant land.

You’re Forced to Confront Your Issues

None of us are perfect.

All of us have our insecurities, weaknesses, neuroses, prejudices, vices and Achilles heels.
But at home, surrounded by everything we know and everyone who loves us, it’s difficult to
face up to them.

Often, it takes a change of environment and a novel context to showcase our problems.

There’s nothing quite like travel to begin to understand yourself better. Remember that
advantage of learning more of who you are on the road? Well, sometimes that newfound
insight has a sting to it.

I’ve realised a huge amount of stuff about myself that it would have been easier to ignore!
To name a few: how ignorant I am of the world; how self-centred my focus is; how insecure
I can be; how anxious I get, how entitled I can be…I could easily go on.

Travel humbles you. It holds a mirror up and forces you to take note.

I actually count this is a major advantage of travel. It’s exactly what makes you become a
better person (you have to know what needs fixing before you can do it, right?) However,
I’ll leave it in the disadvantages section for now. After all, not everyone wants to find out
their bad bits!

It Can Be Lonely

I’ve been born and raised in cities.

And I’ve always been struck by the irony that you can feel so intensely lonely in such a
mass of people.
The same is true when you travel. There may be times when you are genuinely by yourself.
But as I’ve already mentioned, more often than not you’re surrounded by fellow travellers.
That’s almost always the case on the tourist trails.

Yet loneliness can develop anyway.

You can feel lost and alone and unsure of what you’re doing. Exploring the world has a
habit of highlighting just how small you are. It can crumble your desire to travel, wring the
joy from the experience and have you yearning for the comfort of home.

And it’s all part of the experience.

Everyone should learn how to be alone. Creativity, discovery, and self-awareness develop
in the silence of solitude. Travel is king at forcing you into it.

Coming Home is Hard

The hardest part of travel is often coming home.

It’s ironic. Saying goodbye at the start of your trip is hard. Then getting back to that very
same place, with the very same people, is often harder. You end up mourning your time on
the road.

Coming home is a shock to the system after all your adventures and awesome experiences.

You feel different. But everything is the same. It’s the same bed, the same four walls, the
same conversations, the same meals in the evenings, the same mundane concerns…It’s
difficult to get your head around.

How has nothing at home changed when you’ve had this profound, life-changing time?

It can take a while to readjust back into home-life. I’ve found that you never want to travel
more than in the weeks following your return home.

9. Crime

Juvenile Crime

At a time when the public, the police and politicians in New York City are expressing alarm
over violent crimes by youths, there is a growing realization that few efforts to reduce the
rate offer even a partial solution to the problem.

Countless crime-control projects have been initiated in recent decades with little
appreciable effect. Several of the projects may have even backfired, possibly increasing
criminal activity.
''Youth crime is an extremely serious problem in the United States and by and large we're
baffled about it,'' said Walter Miller, a Harvard criminologist. ''Amazing as it may seem to
outsiders, that's the reality. We really do not know what to do.''

''Nothing that we are doing right now demonstrably works,'' said Franklin E. Zimring,
director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago. ''If anyone
has a program for juvenile crime that he says will make a statistical dent in the problem, he
is operating on sheer faith. There are no panaceas nor any general theory that bears
endorsement.''

The most optimistic criminologists find some hope among scores of crime-control projects
undertaken in recent years. They propose concentrating on, among other things, the small
number of juveniles who commit a large proportion of crimes, strict supervision of the
most troublesome youngsters and group homes that provide strong social support and a
wide array of counseling services. But such relatively narrow solutions are not expected to
bring a reduction immediately in the high crime rates in urban areas.

And while some experts believe that locking up large numbers of the worst young
offenders would bring a reduction in the crime rate, others question the practicality of such
an approach.

Young people have long committed a grossly disproportionate share of such crimes in the
United States. The peak ages for all arrests are 16 for serious property crimes and 17 to 18
for most violent crimes.

Some criminologists take comfort in an apparent halt in the upward trend in crime by
youngsters that hit the nation during the 1960's and early 1970's. Since 1975, the volume
of serious and violent juvenile crime has leveled off, according to the Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention in the United States Department of Justice, largely
because the number of juveniles has decreased. Since 1970 in New York City, for instance,
the number of youngsters under the age of 18 has dropped 21 percent. Violence Often
Begins at 13

There are those who suggest, however, that young criminals are becoming increasingly
violent and are turning to crime at an earlier age. Marvin Wolfgang, a University of
Pennsylvania sociologist who has studied delinquents in Philadelphia since 1945, finds that
many young criminals are now starting at the age of 13 to injure their victims and are
harming them more seriously than in previous decades.

How to Be an Expatriate in 2020

The most dramatic event in criminological theory over the last decade has been the virtual
collapse of confidence in rehabilitation, the philosophy that dominated the nation's
approach to youth crime for most of this century.
The theory of rehabilitation, which emphasizes treatment rather than punishment,
provides the chief justification for a separate juvenile court, with its emphasis on the needs
of the child and its strict rules of secrecy to protect the child from adverse publicity.

From 1899, when the first juvenile court was founded in Illinois, until the mid-1970's, the
philosophy of rehabilitation stood relatively unchallenged. Then the late Robert Martinson,
chairman of the sociology department at City College in New York, and his colleagues
reviewed more than 200 studies of rehabilitation programs used both in prison and in the
community for both young people and adults.

The panel concluded that, with a few isolated exceptions, no rehabilitation effort had kept
those who had participated in the programs from returning to crime.

Professor Martinson's findings were subsequently endorsed by the National Academy of

Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific organization, which appointed a panel to
review an even wider array of studies. This did not necessarily mean that ''nothing works,''
the academy said, but rather that ''nothing yet tried has been demonstrated to work.''

Prevention Projects Backfire

Since the emphasis in the juvenile justice system has been on handling the youngsters after
they get into trouble, crime prevention has rarely been a primary goal. And efforts to
prevent crime have been even less successful than rehabilitation.

Few programs to reduce juvenile crime carried higher hopes, and produced more dismal
results, than the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Project, the most heralded program of its day
aimed at combatting crime among youngsters.

Starting in the late 1930's, young people from rundown neighborhoods of Cambridge and
Somerville, Mass., were split into two groups. One received years of intensive personal
counseling, tutoring in academic subjects, medical attention and recreational activities at
summer camp and in the community. The other received no special attention. Results Are
Depressing

In the late 1970's, a study of the program yielded depressing results: The treatment was
judged harmful. Those who had been given the special attention had a higher rate of
criminal convictions, alcoholism and mental illness than those who had been ignored. And
the longer and more intense the treatment, the worse the outcome in later life.

It was not the only prevention effort to backfire. The muchpublicized ''Scared Straight''
program, developed at Rahway State Prison in New Jersey and used in New York and many
other states, may also have made things worse. The program sends juveniles on a prison
visit to hear tales from the inmates about the sordid side of prison life, including assault
and homosexual slavery. The goal is to deter future criminal activity.
But a study conducted by Dr. James O. Finckenauer, of the Rutgers University School of
Criminal Justice, concluded that the participants actually committed more crimes afterward
than did a control group. They may have romanticized the inmates, or perhaps felt
compelled to prove that they couldn't be scared away from crime. Dr. Finckenauer said a
second study in New Jersey disputed his findings, but that studies of similar programs in
Michigan and Illinois agreed with his conclusion.

Many programs that are not designed primarily to prevent crime - such as those involving
job development, education, better housing and military service - might nevertheless be
expected to alleviate crime-breeding social conditions or at least get potential delinquents
off the streets. Great Society Had Little Impact

But the largest social effort in recent years, President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society,
had little detectable impact on crime. At a time when the economy was booming and
Government concern for the young and the poor was relatively high, crime rates soared to
the highest level in decades.

An extensive review of delinquency prevention programs was prepared last year by the
University of Washington's Center for Law and Justice, as part of a systematic analysis of
youth crime commissioned by the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention. It concluded: ''There is scant evidence that the juvenile justice system over the
past 80 years has been effective in controlling or preventing delinquency.''

With theories of rehabilitation and crime prevention being questioned, some authorities
are urging stricter law enforcement and harsher punishment for offenders on the
supposition that such crackdowns will deter crime or at least protect the public by taking
the worst criminals out of circulation.

But experiments in Kansas City, Mo., found that doubling or tripling the number of police
cars on patrol did not measurably affect crime rates, and that faster police response to
distress calls had little effect on arrest rates because citizens take so long to report crimes.
A study in Newark found that increasing the number of police officers on foot patrol failed
to reduce crime rates. What About Courtroom Severity?

Lawrence Sherman, director of research for the Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization
in Washington, D.C., said, ''The police could do a lot more if we knew what works. We need
better experiments. Right now, we really can't say what the police ought to do.''

Nor is there much evidence that courtroom severity has had much effect on crime rates.
One favorite ''law-and-order'' solution - transferring juveniles from the supposedly lenient
juvenile courts to the supposedly harsher adult courts - may not be working as planned in
New York or in other states that have tried it.

A study recently submitted to the Justice Department by the Academy for Contemporary
Problems, based in Columbus, Ohio, found that juveniles sent to adult courts seldom get
severe sentences. One reason may be that, for judges dealing regularly with the most
hardened adult felons, even serious juvenile offenders pale by comparison.

New York's controversial 1978 law requiring that 13- to 15-yearolds charged with serious
felonies be handled initially by the adult courts has had unexpected results. The law was
supposed to insure that the worst juveniles got stiff punishment instead of lenient
treatment.

But such has not been the case. In 1980, for instance, 63 percent of the delinquency cases
were dismissed or sent back to the Family Court. The other cases were prosecuted in adult
court. Long Terms May Brutalize

Three years ago the National Academy of Sciences reviewed all the evidence on whether
harsh prison sentences and executions deterred crime. It found the evidence inconclusive,
though consistent with the notion that harsh sanctions might be able to deter some crime.

However, long prison terms can also backfire, some studies show, by brutalizing an inmate
and teaching him new criminal techniques. Virtually the only method of reducing crime
that is backed by empirical evidence is known as ''incapacitation,'' which means locking the
offender up so that he is unable to commit further crimes against the public. Studies by the
RAND Corporation suggest that a ''selective incapacitation'' strategy aimed at repeated
offenders can measurably reduce crime.

However, incapacitation is probably least effective against youth crime, according to some
experts, because teen-agers commit many crimes in groups. Locking up one youth leaves
the others on the street.

Ammunition for Both Sides

Amidst the litter of past failures, some criminologists detect a number of promising, if
narrow, approaches that should be tested more carefully to see if they really work.

Some hints of possible success may be gleaned from a study of delinquents in Illinois,
conducted in the late 1970's by the American Institutes for Research in Washington. The
study concluded that locking up delinquents had a greater impact on reducing arrest rates
after release than did more lenient treatment in the juvenile's own community.

Supervision of youths in their own homes resulted in a small reduction in criminal activity;
placing them in group homes in the community produced a greater reduction, and sending
youths to out-oftown group homes or locking them up in a small unit or a large
reformatory resulted in the greatest reduction.

The study has provided ammunition for both sides of the youth crime debate.
Conservatives hailed it as evidence that vigorous intervention and strict supervision can
deter crime. Liberals challenged the study's statistical validity or concluded from it that
strong, well-managed group homes worked just about as well as reformatories.
Both sides agreed that large conclusions should not be drawn from a single study. ''I'd like
to see that kind of analysis tried in many other places,'' said James Q. Wilson of Harvard, a
leading criminologist. ''It's the most interesting and provocative analysis we've had for a
long time.''

Other programs and approaches that hold promise in the eyes of at least some leading
criminologists include the following:

- Concentration of police, prosecutorial and correctional resources on the small percentage

of chronic offenders who commit the bulk of violent and serious youth crimes. Dr.
Wolfgang, the sociologist who has studied Philadelphia delinquents, found that almost half
of those arrested once are never arrested again. He suggested focusing the limited funds
and talent available on third-time offenders. Such emphasis on ''career criminals'' is
already being implemented by prosecutors and police in New York City for those 16 and
older. Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan District Attorney, and others have urged
expanding this program to include those under 16.

- Use of surrogate families to help control the behavior of delinquents who lack strong
family support. The most widely acclaimed model is the House of Umoja in Philadelphia,
which takes in gang members, gives them a say in setting their own rules, helps them adjust
to jobs and outside life, and has negotiated peace agreements between warring gangs.
Similar homes have operated in New York and other cities, but, while helping particular
individuals, they have no great impact on the crime rate.

- Provision of a wide range of diagnostic and treatment services for delinquent youths. One
model, the New Pride project in Denver, handles only repeat offenders. It counsels the
family, moves it from deteriorated housing, operates two schools, arranges vocational
training and gives the youngsters work experience in its own housing rehabilitation
company. The project is currently being replicated, with Federal funds, in 10 other cities.

- Provision of a wide array of services to inner city adolescents to help them surmount
difficulties that can lead to crime. In New York City, an organization known as The Door, at
618 Avenue of the Americas, offers a supermarket of programs, including education,
vocational training, psychological counseling, drug and alcohol prevention, recreational
activities and dance and other cultural training.

In addition, behavior modification techniques have been explored to curb verbal abuse and
even violence in schools. A variety of experiments have been conducted over the years to
reward good behavior with special privileges, snacks and praise, and to punish unruly
behavior with reprimands, peer pressure and the denial of privileges.

This article is part of a continuing inquiry into crime in New York: its impact on ways of life
throughout the city and its suburbs, and its handling by the police, prosecutors and courts.
11. Technology

What Makes Technology Good or Bad for Us?

Everyone’s worried about smartphones. Headlines like “Have smartphones destroyed a

generation?” and “Smartphone addiction could be changing your brain” paint a bleak
picture of our smartphone addiction and its long-term consequences. This isn’t a new
lament—public opinion at the advent of the newspaper worried that people would forego
the stimulating pleasures of early-morning conversation in favor of reading the daily.

Is the story of technology really that bad? Certainly there’s some reason to worry.
Smartphone use has been linked to serious issues, such as dwindling attention spans,
crippling depression, and even increased incidence of brain cancer. Ultimately, though, the
same concern comes up again and again: Smartphones can’t be good for us, because they’re
replacing the real human connection of the good old days.

Everyone’s heard how today’s teens just sit together in a room, texting, instead of actually
talking to each other. But could those teenagers actually be getting something meaningful
and real out of all that texting?

The science of connection

A quick glance at the research on technology-mediated interaction reveals an ambivalent

literature. Some studies show that time spent socializing online can decrease loneliness,
increase well-being, and help the socially anxious learn how to connect to others. Other
studies suggest that time spent socializing online can cause loneliness, decrease well-being,
and foster a crippling dependence on technology-mediated interaction to the point that
users prefer it to face-to-face conversation.

It’s tempting to say that some of these studies must be right and others wrong, but the body
of evidence on both sides is a little too robust to be swept under the rug. Instead, the
impact of social technology is more complicated. Sometimes, superficially similar behaviors
have fundamentally different consequences. Sometimes online socialization is good for you,
sometimes it’s bad, and the devil is entirely in the details.

This isn’t a novel proposition; after all, conflicting results started appearing within the first
few studies into the internet’s social implications, back in the 1990s. Many people have
suggested that to understand the consequences of online socialization, we need to dig
deeper into situational factors and circumstances. But what we still have to do is move
beyond recognition of the problem to provide an answer: When, how, and why are some
online interactions great, while others are dangerous?

The interpersonal connection behaviors framework

As a scientist of close relationships, I can’t help but see online interactions differently from
thinkers in other fields. People build relationships by demonstrating their understanding of
each other’s needs and perspectives, a cyclical process that brings them closer together. If I
tell you my secrets, and you respond supportively, I’m much more likely to confide in you
again—and you, in turn, are much more likely to confide in me.

This means that every time two people talk to each other, an opportunity for relationship
growth is unfolding. Many times, that opportunity isn’t taken; we aren’t about to have an
in-depth conversation with the barista who asks for our order. But connection is always
theoretically possible, and that’s true whether we’re interacting online or face-to-face.

Close relationships are the bread and butter of happiness—and even health. Being socially
isolated is a stronger predictor of mortality than is smoking multiple cigarettes a day. If we
want to understand the role technology plays in our well-being, we need to start with the
role it plays in our relationships.

And it turns out that the kind of technology-mediated interactions that lead to positive
outcomes are exactly those that are likely to build stronger relationships. Spending your
time online by scheduling interactions with people you see day in and day out seems to pay
dividends in increased social integration. Using the internet to compensate for being lonely
just makes you lonelier; using the internet to actively seek out connection has the opposite
effect.

“The kind of technology-mediated interactions that lead to positive outcomes are exactly
those that are likely to build stronger relationships”

―Jenna Clark, Ph.D.

On the other hand, technology-mediated interactions that don’t really address our close
relationships don’t seem to do us any good—and might, in fact, do us harm. Passively
scrolling through your Facebook feed without interacting with people has been linked to
decreased well-being and increased depression post-Facebook use.

That kind of passive usage is a good example of “social snacking.” Like eating junk food,
social snacking can temporarily satisfy you, but it’s lacking in nutritional content. Looking
at your friends’ posts without ever responding might make you feel more connected to
them, but it doesn’t build intimacy.

Passive engagement has a second downside, as well: social comparison. When we compare
our messy lived experiences to others’ curated self-presentations, we are likely to suffer
from lowered self-esteem, happiness, and well-being. This effect is only exacerbated when
we consume people’s digital lives without interacting with them, making it all too easy to
miss the less photogenic moments of their lives.

Moving forward

The interpersonal connection behaviors framework doesn’t explain everything that might
influence our well-being after spending time on social media. The internet poses plenty of
other dangers—for two examples, the sense of wasting time or emotional contagion from
negative news. However, a focus on meaningful social interaction can help explain decades
of contradictory findings. And even if the framework itself is challenged by future work, its
central concept is bound to be upheld: We have to study the details of how people are
spending their time online if we want to understand its likely effects.

In the meantime, this framework has some practical implications for those worried about
their own online time. If you make sure you’re using social media for genuinely social
purposes, with conscious thought about how it can improve your life and your
relationships, you’ll be far more likely to enjoy your digital existence.

12. Lifestyle

The good and bad sides of consumerism

THE RISE OF CONSUMERISM

Consumerism has its roots in Britain's Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. During the
revolution, the availability of consumer products substantially increased with the rise of
the use of machines.

Each Monday, the paper's journalists will address burning questions in the Opinion section,
offering Singaporean perspectives on complex issues.

The primers, as well as five campus talks helmed by editors and correspondents, are part of
this paper's outreach programme called The Straits Times-Ministry of Education National
Current Affairs Quiz, nicknamed The Big Quiz.

The nationwide event, whose presenting sponsor is the Singapore Press Holdings
Foundation, aims to promote the understanding of civics among pre-university students.

Yishun Junior College won the first round, held at Innova Junior College on April 6.
Tampines Junior College won the second round, held at Victoria Junior College on April 20,
while Catholic Junior College won the third round, held at Anglo-Chinese Junior College on
April 27.

Over the years, buying goods became a way of life and spread to other countries. In the
1950s, after World War II, the American consumer was even praised as a patriotic citizen
for aiding the recovery of the country's battered economy.

The consumerist culture now involves people spending more on consumer items like cars,
gadgets and clothes, instead of savings or investments. Consumers also buy these items
often so as to keep up with trends, and are constantly looking to upgrade the quality of
products and services.
Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) professor of marketing and international
business Gemma Calvert said that although, historically, the United States has been held up
as the "prototypical" example of a consumerist society, its position has been challenged by
emerging markets like India, China, South Korea and Brazil.

However, consumerism is less prevalent in countries with poor economic growth.

Communities bounded by religious beliefs may do more to decry consumerism too.

SIGNS OF GROWING CONSUMERISM

Consumerism is rife in many economically developed countries. The mass production of

luxury goods, the saturation of media with advertisements and promotions for branded
products and services, and even rising levels of personal debts signal that more people are
buying goods excessively.

Other signs include a rise in product innovation, as well as developments that veer away
from tradition, such as hawker food delivery and Western-inspired flavours of mooncakes,
said Mr Hansen Yeong, an economics lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic's (TP) School of
Business.

Growing consumerism can also be seen with people buying goods and services to publicly
display economic power, buying them "just for fun and pleasure" and buying without a plan
or a budget, said Dr Joicey Wei Jie, lecturer in the marketing programme at SIM University's
(UniSIM) School of Business.

Culturally, a typical sign is "celebrity worship", she added. This includes following the social
media accounts of favourite celebrities and purchasing the same brands or products that
they use or endorse, she explained.

BENEFITS OF CONSUMERISM

The only real benefit of consumerism is to improve the economy, said Dr Seshan
Ramaswami, associate professor of marketing education at the Singapore Management
University (SMU).

When a greater proportion of citizens buy goods and services in excess of their needs, they
consume more, they spend more, and that can create a cycle of demand leading to greater
production and to greater employment, which leads to even more consumption.

Consumerism creates a boom in the consumer goods and services industries, and for the
retailers that serve these industries, said Dr Seshan. TP's Mr Yeong said rising
consumerism may lead to market innovation and creativity too.

Said Prof Calvert, who is also director for research and development at NTU's Institute on
Asian Consumer Insight: "The so-called free market economy has supposedly placed the
consumer in the driving seat as far as market forces are concerned."
Firms that do not meet consumer demand and expectations risk global rejection at the
hands of negative reviews, she added.

TRADE-OFFS FOR INCREASING CONSUMERISM

However, the rise of consumerism has had a detrimental impact on the planet. For example,
clothes and apparel from the fashion and textiles industries are made using extensive
amounts of water, energy, chemicals and raw materials , all of which place heavy demands
on Earth's natural resources.

Increasing consumerism may also result in "a shift away from values of community,
spirituality, and integrity, and toward competition, materialism and disconnection", said
UniSIM's Dr Wei, quoting US psychologist Madeline Levine, who has close to 30 years of
experience.

And according to a study in the peer-reviewed monthly journal Psychological Science in

2012, Dr Wei said that consumerism may also lead to depression.

Prof Calvert added that people are incurring punitive levels of debt and working longer
hours to pay for their high-consumption lifestyle, which results in them spending less time
with family, friends, and community organisations.

"Indeed, some believe consumerism as a culture is threatening the very fabric of our global
society," she said.

SMU's Dr Seshan said that "perhaps the most serious cost is human well-being", adding that
much research on the psychology of well-being shows that the most reliable predictor of
long-term happiness is building and maintaining many positive long-term human
relationships. "Consumerism often comes in the way of those relationships," he said.

A SHIFT TOWARDS GREEN CONSUMERISM

As awareness on the impact that consumerism has on the environment grows, many
companies have embarked on ways to decrease their carbon footprint and use of natural
resources. Many of these moves have been prompted by conscious consumers who look for
goods that do not cause harm to the environment during their making.

Environmental activists have also been trying to stave off growing consumerism.

For instance, to combat excessive buying, "anti-consumer" movements have sprung up,
observing what supporters call "No Shop Day" or "Buy Nothing Day".

Brandalism, a British-originated guerilla art group, installed unauthorised artworks across

France during the United Nations climate change conference held there last December.

In doing so, the group said it wanted to "highlight the links between advertising,
consumerism, fossil fuel dependency and climate change".
13. Family

There Is No Longer Any Such Thing as a Typical Family

Pretty much everyone agrees that the era of the nuclear family, with a dad who went to
work and the mom who stayed at home, has declined to the point of no return. The big
question is: What is replacing it? Now a new study suggests that nothing is — or rather,
that a whole grab bag of family arrangements are. More Americans are in families in which
both parents work outside the home than in any other sort, but even so, that’s still only
about a third.

University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen, the author of The Family: Diversity,
Inequality, and Social Change, released his new study on Sept 4. He identifies the three
biggest changes in family life in the past 50 years as the decline of marriage (in 2010, 45%
of households were headed by a married couple, whereas in 1960 it was close to 66%); the
rise of the number of women in the paid workforce; and the whole stew of blended,
remarried and co-habiting families.

Families headed by single moms‚ whether divorced, widowed or never married, are now
almost as numerous as families that have a stay-at-home mom and a breadwinner dad —
about 22% and 23%, respectively. There’s been a marked in rise in people living alone and
in unrelated people living together.

This is a huge change from the 1960s. “In 1960 you would have had an 80% chance that
two children, selected at random, would share the same situation. By 2012, that chance had
fallen to just a little more than 50-50,” says Cohen. “It is really impossible to point to a
‘typical’ family.”

To make his point, Cohen has created a chart, with what he calls a “peacock’s tail” of
changes from 1960 to now, fanning out from a once dominant category:

As you can see, about as many children are being taken care of by grandparents as are by
single dads. Co-habiting parents, who barely registered in 1960, now look after 7% of kids.
Meanwhile married parents who are getting by on just dad’s income are responsible for
about a third of the proportion of households they were responsible for in 1960.

And the diversity goes deeper than the chart suggests. “The increasing complexity of
families means that even people who appear to fit into one category — for example,
married parents — are often carrying with them a history of family diversity such as
remarriage, or parenting children with more than one partner,” says Cohen.

All of this is important Cohen notes, because policy is sometimes based on a one-size-fits-
all model, which is no longer viable. “Different families have different child-rearing
challenges and needs, which means we are no longer well-served by policies that assume
most children will be raised by married-couple families, especially ones where the mother
stays home throughout the children’s early years,” writes Cohen.

He cites social security as one policy stuck in the past: legal marriage and the earnings of a
spouse determine retirement security for so many people. “A more rational pension system
for our times would be a universal system not tied to the earnings of other family
members,” he says. He also thinks universal preschool is long overdue, now that so many
children’s mothers are out working.

And what of same-sex parents? Why aren’t they in Cohen’s chart? Because, although they
get a lot of the attention, there simply aren’t enough of them to register yet. According to
Cohen fewer than 1% of kids belong in families of this category. Even that figure may not be
accurate, he says, because “at least half of the apparently same-sex couples in census data
are really the 1-in-1,000 straight couples in which someone mismarked the sex box.”
14. Transportation

10 ways government leaders can improve transport mobility

How long did it take you to get to work today? Did your 20-mile commute take over an
hour due to road congestion? Or did you drive 10 minutes from your house to a local
railway station, take the commuter line 90 minutes into the city and walk another 5
minutes to a bus station, only to see your bus drive away as you approach?

Mobility – the movement of people and goods – is a fundamental human need, and a key
enabler of economic and social prosperity. Every day, we travel alongside billions of other
people on our transport systems. Similarly, the products we buy at our local shop arrive on
the shelves alongside tons of other goods and cargo moving around the planet. Mobility can
be amazing, but it can also be challenging – like when we are unexpectedly late for work, or
when the perfect birthday present arrives a day too late.

Challenges extend past minor inconveniences and include truly crucial issues. In the United
States, the poorest third of households spend about 16% of their income on transport,
while the richest third spend about half that amount. In addition to the financial burden of
transport, a rise in delivery vehicles is causing congestion on our roads. Between 2005 and
2015, as customers developed the habit of buying single items online for home delivery, the
global number of parcels grew by 128%.

Globally, a large and growing shortfall in infrastructure spending means roads, bridges,
railways and other critical assets are being pushed to – and sometimes beyond – their
literal breaking points.

We feel the strain of this as we sit in vehicles on clogged streets, or in airports

overwhelmed with passengers. Over a million people are killed each year on the world’s
roads – with 90% of those in low or middle-income countries. Our planet feels the impact
of our CO2 emissions and the consumption of limited resources.

And all the while, the world’s population continues to grow, and is expected to reach 9.7
billion by 2050. By then, an estimated two-thirds of people will live in cities – a figure 60%
higher than the number that do today. Forty-one “mega cities” will have at least 10 million
residents. These demographic and social trends will place additional pressure on an
already strained transport system.

The problems we face, therefore, are only going to get worse. What can we do as our
commutes get longer and the air around us gets harder to breathe? What principles should
we encourage our governments and private sector leaders to follow as they face these
growing and costly challenges?

A lot of people have been mulling over these questions, and the result is a collection of
ideas on how cities and countries can improve their transport systems to cope with rising
demand, especially those that face limited investment capital and sufficient space to
modernize outdated transport networks.

Together these ideas outline the key elements required for a seamless integrated mobility
system, or a SIMSystem, which will bring together different transport options across digital
platforms, geographical boundaries and functional regulations.

What is a SIMsystem?

A SIMSystem promotes interoperability between modes of transport to avoid potentially

uncoordinated or conflicting investments, assets, standards, rules and technologies. The
principles drafted below can guide government and private sector leaders to collaborate
effectively in overcoming the complex obstacles we will undoubtedly face.

The principles of a SIMSystem

1. User-centred: The system is designed and operated to meet the collective and individual
needs of all the users it serves.

2. Designed to be adaptable: It will adapt to the capabilities and conditions of the place it is
deployed in, to the behaviours and needs of its users, and to improvements in technology.

3. Open standards and protocols: The private sector will need to play a leading role in
establishing open standards and protocols for the creation of mobility-related data
exchanges and application programming interfaces.

4. Public-private collaboration: Governments should act as conveners to increase

collaboration within and between governments and the private sector, which will enable a
SIMSystem to operate across transport types, geographies and functionalities.

5. Participation and value: Maintaining the ability for the private sector to derive value
from their products, services and intellectual property will encourage broad-based
participation and enable the full realization of a SIMsystem.

6. Agile governance: Governments should reduce institutional complexity and create more
focused governance models, to facilitate agile coordination with the private sector and
other governments.

7. Funding and financing: Governments should create innovative funding instruments and
business models that enable private-sector actors to underwrite the cost of a SIMSystem
and share in the monetary benefits.

8. Performance measurement: Standardized performance indicators should be established

to measure the impact of a SIMSystem on accessibility, affordability, sustainability, safety,
efficiency and integration.
9. Learning and improvement: An international public-private coalition should be formed
and tasked with the frequent sharing of knowledge and best practices across geographies.

10. Scaling and growth: A public-private working group of leaders should be established to
define and address fundamental framing decisions and enable SIMSystem pilots in various
geographies.

15. Arts

The Importance of Art in Daily Life

The word ‘Art’ is most commonly associated with pieces of work in a gallery or museum,
whether it’s a painting from the Renaissance or a modern sculpture. However, there is so
much more to art than what you see displayed in galleries. The truth is, without being
aware of it, we are surrounded by art and use it on a continual basis. Most people don’t
realize how much of a role art plays in our lives and just how much we rely on art in all of
its forms in our everyday lives.

Art in the Home

Chances are you will have some form of art in your home. Obviously the first things that
might come to mind will be a painting, print or photograph on the wall. If you don’t have
any of these things adorning your walls, don’t panic, you’d be surprised at how much art
you actually have in your home if you look around! Art is not purely for looking at and
admiring, a lot of it is functional too, especially when it comes to our homes. Everything
from a delightfully patterned quilt on the bed, decorative tea towels or that cute pink heart
covered teapot to the sleek computer case or angle-poised desk lamp can be considered a
form of art.

The Joy of Art

You may be wondering why all of these things are so important to our daily lives and that
you could probably survive just fine with essential items that were non-artistic. That is just
the reason why art is so valuable! While art may not be vital to fulfill our basic needs, it
does make life joyful. When you look at a painting or poster you’ve chosen to hang on your
living room wall, you feel happy. The sculpture or figurines on the kitchen windowsill
create a sense of joy. These varieties of art forms that we are surrounded by all come
together to create the atmosphere that we want to live in, which is personable to us.

Art and Music

The importance of art in our daily lives is very similar to that of music. Just like art, music
can make life extremely joyful and can have a huge effect on our mood. In the workplace in
particular, music is something that can help people set the mood for what they are about to
do. If you have something hard or difficult to work on or are feeling tired, an energetic song
will likely wake you up and add some enthusiasm to the situation. Similarly, when stress is
high, many people find that relaxing to calming music is something that eases the mind.

Inspirational Art

Inspirational art, such as posters are often found in work spaces to encourage employees to
continue being productive. There is now an increasing amount of companies using art in
their offices, as well as playing background music, as it is proven to actually work in making
end results far better quality.

There may be a piece of art that you own that you personally find motivational. Perhaps a
print with a positive affirmation or quote beautifully scrolled on it or a painting of a
picturesque scene of where you aim to travel to one day. I’ve even heard of people who put
up posters of their favorite singer or Hollywood actress to motivate them to go to the gym!

Art is everywhere, influencing us on a daily basis, whether we realize it or not. With the art
that we are surrounded by, whether it’s a painting, music or even videos can have a huge
impact on our mood and emotions. Of course some art is very dark and can cause
disturbing emotions, anger or even depression but we can choose what kind of art we want
to be surrounded by in our own environment at home to make you feel good. All kinds of
art can affect our mood in a positive way, making us feel happier, calmer, or even inspired
to do something.

Everywhere you go art is evident. Parks often use sculptures to add interest and to inform
people. Posters on walls give information and motivation. Music plays on the radio to keep
your energy levels up. Without even realizing it we find ourselves immersed in the power
of art most of the time!

16. Town and country

7 PRINCIPLES FOR BUIDLING BETTER CITIES

So, let me add to the complexity of the situation we find ourselves in. At the same time that
we're solving for climate change, we're going to be building cities for three billion people.
That's a doubling of the urban environment. If we don't get that right, I'm not sure all the
climate solutions in the world will save mankind, because so much depends on how we
shape our cities: not just environmental impacts, but our social well-being, our economic
vitality, our sense of community and connectedness.
Fundamentally, the way we shape cities is a manifestation of the kind of humanity we bring
to bear. And so getting it right is, I think, the order of the day. And to a certain degree,
getting it right can help us solve climate change, because in the end, it's our behavior that
seems to be driving the problem. The problem isn't free-floating, and it isn't just
ExxonMobil and oil companies. It's us; how we live. How we live.

There's a villain in this story. It's called sprawl, and I'll be upfront about that. But it's not
just the kind of sprawl you think of, or many people think of, as low-density development
out at the periphery of the metropolitan area. Actually, I think sprawl can happen
anywhere, at any density. The key attribute is that it isolates people. It segregates people
into economic enclaves and land-use enclaves. It separates them from nature. It doesn't
allow the cross-fertilization, the interaction, that make cities great places and that make
society thrive. So the antidote to sprawl is really what we all need to be thinking about,
especially when we're taking on this massive construction project.

So let me take you through one exercise. We developed the model for the state of California
so they could get on with reducing carbon emissions. We did a whole series of scenarios for
how the state could grow, and this is just one overly simplified one. We mixed different
development prototypes and said they're going to carry us through the year 2050, 10
million new crew in our state of California. And one was sprawl. It's just more of the same:
shopping malls, subdivisions, office parks. The other one was dominated by, not everybody
moving to the city, but just compact development, what we used to think of as streetcar
suburbs, walkable neighborhoods, low-rise, but integrated, mixed-used environments. And
the results are astounding. They're astounding not just for the scale of the difference of this
one shift in our city-making habit but also because each one represents a special interest
group, a special interest group that used to advocate for their concerns one at a time. They
did not see the, what I call, "co-benefits" of urban form that allows them to join with others.

So, land consumption: environmentalists are really concerned about this, so are farmers;
there's a whole range of people, and, of course, neighborhood groups that want open space
nearby. The sprawl version of California almost doubles the urban physical footprint.

Greenhouse gas: tremendous savings, because in California, our biggest carbon emission
comes from cars, and cities that don't depend on cars as much obviously create huge
savings.

Vehicle miles traveled: that's what I was just talking about. Just reducing the average
10,000 miles per household per year, from somewhere in the mid-26,000 per household,
has a huge impact not just on air quality and carbon but also on the household pocketbook.
It's very expensive to drive that much, and as we've seen, the middle class is struggling to
hold on.

Health care: we were talking about how do you fix it once we broke it -- clean the air. Why
not just stop polluting? Why not just use our feet and bikes more? And that's a function of
the kinds of cities that we shape.
Household costs: 2008 was a mark in time, not of just the financial industry running amok.
It was that we were trying to sell too many of the wrong kind of housing: large lot, single
family, distant, too expensive for the average middle-class family to afford and, quite
frankly, not a good fit to their lifestyle anymore. But in order to move inventory, you can
discount the financing and get it sold. I think that's a lot of what happened. Reducing cost
by 10,000 dollars -- remember, in California the median is 50,000 -- this is a big element.
That's just cars and utility costs. So the affordable housing advocates, who often sit off in
their silos separate from the environmentalists, separate from the politicians, everybody
fighting with everyone, now begin to see common cause, and I think the common cause is
what really brings about the change.

Los Angeles, as a result of these efforts, has now decided to transform itself into a more
transit-oriented environment. As a matter of fact, since '08, they've voted in 400 billion
dollars of bonds for transit and zero dollars for new highways. What a transformation: LA
becomes a city of walkers and transit, not a city of cars.

How does it happen? You take the least desirable land, the strip, you add where there's
space, transit and then you infill mixed-use development, you satisfy new housing demands
and you make the existing neighborhoods all around it more complex, more interesting,
more walkable.

Here's another kind of sprawl: China, high-density sprawl, what you think of as an
oxymoron, but the same problems, everything isolated in superblocks, and of course this
amazing smog that was just spoken to. Twelve percent of GDP in China now is spent on the
health impacts of that. The history, of course, of Chinese cities is robust. It's like any other
place. Community was all about small, local shops and local services and walking,
interacting with your neighbors. It may sound utopian, but it's not. It's actually what people
really want. The new superblocks -- these are blocks that would have 5,000 units in them,
and they're gated as well, because nobody knows anybody else. And of course, there isn't
even a sidewalk, no ground floor shops -- a very sterile environment. I found this one case
here in one of the superblocks where people had illicitly set up shops in their garages so
that they could have that kind of local service economy. The desire of people to get it right
is there. We just have to get the planners on board and the politicians.

All right. Some technical planning stuff. Chongqing is a city of 30 million people. It's almost
as big as California. This is a small growth area. They wanted us to test the alternative to
sprawl in several cities across China. This is for four-and-a-half million people. What the
takeaway from this image is, every one of those circles is a walking radius around a transit
station -- massive investment in metro and BRT, and a distribution that allows everybody
to work within walking distance of that.

The red area, this is a blow-up. All of a sudden, our principles called for green space
preserving the important ecological features. And then those other streets in there are
auto-free streets. So instead of bulldozing, leveling the site and building right up to the
river, this green edge was something that really wasn't normative in China until these set of
practices began experimentation there. The urban fabric, small blocks, maybe 500 families
per block. They know each other. The street perimeter has shops so there's local
destinations. And the streets themselves become smaller, because there are more of them.
Very simple, straightforward urban design.

Now, here you have something I dearly love. Think of the logic. If only a third of the people
have cars, why do we give 100 percent of our streets to cars? What if we gave 70 percent of
the streets to car-free, to everybody else, so that the transit could move well for them, so
that they could walk, so they could bike?

geographic equity in our circulation system? And quite frankly, cities would function better.
No matter what they do, no matter how many ring roads they build in Beijing, they just
can't overcome complete gridlock. So this is an auto-free street, mixed use along the edge. It
has transit running down the middle. I'm happy to make that transit autonomous vehicles,
but maybe I'll have a chance to talk about that later.

So there are seven principles that have now been adopted by the highest levels in the
Chinese government, and they're moving to implement them. And they're simple, and they
are globally, I think, universal principles. One is to preserve the natural environment, the
history and the critical agriculture.

Second is mix. Mixed use is popular, but when I say mixed, I mean mixed incomes, mixed
age groups as well as mixed-land use.

Walk. There's no great city that you don't enjoy walking in. You don't go there. The places
you go on vacation are places you can walk. Why not make it everywhere?

Bike is the most efficient means of transportation we know. China has now adopted policies
that put six meters of bike lane on every street. They're serious about getting back to their
biking history.

Complicated planner-ese here: connect. It's a street network that allows many routes
instead of singular routes and provides many kinds of streets instead of just one.

Ride. We have to invest more in transit. There's no silver bullet. Autonomous vehicles are
not going to solve this for us. As a matter of fact, they're going to generate more traffic,
more VMT, than the alternative.

And focus. We have a hierarchy of the city based on transit rather than the old armature of
freeways. It's a big paradigm shift, but those two things have to get reconnected in ways
that really shape the structure of the city. So I'm very hopeful. In California, the United
States, China -- these changes are well accepted.

I'm hopeful for two reasons. One is, most people get it. They understand intrinsically what a
great city can and should be. The second is that the kind of analysis we can bring to bear
now allows people to connect the dots, allows people to shape political coalitions that
didn't exist in the past. That allows them to bring into being the kinds of communities we
all need.

Thank you.

Chris Anderson: So, OK: autonomous driving, self-driving cars. A lot of people here are very
excited about them. What are your concerns or issues about them?

Peter Calthorpe: Well, I think there's almost too much hype here. First is, everybody says
we're going to get rid of a lot of cars. What they don't say is you're going to get a lot more
vehicle miles. You're going to get a lot more cars moving on streets. There will be more
congestion.

CA: Because they're so appealing -- you can drive while reading or sleeping.

PC: Well, a couple of reasons. One is, if they're privately owned, people will travel greater
distances. It'll be a new lease on life to sprawl. If you can work on your way to work, you
can live in more remote locations. It'll revitalize sprawl in a way that I'm deeply frightened.
Taxis: about 50 percent of the surveys say that people won't share them. If they don't share
them, you can end up with a 90 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled. If you share
them, you're still at around a 30 percent increase in VMT.

CA: Sharing them, meaning having multiple people riding at once in some sort of intelligent
ride-sharing?

PC: Yeah, so the Uber share without a steering wheel. The reality is, the efficiency of
vehicles -- you can do it with or without a steering wheel, it doesn't matter. They claim
they're the only ones that are going to be efficient electric, but that's not true. But the real
bottom line is that walking, biking and transit are the way cities and communities thrive.
And putting people in their private bubbles, whether they have a steering wheel or not, is
the wrong direction. And quite frankly, the image of an AV on its way to McDonald's to pick
up a pack without its owner, just being sent off on these kind of random errands is really
frightening to me.

CA: Well, thank you for that, and I have to say, the images you showed of those mixed-use
streets were really inspiring, really beautiful.

PC: Thank you. CA: Thank you for your work.

17. Architecture

The basics are simple—architecture is about people, places, and things. A person in a
wheelchair (people), in Boston, Massachusetts (places), with the backdrop of the famous
19th century Trinity Church reflected in the glass exterior of a 20th-century skyscraper, the
John Hancock Tower (things). This scene is emblematic of basic architecture. Here's an
introduction to what you need to know.

People: Designers, Builders, and Users

Birds' nests and beaver dams may look architectural, but these structures are not designed
consciously. Those who make architecture and those who use it have made conscious
decisions—designing the spaces in which people live and work; setting the requirements
for safety, universal design, and new urbanism; and choosing one home over another
because of the pleasing way it looks. We all make conscious selections about the
environment we build and that has been built for us.

What is an architect? Architects talk about "the built environment," and that covers a lot of
territory. Would we have a built environment without people? Is what we build today
original, human constructions or simply imitative of what we see around us—using the
hidden codes of ancient geometries to create pleasing designs and using bio-mimicry to
exploit nature as a guide to green design.

Who are the famous, infamous, and not so well-known architects throughout history? Study
the life stories and works—their portfolios—of hundreds of the world's most famous
architects and designers. Alphabetically, from the Finnish Alvar Aalto to the Swiss-born
Peter Zumthor, find your favorite designer or learn about someone you've never heard of
before. Believe it or not, more people have practiced architecture than are famous for it!

Also, study how people use and react toward architecture. Whether we walk down a
sidewalk to City Hall or drive home to a cozy bungalow refuge, the environment built for us
is our infrastructure. Everyone deserves an equal opportunity to live and prosper in the
built environment. Since 1990, architects have led the way enforcing the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA), making old and new buildings accessible for everyone's use—not
just people in wheelchairs. Today, without definitive legislation, architects design for the
blind, plan safe spaces for the elderly, and even try to stop climate change with their net-
zero energy building designs. Architects can be the agents of change, so they are a good
group to get to know and understand.

Places: Where We Build

Architects use the term the built environment because there are just so many places. You
don't have to go to Rome or Florence to see great designs, but the architecture in Italy has
influenced the Western world since man began building. Travel is a great way to learn
about architecture. The casual traveler can experience all kinds of architecture in every
country in the world and each state and city in the United States.

From the public architecture of Washington, D.C. to the variety of buildings in California,
traveling through the U.S. is a great history lesson when you look at what human beings
have built. Where do people live and what do they live in? How did the railroads change
architectural styles in America? Learn about the late American architect Frank Lloyd
Wright and his ideas about organic architecture—plan to visit his studios in Wisconsin and
Taliesin West in Arizona. Wright's influence will be felt everywhere structures are built,
including Arcosanti in Arizona, the vision of Paolo Soleri, one of Wright's students.

The power of place can be everlasting.

Things: Our Built Environment

From Laugier's Primitive Hut to Boston's Trinity Church or the John Hancock Tower, today
we think of buildings being the "things" of architecture. Architecture is a visual art, and
picture dictionaries for architecture and design provide illustrated definitions for complex
ideas like Deconstructivism and Classical Orders. And how do they build? What is adaptive
reuse? Where can I find architectural salvage?

Learning architectural styles is a way of learning history—historic architecture periods

follow right along with the periods of human civilization. Take a guided tour through
architectural history. An architecture timeline leads you to articles, photographs, and
Websites that feature great buildings and structures, from prehistoric to modern times. The
house style guide to the American home is a journey through the history of the United
States. Architecture is memory.

Skyscrapers are the "things" architects design to truly scrape the sky. Which are the tallest
buildings in the world? Statistics of the world's tallest buildings are constantly changing as
man's engineering is a race to the top, pushing the envelope of what is possible.

The world has many other great buildings and structures, however. Begin your own
directory of favorite structures, where they are, and why you like them. They might be
great churches and synagogues. Or maybe your focus will be on the great arenas and stadia
of the world. Learn about new buildings. Collect facts and photos for the world's most
famous buildings, including great bridges, arches, towers, castles, domes, and monuments
and memorials that tell stories. Find features and photos for favorite housing styles in
North America, from Georgian Colonial up through modern times. You'll find yourself
taking a course in residential architecture.

Your starting point to learning about that built environment is to discover great buildings
and structures and how they're engineered, learn about famous builders and designers
from all over the world, and see how our buildings have changed throughout history—and
often because of history. Begin to create your own architectural digest—a starting point to
journalize about the built world around you. That's how you learn about architecture.

18. Gender issues

Quotes by Sheryl Sandberg about women

“For any of us in this room today, let’s start out by admitting we’re lucky. We don’t live in
the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women
were so limited.”

“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.”

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure
that impact lasts in your absence.”

“The more women help one another, the more we help ourselves. Acting like a coalition
truly does produce results.

“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

“Fortune does favor the bold and you’ll never know what you’re capable of if you don’t try.”

“Women need to shift from thinking ‘I’m not ready to do that’ to thinking ‘I want to do that
– and I’ll learn by doing it’.”

“Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always
waiting to be told what to do.”

“A 2011 McKinsey report noted that men are promoted based on potential, while women
are promoted based on past accomplishments.”

“Being confident and believing in your own self-worth is necessary to achieving your
potential.”

“Any coalition of support must also include men, many of whom care about gender
inequality as much as women do.”

“Success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively for women. When
a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women. When a woman is successful,
people of both genders like her less.”

“Real change will come when powerful women are less of an exception. It is easy to dislike
senior women because there are so few.”
“When woman work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more
likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns
half the income and a husband does half the housework.”

“The promise of equality is not the same as true equality.”

“A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and
men ran half our homes.”

“The number one impediment to women succeeding in the workforce is now in the home.”

“Most people assume that women are responsible for households and child care. Most
couples operate that way – not all. That fundamental assumption holds women back.”

“we compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not
even exist yet”

“It is the ultimate luxury to combine passion and contribution. It’s also a very clear path to
happiness.”

“Social gains are never handed out. They must be seized.”

“Motivation comes from working on things we care about. It also comes from working with
people we care about.”

“I feel really grateful to the people who encouraged me and helped me develop. Nobody can
succeed on their own.”

“We’ve got to get women to sit at the table.”

“I’m not telling women to be like men. I’m telling us to evaluate what men and women do in
the workforce and at home without the gender bias.”

“Women have made tons of progress. But we still have a small percentage of the top jobs in
any industry, in any nation in the world. I think that’s partly because from a very young age,
we encourage our boys to lead and we call our girls bossy.”

“I’d like to see where boys and girls end up if they get equal encouragement – I think we
might have some differences in how leadership is done.”

“I have a five year-old son and a three year-old daughter. I want my son to have a choice to
contribute fully in the workforce or at home. And I want my daughter to have the choice to
not just succeed, but to be liked for her accomplishments.”

“I wish I could just go tell all the young women I work with, all these fabulous women,
‘Believe in yourself and negotiate for yourself. Own your own success.’ I wish I could tell
that to my daughter. But it’s not that simple.”

“Until women are as ambitious as men, they’re not going to achieve as much as men.”
“I hope you find true meaning, contentment, and passion in your life. I hope you navigate
the difficult times and come out with greater strength and resolve. I hope you find
whatever balance you seek with your eyes wide open. And I hope that you – yes, you – have
the ambition to lean in to your career and run the world. Because the world needs you to
change it.”

How Women and Men View Competition Differently

The average woman is less competitive than the average man: she is less likely to describe
herself as competitive and less willing to enter a competition. In the workplace, this
difference translates to performance; recent research by economists and political scientists
indicates that competitive people do better socioeconomically. For example, among
graduates of a top MBA program, the gender difference in competitiveness accounted for
10% of the gender gap in earnings 9 years after graduation; among female and male
economists in France it accounted for 76% of the promotion gap.

So why are women less competitive than men? Past research has pointed to evolutionary
pressures, the domestic roles that women have traditionally played, and the patriarchal
social order. These accounts suggest that men are more competitive because the payoffs of
competition are higher for them. Other accounts have linked the gender difference in
competitiveness to men’s higher levels of confidence: Women shy away from competition
because they’re less likely to think they’ll win.

But no one can change evolutionary or past historical trajectories. My colleagues Sun Young
Lee, Andrew Elliot, Madan Pillutla, and I wondered whether the beliefs women and men
hold about competition today — which can be articulated, examined, and changed through
reflection — might also explain their different appetites for competition. If so, we might be
able to equip women and men with a way to change those beliefs, those appetites, and their
careers.

Our first step was to create a scale to systematically and comprehensively measure
women’s and men’s beliefs about competition. We began by asking 119 women and 111
men what they consider to be good and positive about competition, and what they see as
bad and negative about it. (All of these people were Americans, ranging from 18 to 82 years
of age, with an average age of 36 years. Ninety-nine percent of them had work experience.)

We condensed their responses into a smaller number of recurring themes. In the end three
explanations emerged about why people believe competition is good, and three about why
they believe it is bad. On the positive side, competition has the potential to (1) boost
performance, (2) develop one’s character, and (3) lead to innovative problem-solving. On
the negative side, competition potentially (1) encourages unethical behaviors, (2) damages
people’s self-confidence, and (3) hurts relationships.

Based on these themes, we developed a scale to capture people’s beliefs about competition,
asking them to rate how much they agreed or disagreed with statements that corresponded
with these themes — for example, “Competition makes people perform better” and
“Competition makes people work harder” for #1 on the positive side.

Once we had a way to measure beliefs about competition, we tested whether women and
men differed in these beliefs: They did. In our sample of 2,331 people (49% women, 51%
men, with an average age of 34 years), 63% of the women were less convinced than the
average man that competition boosts performance, builds character, and leads to
innovative solutions. While there was no robust gender difference when it came to negative
beliefs about competition, it was clear that men see more of an upside to competition than
women. (To see how your beliefs about competition compare, take the survey at the end of
this article.)

We ultimately found that this difference in beliefs explains some of the gender difference in
competitiveness. After measuring people’s beliefs about competition, we invited them to
participate in what we told them was a different study, for which they could earn a bonus.
We asked them whether they preferred that their bonus be based on their competitive
performance (how their performance compared to others’), or their absolute performance
(regardless of how others performed). We found that, indeed, people with more positive
beliefs about competition were more likely to choose the competitive bonus scheme. Of the
women, 21% chose the competitive option, compared to 36% of men. Men’s higher levels
of competitiveness are partly explained by the more positive beliefs they hold about the
outcomes of competition.

This has implications for all of us when we are confronted with the opportunity to compete
in the workplace. Few of us ever explicitly wonder whether these kinds of contests are
good or bad or whether we should strive to be more or less competitive. But we may hold
these beliefs anyway — and they may seriously affect our professional prospects and
earning potential. It is thus worthwhile to give serious thought to those beliefs so we’re
better prepared to respond thoughtfully to potentially competitive situations.

Our findings also point to a number of questions for future study. How do people come by
their beliefs about competitiveness? Are they transmitted through peers, parents, schools,
or the popular culture? Does early experience in competitive sports instill more positive
beliefs about competition? Are women more pessimistic about the upside of competition
because they indeed do experience competition differently? Understanding these triggers
may be able to help us design more effective messages around competition.
19. Business

Business is an art as well as a science. It's a matter of practical experience, judgment,

foresight and luck. To be successful in business, you must master the basics of business
success.

Fortunately, all business skills are learnable. You can learn anything you need to learn, to
achieve any goal you can set for yourself. There are no limits--except the limits you place on
your own imagination.

There are three major reasons why businesses fail: lack of money, lack of knowledge and
lack of support. By mastering the basics of business success, you'll gain the knowledge
necessary to acquire the support and money you need for your business.

So just what are the essentials of business success? There are seven key areas of activity
that determine whether your business will live or die:

1. Marketing. Your ability to determine and sell the right product to the right customer at
the right time

2. Finance. Your ability to acquire the money you need, and account for the money you
receive

3. Production. Your ability to produce products and services at a high enough level of
quality and consistency over time

4. Distribution. Your ability to get your product or service to the market in a timely and
economic fashion

5. Research and development. Your ability to continually innovate and produce new
products, services, processes and responses to your competition

6. Regulation. Your ability to deal with the requirements of government legislation at all
levels

7. Labor. Your ability to find the people you need, deal with unions, establish personnel
policies, training and organizational development

And from this list, comes the very specific, identifiable reasons for business success:

Having a product or service that's well suited to the needs and requirements of the current
market

Developing a complete business plan before commencing business operations

Conducting a complete market analysis before producing or offering the product or service
Thoroughly developing advertising, promotional and sales programs

Establishing tight financial controls, good budgeting practices, accurate bookkeeping and
accounting methods, all backed by an attitude of frugality

Ensuring that there's a high degree of competence, capability and integrity on the part of
key staff members

Having good internal efficiency, time management, clear job descriptions, accompanied by
clear and measurable output and responsibilities

Developing effective communication among the staff and an open-door policy for
managers, especially the business's owner

Generating strong momentum in the sales department and placing a continued emphasis
on marketing your product or service

Making concern for the customer a top priority at all times

Putting determination, persistence and patience at the top of the list on the part of the
business owners

And now that you know the seven essentials of business success and the identifiable factors
involved in helping your company succeed, let me share the top reasons for business
failure. Thousands of companies were studied to determine the reasons businesses fail.
Here they are, in order of their importance:

Lack of direction. Business owners often fail to establish clear goals and create plans to
achieve those goals, especially before starting out, when they fail to develop a complete
business plan before launching their company.

Impatience. This occurs when business owners try to accomplish too much too soon, or
expect to get results far faster than is truly possible. A good rule to remember is that
everything costs twice as much and takes three times as long as expected.

Greed. When entrepreneurs try to charge too much to make a lot of money in a short period
of time, failure isn't far behind.

Taking action without thinking it through first. An entrepreneur acts impetuously and
makes costly mistakes that eventually cause the business to fail.

Poor cost control. An entrepreneur spends too much, especially in the early stages, and
spends all their startup capital money before achieving profitability.

Poor product quality. This makes it difficult to sell and difficult to get repeat business.
Insufficient working capital. An entrepreneur expects--and requires--immediate, positive
cash flow that doesn't occur, leading to the failure of the business.

Bad or nonexistent budgeting. An entrepreneur fails to develop written budgets for

operations that include all possible expenses.

Inadequate financial records. An entrepreneur fails to set up a bookkeeping or accounting

system from the beginning.

Loss of momentum in the sales department. This leads to a decline in cash flow and the
eventual collapse of the enterprise.

Failure to anticipate market trends. An entrepreneur doesn't recognize changes in demand,

customer preferences or the economic situation.

Lack of managerial ability or experience. An entrepreneur doesn't know or understand the

important skills it takes to run a business.

Indecisiveness. An entrepreneur is unable to make key decisions in the face of difficulties,

or decisions are delayed or improperly made because of concern for the opinions or
feelings of other people.

Bad human relations. Personal problems and conflict with staff, suppliers, creditors and
customers can easily lead to business failure.

Diffusion of effort. An entrepreneur tries to do too many things, thus failing to set priorities
and focus on high-value tasks.

Business success isn't a mystery waiting to be solved. It's an attainable goal, if you simply
avoid the reasons for business failure and continually focus on improving the areas that are
responsible for business success.

20. Global issues

Although we may think about specific global issues like health, conflict, finance, and the
environment as separate – and perhaps unrelated – challenges to be tackled independently,
the reality is far from it. They are actually deeply connected, and our understanding,
appreciation, and responses should be shaped accordingly.

The fundamental linkages among climate, development, and humanitarian action are
apparent this week as the United Nations convenes multiple moments for global progress:
the Financing for Development Forum (April 23-26), World Immunization Week (April 24-
30), and the High-level meeting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace (April 24-25). Many
of us will have reflected on and celebrated the importance of continued climate action
yesterday on Earth Day (April 22), and the UN Foundation and others will be elevating the
important strides made, and progress still needed, on World Malaria Day (April 25).

Rather than seeing these moments as disparate efforts, we would be better served by
looking at the common threads that run across each issue area to remind us of the need to
consider holistic, integrated solutions to reach the world’s most vulnerable populations
and address systemic issues threatening peace and prosperity.

The interconnectedness of these issues is at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), which have been purposefully crafted to be inclusive and integrated across the
social, economic, environmental, and governance fields.

It’s not by chance then that we see countries marred by conflict also suffering from
devastating disease outbreaks, or places bearing the brunt of climate impacts likewise
experiencing more acute levels of hunger or instability.

Of course, our ability to address these issues is directly correlated to our ability to mobilize
resources at the scale needed. Current estimates suggest that achieving the SDGs will take
between $5-7 trillion in annual investments – a figure that far exceeds current levels of
official government aid and suggests the need for innovative new models of financing to fill
the gap.

Closing this gap is critically important as progress in climate, development, and

humanitarian issues spurs progress in other areas. Adversely, decline or stagnation can
threaten broader progress. In all of this, having adequate resources – including financing –
is key.

Global Challenges are Interconnected

Here are a few examples of where we see undeniable connections:

– Approximately 87% of people in extreme poverty live in countries that are fragile and/or
are environmentally vulnerable. According to recent analysis by the UN Conference on
Trade and Development, least developed countries (LDCs) – nations categorized by high
incidence of poverty and economic vulnerability – will fall short of goals set out in the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development unless urgent action is taken. It’s not by chance these
47 countries are falling behind in crucial areas of peace, health, financial stability, and
climate resilience.

– Nine of the 10 countries most affected by extreme weather events between 1997 and
2016 were developing countries. In many impacted regions reliant on farming, such as sub-
Saharan Africa, communities struggle to recover from periods of extreme rainfall followed
by extreme drought – extreme patterns that are becoming more common as a result of
climate change. These climate-associated disasters triggered food crises in 23 countries
and were responsible for pushing some 39 million people into acute food insecurity.

– Countries marred by devastating conflicts, such as Yemen, Myanmar, and South Sudan are
the most vulnerable to hunger and disease, as they lack access to crucial health and
financial services. Case in point: South Sudan and Yemen experienced severe outbreaks of
cholera in 2017. Likewise, countries that lack the infrastructure to sustain resilient
economies and health systems are far more susceptible to instability and conflict.

– A child in a developing country is 10 times more likely to die of a vaccine-preventable

disease than a child from an industrialized one with proper health systems in place.
Moreover, almost two-thirds of children who have not been immunized with basic vaccines
live in countries that are either partially or entirely affected by conflict.

– The direct economic impact associated with violence and armed conflict accounted for
9.1% of global GDP in 2014 according to the Business and Sustainable Development
Commission – a figure that rose to 13.3% of global GDP (approximately $13.6 trillion a
year) in 2016, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace. These figures represent
significant costs to the global economy that divert essential resources away from health,
environmental, and peacebuilding needs.

Global Solutions are Interconnected, Too

Despite these enormous challenges, there are positive signals of progress. This week, let’s
hope we find occasion to reinforce the integrated solutions needed across the development,
humanitarian, and climate sectors from actors in the public, private, and civil society
sectors.

For example, the recent UN-World Bank report, Pathways to Peace, identified a savings of
up to $70 billion a year if the global community is able to implement a scaled-up system for
prevention. These cost savings could be reinvested in reducing poverty, improving health,
addressing climate change, and advancing prosperity

Look also at the African Capacity Insurance Company Ltd. – the first-ever African natural
disaster insurance pool – which demonstrates how an innovative use of finance can
improve current responses to weather-related food security emergencies, crucial to
preventing instability and sustaining peace.

Following last week’s World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington D.C., let’s hope
the conversation at the UN this week finds an opportunity to identify and strengthen
innovative and crucial financial instruments such as the Pandemic Emergency Financing
Facility and other efforts aimed at prioritizing human capital and universal health coverage
for all.

In both the High-Level Meeting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace and the Financing
for Development Forum, tools like humanitarian impact bonds could be assessed as a way
to raise ambition and accelerate our response to our interconnected challenges.

Beyond this important week, the momentum gained will set the pace for two major
milestones for reviewing global progress – the High-level Political Forum in July, which this
year will see country-level thematic reviews focused on climate and energy and the impacts
across other SDGs and issue areas, and the UN General Assembly in September.

Bringing an intentional focus across and within these issues could strengthen the dialogues
and anticipated impact happening this year, from climate change to security. And by
drilling down on root causes, we can minimize knock-on effects across the security,
development, and humanitarian agendas, and maximize scalable solutions.
It’s clear that we cannot escape the challenges of living in an interconnected world. To best
leverage these synergies and make progress across our agendas, we need to break down
silos and improve how we work together across issues and across sectors.

21. Entertainment

Entertainment is necessary for everyone, and anyone that says otherwise is ignorant. It
might not seem apparent, but entertainment plays a very big role in ensuring that people
live normal and happy lives. Over the years, with the introduction of better entertainment
avenues, people have started consuming entertainment more. This is simply because of the
importance that it holds. If you are wondering what these benefits are, here they are.

The advantages of entertainment

Relives stress

If you get stress, one of the best treatments is to get a worthy

distracfnkjdfskjvbdkjbvkjdfvkbsdkfjvdsfvsdftion. Entertainment is one of the best
distractions you can get. When you get quality entertainment, your mind thinks of other
things, and releases endorphins, hormones that are responsible for feeling good. This is a
better way to deal with stress, as it gives you some time off to relax and prepare your mind
for recovery.

Provides employment

The entertainment industry is one of the largest employer. From the street magician to the
galaxy of stars we see on TV, they are all earning a living because of entertainment. It also
plays a great role in fostering the economy in that a lot of tax is collected from the industry.
This is one of the top reasons as to why it should be supported and allowed to thrive.

Nurtures culture

You might not notice it, but a lot of human culture is modeled around entertainment. When
you go for a date, most people might go to the movies—or at least in the 90’s, over the
weekend you might meet with friends and watch a game together. This list could go on and
on, but one thing that remains clear is that entertainment plays a great role in nurturing
and maintaining culture.

Promotes talent and creativity

Entertainment is one of the top industries

thslkdnvkjasdvnsdnvlkansdlvnlsakdnvlkasndvasat focuses on promoting talent and
creativity. It is all evident from the countless tech developments used in movies, and the
talented acting that we get to watch on a daily basis. While it is important to focus on other
formal industries, entertainment should get sufficient support, especially when it comes to
recognizing talent and creativity.
These are some of the benefits that entertainment has. Has seen, it does play a very
important role in ensuring that we all get some piece of mind, a good aught, and help
maintain our economy at the same time. The next time you go to entertain yourself,
remember how important that is.

The Importance of the Entertainment Industry on our Modern Society

What importance does entertainment have on today’s society? Why should we care if the
entertainment industry hangs around or just fades away into obscurity? Why should we
pay our hard earned money to already wealthy entertainers for just a few hours of fun?
Couldn’t we just save our money? Why make others rich just to do what they love?

When times get tough people want to be distracted from their troubles. We want to live in a
fantasy world where everything is wonderful and the bad guys pay for their wrong doings.
We want to forget about all of our troubles and be whisked away to some place fun and
entertaining. Movies, television, music, sporting events, they all take us to a happier place
allowing us be carefree, even if it’s just for a short time.

During the depression in the 1940s, the entertainment industry was one of the few
industries that did not suffer. People needed that time to heal, to recoup, to feel good for
just a couple hours in order to cope with the misery of the real world. Right now our
country is on the slow rebound back from the worst recession since that time. Without
these distractions I believe people would not have the courage to face such hard times.

So why is this industry important? Because it helps us cope. It allows us time to heal. It
helps us forget for just a moment that we are struggling. It also gives us hope that we can
bounce back and make a better life. It helps us feel human again. Without it, we would just
fade away…