Elevated Education Quotes

And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.” Speaking

Engage, educate, equip, encourage, empower, energize, and elevate. Those are the methods for maximizing the potential of any individual, team, organization, or institution for ultimate success and significance. Those are the methods of a mentor leader.

The worst possible sexual education: a taboo imposed by the Catholic church plus romantic literature elevating love to unreal heights plus the obscene language of my peers. After all, I was nearly born in the nineteenth century, and I have no tender feelings for it.

When we unnecessarily elongate the process of "learning to read," we postpone "reading to learn" - learning itself - by years.

Fisher Ames observed of Hamilton that the common people don’t want leaders “whom they see elevated by nature and education so far above their heads.

Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material improvement. Knowledge is a viaticum. Though is a prime necessity; truth is nourishment, like wheat. A reasoning faculty, deprived of knowledge and wisdom, pines away. We should feel the same pity for minds that do not eat as for stomachs. If there be anything sadder than a body perishing for want of bread, it is a mind dying of hunger for lack of light. All progress tends toward the solution. Some day, people will be amazed. As the human race ascends, the deepest layers will naturally emerge from the zone of distress. The effacement of wretchedness will be effected by a simple elevation level.

worksheets - the archenemy of abundant, purposeful reading (and discussion and writing).

Therapy is nothing but an education in yourself; an opportunity to elevate the way you live your life. I'd recommend therapy to anyone, not just someone who lives with mental illness.

Libraries for me have always had a cathedral-like ambiance, a hushed sanctuary where learning is revered, where we the people elevate books and education to the level of the religious.

For what reason then do the realists show themselves so unfriendly toward philosophy? Because they misunderstand their own calling and with all their might want to remain restricted instead of becoming unrestricted! Why do they hate abstractions? Because they themselves are abstract since they abstract from the perfection of themselves, from the elevation of redeeming truth!

Claiming to be offended is a great way to elevate yourself at the expense of others: “Look at me! I'm a much better person than you! And I judge you! I condemn you! Shame! Shame! SHAME! I shame you for being a bad person. That means I'm a good person! Look at how really really offended I am! That means I'm a really really good person!” According to the bible, Jesus said "let he who is without sin throw the first rock." But a lot of people seem to think he said: "If you throw rocks at someone else, it proves that you're without sin.

Claiming to be offended is a great way to elevate yourself at the expense of others: “Look at me! I'm a much better person than you! And I judge you! I condemn you! Shame! Shame! SHAME!

The Atonement of Jesus Christ does not just provide a way to clean up messes; it provides the purpose and desire to avoid making more messes. The Atonement doesn’t allow us to ignore our appetites or pretend they don’t matter, but to educate and elevate them.

The more we live as 'free individuals' . . . the more we are effectively non-free, caught within the existing frame of possibilities--we have to be impelled or disturbed into freedom. . . . This paradox thoroughly pervades the form of subjectivity that characterizes 'permissive' liberal society. Since permissiveness and free choice are elevated into a supreme value, social control and domination can no longer appear as infringing on subjects' freedom: they have to appear as (and be sustained by) individuals experiencing themselves as free. There is a multitude of forms of this appearing of un-freedom in the guise of its opposite: in being deprived of universal healthcare, we are told that we are being given a new freedom of choice (to choose our healthcare provider); when we can no longer rely on long-term employment and are compelled to search for a new precarious job every couple of years, we are told that we are being given the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and discover our creative potential; when we have to pay for the education of our children, we are told that we are now able to become 'entrepreneurs of the self," acting like a capitalist freely choosing how to invest the resources he possesses (or has borrowed). In education, health, travel . . . we are constantly bombarded by imposed 'free choices'; forced to make decisions for which we are mostly not qualified (or do not possess enough information), we increasingly experience our freedom as a burden that causes unbearable anxiety. Unable to break out of this vicious cycle alone, as isolated individuals--since the more we act freely the more we become enslaved by the system--we need to be 'awakened' from this 'dogmatic slumber' of fake freedom.

As teachers we must not guide our students to be the people we wish them to be but elevate them to become the people they were meant to be. Remember the encouragement we give our students may be the only encouragement they ever receive so don't use it sparingly.

I’m a duck farmer, and that’s not something you go to school to be. If you did, there certainly wouldn’t be any kickball classes.

Our whole education system is calculated to produce *feelings* in us, impart them to us, instead of leaving their production to ourselves however they may turn out...Thus stuffed with imparted feelings, we appear before the bar of majority and are 'pronounced of age." Our equipment consists of "elevating feelings, lofty thoughts, inspiring maxims,eternal principles.

Yogurt is culture. Post-post-modern literature is not. I wish I'd have known that before I went to college to learn how to communicate with less efficiency than ducks, because it’s a spoonful that's hard to swallow at first.

She said she had two brothers, one in heaven and one in college. I said, "Aww, sorry to hear about the one. Such a tragedy to lose a brother to debt servitude. Tell him to drop out and become a duck farmer before he's too indoctrinated.

What I call stupidity is not only lack of knowledge, although much of humanity could be elevated from poverty, dogma, illusions and war through traditional education. A thriving education system is the foundation for progress. But stupidity is not merely ignorance; it can also be a way of acting. If you act contrary to your own goals in life – you’re stupid.

So how can we improve the educational system? We should probably first rethink school curricula, and link them in more obvious ways to social goals (elimination of poverty and crime, elevation of human rights, etc.), technological goals (boosting energy conservation, space exploration, nanotechnology, etc.), and medical goals (cures for cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) that we care about as a society.

Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.

Studying is always future best investment. Don’t just study to qualify, but also Study to edify, elevate and to amplify your life.

What has Capitalism resolved? It has solved no problems. It has looted the world. It has left us with all this poverty. It has created lifestyles and models of consumerism that are incompatible with reality. It has poisoned the waterways. Oceans, Rivers, Lakes, Seas, the Atmosphere, the Earth. It has produced an incredible waste of resources. I always cite one example; imagine every person in China owned a Car, or aspired to own a Car. Everyone of the 1.1 Billion people in China, or that everyone of the 800 million people in India wished to own a Car, this method, this lifestyle, and Africa did the same, and nearly 450 million Latin Americans did the same. How long would Oil last? How long would Natural Gas last? How long would natural resources last? What would be left of the Ozone layer? What would be left of Oxygen on Earth? What would happen with Carbon Dioxide? And all these phenomenon that are changing the ecology of our world, they are changing Earth, they are making life on our Planet more and more difficult all the time. What model has Capitalism given the world to follow? An example for societies to emulate? Shouldn’t we focus on more rational things, like the education of the whole population? Nutrition, health, a respectable lodging, an elevated culture? Would you say capitalism, with it’s blind laws, it’s selfishness as a fundamental principle, has given us something to emulate? Has it shown us a path forward? Is humanity going to travel on the course charted thus far? There may be talk of a crisis in socialism, but, today, there is an even greater crises in capitalism, with no end in sight.

Let's Elevate, Educate, and Empower Our Youth...Not Incarcerate Them! Try To HELP Our Youth...Don't HURT Them! Lord knows they'll have plenty of enough hurdles to leap over in their lives!

Historically, ignorance has been a form of grace for the good woman; education was denied women to keep them morally good. The elevation of a woman requires that she have this innocence, this purity, this chastity: she must not know the world, which men embody. The worship of a woman or a female religious symbol is often the unmediated worship of chastity. The virgin is the great religious symbol of female good, the female who is by nature (in her body) good, who embodies the good. The awe and honor accorded the chaste female by men are frequently pointed to to show that men do not hate or degrade women, that men worship, adore, and admire women. The morally superior nature of women is honored mostly in the abstract, and women are worshiped mostly in the abstract. The worship is worship of a symbol— a symbol manipulated to justify the uses to which fallen women are put. The morally good woman is put on a pedestal—a small, precarious, raised stage, often mined, on which she stands for as long as she can—until she falls off or jumps or it goes boom.

In fascist ideology, the function of the education system is to glorify the mythic past, elevating the achievements of members of the nation and obscuring the perspectives and histories of those who do not belong.

He is no mean poet, and his verse can rouse or persuade even if his logic fail to convince. His message is not for the Mohammedans of India alone, but for Moslems everywhere: accordingly he writes in Persian instead of Hindustani—a happy choice, for amongst educated Moslems there are many familiar with Persian literature, while the Persian language is singularly well adapted to express philosophical ideas in a style at once elevated and charming.

[The Truth Seeker is] Devoted to: science, morals, free thought, free discussions, liberalism, sexual equality, labor reform, progression, free education and whatever tends to elevate and emancipate the human race. Opposed to: priestcraft, ecclesiasticism, dogmas, creeds, false theology, superstition, bigotry, ignorance, monopolies, aristocracies, privileged classes, tyranny, oppression, and everything that degrades or burdens mankind mentally or physically.

The secret of the Finland phenomenon, Wagner discovered, was a platform it built by elevating the education level of its teachers. Finland’s public school system was experiencing the same thing that made Harvard University’s curriculum and network the envy of the academic world: it hired only teachers with incredible qualifications and it had them mentor students closely. Thus, students who went to school at Harvard—or in Finland—started out a rung above their peers.

Now, in all that he has done, Amos Tutuola is not sui generis. Is he ungrammatical? Yes. But James Joyce is more ungrammatical than Tutuola. Ezekiel Mphahlele has often said and written that African writers are doing violence to English. Violence? Has Joyce not done more violence to the English Language? Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is written in seven dialects, he tells us. It is acknowledged a classic. We accept it, forget that it has no "grammar", and go ahead to learn his "grammar" and what he has to tell us. Let Tutuola write "no grammar" and the hyenas and jackals whine and growl. Let Gabriel Okara write a "no grammar" Okolo. They are mum. Why? Education drives out of the mind superstition, daydreaming, building of castles in the air, cultivation of yarns, and replaces them with a rational practical mind, almost devoid of imagination. Some of these minds having failed to write imaginative stories, turn to that aristocratic type of criticism which magnifies trivialities beyond their real size. They fail to touch other virtues in a work because they do not have the imagination to perceive these mysteries. Art is arbitrary. Anybody can begin his own style. Having begun it arbitrarily, if he persists to produce in that particular mode, he can enlarge and elevate it to something permanent, to something other artists will come to learn and copy, to something the critics will catch up with and appreciate.

And adab towards language means the recognition and acknowledgement of the rightful and proper place of every word in a written or uttered sentence so as not to produce a dissonance in meaning, sound and concept. Literature is called adabiyat in Islam precisely because it is seen as the keeper of civilization, the collector of teachings and statements that educate the self and society with adab such that both are elevated to the rank of the cultured man (insan adabi) and society.

Hamilton wanted to lead the electorate and provide expert opinion instead of consulting popular opinion. He took tough, uncompromising stands and gloried in abstruse ideas in a political culture that pined for greater simplicity. Alexander Hamilton triumphed as a doer and thinker, not as a leader of the average voter. He was simply too unashamedly brainy to appeal to the masses. Fisher Ames observed of Hamilton that the common people don't want leaders 'whom they see elevated by nature and education so far above their heads.

Education in those rulers' virtues that master even one's benevolence and pity: the great educator's virtues . . . the affect of the creator must be elevated – no longer to work on marble! – The exceptional situation and powerful position of those beings . . . The Roman Caesar with Christ's Soul.

Truth is a stairway to knowledge, existence is a highway to understanding; together they are an elevator to experience. Need is a stairway to want, desire is a highway to action; together they are an elevator to destiny. Peace is a stairway to knowledge, compassion is a highway to harmony; together they are an elevator to world peace. Books are a stairway to education, awareness is a highway to understanding; together they are an elevator to enlightenment. Sleep is a stairway to rest, life is a highway to death; together they are an elevator to eternity. Light is a stairway to God, virtue is a highway to Heaven; together they are an elevator to divinity.

Harriet was her only real friend, and they agreed on most things, but on this, they did not. According to Harriet, men were a world apart from women. They required coddling, they had fragile egos, they couldn’t allow a woman intelligence or skill if it exceeded their own. “Harriet, that’s ridiculous,” Elizabeth had argued. “Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.

I know. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought it was a book about a nice college girl interviewing a businessman until contracts start to be talked of and kisses happen in elevators. Then before you know it,” Grams wings her hands in the air freely, “penises are flying about and tampons are being pulled out.” Fanning herself, she continues, “I’ve been quite educated.

back,” Daddy said. “It’ll work out.” He had no idea what to do about Helen. They spoke a completely different language. He was an old-timer who called school “schoolin”’ and called me “boy.” He had run off from Jim Crow in the South and felt that education, any education, was a privilege. Helen was far beyond that. Weeks passed, months, and Helen didn’t return. Finally Jack called. “I found her. She’s living with some crazy woman,” Jack said. She told Ma she didn’t know much about the lady other than that she wore a lot of scarves and used incense. Mommy got the address and went to the place herself. It was a dilapidated housing project near St. Nicholas Avenue, with junkies and winos standing out front. Mommy stepped past them and walked through a haze of reefer smoke and took the elevator to the eighth floor. She went to the apartment door and listened. There was music playing on a stereo inside, and the voice of someone on the phone. She knocked on the door. The stereo lowered. “Who is it?” someone asked. It sounded like Helen. “I’m here to see Helen,” Mommy said. Silence. “I know you’re there, Helen,” Mommy said. Silence. “Helen. I want you to come home. Whatever’s wrong we’ll fix. Just forget all of it and come on home.” From down the hallway, a doorway opened and a black woman watched in silence as the dark-haired, bowlegged white lady talked to the closed door. “Please come home, Helen.” The door had a peephole in it. The peephole slid back. A large black eye peered out. “Please come home, Helen. This is no place for you to be. Just come on home.” The peephole closed.

All this, sadly enough, is truer of the more educated, higher-income, professional families. It is here that the competition is the greatest, the expectations most elevated. If the boy would be happier as a telephone linesman or a forest ranger, he is in a hopeless bind. His goals have been set for him by his milieu, and he cannot be his own man; so he simply refuses to play the game. He "does not try.

As women gain rights, families flourish, and so do societies. That connection is built on a simple truth: Whenever you include a group that’s been excluded, you benefit everyone. And when you’re working globally to include women and girls, who are half of every population, you’re working to benefit all members of every community. Gender equity lifts everyone. From high rates of education, employment, and economic growth to low rates of teen births, domestic violence, and crime—the inclusion and elevation of women correlate with the signs of a healthy society. Women’s rights and society’s health and wealth rise together. Countries that are dominated by men suffer not only because they don’t use the talent of their women but because they are run by men who have a need to exclude. Until they change their leadership or the views of their leaders, those countries will not flourish. Understanding this link between women’s empowerment and the wealth and health of societies is crucial for humanity. As much as any insight we’ve gained in our work over the past twenty years, this was our huge missed idea. My huge missed idea. If you want to lift up humanity, empower women. It is the most comprehensive, pervasive, high-leverage investment you can make in human beings.

Politics is the preoccupation of the quarter-educated,” George Gissing wrote near the end of the nineteenth century. To that aphorism we may add, near the end of the twentieth century, “Democracy is the preoccupation of the half-aware.” What our age desperately requires is not more mediocrity, but more elevation of spirit, awareness of the eternal source of truth. That failing, order and freedom and justice fall into ruin.

I have found that educators yearn to be told something like this: There will be no more initiatives—at least for a time. Instead, we will focus only on what will have an immediate and dramatic impact on learning in your classrooms: ensuring the implementation of a common, content-rich curriculum; good lessons; and plenty of meaningful literacy activities (such as close reading, writing, and discussion) across the curriculum.

No longer are the riches of the Bible known only to an educated elite. But it has also had negative consequences. It has made possible individualistic interpretation of the Bible; and that, coupled with the elevated status given to the Bible by the Protestant Reformation, has led to the fragmentation of Christianity into a multitude of denominations and sectarian movements, each grounded in different interpretations of the Bible.

Harriet, that’s ridiculous,” Elizabeth had argued. “Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.

Both Jew and Gentile enjoyed complexities, especially the Greeks with their philosophical systems. They loved mental gymnastics and intellectual labyrinths. They believed the truth was knowable, but only to those with elevated minds. This system later became known as gnosticism, a belief that certain people, by virtue of their enhanced reasoning powers, could move beyond the hoi polloi and ascend to the level of enlightenment. At the time of Paul, we can trace at least fifty different philosophies rattling around in the Roman and Greek world. And the gospel came along and said, “None of it matters. We’ll destroy it all. Take all the wisdom of the wise, get the best, get the elite, the most educated, the most capable, the smartest, the most clever, the best at rhetoric, oratory, logic; get all the wise, all the scribes, the legal experts, the great debaters, and they’re all going to be designated fools.” The gospel says they are all foolish. Paul’s quotation of Isaiah 29:14 in verse 19, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,” had to be an offensive statement to his audience.

More desirable women have more bargaining power on the mating market, and they can elevate their standards. They want higher levels of resources, education, and intelligence; higher social status; good parenting skills; and raft of other traits. American men with resources are more likely to marry physically attractive women. Most men can obtain a much more desirable mate if they are willing to commit to a long-term relationship because women typically desire lasting commitment, and highly desirable women are in the best position to get what they want.

Defining freedom cannot amount to simply substituting it with inclusion. Countering the criminalization of Black girls requires fundamentally altering the relationship between Black girls and the institutions of power that have worked to reinforce their subjugation. History has taught us that civil rights are but one component of a larger movement for this type of social transformation. Civil rights may be at the core of equal justice movements, and they may elevate an equity agenda that protects our children from racial and gender discrimination, but they do not have the capacity to fully redistribute power and eradicate racial inequity. There is only one practice that can do that. Love.

For what must be clear to us above all, both to our humiliation and our elevation, is that the whole comedy of art is certainly not performed for us, neither for our edification nor our education, just as we are far from truly being the creators of that world of art; conversely, however, we may very well assume we are already images and artistic projections for the true creator of art, and that our highest dignity lies in our significance as works of art - for only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified - although, of course, our awareness of our significance in this respect hardly differs from the awareness which painted soldiers have of the battle depicted on the same canvas.

the Blank Slate had, and has, a dark side. The vacuum that it posited in human nature was eagerly filled by totalitarian regimes, and it did nothing to prevent their genocides. It perverts education, childrearing, and the arts into forms of social engineering. It torments mothers who work outside the home and parents whose children did not turn out as they would have liked. It threatens to outlaw biomedical research that could alleviate human suffering. Its corollary, the Noble Savage, invites contempt for the principles of democracy and of “a government of laws and not of men.” It blinds us to our cognitive and moral shortcomings. And in matters of policy it has elevated sappy dogmas above the search for workable solutions. The Blank Slate is not some ideal that we should all hope and pray is true. No, it is an anti-life, anti-human theoretical abstraction that denies our common humanity, our inherent interests, and our individual preferences.

The logic of demand creation requires that women smoke and drink in public, move about freely, and assert their right to happiness instead of living for others. The advertising industry thus encourages the pseudo-emancipation of women, flattering them with its insinuating reminder, 'You've come a long way, baby,' and disguising the freedom to consume as genuine autonomy. Similarly it flatters and glorifies youth in the hope of elevating young people to the status of full-fledged consumers in their own right, each with a telephone, a television set, and a hi-fi in his own room. The 'education' of the masses has altered the balance of forces within the family, weakening the authority of the husband in relation to the wife and parents in relation to their children. It emancipates women and children from patriarchal authority, however, only to subject them to the new paternalism of the advertising industry, the industrial corporation, and the state.

Ignorance lowers you, curiosity elevates you; knowledge puts you on a higher pedestal than information. Confusion lowers you, understanding elevates you; discernment puts you on a higher pedestal than intellect. Imprudence lowers you, insight elevates you; wisdom puts you on a higher pedestal than perception. Greed lowers you, contentment elevates you; peace puts you on a higher pedestal than indifference. Bitterness lowers you, happiness elevates you; joy puts you on a higher pedestal than pleasure. Anger lowers you, patience elevates you; longstanding puts you on a higher pedestal than tolerance. Cruelty lowers you, compassion elevates you; kindness puts you on a higher pedestal than apathy. Despair lowers you, hope elevates you; perseverance puts you on a higher pedestal than dispassion. Fear lowers you, courage elevates you; faith puts you on a higher pedestal than confidence. Hatred lowers you, mercy elevates you; love puts you on a higher pedestal than sympathy. Illiteracy lowers you, education elevates you; enlightenment puts you on a higher pedestal than talent. Imitating lowers you, creativity elevates you; originality puts you on a higher pedestal than innovation. Incompetence lowers you, skill elevates you; excellence puts you on a higher pedestal than enthusiasm. Laziness lowers you, hard work elevates you; diligence puts you on a higher pedestal competence. Failure lowers you, perseverance elevates you; success puts you on a higher pedestal than ambition. Mediocrity lowers you, talent elevates you; genius puts you on a higher pedestal than aptitude. Obscurity lowers you, fame elevates you; influence puts you on a higher pedestal than popularity. Ego lowers you, honor elevates you; humility puts you on a higher pedestal than applause. Poverty lowers you, success elevates you; wealth puts you on a higher pedestal than prominence. Dishonor lowers you, esteem elevates you; character puts you on a higher pedestal than reputation.

What matters is not how much we remember, but how we remember. As I see it, intelligence is closely related to creativity, to noticing something new, to making unexpected connections between disparate facts. Isaac Newton’s genius consisted of realizing that what makes an apple fall from a tree is the same force that keeps the moon in its orbit around the earth: gravity. Centuries later, in his general theory of relativity, Albert Einstein uncovered another astounding relationship when he noted that the effect of the force of gravity is indistinguishable from the acceleration of a spaceship in outer space or the tug we feel in an elevator when it starts to move. Attempting to memorize facts by rote does nothing more than distract our attention from what really matters, the deeper understanding required to establish meaning and notice connections—that which constitutes the basis of intelligence. The method of loci does nothing to help us understand the things we memorize; it is just a formula for memorization that, in fact, competes against comprehension. As we saw in the previous chapter, Shereshevskii was able to memorize a list effortlessly using the method of loci, but was incapable of grasping its content enough to pick out the liquids from the list or, on another occasion, to realize that he had memorized a sequence of consecutive numbers. Using the method of loci to store these lists left Shereshevskii no room to make any of the categorizations that we perform unconsciously (person, animal, liquid, etc.) or to find basic patterns in a list of numbers. To be creative and intelligent, we must go beyond merely remembering and undertake completely different processes: we must assimilate concepts and derive meaning. Focusing on memorization techniques limits our ability to understand, classify, contextualize, and associate. Like memorization, these processes also help to secure memories, but in a more useful and elaborate way; these are precisely the processes that should be developed and encouraged by the educational system.

After Bailey came Samuel Johnson, His Cantankerousness. Son of a London bookseller, a university dropout, afflicted with depression and what modern doctors think was likely Tourette’s—“a man of bizarre appearance, uncouth habits, and minimal qualifications”—Johnson was bewilderingly chosen by a group of English booksellers and authors to write the authoritative dictionary of English. Because of the seriousness of the charge, and because Johnson was scholarly but not a proper scholar, he began work on his dictionary the way that all of us now do: he read. He focused on the great works of English literature—Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Locke, Pope—but also took in more mundane, less elevated works. Among the books that crossed his desk were research on fossils, medical texts, treatises on education, poetry, legal writing, sermons, periodicals, collections of personal letters, scientific explorations of color, books debunking common myths and superstitions of the day, abridged histories of the world, and other dictionaries.

Literacy was to be developed in a socially constructed environment so that new ideas and information learned from texts could be shared and spread among one another and those in the community. Members of all ages and experiences with reading would assemble to teach one another. Although individual literacy was valued, these societies were highly collaborative and prompted social responsibility to share knowledge gained from acts of literacy rather than keep education to one’s self. This collaboration for literacy learning built the foundation of the “chain letter of instruction” model, which embodied a shared accountability for knowledge (Fisher, 2004). If one person, for example, acquired knowledge, it was then his or her responsibility to pass it on to others to create a flame-like effect. To keep knowledge to one’s self was seen as a selfish act, and each person therefore was responsible to elevate others through education in the immediate and larger community. This ideal of collectivism is in direct conflict with schools today, as schools are largely grounded in competition and individualism. This is perhaps one major reason why students of color often do not reach their full potential in schools—because schools are in disharmony with their histories and identities.

Another rather humble virtue which is not likely to be produced by a wholly free education is punctuality. Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social co-operation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God, or with mystic insight, or with any of the matters with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary. It would not do for the engine-driver or the postman to wait till the spirit moved him to drive his engine or collect the letters. All economic organisations of any complexity would become unworkable if those concerned were often late. But habits of punctuality are hardly likely to be learned in a free atmosphere. They cannot exist in a man who allows his moods to dominate him. For this reason they are perhaps incompatible with the highest forms of achievement. Newton, as we know, was so unpunctual at his meals that his dog ate them without Newton’s ever finding it out. The highest achievement in most directions demands capacity for absorption in a mood, but those whose work is less skilled, from royalty downward, do much harm if they are habitually unpunctual.

the present grandeur and prospective pre-eminence of that glorious American Republic, in which Europe enviously seeks its model and tremblingly foresees its doom. Selecting for an example of the social life of the United States that city in which progress advances at the fastest rate, I indulged in an animated description of the moral habits of New York. Mortified to see, by the faces of my listeners, that I did not make the favourable impression I had anticipated, I elevated my theme; dwelling on the excellence of democratic institutions, their promotion of tranquil happiness by the government of party, and the mode in which they diffused such happiness throughout the community by preferring, for the exercise of power and the acquisition of honours, the lowliest citizens in point of property, education, and character. Fortunately recollecting the peroration of a speech, on the purifying influences of American democracy and their destined spread over the world, made by a certain eloquent senator (for whose vote in the Senate a Railway Company, to which my two brothers belonged, had just paid 20,000 dollars), I wound up by repeating its glowing predictions of the magnificent future that smiled upon mankind—when the flag of freedom should float over an entire continent, and two hundred millions of intelligent citizens, accustomed from infancy to the daily use of revolvers, should apply to a cowering universe the doctrine of the Patriot Monroe.

But, suppose we should rise up tomorrow and emancipate, who would educate these millions, and teach them how to use their freedom? They never would rise to do much among us. The fact is, we are too lazy and unpractical, ourselves, ever to give them much of an idea of that industry and energy which is necessary to form them into men. They will have to go north, where labor is the fashion,—the universal custom; and tell me, now, is there enough Christian philanthropy, among your northern states, to bear with the process of their education and elevation? You send thousands of dollars to foreign missions; but could you endure to have the heathen sent into your towns and villages, and give your time, and thoughts, and money, to raise them to the Christian standard? That’s what I want to know. If we emancipate, are you willing to educate? How many families, in your town, would take a negro man and woman, teach them, bear with them, and seek to make them Christians? How many merchants would take Adolph, if I wanted to make him a clerk; or mechanics, if I wanted him taught a trade? If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schools are there in the northern states that would take them in? how many families that would board them? and yet they are as white as many a woman, north or south. You see, Cousin, I want justice done us. We are in a bad position. We are the more obvious oppressors of the negro; but the unchristian prejudice of the north is an oppressor almost equally severe.

Throughout the history of the church, Christians have tended to elevate the importance of one over the other. For the first 1,500 years of the church, singleness was considered the preferred state and the best way to serve Christ. Singles sat at the front of the church. Marrieds were sent to the back.4 Things changed after the Reformation in 1517, when single people were sent to the back and marrieds moved to the front — at least among Protestants.5 Scripture, however, refers to both statuses as weighty, meaningful vocations. We’ll spend more time on each later in the chapter, but here is a brief overview. Marrieds. This refers to a man and woman who form a one-flesh union through a covenantal vow — to God, to one another, and to the larger community — to permanently, freely, faithfully, and fruitfully love one another. Adam and Eve provide the clearest biblical model for this. As a one-flesh couple, they were called by God to take initiative to “be fruitful . . . fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Singles. Scripture teaches that human beings are created for intimacy and connection with God, themselves, and one another. Marriage is one framework in which we work this out; singleness is another. While singleness may be voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed, temporary or long-term, a sudden event or a gradual unfolding, Christian singleness can be understood within two distinct callings: • Vowed celibates. These are individuals who make lifelong vows to remain single and maintain lifelong sexual abstinence as a means of living out their commitment to Christ. They do this freely in response to a God-given gift of grace (Matthew 19:12). Today, we are perhaps most familiar with vowed celibates as nuns and priests in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church. These celibates vow to forgo earthly marriage in order to participate more fully in the heavenly reality that is eternal union with Christ.6 • Dedicated celibates. These are singles who have not necessarily made a lifelong vow to remain single, but who choose to remain sexually abstinent for as long as they are single. Their commitment to celibacy is an expression of their commitment to Christ. Many desire to marry or are open to the possibility. They may have not yet met the right person or are postponing marriage to pursue a career or additional education. They may be single because of divorce or the death of a spouse. The apostle Paul acknowledges such dedicated celibates in his first letter to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 7). Understanding singleness and marriage as callings or vocations must inform our self-understanding and the outworking of our leadership. Our whole life as a leader is to bear witness to God’s love for the world. But we do so in different ways as marrieds or singles. Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles — vowed or dedicated — bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love. This may be a radically new concept for you, but stay with me. God intends this rich theological vision to inform our leadership in ways few of us may have considered. Before exploring the connections between leadership and marriage or singleness, it’s important to understand the way marriage and singleness are commonly understood in standard practice among leaders today.

Company Team Buildingis a tool that can help inside inspiring a team for that satisfaction associated with organizational objectives. Today?azines multi-cultural society calls for working in a harmonious relationship with assorted personas, particularly in global as well as multi-location companies. Business team building events strategies is a way by which team members tend to be met towards the requirements of the firm. They help achieve objectives together instead of working on their particular. Which are the benefits of company team building events? Team building events methods enhance conversation among co-workers. The huge benefits include improved upon morality as well as management skills, capacity to handle difficulties, and much better understanding of work environment. Additional positive aspects would be the improvements inside conversation, concentration, decision making, party problem-solving, and also reducing stress. What are the usual signs that reveal the need for team building? The common signs consist of discord or even hostility between people, elevated competitors organizations between staff, lack of function involvement, poor decision making abilities, lowered efficiency, as well as poor quality associated with customer care. Describe different methods of business team development? Company team development experts as well as person programs on ?working collaboratively? can supply different ways of business team building. An important method of business team building is actually enjoyment routines that want communication between the members. The favored activities are fly-fishing, sailing regattas, highway rallies, snow boarding, interactive workshops, polls, puzzle game titles, and so forth. Each one of these routines would help workers be competitive and hone their own side considering abilities. Just what services are offered by the team building events trainers? The majority of the coaches offer you enjoyable functions, coming from accommodation to be able to dishes and much more. The actual packages include holiday packages, rope courses, on-going business office video games, and also ice-breakers. Coaching fees would depend on location, number of downline, classes, and sophistication periods. Special discounts are available for long-term deals of course, if the quantity of associates will be higher. Name some well-known corporate team development event providers within the U.Utes. Several well-liked companies are Accel-Team, Encounter Based Studying Inc, Performance Supervision Organization, Team development Productions, The education Haven Incorporated, Enterprise Upwards, Group Contractors In addition, and Team development USA.If you want to find out more details, make sure you Clicking Here

A third reason behind the preservation of doctrine is that Pentecostals have struggled to balance biblical teaching with their religious experience. Committed to the Reformation principle of biblical authority (“only Scripture”) as the standard for faith and practice, they have nonetheless experienced the temptation to elevate personal revelations and other spiritual manifestations to the same level. This struggle is reflected in an early Pentecostal Evangel report, describing the expectations of Frank M. Boyd as an early Bible school educator and instructor at Central Bible Institute (College after 1965): [H]e expected all the students to be more filled with fire and love and zeal and more filled with the Spirit when they left than when they came. He said that when men had the Word without the Spirit they were often dead and dull and dry; and when men had the Spirit without the Word there is always a tendency towards fanaticism. But where men had the Word and the Spirit, they would be equipped as the Master wants His ministers equipped.54 This challenge to instruct believers on how to have mature Spirit-filled life helps to explain the high priority given to publishing.

The backstory of the back-and-forth during composition [...] makes it clear that Washington's insistence on elevating public education was based on a deep and urgent insight: that democracies' success depended on an educated and enlightened population.

These “highly educated” Negroes, however, fail to see that it is not the Negro who takes this position. The white man forces him to it, and to extricate himself therefrom the Negro leader must so deal with the situation as to develop in the segregated group the power with which they can elevate themselves. The differentness of races, moreover, is no evidence of superiority or of inferiority. This merely indicates that each race has certain gifts which the others do not possess. It is by the development of these gifts that every race must justify its right to exist.

Research and practice have repeatedly shown that we can improve a child’s education by elevating the teaching profession and ensuring that every child has a quality teacher in his or her classroom; empowering parents with information and a role in the direction of their child’s education; and creating accountable governance systems and fair and sustainable sources of education funding.

So how can we improve the educational system? We should probably first rethink school curricula, and link them in more obvious ways to social goals (elimination of poverty and crime, elevation of human rights, etc.), technological goals (boosting energy conservation, space exploration, nanotechnology, etc.), and medical goals (cures for cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) that we care about as a society. This way the students, teachers, and parents might see the larger point in education and become more enthusiastic and motivated about it. We should also work hard on making education a goal in itself, and stop confusing the number of hours students spend in school with the quality of the education they get. Kids can get excited about many things (baseball, for example), and it is our challenge as a society to make them want to know as much about Nobel laureates as they now know about baseball players. I am not suggesting that igniting a social passion for education is simple; but if we succeed in doing so, the value could be immense.

The educational environment of children should encourage them to continue to explore the open-ended connections between their experiences, and to be receptive to new interconnections and interpretations of theories and explanations that they have either learned or developed. An oft-repeated story illustrates the deadening effect of thinking in terms of narrowly defined fields.16 A high school physics student was given the following problem on an examination: “Suppose you were in a tall building, and had a sensitive barometer in your possession. How would you use it to find the height of the building?” As anyone who has studied introductory physics will instantly recognize, the instructor was looking for the answer he had prepared his students to give—namely, measure the barometric pressure at the bottom and the top of the building, and calculate the height of the building, using the formula that relates the drop in barometric pressure to the increase in elevation going from the ground to the top of the building. The student in question, a very bright and highly independent soul, found it demeaning to provide an answer that he thought was trivially easy. Instead, he answered, “You can do it several ways. One is to drop the barometer from the top of the building and measure how long it takes to hit the ground [thus illustrating that he knew the relationship between height, distance, and time in gravitational free fall, another piece of ‘physics’]. Another is to attach the barometer to a long string, lower it to the ground, and measure the length of the string [no longer ‘physics,’ but rather ‘carpentry’].” The answer, of course, was declared wrong. The student objected strenuously and brought a storm of protest to bear on the examiner—who then agreed to repeat the same question and give the student an opportunity to provide the “correct” answer. The student, no more inclined to be compliant than before, answered, “I would go to the superintendent of the building and offer to give him the barometer as a gift if he would tell me how high his building is [now we have entered ‘economics’].” Leaving

A graceless pastor is a blind man elected to a professorship of optics, philosophizing upon light and vision, discoursing upon and distinguishing to others the nice shades and delicate blendings of the prismatic colours, while he himself is absolutely in the dark! He is a dumb man elevated to the chair of music; a deaf man fluent upon symphonies and harmonies! He is a mole professing to educate eaglets; a limpet elected to preside over angels.

researchers exploring the impact of mindfulness training on children, adolescents, and adults have revealed a wide range of positive outcomes including: improvements in executive functions such as the regulation of attention, emotion, behavior, and relatedness; physiological enhancements in our immune function; elevations in the enzyme (telomerase) that maintains and repairs the ends of our chromosomes; and even preliminary findings suggesting the optimization of the control molecules on our genes (epigenetic regulatory histones and methyl groups) that help prevent certain forms of disease.

I love the hybrid quality, the new computer sections and the books yellowing with age. Libraries for me have always had a cathedral-like ambiance, a hushed sanctuary where learning is revered, where we the people elevate books and education to the level of the religious.

Pooh-pooh it all you want. Money may not buy happiness, but…well, nonsense. Money, pretty much more than anything else you might be able to control, can conjure up and elevate that elusive ideal we call happiness. Money eases stress. It provides better education, better food, better doctors—some level of peace of mind. Money provides comfort and freedom. Money buys you experiences and conveniences and most of all, money buys you time, which, Simon had realized, was right up there with family and health. If you believe that—and even if you don’t—the person you chose to handle your finances was up there with choosing a doctor or clergyman, though Simon would argue that your wealth manager was even more involved in your daily life. You work hard. You save. You plan. There are virtually no major life decisions you make that are not in some way based on your finances. It was an awesome responsibility when you stepped back and thought about it.

The education which rears those ruling virtues that allow a man to become master of his benevolence and his pity: the great disciplinary virtues ("Forgive thine enemies" is mere child's play beside them), and the passions of the creator, must be elevated to the heights—we must cease from carving marble! The exceptional and powerful position of those creatures (compared with that of all princes hitherto): the Roman Cæsar with Christ's soul.

What is the sum of not recognizing the tremendous need for self reflection of all entities in our times. History repeats itself, easily predicted by the primitive parts of psychology. There's only one excuse for inaction, fear, or the lack of foresight. Furthermore, if democracy is the way - a thousand astronomers may be more effective in dealing with issues regarding the stars - and so on. Though perhaps there may be universal issues directly related to the human experience. There's also significant cause for concern with regards to larger variations or differences in lifestyle, preferences/ideologies, merits, psychology and various corruptions which may arise. Favouring the political directions who are able to produce, raise or educate the most babies and then gets to decide the fate of all the rest. There is difficulty in adressing issues when there is a great need for balance between short-term and long-term good. Whatever system of governance, with ways of bringing those carrying the merits, discipline and good hearts to surface like buoyancy, necessary to secure a good future for all. The paradox of calling for the good to rise up - is how those truly good may often fail to recognize their part of the intended audience, being too humble in accepting their own worth. And, to recognize those primitive tendencies of an elevated ego. Let's be thankful, for nature inspire many solutions.

Buying more and more of the best land, sometimes owning multiple estates spread across several states, extended plantation families - fathers who provided sons and sons-in-law with a start - created slaveholding conglomerates that controlled hundreds and sometimes thousands of slaves. The grandees' vast wealth allowed them to introduce new hybrid cotton seeds and strains of cane, new technologies, and new forms of organization that elevated productivity and increased profitability. In some places, the higher levels of capitalization and technical mastery of the grandees reduced white yeomen to landlessness and forced smallholders to move on or else enter the wage-earning class as managers or overseers. As a result, the richest plantation areas became increasingly black, with ever-larger estates managed from afar as the planters retreated to some local country seat, one of the region's ports, or occasionally some northern metropolis. Claiming the benefits of their new standing, the grandees - characterized in various places as 'nabobs,' 'a feudal aristocracy,' or simply 'The Royal Family' - established their bona fides as a ruling class. They built great houses strategically located along broad rivers or high bluffs. They named their estates in the aristocratic manner - the Briars, Fairmont, Richmond - and made them markers on the landscape. Planters married among themselves, educated their sons in northern universities, and sent their wives and daughters on European tours, collecting the bric-a-brac of the continent to grace their mansions. Reaching out to their neighbors, they burnished their reputations for hospitality. The annual Christmas ball or the great July Fourth barbecue were private events with a public purpose. They confirmed the distance between the planters and their neighbors and allowed leadership to fall lightly and naturally on their shoulders, as governors, legislators, judges, and occasionally congressmen, senators, and presidents.

All the books are useless, if they don't elevate the heart. Then again, books don't elevate the heart, it's the heart that, with some aid from books, elevates the world.

Yet Carnegie, for all his financial success, questioned his own commitment to commercial matters. Just three years into his independence, he had an income of $50,000 and had amassed assets of $400,000. In the waning days of 1868, he wrote himself a letter, setting a limit of two more years to secure his fortune: Beyond this never earn—make no effort to increase fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes. Cast aside business forever . . . settle in Oxford and get a thorough education making the acquaintance of literary men. . . . The amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry. . . . To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five. This conflict between the ease with which he made money and what he saw as his elevated purpose would arise time and again. But the letter, in tone and content, was more pessimistic and stark than the refined, exuberant Carnegie philosophy that would ultimately emerge.

Dancing,” replied the homeless man, moving gloriously. “Keep bringing me this beautiful knowledge. Socrates said, ‘Education is the kindling of a flame.’ And Isaac Asimov wrote ‘Self-education is, I believe, the only kind of education there is.’ So, keep playing the old guru’s words, dude. It’s all so gnarly.” The artist

In the centuries following the French rule of England, the English language spread back into all areas of life, common and official, in a new mixed form with a vocabulary full of words that had come from French but were completely Anglicized. Words like farm, city, village, fruit, and flower now belonged to both the nobility and the folk. But the language continued to expand under the influence of French and Latin as literacy and education spread and people adopted new words to indicate a similar elevated status or prestige.

In 1920, Ellen’s family moved into a triple decker, or three-story multifamily home, in Dorchester, a clear sign of upward mobility. Mary entered the white-collar workforce as a stenographer in a grocery store, while Daniel worked as an elevator operator at a telephone company. John became a schoolteacher in a Boston grammar school.

As professional people, we are products. So try to product‐manage yourself. Develop your product through education, training, and experience.

we propose an engagement that assumes God’s grace as the underpinning and support for the whole of God’s garden social imaginary. All forms of common life (public education, social systems that support first responders—police, fire, and healthcare professionals—our public transportation, creation care, defense, and all the rest of the national infrastructure) are to be elevated by grace. Christian citizens must be grace-filled political players.

Let me describe how that same thought applies to the world of education. I recently joined a federal committee on incentives and accountability in public education. This is one aspect of social and market norms that I would like to explore in the years to come. Our task is to reexamine the “No Child Left Behind” policy, and to help find ways to motivate students, teachers, administrators, and parents. My feeling so far is that standardized testing and performance-based salaries are likely to push education from social norms to market norms. The United States already spends more money per student than any other Western society. Would it be wise to add more money? The same consideration applies to testing: we are already testing very frequently, and more testing is unlikely to improve the quality of education. I suspect that one answer lies in the realm of social norms. As we learned in our experiments, cash will take you only so far—social norms are the forces that can make a difference in the long run. Instead of focusing the attention of the teachers, parents, and kids on test scores, salaries, and competition, it might be better to instill in all of us a sense of purpose, mission, and pride in education. To do this we certainly can't take the path of market norms. The Beatles proclaimed some time ago that you “Can't Buy Me Love” and this also applies to the love of learning—you can't buy it; and if you try, you might chase it away. So how can we improve the educational system? We should probably first rethink school curricula, and link them in more obvious ways to social goals (elimination of poverty and crime, elevation of human rights, etc.), technological goals (boosting energy conservation, space exploration, nanotechnology, etc.), and medical goals (cures for cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) that we care about as a society. This way the students, teachers, and parents might see the larger point in education and become more enthusiastic and motivated about it. We should also work hard on making education a goal in itself, and stop confusing the number of hours students spend in school with the quality of the education they get. Kids can get excited about many things (baseball, for example), and it is our challenge as a society to make them want to know as much about Nobel laureates as they now know about baseball players. I am not suggesting that igniting a social passion for education is simple; but if we succeed in doing so, the value could be immense.

BE THE MAN Set a good example. Even if you’ve got to fake it. Your kids observe everything you do. And even though it may not seem like it at the time, your kids want to be like you. They want to be proud of you and brag about their dad at school and to their friends. Be observant of your own actions around them kids. Listen to your girl. We men sometimes get frustrated when our ladies talk. We will try to actually converse when she is deep into a story about the boss being a dick, or some other friend of hers doing your girl wrong. Do not even try to fix this situation! Your sweetie just wants you to listen. Hell, you don’t even have to agree. Just listen. This is black-belt-level man stuff. Do the dishes. Hell, take it one level further: cook the dinner and do the dishes. Doing laundry is man’s work too, as well as cleaning up after the dogs and cuddling your kids. Having a home life where you get the opportunity to be a family man and partake in all these things is a very good thing. It means that you have elevated your man thing to the very top level. Keep it up. Don’t be a pussy. Don’t shy away from a situation just because it’s tough. If you need to protect the one you love or things are tough at work . . . pin those ears back and remember who the fuck you are. Get smart. Educate yourself on what is going on in culture and politics. Read some books about history. Don’t be a pawn, be a scholar. Evolve. Our dads and granddads grew up in a different time. Communication and tenderness were not necessarily components of their age groups’ makeup. You don’t have to be exactly like them. Even though we saw good examples of man stuff in them, the times, they are a-changing.

Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve"-was one of the rules for success framed by America's first "self-made" man.  These names of virtues, with their precepts, were: 1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.    2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.    3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.    4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.    5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i. e., waste nothing.    6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.    7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.    8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.    9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.    10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.    11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.    12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.    13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Agustín Parlá Orduña was among the early Cuban aviation aces. He was born in Key West, Florida, on October 10, 1887, and received his early education there. After Cuba was liberated from Spain, the family returned to Havana, where he continued his education. On April 20, 1912, he received his pilot’s license at the Curtiss School of Aviation in Miami. On July 5, 1913, when the Cuban Army Air Corps was formed, Agustín Parlá was commissioned as a captain in the Cuban Armed Forces. On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight. Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the elevator were broken. On May 19, 1913, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel, where sailors rescued him from his seaplane.

Books are a stairway to knowledge; experience is a highway to understanding; together they are an elevator to enlightenment.

There are many facets to the decline in fairness and opportunity in American life. Perhaps the worst are the conditions now imposed upon young children born into the underclass and subjected to the recent evolution of the educational system. They are related, and they reinforce each other; their combined result is to condemn tens of millions of children, particularly those born into the new underclass, to a life of hardship and unfairness. For any young child whose parents don’t have money, or who is the child of a migrant agricultural worker and/or an illegal immigrant, prenatal care, nursery, day care, after school, school nutrition, and foster-care systems are nothing short of appalling. And then comes school itself. The “American dream”, stated simply, is that no matter how poor or humble your origins—even if you never knew your parents—you have a shot at a decent life. America’s promise is that anyone willing to work hard can do better over time, and have at least a reasonable life for themselves and their own children. You could expect to do better than your parents, and even be able to help them as they grew old. More than ever before, the key to such a dream is a good education. The rise of information technology, and the opening of Asian economies, means that only a small portion of America’s population can make a good living through unskilled or manual labour. But instead of elevating the educational system and the opportunities it should provide, American politicians, and those who follow their lead around the globe, have been going in exactly the wrong direction. As a result, we are developing not a new class system, but, without exaggeration, a new caste system—a society in which the circumstances of your birth determine your entire life. As a result, the dream of opportunity is dying. Increasingly, the most important determinant of a child’s life prospects—future income, wealth, educational level, even health and life expectancy—is totally arbitrary and unfair. It’s also very simple. A child’s future is increasingly determined by his or her parents’ wealth, not by his or her intelligence or energy. To be sure, there are a number of reasons for this. Income is correlated with many other things, and it’s therefore difficult to isolate the impact of individual factors. Children in poor households are more likely to grow up in single-parent versus two-parent households, exposed to drugs and alcohol, with one or both parents in prison, with their immigration status questionable, and more likely to have problems with diet and obesity. Culture and race play a role: Asian children have far higher school graduation rates, test scores, and grades than all other groups, including whites, in the US; Latinos, the lowest.

We can so educate the will power that it will focus the thoughts upon the bright side of things, and upon objects which elevate the soul, thus forming a habit of happiness and goodness which will enrich the whole life. The habit of making the best of everything and of always looking on the bright side is a fortune in itself.

We live surrounded by God's pattern but we aren't high enough to see it. You can elevate yourself, of course. That's the whole point of education, of meditation and prayer. The more one lifts oneself up, the more of the pattern he is able to make out, though only an enlightened few have a perspective lofty enough to see the outline whole.

Spiritual learners too slowly graduate like students of normal education. If you are mentally elevated, you can grasp and appreciate complex teachings.

Stories can educate, elevate, comfort, and afflict those who are too comfortable. They can create community. They can also drive people apart, justify unspeakable crimes, and destroy the most basic concepts of civil society. You

In comparison with the mode of life of whole millennia of mankind we present-day men live in a very immoral age: the power of custom is astonishingly enfeebled and the moral sense so rarefied and lofty it may be described as having more or less evaporated. That is why the fundamental insights into the origin of morality are so difficult for us latecomers, and even when we have acquired them we find it impossible to enunciate them, because they sound so uncouth or because they seem to slander morality! This is, for example, already the case with the chief proposition: morality is nothing other (therefore no more!) than obedience to customs, of whatever kind they may be; customs, however, are the traditional way of behaving and evaluating. In things in which no tradition commands there is no morality; and the less life is determined by tradition, the smaller the circle of morality. The free human being is immoral because in all things he is determined to depend upon himself and not upon a tradition: in all the original conditions of mankind, 'evil' signifies the same as 'individual', 'free', 'capricious', 'unusual', 'unforeseen', 'incalculable'. Judged by the standard of these conditions, if an action is performed not because tradition commands it but for other motives (because of its usefulness to the individual, for example), even indeed for precisely the motives which once founded the tradition, it is called immoral and is felt to be so by him who performed it: for it was not performed in obedience to tradition. What is tradition? A higher authority which one obeys, not because it commands what is useful to us, but because it commands. What distinguishes this feeling in the presence of tradition from the feeling of fear in general? It is fear in the presence of a higher intellect which here commands, of an incomprehensible, indefinite power, of something more than personal there is superstition in this fear. Originally all education and care of health, marriage, cure of sickness, agriculture, war, speech and silence, traffic with one another and with the gods belonged within the domain of morality: they demanded one observe prescriptions without thinking of oneself as an individual. Originally, therefore, everything was custom, and whoever wanted to elevate himself above it had to become lawgiver and medicine man and a kind of demi-god: that is to say, he had to make customs a dreadful, mortally dangerous thing! Who is the most moral man? First, he who obeys the law most frequently: who, like the Brahmin12, bears a consciousness of the law with him everywhere and into every minute division of time, so that he is continually inventive in creating opportunities for obeying the law. Then, he who obeys it even in the most difficult cases. The most moral man is he who sacrifices the most to custom: what, however, are the greatest sacrifices? The way in which this question is answered determines the development of several divers kinds of morality; but the most important distinction remains that which divides the morality of most frequent obedience from that of the most difficult obedience.

A recasting of purpose as a fundamental driver of work will do more for the social inequalities of various professional choices than economic interventions by the state. A society that rediscovers and reappreciates purpose in work and the concept of service in finding existential benefit no longer has to presuppose a hierarchy that elevates certain white-collar professions above blue-collar professions. Market forces may price the work of a lawyer or professor differently than that of a waitress or plumber in a monetary sense (dependent on subjective values embedded in supply and demand), and certain professions may require greater use of the mind than others and some greater use of the hands than others. But income, skill, intellect, and education are all disintermediated when it comes to the appreciation of purpose. A truck driver and a bond trader are on an even playing field in that important category. The way that we formulate our own hierarchies of one’s importance should never have become based on income level or social strata, yet the surest way to reverse this unhealthy trend is to reframe our understanding of work as a productive act of purposeful service, not merely an act of economic climbing.

But then this aggressive anti-American stance was most pronounced among the better-educated, more-well-off respondents. This was the position of the newly emergent elite—the men in uniform and the neotraditionalists whom the Putin presidency had elevated.3 —

Simply put: the election of Trump in many ways represented a final act of dominance by a generation about to become politically, economically, and psychologically obsolete. Take a look at the poll numbers. Without Baby Boomers, or at least, white non-college-educated Boomers, there would have been no Trump presidency.

More desirable women have more bargaining power and they can elevate their standards. They want higher levels of resources, education, and intelligence; higher social status; good parenting skills; and raft of other traits. Men with resources are more likely to marry physically attractive women. Most men can get a much more desirable woman if they are willing to commit to a long-term relationship because women typically desire lasting commitment, and highly desirable women are in the best position to get what they want.

Among all the tactics[to elevate their position in status hierarchies], industriousness proved to be the best predictor of past and anticipated income and promotions. Those who worked harder achieved higher levels of education and higher annual salaries, and they anticipated greater salaries and promotions than those who failed to work hard.

Ikeda:  Freedom of expression is the basis of liberty and democracy. Though the extent to which nations and communities allow for freedom of expression varies with cultural conditions, restrictions on it should be minimized. Maintaining a balance between freedom of expression and limiting expressions of violence, hatred and discrimination requires a holistic and positive approach, including both the legal system, self-regulation and education. Education is fundamental because it elevates the standards of both those who transmit and those who receive media information. In more concrete terms, media literacy – the ability to discriminate, evaluate, and apply media information – must be thoroughly improved. Education that achieves these ends in the home, the school and the community endows the general public with the autonomy to use and criticize the media independently. This is the best way to improve the media. Education should encourage people to regard the media in the spirit of critical, independent dialogue, thus preparing the ground for a culture of tolerance and peace.

Ulrich Beck may be seen as one of its most prominent interpreters, coining the concept of the ‘elevator effect’ in the 1980s to describe the new social mobility.43 In a society of economic growth—according to this metaphor—all strata, from wage earners through to the wealthy, stand together in an elevator and rise together. Inequalities between strata or social classes, in this scenario, are certainly not abolished, but they play a less significant role when everyone becomes more prosperous: ‘Class society as a whole is taken a stage higher. There is a collective rise in income, education, mobility, rights, science, mass consumption—despite all the new and persisting inequalities.’44 Beck linked this diagnosis with one of the most influential social developments of modernity: individualization.

Not only does our individual and societal sanity depend on connection; so does our physical health. Because we are biopsychosocial creatures, the rising loneliness epidemic in Western culture is much more than just a psychological phenomenon: it is a public health crisis. A preeminent scholar of loneliness, the late neuroscientist John Cacioppo and his colleague and spouse, Stephania Cacioppo, published a letter in the Lancet only a month before his death in 2018. "Imagine," they wrote, "a condition that makes a person irritable, depressed, and self-centered, and is associated with a 26% increase in the risk of premature mortality. Imagine too that in industrialized countries around a third of people are affected by this condition, with one person in 12 affected severely, and that these proportions are increasing. Income, education, sex, and ethnicity are not protective, and the condition is contagious. The effects of the condition are not attributable to some peculiarity of the character of a subset of individuals, they are a result of the condition affecting ordinary people. Such a condition exists — loneliness." We now know without doubt that chronic loneliness is associated with an elevated risk of illness and early death. It has been shown to increase mortality from cancer and other diseases and has been compared to the harm of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. According to research presented at the American Psychological Association's annual convention in 2015, the loneliness epidemic is a public health risk at least as great as the burgeoning rates of obesity. Loneliness, the researcher Steven Cole told me, can impair genetic functioning. And no wonder: even in parrots isolation impairs DNA repair by shortening chromosome-protecting telomeres. Social isolation inhibits the immune system, promotes inflammation, agitates the stress apparatus, and increases the risk of death from heart disease and strokes. Here I am referring to social isolation in the pre COVID-19 sense, though the pandemic has grievously exacerbated the problem, at great cost to the well-being of many.

Social superiority is articulated in terms of better education, elevated manners, refined taste, artistic sense, liberal values and consumption patterns. Consumption in particular is a two-edged sword here, as it is seen as the prerogative of those who can afford it. Its demonstrative character threatens the practice of solid housekeeping among the lower middle classes. The supposedly unjustifiable consumption style of the lower class is therefore often sharply criticized, in a gesture of social and cultural superiority.

Thrown into this mix was the Epoch Times, which also published in Chinese and English. It was founded and largely funded by the Falun Gong, a religious branch group that was devoted to the overthrow of the Communist Party of China and the elevation of the group’s leader, a kind of cross between Jesus, the Dalai Lama and Charles Manson. In New York, Falun Gong was best known for organizing and leading yoga classes in Central Park, and handing out free copies of the Epoch Times near the Port Authority bus terminal. In China, its members were hunted down by PLA squads, swept off the streets and sent, without trial, to re-education camps that had once been the exclusive preserve of Catholic priests. Because of its extreme right-wing (in American terms) slant, the Epoch Times had drawn the attention and interest of American conservatives, including the Trump Administration, which treated it with a courtesy well out of keeping with its influence. Liu read and believed the Epoch Times. Its news fit her beliefs, and that after all, was what a free news media was all about. She had seen a brief item about Qi Qi Dieh on its website months ago, and largely forgotten about it. Now, with the real item sitting in front of her, drinking her tea, Liu began hallucinating about fame and fortune. And, of course, getting the truth out there, too. It took three calls to the newspaper’s