The separate water foundations, park benches, bathrooms and restaurants of the Jim Crow South startled me. These experiences motivated my lifelong study of the status of African Americans and the sources of improvement in that status.
The separate water foundations, park benches, bathrooms and restaurants of the Jim Crow South startled me. These experiences motivated my lifelong study of the status of African Americans and the sources of improvement in that status.
The goal, I think, of American education, for decades, and across many, many scholars, was basically to teach people broad lessons in how to live life, how to engage life, how to essentially be effective citizens and effective people.
Religion gives you a sense of certainty. It makes you feel that you have the right answers to really big questions and that you've grasped the truth.
I think race is very important. I think generally speaking, we've to face the general problem, which is that we are seeing more children coming out of families which simply don't give them adequate resources for their development.
I had always had a deep interest in social science, history. So even when I was in high school, I was debating, and in college debating, and interested in contemporary events.
The separate water foundations, park benches, bathrooms and restaurants of the Jim Crow South startled me. These experiences motivated my lifelong study of the status of African Americans and the sources of improvement in that status.
Self-control, openness, the ability to engage with others, to plan and to persist - these are the attributes that get people in the door and on the job, and lead to productive lives.
The cognitive skills prized by the American educational establishment and measured by achievement tests are only part of what is required for success in life. Character skills are equally important determinants of wages, education, health and many other significant aspects of flourishing lives.
I remember that, one day, I was visiting one training center in the 1990s that was teaching people how to fix Volkswagen engines from the 1960s, which were no longer sold. So you were training people on a skill that had zero value. The reason is that they hadn't received any new equipment in 20 years.
Cognitive and character skills work together as dynamic complements; they are inseparable. Skills beget skills. More motivated children learn more. Those who are more informed usually make wiser decisions.
You have kids growing up in some of the worst circumstances financially, living in some of the worst ghettos, and they succeed. They succeed because an adult figure, typically a mother, maybe a grandmother, nourishes the kid, supports the kid, protects the kid, encourages the kid to succeed. It's as if the environment never happened.
We can change who we are. We can improve ourselves in various ways, and we can give ourselves possibilities.
We can change who we are. We can improve ourselves in various ways, and we can give ourselves possibilities.
There's no question that we have great value on the sanctity of the family, and there are a lot of competing visions about exactly how we teach a set of values and we teach skills to our children, especially in the early years when they're really forming their personalities, their personas, really.
The scientific study of labor economics provided the opportunity for me to unite theory with evidence my lifetime intellectual passion.