Learning Sustainably

Jaureguiberry's elementary school is giving kids in Uruguay a first hand look about environmental sustainability. The school was built with recycled materials, and students grow indoor and outdoor edible gardens. 

Do You Speak the World’s Weirdest Language?

By J. DANA STUSTER

Are you one of the 6,000 people in the world who speaks Chalcatongo Mixtec? Congratulations! You speak the world’s weirdest language.

That’s what Tyler Schnoebelen and the researchers at Idibon, a natural language processing company, found when they statistically compared 239 languages to see how like or unlike they were to one another. Using the World Atlas of Language Structures, Idibon coded the languages for 21 characteristics including, for example, how subjects, objects, and verbs are ordered in a sentence, or how a language makes clear that a sentence is a question.

When Schnoebelen ran the numbers, Chalcatongo Mixtec, spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico, was the least like the majority of the world’s other languages. And it is pretty unusual: Schnoebelen describes it as a “verb-initial tonal language” that has no mechanism for demonstrating questions (so “You are alright.” and “Are you alright?” sound the exact same). “I have spent part of the day imagining a game show in this language,” Schnoebelen wrote in his analysis (for more on how to say everything from “I am sick” to “I bought many long ropes” in Chalcatongo Mixtec, see here). It’s probably not surprising that some of the strangest languages are some of the most obscure. The second weirdest is Nenets, spoken in Siberia, followed by Choctaw, a Native American language from the central plains.

But some of the weirdest languages are widely spoken. The seventh-strangest language, Kongo, is spoken by half a million people in Central Africa. After that comes Armenian, then German. English ranks fairly high as well, coming in 33rd. There’s also no particular region of strange languages — the top 25 weirdest (pictured with red dots in the map below) are scattered across every continent. Mandarin is one of the strangest languages, while Cantonese is one of the most “normal.” And linguistic families are also no guarantee of similarity. Schnoebelen notes that while Germanic languages are all pretty weird, Romance languages run the full breadth of the strangeness spectrum, from Spanish, which falls in the Weirdness Index’s top 25, down to Portuguese, which ranked as one of the most mundane languages.

“Personally, I think that every language has something weird about it,” Schnoebelen tells FP by email, explaining that studying the peculiarities of different languages is part of the draw of linguistics. And of course, there were certain things that couldn’t be coded in his analysis. “For example,” Schnoebelen writes, “sometimes we hear a colorful idiom in another language and it really stands out. But how would you go about coming up with a scoring system that anyone could apply consistently to hundreds of languages?”

The index takes a hard look at the objective structures of languages, and makes for a good reminder. Think Hindi sounds strange? It’s actually the most normal language of all. And we English speakers are pretty weird ourselves.

For those who are curious, here’s Idibon’s 10 weirdest languages (you can find the full ranking here)

1.  Mixtec (Chalcatongo)

2.  Nenets

3.  Choctaw

4.  Diegueño (Mesa Grande)

5.  Oromo (Harar)

6.  Kutenai

7.  Iraqw

8.  Kongo

9.  Armenian (Eastern)

10.  German

Source

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• The most widely spoken languages

Saint Basil - The Orthodox Santa Claus

Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great, (329 or 330– January 1, 379) (Greek: Ἅγιος Βασίλειος ὁ Μέγας) was the Greek bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). He was an influential theologian who supported the Nicene Creed and opposed the heresies of the early Christian church. His ability to balance his theological convictions with his political connections made Basil a powerful advocate for the Nicene position.

In addition to his work as a theologian, Basil was known for his care of the poor and underprivileged. Basil established guidelines for monastic life which focus on community life, liturgical prayer, and manual labour. Together with Pachomius he is remembered as a father of communal monasticism in Eastern Christianity. He is considered a saint by the traditions of both Eastern and Western Christianity.

Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa are collectively referred to as the Cappadocian Fathers. The Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches have given him, together with Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom, the title of Great Hierarch. He is recognised as a Doctor of the Church in both Eastern Orthodoxy and in the Roman Catholic Church. He is sometimes referred to by the epithet "Ουρανοφαντωρ", "revealer of heavenly mysteries".

In Greek tradition, he brings gifts to children every January 1 (St Basil's Day) — unlike other traditions where Father Christmas arrives either on December 6 (Saint Nicholas Day) or on Christmas Eve (December 24). It is traditional on St Basil's Day to serve vasilopita, a rich bread baked with a coin inside. It is customary on his feast day to visit the homes of friends and relatives, to sing New Year's carols, and to set an extra place at the table for Saint Basil. Basil, being born into a wealthy family, gave away all his possessions to the poor, the underprivileged, those in need, and children. A similar story exists for another Greek bishop, Saint Nicholas of Myra. Over the centuries the two legends have blended together, though the Western Santa Claus remains associated with Nicholas, while the Eastern "Santa" is identified with Basil.

Saint Basil died on January 1, and the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates his feast day together with that of the Feast of the Circumcision on that day. This was also the day on which the Roman Catholic calendar of saints celebrated it at first; but in the 13th century it was moved to June 14, a date believed to be that of his ordination as bishop, and it remained on that date until the 1969 revision of the calendar, which moved it to January 2, rather than January 1, because the latter date is occupied by the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. On January 2 Saint Basil is celebrated together with Saint Gregory Nazianzen. Some traditionalist Catholics continue to observe pre-1970 calendars.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Read the full article here

Too much homework can lower test scores, researchers say

Piling on the homework doesn't help kids do better in school. In fact, it can lower their test scores.

That's the conclusion of a group of Australian researchers, who have taken the aggregate results of several recent studies investigating the relationship between time spent on homework and students' academic performance.

According to Richard Walker, an educational psychologist at Sydney University, data shows that in countries where more time is spent on homework, students score lower on a standardized test called the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The same correlation is also seen when comparing homework time and test performance at schools within countries. Past studies have also demonstrated this basic trend.

Inundating children with hours of homework each night is detrimental, the research suggests, while an hour or two per week usually doesn't impact test scores one way or the other. However, homework only bolsters students' academic performance during their last three years of grade school. "There is little benefit for most students until senior high school (grades 10-12)," Walker told Life's Little Mysteries.

The research is detailed in his new book, "Reforming Homework: Practices, Learning and Policies" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

The same basic finding holds true across the globe, including in the U.S., according to Gerald LeTendre of Pennsylvania State University. He and his colleagues have found that teachers typically give take-home assignments that are unhelpful busy work. Assigning homework "appeared to be a remedial strategy (a consequence of not covering topics in class, exercises for students struggling, a way to supplement poor quality educational settings), and not an advancement strategy (work designed to accelerate, improve or get students to excel)," LeTendre wrote in an email.

This type of remedial homework tends to produce marginally lower test scores compared with children who are not given the work. Even the helpful, advancing kind of assignments ought to be limited; Harris Cooper, a professor of education at Duke University, has recommended that students be given no more than 10 to 15 minutes of homework per night in second grade, with an increase of no more than 10 to 15 minutes in each successive year.

Most homework's neutral or negative impact on students' academic performance implies there are better ways for them to spend their after school hours than completing worksheets. So, what should they be doing? According to LeTendre, learning to play a musical instrument or participating in clubs and sports all seem beneficial, but there's no one answer that applies to everyone.

"These after-school activities have much more diffuse goals than single subject test scores," he wrote. "When I talk to parents … they want their kids to be well-rounded, creative, happy individuals — not just kids who ace the tests."

Source: huffingtonpost.com/Photo: sodahead.com

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• Helping Children Study
• What You Can Do at Home to Help Your Child Succeed atSchool
• Avoiding activity overload for your kids

Related content in Greek

Elementary reading skills 7 linked to financial success at midlife

Research in brief: reading well and being able to do maths at a 

young age could determine a higher wage later in life. 

Photograph: Alamy

It may seem hard to figure, but provocative new research suggests that an individual's math and reading skills in elementary school are key indicators of his/her socioeconomic status (SES) in adulthood.

In fact, the study -conducted by a pair of researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland- showed that math and reading skills at age 7 are the most reliable predictors of SES at age 42.

Study co-author Stuart Ritchie, a doctoral student at the university, told The Huffington Post in an email that he was surprised by the findings.

“A lot of psychologists -including us before we did the study!- would have guessed that, since general intelligence is so important, specific skills like reading and math wouldn't have any extra effects on SES beyond it,” Ritchie wrote. “But we found that these effects do exist- so no matter how smart people were … being better at reading and math at age seven was still significantly linked to SES aged 42.”

Timothy Bates, a professor at the university and the study's co-author, said the study highlights the importance of learned skills.

“There was no flattening off of the return to these skills at either end: So it is of value all the way from remedial intervention to the most gifted levels to raise these skills,” Bates said in an email to The Huffington Post. “Math and reading are two of the most intervention-friendly of topics: Practice improves nearly all children.”

The study followed 17,638 English, Scottish, and Welsh participants, and 920 immigrants, from birth until age 50. Data was collected at several points during the participants' lives, including at ages 7, 11, 16, and 42.

When participants were 7, researchers gauged their family’s socioeconomic background, as well as their reading and math skills. At age 11, researchers measured participants’ IQ, and at age 16, their academic motivation. When participants were 42, researchers measured their educational duration (how long they had attended school) and their SES- how much money they made.

The study, “Enduring Links From Childhood Mathematics and Reading Achievement to Adult Socioeconomic Status,” was published in the May 2013 issue of the journal Psychological Science.

Source: huffingtonpost.com/Rebecca Klein

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The pros and cons of Facebook for kids

If you are a parent in today's world, then you face enormous difficulties in determining what role technology should play in your children's lives. Kids are surrounded by iPods, video games, and web-enabled devices from a very young age, and even if you manage to keep your own house reasonably tech-free, you are going to hear a lot of those “but-everyone-else-has-one” arguments. And then there is Facebook.

By the time children reach middle school, the cell phone battle has usually been won or lost – and these days, kids are the winners. However, the Facebook argument is a lot harder. On the one hand, Facebook’s own rules state that no-one under the age of 13 is allowed to have an account. In fact, opening an account for anyone younger than 13 effectively means lying about their age. However, this doesn’t seem to have stopped thousands of kids from doing just that – with or without their parents consent.

In many cases, parents allow Facebook accounts at an earlier age because they see an opportunity to teach their child first-hand about the right way – and the wrong way – to use social networking. That’s an opportunity that might not be there once they hit the magic age of 13 and dive into Facebook on their own. Other parents allow it on the condition that they hold the password and are friends with their child – an arrangement they hope will last well into their teens.

If you are trying to make a decision on what’s right for your child, here’s a reminder of some of the advantages – and disadvantages – of an early Facebook account:

Advantages:

• Social skills. Facebook allows kids to keep up with current friends and make new ones. When used in the right way, social media can increase a child’s self-esteem and help them feel less isolated.
• Self-expression. A Facebook page gives a child their own “home page” on the web, where they can express themselves and talk about their interests. They can join groups and support fan pages, and find out what other people are interested in.
• Digital competence. Managing a Facebook page teaches a child how to post comments and photos, and how to navigate the web. Having good online social media skills will be increasingly important as they get older.
• Educational development. A majority of tweens and teens use social networking to discuss school work. Shared discussions about school assignments is one of the best reasons to allow access to social networks.

Disadvantages:

• Kids can be mean. However much you school your child on the right way to behave online, you cannot stop other children from posting mean comments.
• A Facebook account is a gateway to the whole Internet. It’s impossible to isolate a Facebook account from the rest of the Internet – links and click-through ads are everywhere. If you think your child is too young to explore the Internet or cannot be trusted to remain within the Facebook environment, then a Facebook account is a bad idea.
• Beware of friends of friends. Often times it’s not your child’s friends that are the problem, it’s friends of friends. When your child accepts a friend request, make sure you check out their page and their list of friends. (If you are friends with your child, you need to be careful with your page too!)

Whatever your decision on Facebook, try and make the decision together. If you decide the time isn’t right, then agree a time when you can revisit the issue. The last thing you want is for your child to run off to a friend’s house and open an account on her own.

Source: theonlinemom.com

Related content in Greek

March 25 Independence Day in Greece

Greek Independence Day, national holiday celebrated annually in Greece on March 25, commemorating the start of the War of Greek Independence in 1821. It coincides with the Greek Orthodox Church’s celebration of the Annunciation to the Theotokos, when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would bear the son of God.

The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution (Greek: Ελληνική Επανάσταση, Elliniki Epanastasi; Ottoman: يونان عصياني Yunan İsyanı "Greek Uprising"), was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1832, with later assistance from Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and several other European powers against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Eyalet of Egypt, and partly by the Vilayet of Tunisia.

Following the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, most of Greece came under Ottoman rule. During this time, there were frequent revolts by Greeks attempting to gain independence.[3] In 1814, a secret organization called the Filiki Eteria was founded with the aim of liberating Greece. The Filiki Eteria planned to launch revolts in the Peloponnese, the Danubian Principalities, and Constantinople. The first of these revolts began on 6 March 1821 in the Danubian Principalities, but was soon put down by the Ottomans. The events in the north urged the Greeks in the Peloponnese into action and on 17 March 1821, the Maniots declared war on the Ottomans.

By the end of the month, the Peloponnese was in open revolt against the Turks and by October 1821, the Greeks under Theodoros Kolokotronis had captured Tripolitsa. The Peloponnesian revolt was quickly followed by revolts in Crete, Macedonia, and Central Greece, which would soon be suppressed. Meanwhile, the makeshift Greek navy was achieving success against the Ottoman navy in the Aegean Sea and prevented Ottoman reinforcements from arriving by sea.

Tensions soon developed among different Greek factions, leading to two consecutive civil wars. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Sultan negotiated with Mehmet Ali of Egypt, who agreed to send his son Ibrahim Pasha to Greece with an army to suppress the revolt in return for territorial gain. Ibrahim landed in the Peloponnese in February 1825 and had immediate success: by the end of 1825, most of the Peloponnese was under Egyptian control, and the city of Missolonghi—put under siege by the Turks since April 1825—fell in April 1826. Although Ibrahim was defeated in Mani, he had succeeded in suppressing most of the revolt in the Peloponnese and Athens had been retaken.

Following years of negotiation, three Great Powers, Russia, the United Kingdom and France, decided to intervene in the conflict and each nation sent a navy to Greece. Following news that combined Ottoman–Egyptian fleets were going to attack the Greek island of Hydra, the allied fleet intercepted the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet at Navarino. Following a week long standoff, a battle began which resulted in the destruction of the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet. With the help of a French expeditionary force, the Greeks drove the Turks out of the Peloponnese and proceeded to the captured part of Central Greece by 1828. As a result of years of negotiation, Greece was finally recognized as an independent nation in May 1832.

The Revolution is celebrated on 25 March by the modern Greek state, which is a national day.

Read more here

Source: wikipedia.org 

Clean Monday

Clean Monday (Greek: Καθαρά Δευτέρα), also known as Pure Monday, Ash Monday, Monday of Lent or Green Monday, is the first day of the Eastern Orthodox Christian, Saint Thomas Christians of India and Eastern Catholic Great Lent. It is a movable feast that occurs at the beginning of the 7th week before Orthodox Easter Sunday.

The common term for this day, "Clean Monday", refers to the leaving behind of sinful attitudes and non-fasting foods. It is sometimes called "Ash Monday," by analogy with Ash Wednesday (the day when the Western Churches begin Lent). The term is often a misnomer, as only a small subset of Eastern Catholic Churches practice the Imposition of Ashes. The Maronite Catholic Church and The Mar Thoma Nasranis of India-Syro-Malabar Catholic Church are notable amongst the Eastern rite that employs the use of ashes on this day.

Liturgically, Clean Monday—and thus Lent itself—begins on the preceding (Sunday) night, at a special service called Forgiveness Vespers, which culminates with the Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness, at which all present will bow down before one another and ask forgiveness. In this way, the faithful begin Lent with a clean conscience, with forgiveness, and with renewed Christian love. The entire first week of Great Lent is often referred to as "Clean Week," and it is customary to go to Confession during this week, and to clean the house thoroughly.

The theme of Clean Monday is set by the Old Testament reading appointed to be read at the Sixth Hour on this day (Isaiah 1:1-20), which says, in part: “Wash yourselves and ye shall be clean; put away the wicked ways from your souls before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, consider the fatherless, and plead for the widow. Come then, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, I will make them white as wool” (vv. 16–8).

Lagana bread

Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece and Cyprus, where it is celebrated with outdoor excursions, the consumption of shellfish and other fasting food, a special kind of azyme bread, baked only on that day, named "lagana" (Greek: λαγάνα) and the widespread custom of flying kites. Eating meat, eggs and dairy products is traditionally forbidden to Orthodox Christians throughout Lent, with fish being eaten only on major feast days, but shellfish is permitted in European denominations. This has created the tradition of eating elaborate dishes based on seafood (shellfish, mollusks, fish roe etc.). Traditionally, it is considered to mark the beginning of the spring season, a notion which was used symbolically in Ivan Bunin's critically acclaimed story, Pure Monday. People on Clean Monday usually take their picnic baskets and put inside fasting foods because it is the day that Lent begins.

The happy, springtime atmosphere of Clean Monday may seem at odds with the Lenten spirit of repentance and self-control, but this seeming contradiction is a marked aspect of the Orthodox approach to fasting, in accordance with the Gospel lesson (Matthew 6:14-21) read on the morning before, which admonishes: “When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret...” (v. 16-18).

In this manner, the Orthodox celebrate the fact that "The springtime of the Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to open..."

Source: wikipedia.org

In Praise of Slow

 What is In Praise of Slow about?

It’s about how the world got stuck in fast-forward and how more and more people everywhere are slowing down. In other words, it’s about the rise of the Slow Movement. In Praise of Slow is published in 30 languages and has been a bestseller in many countries. In October 2009, it was the inaugural selection for the new Huffington Post book club.

What is the Slow Movement?

It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.

When was this Slow idea born?

People have been defending the value of slowness for at least 200 years – think of the Romantics, or the Transcendentalists or even the hippies. But the idea of a Slow Movement which seeks to blend fast and slow to help people work, live and play better in the modern world is more recent. Born in Italy in the early 1990s the ****Slow Food movement helped recapture the word slow’ as something positive. But they concentrate on food. More recently Slow has become a universal label to explain the benefits of doing everything at the right speed: sex, work, education, exercise, etc.

Why do we need a Slow Movement now?

It seems to me that we are moving towards an historical turning point. For at least 150 years everything has been getting faster and for the most part speed was doing us more good than harm in that time. But in recent years we’ve entered the phase of diminishing returns. Today we are addicted to speed, to cramming more and more into every minute. Every moment of the day feels like a race against the clock, a dash to a finish line that we never seem to reach. This roadrunner culture is taking a toll on everything from our health, diet and work to our communities, relationships and the environment. That is why the Slow Movement is taking off.

Have we reached the point of trying to accelerate the unacceleratable?

Definitely. You can even do courses in Speed Yoga or Speed Meditation these days. All this technology connects us in ways that can be wonderful but it also tempts us into trying to hurry up relationships too. So on Facebook or MySpace you find people claiming to have 4,356 friends! The very idea of friendship is devalued. And maybe we’re also losing the ability to make friends: in Britain, a major survey found that between 1986 and 2006 the number of teenagers who say they have no best friend in whom to confide rose from under one in eight to nearly one in five. Or consider the phenomenon of Speed Dating, where singles gather at events where they get three minutes (sometimes less) each with 30 members of the opposite sex and have to choose who might be a suitable romantic partner. Actually, I read recently that in the latest version of Speed Dating the participants no longer even meet face to face (that’s too slow, you see). Instead, they get three minutes to appraise each other via email or instant messaging. A magazine in Britain even published an article recently on how to bring about an orgasm in 30 seconds! So even in the bedroom it’s On your marks, get set, go! Our speedaholism is out of control, and we all know it.

What are the tell-tale symptoms of living too fast?

When you feel tired all the time and like you’re just going through the motions, getting through the many things on your To-Do list but not engaging with them deeply or enjoying them very much. You don’t remember things as vividly when you rush through them. You feel like you’re racing through your life instead of actually living it. Illnesses are often the body’s way of saying Enough already, slow down!

What inspired you to write In Praise of Slow?

My life had become an endless race against the clock. I was always in a hurry, scrambling to save a minute here, a few seconds there. My wake-up call came when I found myself toying with the idea of buying a collection of One-Minute Bedtime Stories Snow White in 60 seconds. Suddenly it hit me: my rushaholism has got so out of hand that I’m even willing to speed up those precious moments with my children at the end of the day. There has to be a better way, I thought, because living in fast forward is not really living at all. That’s why I began investigating the possibility of slowing down.

How has the Slow Movement grown since In Praise of Slow was published?

In leaps and bounds. Everywhere people are waking up to the folly of living in fast-forward and discovering that by slowing down judiciously they do everything better and enjoy everything more. When I first began researching my book, the search term slow movement turned up almost nothing. There was Slow Food but that was it. Today you get nearly 500,000 entries on Google under slow movement. And it’s not just yoga teachers and aromatherapists flying the flag of Slow; it’s business too. The corporate world is starting to realize that too much speed and hurry hurts the bottom line. A senior manager at IBM has even launched a slow email movement, urging people to unplug and make the most of email (and life) by using email less. And that’s IBM, not a meditation school. Many companies are waking up to the fact that staff are more productive and creative when they can shift down a gear or two during the workday that’s why you see a boom in chill-out rooms, on-site yoga and massage, and even napping pods in the workplace. The latest neuroscience shows that when people are in a relaxed, mellow state, the brain slips into a deeper, richer, more nuanced mode of thought. Psychologists actually call this Slow Thinking. Artists have always known that you cannot hurry the act of creation and increasingly businesses are realizing the same thing: that workers need moments to relax, unplug, be silent in order to be creative and productive.

 

Productivity is one thing, but what about pleasure?

Pleasure is certainly a big gain from slowing down. Mae West once said that “Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly” and though she was probably talking about sex (did she ever talk about anything else?) it’s an observation that holds true across the board. We are obsessed with the destination and have lost the art of enjoying the journey. Everything has to be instant so we miss out on the joy of anticipation, of looking forward to things. We lose the pleasure of striving to make something happen. I think that anticipation is a key ingredient in pleasure of any kind. When we look forward to something, imagining how it will be, planning how to enjoy it, getting a little nervous maybe – when the thing actually happens the pleasure is more intense.

Does that mean the Slow Movement is anti-speed?

No, absolutely not. I love speed. I like my Internet connection to be fast and I play two of the fastest sports around, ice-hockey and squash, in my spare time. I live in London, which is a city of volcanic energy, and I enjoy working to deadlines. Speed has its place in the modern world. Often you have to move quickly, particularly at work. The problem is that speed has become a way of life. We do everything in a rush. We are stuck in fast forward and that is unhealthy.

What is the Slow take on multitasking?

That it’s usually a poor use of time. The latest neuro-scientific research suggests what most of us already suspect: that the human brain is not very good at multitasking. Sure there are a few simple or routine tasks we can perform at the same time, but as soon as you have to engage the brain, you really need to focus on one activity at a time. Much of what passes for multitasking is nothing of the sort: it is sequential toggling between activities. And the research suggests that this flitting back and forth is actually very unproductive: tasks can take more than twice as long to complete when performed in this way. 

That’s why that history essay takes your teenage daughter (with her IMs, cellphone, MySpace page, TV monitor, etc) three hours to write instead of 90 minutes. Hewlett Packard recently warned that the constant barrage of electronic interruptions causes IQ levels in the workplace to fall 10 points double the effect of smoking marijuana. In other words, being always on does not turn you into an uber-productive master of the universe; it turns you into Cheech and Chong or Ozzy Osbourne. 

Changing attitudes is hard because our culture is marinated in the notion that doing more things at once is somehow deeply modern, efficient and fulfilling. But change is possible. Once people understand the limits of the human brain, it should become easier to kick the multitasking habit. Some companies are starting to encourage staff to focus on one activity at a time and wall themselves off from the barrage of electronic interruptions whenever possible. This will take time because most of us are adrenaline-junkies. We need to wean ourselves off multitasking slowly. 

That means starting with maybe an hour a day focusing on a challenging intellectual task with the gadgets switched off. Or setting aside an afternoon when you perform every task in sequence rather than in overlapping fashion and then seeing how much more quickly and accurately you get your work done. I multi-task a lot less now and find that I am a lot more creative and efficient and I enjoy my life more because I’m more deeply engaged with everything I do.

How do Oriental disciplines like Chi Kung, yoga and meditation fit into the Slow revolution?

They are completely in harmony with it. They teach us how to be comfortable with slowness. They retrain our bodies and minds and help shift us into a lower gear. This brings obvious physical benefits such as greater flexibility, strength and balance. But it also goes deeper than that. It can cultivate an inner calm that you take with you into the more hectic moments of the day – so that you keep your head while all around you are losing theirs. By slowing us down, these Oriental practices also give more depth and meaning to our lives. One of the key benefits of decelerating is that it gives us the time and tranquility to look inside ourselves, to listen to our hearts, to get in touch with our souls, to ask the big questions in life.

Which parts of the Slow revolution do you find most fascinating?

That is a hard question because I find them all fascinating! The Slow philosophy is making inroads into every walk of life. There are movements for Slow Homes, Slow Management, Slow Leadership, Slow Libraries, Slow Research, Slow Sex, you name it. Lately I have been paying a lot of attention to the rise of Slow Travel. The fast approach to travel and tourism is taking a heavy toll. The environmental damage caused by our penchant for air travel is well documented, but it is just the start. When we travel in roadrunner mode, we miss the small details that make each place thrilling and unique. We lose the joy of the journey. And at the end of it all, when every box on our To Do list has been checked, we return home even more exhausted than when we left. That is why Slow Travel is gaining ground.

Slow Travel is about savouring the journey (traveling by train or barge or bicycle or foot rather than crammed into an airplane); taking time to engage and learn about the local culture; finding moments to switch off and relax; showing an interest in the effect our visit has on the locals and on the environment. Obviously we don’t live in an ideal world so sometimes we have to travel faster than we want or should. But at least we should seek wherever possible to take a Slow approach to travel. It will deliver more pleasure, stronger memories and more sustainability.

I am also very interested in the idea of Slow Design making products in a sustainable way, with high-calibre materials and real craftsmanship. The consumer culture has been producing cheap, disposable crap for so long. I think the next stage for capitalism will be for us to consume fewer things of higher quality.

As a globetrotting writer and commentator, do you manage to stay Slow?

Yes, I do. It’s not easy, and it takes lots of discipline, but it is possible. One can be Slow in any profession (though some are clearly harder than others) because being Slow is essentially a state of mind. My life is still busy but not TOO busy. I have definitely changed – there is for me a very clear Before and After. Before I was always trying to do more and more things in less and less time. It was all about speed and quantity. Now I approach each thing seeking to do it as well as possible instead of as fast as possible. This has made a big change in the way I feel about time: I no longer feel a slave to it. I feel like I have enough time for things and I don’t very often feel rushed (even though I have an exciting, full life). 

This is not a paradox. It’s about finding the right equilibrium and not being obsessively neurotic about time. My first step was realizing that I had got stuck in fast-forward, and that too much speed was doing me damage. Then I began making concrete changes. I cut back on the things I was trying to cram into my schedule to allow more time to rest and to devote to the things that are more important to me. So I dropped one sport (tennis) and reduced my TV-watching to a few hours a week, instead of a few hours a day. I also stopped wearing a watch, which seemed to make me less neurotic about time. I take breaks during the work day to relax, eat and do a bit of meditation. 

And I switch off my technology (email, cellphone, etc) whenever possible, instead of being always connected. I have learned to say “No” to things – work, social offers, etc – to avoid getting over-scheduled. This is especially important in my work. I get lots and lots of offers to write, speak, consult and it is tempting to do them all, but if I did I would become the opposite of what I’m preaching. So I choose the jobs that I think are the most important in order to keep a balance in my life.

How do other people react when someone slows down?

No man is an island and when we start slowing down we have to take account of the impact on people around us. That involves warning friends and colleagues, explaining why your are going to do less, unplug your technology more, and ask for more time for work assignments. I was afraid at first that this was going to alienate people, and initially some were skeptical. But very soon people began to understand that they could no longer reach me 24 hours a day; that I wasn’t going to say Yes to every social and work offer; that I might like a bit more time for a job. What I found is that people around me, after a time of watching me slow down, began to implement similar changes in their own lives.

How do the principles of Slow apply to children and how do you raise your own kids?

I think children need slowness even more than adults do. It’s in those moments of quiet, of unstructured time, of boredom even, that kids learn how to look into themselves, how to think and be creative, how to socialize. We are doing a great disservice to our children by pushing them so hard to learn things earlier and earlier and by keeping them so busy. They need time and space to slow down, to play, to be children. Across the world, parents, politicians, adults in general are so anxious about children nowadays that we have become too interventionist and too impatient; we don’t allow them enough freedom. 

My wife and I give our children lots of time to play on their own. We resist the temptation to enroll them in too many extracurricular activities. We limit the time they spend sitting in front of computer screens and using technology, so that they run around outdoors and invent their own play. We also don’t try to push them to learn academic things before they are ready. And so far the results have been good. I hope it continues!

Can everyone benefit from the Slow revolution?

Yes, slowing down is not just a luxury for the rich. It is, in essence, a mindset. Most of the things that make up a Slow life are available to most people. People on lower incomes can cook simple meals at home and eat them at the table with the TV switched off; they can choose to use their technology in a more balanced way; they can resist the temptation to speed-read bedtime stories to their children; they can avoid over-packing their social schedules by saying No to some things; they don’t have to over-schedule their children with activities; they don’t have too drive fast; and so on.

But doesn’t slowing down have to mean working less and therefore earning less money?

Not necessarily. I probably work the same number of hour as before; I just work them more slowly. And unless you are living in abject poverty, working/earning less is maybe easier than we think. I was at Malpensa airport in Milan the other day and the man sweeping the floors was talking constantly for at least an hour – on his mobile phone. That costs money. It seems that even for people on lower incomes there can be ways to cut back on consumption and spending. That said, however, I accept that there are some people for example single mothers juggling two jobs – who will find it hard to cut back. But that does not mean the Slow movement is elitist. Every social revolution starts in the middle classes, after all, and then spreads throughout the rest of society.

Does the Slow Movement appeal to some social groups more than to others?

I’m always amazed and delighted by the way the Slow philosophy resonates right across the social spectrum. The virus of hurry has infected every corner of our culture and we are all desperate for a cure. I think the way In Praise of Slow has filtered into the most unusual places speaks volumes. It has been translated into 30 languages and been a bestseller all over the place, from North America to Britain, Spain, Italy and Holland to Argentina, Paraguay, Sweden and Taiwan. I know of many clergy (Protestant, Muslim and Catholic) who have quoted from the book in their sermons around the world. 

It is touted by yoga teachers, Tantric sex instructors and practitioners of alternative medicine. It was chosen as a book of the year by a number of business magazines and is now on reading lists given out by management consultants, life coaches and other business gurus. It was even placed inside the Big Brother (TV) house in Argentina to give the contestants something more to talk about than cellulite and Britney Spears. I hear from many schools around the world where children aged have been doing projects based on the book. I also hear from book clubs that have read In Praise of Slow.

What is the future of the Slow Movement?

The good news is that the Slow movement is growing.fast! And as the world gets faster, the need for a counter-current of slowness will grow too. I feel more optimistic now than I did when In Praise of Slow first came out.

Is there a danger that the Slow Movement will get hijacked by the speed culture and become just another consumer fad?

 There is a danger of that, clearly. But I think that the Slow Movement is strong enough now to resist that threat. And besides we need to slow down so badly that it is hard to imagine that people will suddenly give up on deceleration and move on to the next trend.

Many companies are using the idea of Slow to sell the their products now does that worry you?

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, there is a danger that the Slow message will get diluted by companies using the term Slow for products that are not Slow at all. But I can’t see how we can stop this. The more optimistic view is that any ad that trumpets the values of Slow is a good thing. Buying and selling things is a part of the human experience and we live in a world where advertising is part of the cultural wallpaper. Most ads pump out a single message: There isn’t enough time to slow down, so hurry up and buy our product! 

The fact that so many ads now use a Slow aesthetic or message (think people sitting on beaches or doing yoga in the forest) shows how much the world is yearning for slowness. It also seems to me that every time a company runs an ad campaign based on the idea that slow equals pleasure and quality, the cultural tectonic plates shift a little further below the surface. It makes slowing down more appealing and permissible. Here are three recent examples Slow-inspired ad campaigns: Haagen Dazs discovered that it took 12 minutes from leaving the freezer for its ice cream to reach the perfect point of softness for eating. The company recently ran a campaign in Britain based on the joy of waiting for that perfect moment of ice cream pleasure. The ad campaign that launched the new Volkswagen Beetle in Japan used “Go Slow” (in English) as its slogan. Audi’s latest model is advertised as The slowest car we’ve ever built.

 

But what do you say to people who claim that the world will inevitably go on speeding up and that a Slow revolution is pie in the sky?

I say look at the history books. Take the rise of feminism. In the 60s, when feminists said the world was unjust and the moment for change had come, the mainstream reaction was: No, the world has always been this way. You can’t change it. Go back to the kitchen! But look at the world today. Obviously there is a long way to go to create a world of perfect gender equality, but a woman today could hardly imagine how severely life was limited for her grandmother.

 I look at my sister and my grandmother and marvel at the change in just two generations. And the green movement has followed a similar arc: it was dismissed as a plaything for hippies and tree-huggers thirty years ago but today is near the top of the political agenda. The message is that the world can change, if we want it to. For a cultural revolution to occur, you need three factors: the need for change; an awareness of the need for change; and people willing to put that change into practice. We now have all three factors in place for the Slow revolution to push on. I think the Slow movement is at the same point as feminism or green-ism was 30 or 40 years ago. We won’t change the world, or make it Slow, by next year. It will take time. The Slow revolution will be slowBut I believe it will happen.

What will a Slow world look like?

It will be a world that is healthy, happy and humane. But you have to realistic. I am no utopian. I am a skeptic by nature. I don’t believe we will ever create a world where everyone does everything at the right speed and no one ever feels rushed. That’s just a fantasy. The world is too complex and interconnected for that. It’s impossible in a world where we have to interact with others. Impatience is also part of being human. I suspect even the Dalai Lama rushes unnecessarily sometimes! Hell, even I forget to slow down from time to time I face a barrage of requests to give speeches, do interviews, etc from all over the world every day and it’s hard not to get caught up in the frenzy. But at least our starting point should be to seek the tempo giusto and to expect others to do so too.

What do you hope readers will take away from In Praise of Slow?

       I hope that they will pause and reflect on how they lead their lives and how their lives affect the people and the world around them. I guess what I really want is for readers to grasp the very counter-cultural idea that the best way to survive and thrive in the fast-paced modern world is not to speed up but to slow down. And it seems to be working. Every day I open up my inbox and find a few emails from readers around the world who say the book has changed their lives. It’s exciting, and humbling.

       Source:carlhonore.com

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