【推荐1】From Mozart to Metallica, tons of people enjoy listening to various types of music while they paint, write, or draw. Many believe that music helps boost creativity, but an international study conducted by English and Swedish researchers is challenging that belief. Their findings indicate music actually stymies creativity.

To come to their conclusions, researchers had participants complete verbal insight problems designed to inspire creativity while sitting in a quiet room, and then again while music played in the background. They found that background music “significantly damaged” the participants’ ability to complete tasks associated with verbal creativity. The research team also tested background noises such as those commonly heard in a library, but found that such noises had no impact on subjects’ creativity. The tasks were simple word games. For example, participants were given three words, such as dress, dial, and flower. Then, they were asked to find a single word associated with all three that could be combined to form a common phrase or word. The single word, in this case, would be “sun” (sundress, sunflower, etc). Participants completed the tasks in either a quiet room, or while exposed to three different types of music; music with unfamiliar lyrics, instrumental music, or music with familiar lyrics.

“We found strong evidence of damaged performance when playing background music in comparison to quiet background conditions,” says co-author Dr. Neil McLatchie of Lancaster University.

Dr. McLatchie and his colleagues theorize that music interferes with the verbal working memory processes of the brain, blocking creativity. Also, as far as the library background noises having seemingly no effect, the study’s authors believe that was the case because library noises create a “steady state” environment that doesn’t disrupt concentration. It’s worth mentioning that even familiar music with well known lyrics damaged participants’ creativity, regardless of whether or not it caused a positive reaction, or whether participants typically studied or created while listening to music.

“To conclude, the findings here challenge the popular view that music strengthens creativity, and instead demonstrate that music, regardless of the presence of semantic (语义的) content (no lyrics, familiar lyrics or unfamiliar lyrics), consistently disrupts creative performance in insight problem solving,” the study reads.

【推荐2】Prashant Mandal shares a small hut with his wife and four kids, lives on less than $2 a day and recently suffered medical debts of more than $4,000 after his teenage son got sick last year. Yet, despite Mandal’s modest earnings, he spends 20 percent of his income on solar energy, an expense which is key to drawing in customers and helping his children to study. Across the globe, about 1.2 billion people live without electricity. Such limitations are not only inconvenient, but they put people in low-income countries at a greater risk of developing serious health condition. People living without electricity typically rely on kerosene lamps and other harmful light sources, which can lead to burns, injuries, poisoning and other risks .

Realizing the need for a more efficient energy source, a handful of for-profit companies have developed business models that enable under-served people to purchase solar energy, and, in turn, protect themselves and the environment in the process. Simpa Networks, which focuses its efforts on rural India, is such a company that has found a way to make solar energy affordable and accessible to people in need. Customers are charged a small down payment. Then, through its “progressive purchase” model, they pay in advance for a designated amount of energy consumption. A number of other companies have found ways to get solar energy into the hands and homes of people who typically can’t afford electricity. MPOWERD, a New York-based company, invented an inflatable solar light that is powered by the sun, and is also able to store that energy.

The Luci, which can provide light for up to about 12 hours, is marketed in the developed world as an efficient camping light. Those sales allow the company to keep its production costs down so that they’re actually affordable in low-income countries. “Energy poverty is discouraging but solvable if we all work together,” said John Salzinger, MPOWERD’s co-founder. “Every single consumer’s purchase helps us reduce costs, and then we pass those savings on to those who need affordable lights the most.”

【推荐3】If you wanted to know what it’s like to walk on the moon, you’d interview an astronaut. If you wanted insights(深刻的见解) on playing Hamlet, you’d study the performance of a Shakespearean actor. And if you wanted to know what the first year of teaching school is like, well... you’d ask teachers who just completed their first year on the job. We wanted to know and we asked.

This book attempts to capture the fascinating and inspiring answers we received. It is based largely on a series of discussions held among winners of the First Class Teacher Award sponsored(赞助) every year by Sallie Mae, a corporation devoted to education. As in the past years, first-year teachers who won the award came to Washington, DC in the fall for a weekend of awards and related events.

One activity that grew out of the awards is a series of focus group discussions. These discussions allow us to ask first-year teachers some key questions: What was it like the first year? What were your hardest challenges and your greatest rewards? Did you get the right preparation? Do you have any insights you could offer new teachers?

The teachers talked in frank terms about what it’s like to feel rebuffed by experienced teachers, to struggle with budget cutbacks, to see children in pain. But the difficulties they related are only half the story. They also told us how they dealt with challenges, what they would want new teachers to know, and why being a teacher is so important to their sense of self. All together, their words paint a picture of an inspired and inspiring group of up-and-coming leaders in their profession. We believe their reflections will prove helpful to principals, administrators, university professors in education departments, and particularly, new teachers who are speeding up to face the first day of school. This book is built on the words and recollections(回忆) of award-winning, first-year teachers. We have used direct quotations(引用语) from teachers (with their permission), both from the focus group discussions and from a set of essays they wrote. We felt their voices needed to be heard as directly as possible. Our job was to present their insights in a way that would be useful for readers. What follows is our effort to do so.

Thank you for your interest, and we welcome your response.

Sincerely,

Sharon A. Bobbitt, Ph.D.

Director, Knowledge Applications Division

U.S. Department of Education