Amira Mortenson

Ever since I can remember, my dad, Greg Mortenson, has been going overseas to help people. He builds schools and promotes education in really remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He wrote a book called Three Cups of Tea. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

My dad travels for work a lot, but my brother, Khyber, and I know that what he’s doing is important. There are people out there in the world who don’t have a house, food, education. The kids where he works have grown up with violence, war, and poverty. I don’t think any kid likes war. And our kids are going to have the exact same experiences unless we step up to the plate.

So I look at it from a perspective of how I can help. I want to help.

I first got involved in my dad’s work with Pennies for Peace, which helps raise money for Central Asia Institute, the organization my dad founded. Pennies for Peace was actually started by kids at a Wisconsin school where my grandmother was the principal. They wanted to help my dad raise money—one penny at a time—to build his first school.

In Pakistan and Afghanistan, a penny can buy a pencil. When a child learns to read and write, they have better opportunities in life. They can become good citizens and are less likely to wind up being violent or going to war. And when they go to school, they have hope, which is everything.

I started helping when I was five or six years old. I set up a lemonade stand to raise money for Pennies for Peace and my black-belt project for Tae Kwan Do was raising money for Pennies for Peace. But another way I help my dad is with music.

Singing is one of my favorite things. Music is one of my favorite subjects at school and I have had voice lessons since I was five. The CD was my mom’s idea, and I thought it would be cool. My voice teacher is Jeni Fleming, she’s a professional jazz singer, and we did a song called Three Cups of Tea, like the book. I had some ideas for phrases and words and then Jake, Jeni’s husband, did the music and the lyrics.

It’s about drinking three cups of tea with people: first cup you’re a stranger, second cup you’re a friend and by the third cup, you’re family. The song’s also about how even a penny can make a difference. My favorite part is:

I believe it’s just three cups away.”

Jeni and I recorded the song in Nashville. We sell the CD online and the money buys supplies for the kids.

That was in fourth grade. I’m much more of a social person than my dad so since then I have been singing and speaking at some of my dad’s lectures. I’ve also done two videos about Pennies for Peace. And I helped with the Young Readers’ edition of Three Cups of Tea and sometimes go on the book tour with my dad.

I think working with my dad has brought out the best in me. I can let other kids know about what’s going on and talk about education and peace. Once they know about it, they always want to help. And I can tell them about the schools my dad builds because I have seen them.

I’ve been to Pakistan, although not nearly as many times as my dad. The first time I was eight months old. I was there again when I was three and then when I was ten The last time we traveled as a family, all together, and we visited a lot of the schools.

Life for children there is much more difficult than it is for us. Kids get up while it’s still dark out to do chores and help with tea and breakfast. Then they walk to school. Some have to walk really far and they don’t have good shoes. After school, they walk home, do more chores and their homework. Their chores are much harder than ours. Sometimes I even complain about emptying the dishwasher. But they’re carrying heavy buckets of water from the river, working in the fields and taking animals up really steep mountains to graze.

The schools CAI builds are pretty plain. They have chalkboards and desks and the students have notebooks and textbooks, although sometimes they have to share. Most of the schools also have a well for clean drinking water. I told my dad they needed playgrounds and now a lot of them have swings and slides.

All the kids wear uniforms. When we visit the schools I like to wear the uniform, too. For girls, it’s a shalwar kamiz, with white pants and then either a green or a blue shirt like a tunic, and a dupattas, or head scarf.

When we go there, I also like to visit my friends in their homes. We always visit Hussein. He drove a Jeep for my dad for many years. He lives in a mud-brick house with his six kids, his wife, and his parents. It’s like a lot of houses in Pakistan, with rooms around a courtyard. People sit and sleep and eat on the carpets on the floor. There’s a ladder up to the flat roof, where his family dries apricots, cherries, and corn in the sun. The animals, the cows and goats, are in a shed.

The last time we visited I also got to see my friend Jahan. She’s Haji Ali’s granddaughter and she’s in Three Cups of Tea. We sketched portraits of each other and I showed her how to use a computer a little bit.

Family is very important there. Actually, I think family is the most important thing in the world. I can live without my friends, although it would be hard. But my family, that’s definitely No. 1. People know about my dad, but my mom is really strong and smart and we’re very close. Khyber is my little brother and he is shy and sensitive. He worries a lot about the kids in Afghanistan getting hurt by land mines and war. And then there are my grandmothers. They help us out a lot and they’re both incredible.

When I think about other things that are important in life, after family, No. 2 is basic needs, knowing I’m going to be fed; No. 3 is friends and No. 4 would be my future, what path I choose. How will I go the right way? Most kids don’t know the way and having goals for the future, to figure out what kind of path to take, is important. A big part of that is education.

No. 5 would be helping other people. I want to do something that helps other people, like working with children and music or starting a school and following in my dad’s footsteps. Not many people know this but we have a long history of educators in my family. Not only my dad, but my great grandpa was a teacher in Norway and my grandma started an international school in Tanzania. I feel it’s my responsibility to do that, whether through music or something else.

I try to help other people as much as I can. When I talk about Pennies for Peace, I tell kids that they can collect pennies for any humanitarian cause, either CAI or something right where they live. I learned from my dad you don’t have to do things half a world away. In Montana, I help with the animal shelter. After Hurricane Katrina, I suggested to my class that we raise money for the victims. And I write letters to kids who have parents in the military, serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. I tell them to be strong. I know that it’s hard when your parents aren’t there every day and sometimes miss birthdays and school concerts. I know. So I think we should all reach out to each other and support each other.

I think, too, that for me and Khyber, giving up our dad is kind of a way of doing community service. He’s gone a lot. Ever since he wrote Three Cups of Tea, he gets thousands of requests to speak at schools and other places. And of course he travels to Pakistan and Afghanistan for work. So I don’t get to see him as much as I would like.

We worry about him sometimes. Some of the places he goes are dangerous. But he’s smart about things and he has an amazing staff. They all go and drink lots of tea with the people who want to build schools. He makes friends everywhere. So there are lots of people looking out for his safety. They’re like a big family. It’s like having lots of uncles.

My parents have encouraged me in all of the things I love — music, theatre, Tae Kwon Do. And I’ve learned from them that helping out in the world is important. Especially for us here in the United States. We have so much compared to the rest of the world.

Whenever Greg Mortenson talks about his humanitarian work promoting education as a path to world peace, he cites his children, Amira and Khyber, as his primary motivators. He also draws inspiration from the children who attend the more than 90 schools he has built in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Seeing a child write his or her own name for the first time “is a very incredible experience, because it means that now that child has an identity,” he told students at the University of Delaware in September, according to the UDaily. “ It also is very precious when your own children learn to read and read their storybooks to you,” he said.

Since the 2006 publication of his book, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time, Mortenson has spent a lot of time on the road, promoting his book and raising money for his organization, Central Asia Institute, in addition to his overseas trips for work. Periodically, his family joins him on the road. But his hectic travel schedule means he’s missed some key turning points in his children’s lives.

Yet his children are with him every day in many ways. Sometimes they are literally there, participating in school visits or presentations. Other times, he relies on his belief that doing his part to build a better future, where peace and knowledge override war and ignorance, will make the world a better place for his children — and all children.

The villages where Mortenson builds schools — usually high in the mountains, far off the beaten path — often lack the basic amenities Westerners take for granted. Many of the children grow up in homes without electricity, clean drinking water, or enough food to eat. And many of them, especially the girls, weren’t even going to school before Mortenson came along.

An estimated 120 million children in the world don’t go to school, 78 million of whom are girls. There are lots of reasons why, including religious extremism, gender discrimination, slavery, and war. But Mortenson believes education needs to be the world’s top priority. And he believes kids play a key role in making that happen.

CAI’s Pennies for Peace program is aimed at getting kids involved in raising money to help pay for the schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A penny buys a pencil. And Pennies for Peace “is going bananas,” Mortenson said. Thousands of children in the United States participate, raising money for CAI or other community-based nonprofit projects in their own hometowns. They’re making a huge contribution.

And so as Mortenson is inspired by children, he has found a unique and successful way to also help young volunteers to find ways to make the world a better place.

In this KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Amira Mortenson speaks about her father and his work in promoting education in Central Asia.

My Dad, Greg Mortenson

A Very Concerned Non-Compliant

Question: What is honor? Honor is an abstract concept used to express many different ideas. Generally, honor refers to moral integrity. We can ask: What does honor actually mean?

The US Naval Academy uses a far more workable definition, with at least some guidelines. There are three major types of honor violations: lying, stealing, and cheating.

Historically, too, honor has been important. From the Middle Ages, with codes of chivalry and bushido (boo-SHE-doh), men were expected to fight honorably. Later, governments expected citizens to conduct affairs honorably. Many schools have mottos dealing with honor and integrity.

Today, however, the system of honor is crashing and burning in American schools. Although cheating has always been an unfortunate part of schools, today cheating has reached new highs, or lows. Perhaps more surprisingly, cheating seems to be tolerated by teachers and administrators. Rampant cheating has spread far and wide, and has taken root in many top-notch American educational institutions.

Statistics speak best. Some statistics say that over 95% of high school students admit to cheating or some form of “questionable activity,” whether it be copying homework or cutting and pasting answers from the Internet. If my experience at school is general, this figure seems conservatively low. Not everybody cheats on tests, and this is part of the problem, copying homework is much more common and letting others copy is even more prevalent. At my current high school, the scourge is so rampant that the few non-cheaters are viewed as abnormal.

There are many different types of cheating. The ways of doing so, already numerous a generation ago, has exploded today because of the technological revolution. A cheater has many tools in his or her arsenal, including notes written on hands, cell phones, copying from computers, discussing tests with friends from earlier sections, copying from more astute classmates, directly observing another’s answer sheet, or getting another student to do the work for that student. All of these techniques and more are commonplace at some of America’s top schools.

The main difference between today and a generation ago, though, is not the methods but the attitude. Early cheaters were punished severely, up to and including their lives. Today, cheaters proceed without fear. Cheating, even organized cheating, is tolerated en masse in many of America’s schools. More than a technique for dishonesty, cheating has become a way of life.

Consider the week most recent in my memory. One teacher gave a take-home examination, but was absent the next day. While the substitute teacher sat at the front of the room refusing to care, students worked on the problems together and copied one another’s solutions.

During another test, the room was so loud with students’ illegal activities, from whispering to electronic devices, that it was very hard to see how the teacher could not notice. One student in that class was caught with contraband notes and took the zero, but with a discreet wink and a nod saying that the test grade would be dropped in the end. In other words, no consequence. All week, I’ve seen homework and tests copied, even right under the teacher’s nose. Despite constant warnings of roving eyes and the like, no students are ever caught and failed for the homework, test, or course.

Kids are not necessarily known to be paragons of moral integrity, but this trend certainly represents a major decay. Perhaps more alarming, however, is the attitude of teachers. Of the eight teachers I have now, only one actively seeks to catch and punish cheaters. From what I hear, this teacher seems to be unique in the school.

The only way cheating can be stopped is if the teachers want it to stop. The extent to which teachers want to stop the madness is revealed by what happens when a teacher actually catches or suspects kids of cheating. Either teachers are ridiculously bad at catching cheaters, which I doubt, or they do not exert all of their capabilities.

The administration’s attitude towards cheating is, if anything, more astonishing. At my old middle school, one of the top schools in the city, one kid decided to pen a piece on cheating for an assignment to be hung on a bulletin board. After polling the eighth grade class, he concluded that over 50% of kids admitted to cheating regularly. Before publication, the principal of the school was perusing articles and came across this article. Upset by the revelations, he demanded that the article remain unpublished and the kid write a new piece. In other words, he covered up the results in order to preserve the school’s reputation.

Schools do not seem to care about cheating, yet they do strictly enforce ridiculous policies that matter very little in comparison. My school spends more resources policing hallways to make sure kids are congregating on the right floor than to ensure that cheaters are caught and punished. A cell phone ringing during an exam means a zero and a trip to the principal’s office, but cheating means nothing. Students soon realize that the school has ordered their priorities, with regard to cheating. They become more emboldened by their teachers’ and administrators’ lack of care, and start to flaunt the rules even more flagrantly. Organized cheating begins to take root: a cheating conspiracy may begin.

A history teacher in my middle school encountered this problem. For economy of time, this teacher simply checked that the nightly homework was completed, but did not read it. To attempt to stop cheating, the teacher required the parent to sign the homework every night. Once students saw that homework was not being checked, they saw no reason to do the homework. Instead, they mobilized a conspiracy. Three of the smartest students in the class were tapped for the job. They would alternate doing the homework. Whichever student did the homework would then disseminate it to most of the rest of the grade via instant messenger. The students would then either disguise the origins of their homework to gain the parental signature, or simply outright forge the signature.

Eventually, late in the year, the teacher discovered the plot and became very unhappy. Surprise-collecting an assignment, she was able to ascertain exactly who and how many people were involved.

However, she did not know the full scope of the plot. She handed out letters to those guilty which were supposed to be signed by parents The students simply forged the signatures and did the next few assignments on their own. Eventually, when the teacher ceased to collect assignments, it was business as usual.

An even more egregious conspiracy is to steal and distribute an exam before the test date. This happened in both freshman and sophomore history finals at my high school this year. A student on good terms with the history department administration was left unattended in the office, where he sighted the prototype exams. One version of the story goes that he made copies of the exams, which he promptly hid, and replaced the originals. He was then able to sell the copies to dozens if not hundreds of students.

Another interesting and important issue is the perspective of the kid who permits cheating. Although many cheaters plagiarize off the Internet, most copied homework comes from classmates. According to the Naval Academy’s Honor Code, providing materials to cheat is just as criminal as copying the materials. In other words, cheating encompasses providing and copying.

In schools, this is not true. Kids are being sent the opposite message. Providers are caught just as often as copiers but punished much less harshly. Perhaps the teachers believe that the providers are more diligent or more academically talented. Though this is true, they have still violated their honor and deserve punishment.

Today, providing has become very much a way of life. The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next (Free Press, 1996) cites that in 1969, 58.3% of high school students let someone else copy their work. By 1989, that number had ballooned to 97.5% When kids fail to do their homework, they ask me if they can copy mine. When I reply in the negative, they look at me somewhat astonished, as if it is ridiculous to take a stand against cheating. When I refuse to join test-cheating conspiracies, which is often, I get that same strange look, like there is something dreadfully wrong with me.

This is perhaps one reason why cheating is so common: peer pressure. Under such circumstances, many kids would give in. Friends seem more important than ideals and character codes. Even if a student prizes his or her own ideals higher, it is extremely difficult to say no.

Some kids think the work is unimportant and they will end up in high places either way. They might as well spend their time doing other things rather than wasting it on work that doesn’t need to be done. They don’t care if integrity gets trashed in the process. It is a vindication of Machiavelli: the ends justify the means.

Another potential reason is laziness. Kids see no reason to do their own work when somebody else could do it for them. The time saved could be put to use doing something kids enjoy like watching TV, video games, socializing. In other words, kids cheat because they want to do other things, and they can.

Perhaps some people cheat because they are under pressure to do well. Recently, things have become more competitive. Because of limited quotas it is often difficult to gain admission to choice colleges. Generally, only students with high averages have a shot at Harvard or MIT. As spots become more and more coveted, people turn to cheating.

Competition, however, is a part of life. For contracts, jobs, elections, competition is found everywhere. Difficulty in high school is regarded as character building for life. In cheating, to get ahead dishonestly, kids are only preparing themselves to cheat further, to cheat their whole lives. It’s possible that they will eventually get caught by some honest soul and be severely punished. If they’re never caught, then they may lead a dishonest, but successful, life. What’s really wrong with that? It’s now time to answer the big unanswered question in the article: why cheating is bad.

It’s now time to answer the big unanswered question in the article: why cheating is bad.

Consider a general case at first: the whole world. Today the world seems to be filled with cheats and scandals and wrongdoings. There are lies, there is trickery, and there is bombing of innocent civilians. It seems that the world is abandoning honor. If nobody else is conducting their affairs honorably, then why should the United States follow suit? This is a combination of peer pressure and pressure to get ahead by changing our ways.

A difficult question to answer, that is true, as well as a valid concern, but there is a very clear rebuttal to the point. We must consider what America is fighting for. Unlike other groups or nations who fight for a person, America fights for an idea. This is where we draw our strength from. We fight for the ideals of freedom, justice, and righteousness. We stand for a world where people can live in happiness and prosperity; a world where you can walk out the door without living in fear of being shot. In America, anybody has a chance. In short, we stand for justice and fairness. Cheating in international affairs is, of course, exactly the opposite of all these claims. Repudiation of our system and endorsement of cheating is repudiating all of what America has stood for. We fight because we believe that we are the best: that our system is the fairest. By adopting the dishonest system, we lose any claim we have that ultimate victory should be ours. We become one of our enemies: a nameless, faceless shadow.

Of what bearing does a discourse on international affairs have on the rest of the article? Surprisingly, the two are related. Children are repudiating America’s meaning and message. People forget that someday these children will be the main part of society, and perhaps leaders in the world. It’s likely that many of the children will still cheat then.

Many kids think that cheating is easy to stop. They may plan to abandon cheating as soon as they leave high school, or graduate from college. However, this may not happen and they may continue. Resumé fraud is increasingly a problem for firms recruiting college graduates. There is a simple explanation for this failure to stop cheating. Cheating is also an addiction, like alcohol and drugs. If a student has been weaned for their whole academic life on cheating, it will be very hard for that student to stop.

Consider the impact a generation of cheaters would have on our society. The world has always had some cheaters. When a published work in the field of science, for example, is found to have been plagiarized, that person is largely shunned by the scientific community. Imagine a world in the future in which most scientists and indeed most citizens are cheaters, in which cheating has become the way of life. It would be a disaster. It would be a catastrophe to have a leadership that cheats, one that we could not trust to the hilt.

We are experiencing problems because of issues like this: consider the Bernie Madoff scandal. There are still honest people in the world who were there to call Madoff’s bluff, but what if the country ran out of these people? It would be cataclysmic. Through dishonest investments and other tricky market positions, our economy has severely declined. We have honest people working to restore the system, who are partially succeeding in stemming the loss. Without these people, there could be another Great Depression, or even worse. If America’s ideals of integrity meant nothing, there would be civil strife and worse — the whole country might well collapse.

Another argument, perhaps the most convincing, is the moral consequences of a lifestyle of cheating. It is important to consider whether something is “right” or “wrong” regardless of the specifics. Cheating draws a clear X on wrong for a multitude of reasons. It would be a repudiation of Western democracy, which our ancestors built on honor and trust. A society where people use “shady” techniques to present other people’s work as their own sounds like it would come from totalitarian Nazi Germany or communist Soviet Russia, not from our Western democracies. In the race to get ahead, we are in fact falling behind the ideals that we have cherished so dearly and paid for so highly for thousands of years, and accepting the dishonesty that our forefathers died to defeat.

In this KidSpirit article, an anonymous contributor discusses the moral philosophy and repercussions of cheating.

The Cheating Plague

Katie Hartman

Standardized tests are a yearly occurrence in almost all schools, and are a way of testing one’s knowledge against that of other students of the same age. 

Now that students and parents have become increasingly obsessed with test scores in the past years, standardized testing adds pressure and stress to students’ lives. These tests are also one of the most controversial issues in education today.

So whose idea was standardized testing? Well, the concept of a standardized test has developed over a long period of time. In ancient Greece during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, two of the most prominent philosophers and teachers, Socrates and his most loyal follower, Plato, started the idea of testing their students by having a class-wide discussion on a particular topic. Answers were not marked as wrong or right since students were often asked for their opinion and were assessed on how well they could contribute to the conversation.

In 1900, the College Entrance Examination Board (commonly referred to as the College Board) was founded, and its early tests consisted of essay questions instead of multiple choice and were graded individually by professors. But other educators began to test students in ways different from the essay writing that was the most common form of testing at the time.

In 1914, the University of Kansas’s Frederick J. Kelly designed the first multiple-choice test and in 1926, the multiple-choice Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) was proposed as an exam that was much easier to grade. But the SAT was not the College Board’s test of choice until December of 1941, when they decided that a faster way of grading the applicants was necessary.

In 1957, when the Soviet Union beat the United States into space with their satellite called Sputnik, schools in the U. S. felt pressured to increase math and science programs to produce students that would be the top students in the world. After test scores started to decline heavily in the 1970s, and a national report entitled, “A Nation at Risk” declared the standards were too low, the country experienced a great swell in testing which has lasted over the past 30 years. During this period many politicians supported increases in testing. Those who disagreed felt there should be more focus on what the government funds in schools, like better-trained teachers and a requirement for smaller classes. But the opposing viewpoint prevailed. In 2002, President Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act, requiring annual standardized tests in all public schools, to help government evaluate the students’ skills.

There are some obvious pros to standardized testing, from the viewpoint of the College Board and the government. For one there is a huge amount of practicality to standardized testing. In terms of colleges, it would be quite difficult to make and grade an entrance test that was personalized to every student. And in terms of comparing students to those in other states or countries, grades are simply not enough since an A in one English course could indicate something completely different than an A at another school. Another pro is that standardized tests, which are the same for everyone have a great amount of objectivity about them, and there is almost no way for a grade to be biased. And the final benefit is that the standardized tests hold all students accountable for the same level of knowledge, up to the high standard and expectations.

On the other hand, coming from a different culture or background may be a disadvantage on these tests. There are questions that have cultural biases without the test makers even realizing it. Even very simple questions; for example, after being asked to read a paragraph about a little girl who lost her tooth, a student is asked to answer the question: What should Sally do next? The question is followed by four possible answers, one of them being the correct answer: put her tooth under her pillow. This seems like a very simple question, but the tradition of placing teeth under a child’s pillow is solely an American tradition. So to a child with a Korean background, for example, this might not be the easy question the test makers intended it to be, since the student might have grown up with the Korean tradition of tossing your tooth up onto the roof of your house. At the beginning of the test there is a sheet where you are asked to write your name, grade, school, etc. but the test also asks for your ethnicity. In 2006 the College Entrance Examination Board calculated the averages on the SAT within each ethnic group, and showed there could be some culturally biased questions.

So are these tests really a fair judgment of a student’s ability? Different people have opposing opinions as to whether they are or not, but some of the debate revolves around what we as a country consider “smart.” What is intelligence?  This is a question with many different answers but there are mainly two sides. Is intelligence reflected in a person who can quickly tell you what South American country has the largest land area or what the symbol Rg stands for on the periodic table of elements? Or is intelligence demonstrated by a person who understands and can eloquently articulate his opinion on President Obama’s latest policy or who has interesting new ideas on how to improve how environmentally friendly your school is? Standardized tests are mainly just an assessment of a student’s ability to retain facts, which may not be the best way to test a student’s actual intelligence.

Some of the debate revolves around what we as a country consider “smart.” What is intelligence?

Standardized testing also adds pressure and stress to a student’s life. The majority of students find the tests very nerve-racking. The tests don’t take into account the fact that a student may have an “off” day or let his nerves get in the way of doing his best. Whoever is grading the tests (which is typically a computer) or seeing the test scores does not know the student. Which would mean he or she has no idea if the student really understands the concepts versus merely memorizing, or if the student puts the knowledge to use in his daily life.

Personally I think the Ancient Greeks had it right all along. Although I understand the practicality of having a standardized test, I don’t think that they are fair assessment of a student’s capabilities. Life is not made up of right or wrong answers, but instead problems with many different solutions and I think students should be taught to understand that at an early age. A new way to test students in mass quantities has not yet been proposed, but I’m sure someone could come up with a new way if the government and the College Board requested one. I think that students should be taught that it’s okay to answer questions differently from the person sitting next to you. On a standardized test students are asked to choose the “best” answer to every question, but what makes this bubble the best. That’s the best answer, but according to whom?

In the end what standardized tests give us is a number and nothing more. A number that may or may not be a fair representation of how a person understands all they have been taught. For years these scores have dictated high school courses, college acceptances, and the self-esteem of students around the nation. Students’ futures can lie in those very digits. Yet a mere number cannot evaluate a person’s creativity, understanding, ethics, and many other traits that we respect in others.

Mathews, Jay. “Just Whose Idea Was All This Testing?”  Washington Post, November 14, 2006.

In this KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Katie Hartman discusses standardized testing.

You May Begin: A Look at Standardized Testing

Ben Decker

A proverb states that “competition is the whetstone of talent” and Henry Clay said that “of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.”

On the other hand, it has also been said that “though competition brings out the best in products, it brings out the worst in people,” [David Sarnoff], and an unknown author observed, “Those that want to win have a horrible tendency to punch the best player on the other team when nobody is looking.”

Maybe it’s simply the makeup of the human brain that makes us this way, but it seems that competition has always been in our nature. We compete for glory, money, popularity, and sometimes even survival. We often enjoy watching others compete. It seems that where there are people, there is competition. The question that we have pondered for ages, though, is whether or not competition is beneficial, or even necessary.

CAN everyone really be equal? This notion is very well communicated by Kurt Vonnegut in his satirical story “Harrison Bergeron.” Within this story, those who succeed are handicapped by various devices, in order to be brought down to the level of everyone else. Those who are unfortunate enough to be handsome are forced to wear masks. Gifted athletes are burdened by heavy and uncomfortable weights. And those who are intelligent are forced to wear earpieces that emit sounds that quite rudely interrupt their train of thought. Is this really fair?

Many believe that competition is the oil behind the wheels of effective civilization. This is because it powers economies, encourages businesses, ensures that the best possible work is done, and even gives cause to get outdoors and have fun. Healthy competition can be found in everything from sailing to baseball to business. Take, for example, the famous rivalry between the baseball powerhouses, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Without this rivalry and others like it, the entire sport of baseball would consist of no more than a group of grown men running around rubber bases on a well worn infield. Who would want to watch that?

Others, though, may say it is competition that is tearing civilization apart. Nowadays, employees are so terrifyingly obsessed with outselling each other that they seem to be far too occupied with work to spend time with family. For instance, in the United States, working over 40 hours per week has become the norm. This is often viewed as one of the major flaws of the capitalist system. While it rewards innovation, capitalism places far too much emphasis upon work. As the German philosopher Karl Marx noted, “Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer.”

Children, too, fall victim to the downside of competition, whether it is sports, fashion, or academics. For example, sports players often spend their afternoons practicing rather than doing homework, or hanging out with their family. Many young children even carry this notion of winning to ridiculous extremes, such as war games. Is something wrong with our society if four-year-old children will go so far as to spend entire summer days pretending to kill each other, out of “the fun of competition”?

However, the biggest problem that many people have with competition is that the winner takes all, while the loser is left in the shadows. With every loss, these shadows deepen, until at some point the loser is swallowed, and the winner is standing alone in the limelight. Being the loser in this situation would be extremely degrading. For this reason, both losing and winning are an art. Wouldn’t you rather be the humble and accepting loser, rather than the pompous and sneering winner? For many, the answer is no. They would rather be the winner at any cost. It is altogether difficult to master the act of accepting defeat, or embracing victory. Unfortunately, the art of competing is not often taught. We are left with the raw emotion of either being on a pinnacle, or being left, alone, by the wayside. From an emotional standpoint, it seems that competition may either build you up, or tear you down.

Because of all of the emotional damage that competition causes, many people find themselves wishing that our world was completely competition free. When we think about this, though, isn’t it a bit like punishing those who succeed for being successful? While capitalism may have its problems, communism also has its pitfalls. If everyone is equal, then how, and by whom is the world to be governed? Diana Moon Glampers, the “Handicapper General” in Vonnegut’s story, has no handicaps herself, despite the fact that she is athletic and extremely intelligent. Translate this to the real world. Communist societies, based on equality for all, are often run by dictators. The balance between communism and capitalism is difficult to achieve. A world without competition would not only be unfair to those who are successful, but it would be close to unworkable in reality.

It is impossible to say whether competition is beneficial or detrimental. If practiced in excess it can be ugly, but it could be argued that our world wouldn’t be the vibrant place that it is today without competition. Can we fulfill our potential as humans without competition? That is for you to answer.

In this KidSpirit article, teen writer Ben Decker tackles the topic of competition through basketball.

Does Competition Bring Out the Best in Us?

Sam Miller

Akeelah and The Bee is a touching story about an eleven-year-old girl, expertly played by Keke Palmer, growing up in south central L.A. 

Although Akeelah has not been a rigorous academic, her teacher suggests she compete in the school spelling bee, but she is reluctant. Akeelah’s goal becomes taking part in The National Spelling Bee, even though she is teased by her classmates. Here she will be up against some of the wealthiest, most educated, middle school kids in the country. Does Akeelah have a shot?

Competition and achievement are intertwined throughout this film. Akeelah’s striving to win is fueled by her desire for personal fulfillment. Akeelah’s coach, Dr. Joseph Larabee, played by Laurence Fishburne, is strict, yet encouraging. Akeelah is desperate to beat Dylan, one of the best spellers in the bee. Dr. Larabee insists that Akeelah has an understanding of language that Dylan does not. When Akeelah gets to the national competition, Dr. Larabee is very calm and collected. He is serious about his work but never gets angry when Akeelah does not do well.

Akeelah and the Bee is a powerful and entertaining movie. The plot is moving and suspenseful and the story is well told. Some parts are very dramatic, yet there are clever jokes here and there. One of the things I liked about it was that they added some surprising little twists in some parts like when Akeelah’s brother starts to become proud of her. Before he did not encourage her and offended Akeelah with rude insults.

The movie’s unpredictability made it more appealing. As the National Spelling Bee approaches, Akeelah’s brother’s delinquent friend refuses to drive him around town unless he helps Akeelah study. Soon after, everyone in the neighborhood pitches in to help Akeelah prepare. However, it would have been nice to see those characters more developed and present throughout the movie. Akeelah’s mother was an appealing character that we would like to get to know better. Other than these minor flaws, the movie had diverse and interesting characters throughout the script.

The script was very strong and clear. Every scene in the film somehow related to the bee. The dialogue fit each character’s personality very well. Scenes flowed perfectly. The script was not difficult to understand and was fun to watch.

In the story, Akeelah comes to realize that intense understanding and personal dedication truly do pay off. The movie is a coming of age film. Akeelah grows from an insecure, bullied girl, to a well-respected person who understands the importance of hard work.

Akeelah and the Bee is not recommended for children under ten due to some minor swearing. Other than that, there are no inappropriate parts. Most kids and teens will enjoy this movie, as well as adults.

In this KidSpirit article, teen writer Sam Miller reviews the movie, Akeelah and the Bee.

A Review of Akeelah and the Bee

Akash Mehta

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is one of my favorite books published this year. 

In this book, Katniss Everdeen tells us her futuristic story in the present tense. Katniss lives in Panem, a country that “emerged out of the ashes of what was once called North America.”

Panem is divided into 12 districts and the Capitol. The Capitol, where all the rich and powerful people live, exerts tyranny over the districts, which are extremely poor and are kept back in technology. When the districts rebel, they are beaten in a war by the Capitol, who then completely destroys the thirteenth district. The Capitol invents the hunger games as a punishment for anyone who rebels. It is a yearly event where each district must send in two teen tributes, one male and one female, and 24 tributes fight to the death in an arena. The last one alive is the winner, and is showered with riches and good housing. But there can only be one winner out of the 24 and it is mandatory that every citizen watch this televised event.

74 years after the war, and the invention of the hunger games, Katniss takes her sister’s place as a tribute, to save her life. This is when the story takes place.

Suzanne Collins was inspired to write this sure to be classic, by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, where seven boys and seven girls were sent from Athens to a labyrinth where they would be devoured by a monster called the Minotaur. She was also very influenced by Roman gladiator fights.

One thing I love about the book is how she conveys the thirst, hunger, and raw anger of Katniss and other tributes. She shows us how these emotions can shape a person. She also does a wonderful job with explaining the political aspects of the book, like the power structures in Panem. The narrator and main character, Katniss, is credible and the reader is sympathetic to her; in fact, she seems like a real person. Katniss was the most well-developed character I’ve read about since Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye.

Collins makes clever use of flashbacks in order to cover a huge time span, but also to get inside Katniss’s mind and memory. The flashbacks also serve to teach us about the changing political landscape in Panem.

The one negative point is that Collins’ writing is unnecessarily melodramatic at times. A major example of this is her portrayal of the budding three way romance between Katniss, Gale, and Peter, which seemed lifted out of the most stereotypical soap opera, and had me yawning. Were the romance better developed and realistic, it would have fit perfectly into the story. While Collins does a great job of Katniss’s love for her sister and her late father, she is awful with this romance.

Because of the horrific kid-vs-kid violence, this book was rated for 12 years and older. I’m 11 and feel that an eight year old could read this book without being disturbed by it. I’d recommend this to anyone above age eight who wants to have an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.

What do I like in it, personally? Quite frankly, all of it. All in all, Suzanne Collins pulls us through this heart-rending story, and isn’t afraid to let us trip and fall along the way.

In this KidSpirit Media Review article, teen writer Akash Mehta reviews The Hunger Games.

A Review of The Hunger Games

Anya Dunaif

Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is a moving story about one immigrant’s journey to a strange and unknown world to build a new life for himself and his family. 

The Arrival is considered a graphic novel because it is told through illustrations. But it isn’t just any graphic novel, it has no text and is full of beautiful monochrome hand-drawn pictures; pictures that generate such vivid emotions there is no need for words. In the mysterious, shadowy world that Tan has created with pencil, words would ruin the mood that the drawings create and lessen the emotions that the reader shares with the characters in the story.

On the inside cover of the book there is a gallery of many faces that seem to be staring at you, pulling you into the book. The story starts with images of many everyday objects: an origami bird, a hat, a clock, a pot, a kettle, a tea cup, a drawing made by a child, a suitcase, and a photograph of the immigrant’s family. On the next page the whole scene is displayed. Tan tends to do similar layouts throughout the book. For example, when the main character leaves his hometown, which is full of ominous shadows, he takes a ship across the ocean. There is a drawing of him close up, and then one a little farther away, and this pattern of zooming out is continued until the ship he is on is reduced to about an inch long. This perspective shows us just how small the main character is in comparison to the world.

The hero is from a world quite different from ours, but one that has similarities. In the new city, the animals are not realistic and the architecture and landscape are fantastical, yet the humans look and dress the same. His surroundings are both old fashioned and futuristic. Old boats fly in the air, but also float in water. It is a clash of eras. In this strange world of old and new, the main character competes against the other immigrants to get a job and build a life for his family, who remain in his homeland. He also goes on a voyage of self-discovery.

When the main character arrives in the new city he is unemployed. He tries desperately to get a job. He competes against the other immigrants. But he fails many times. After a while the man almost decides to give up. He does not leave his family to compete against others. He comes to the other city to build a new life for them. All he wants is for his wife and daughter to be happy. After a lot of thought he realizes that sometimes you must fail in order to achieve. And that competing is not only about winning, it is about learning from your mistakes and living your life. So once again he tries to get a job, and this time he is hired. He doesn’t only get employed; he makes friends, plays games, and learns to speak the city’s native language. By working hard the man is able to achieve in many things.

The city that the main character moves to is a puzzle, as are the book’s illustrations. As he learns about the world, so do we. When he discovers what things mean, and where things are, so do we. Not only do we watch the main character as we work with him to figure out the puzzle of his life, we feel his emotions, and those of friends he meets along the way. When the hero’s friends tell the frightening stories of their pasts we feel scared for them. When the main character stares at the picture of his wife and daughter we feel sad and want to see them again. And when the man is finally reunited with his family we, too, feel an overwhelming happiness.

Creating a profound story is not easy without words. But when looking through The Arrival you live and feel the man’s journey because of the complexity of the art. Because the story is complicated, you have to piece together the puzzle of the main character’s life, which you also have do with your own personal story, as you discover who you are and your own place in the world.

In this KidSpirit Media Review article, teen writer Anya Dunaif reviews Shaun Tan's The Arrival.

A Review of The Arrival

Zach Young

There is one thing that every scholastic chess player dreams about. There is one thing every scholastic chess player wants. 

Yet every year, less than two dozen scholastic chess players out of the thousands who show up get it. This wish is to be the winner at the National Scholastic Chess Championships. I am one of the few to be crowned with victory in this event.

It all started on Sunday, December 12, 2004. I was in Orlando, Florida, playing in the championships in the fifth grade section. I had five points out of five so far. I was on board two. On board one, another player named Christian Tanaka was facing someone with the same score, as I was facing Josh Dubin. My game was just beginning. The position was equal, and I was wondering what would happen.

My clock was ticking down. I started the game with two hours to make all of my moves. I had about an hour and a half left. Top level chess players find it easy to use up all of their time. I hardly noticed that mine was ticking down. Some games can last six hours. There are simply an extraordinary number of possibilities that a player sees and has to process.

This is what I love about chess. There are so many possibilities. Every game is different, and the complexity of strategy and tactics are amazing. There is a wonderful depth to the position. It isn’t what it seems. The player never knows if there is something that he or she isn’t seeing.

Suddenly I saw it. I focused and saw what would happen. It was a combination of moves that led to winning some pieces. I checked it several times to make sure. It worked. I carefully played it and won a slight advantage. There were trades on both sides. Finally, it simplified to a peculiar endgame. I was starting to think that my efforts had come to naught, for this endgame is extremely difficult to win. I was beginning to wonder what kind of tournament standing a draw would put me in.

Then he started to fall apart. I don’t know why. Sometimes if you get down material, your mentality changes from playing for a win to playing for a draw. I wasn’t really worried about that, though. I was trying to capitalize on my advantage. It was gradual over five moves, but I won with eight minutes left on my clock.

I was very excited. I had dreamed about winning this tournament for three years prior to this event. Since then, I had played in seven of these events besides this one. I had not won a single one. The best I had done was a tie for second, that spring. At that tournament, I had scored six out of seven points. Now, I had a perfect score. There was a real possibility that I might actually win.

But first I had to face Christian Tanaka, who had also won his game. We each had six points. A win would catapult the victor into first place. A draw would result in a two way tie for first, with six and a half points each. On board two, two other players were facing off. A win by one of them and a draw between me and Christian would result in a three way tie for first.

Christian had white. He played an opening that I knew, but he forced trades. He might have had an opportunity to gain an advantage, but he didn’t go for it. We just kept trading and trading and trading. Eventually there was just a king and pawns on each side. No more trades ensued, but the pawns dead locked each other. There was no way either side could win. We agreed to a draw.

I was so excited! I tied for first in a National Championship! My mood was not damaged when I found out that Christian’s opponents had done better than mine, resulting in his win of first place on tie breaks. I was a champion!

In this KidSpirit article, teen writer Zachary Young describes playing in the finals at the National Scholastic Chess Championships.

A Champion

Charlotte Chudy

There is nothing like the excitement that runs through you when you are playing a sport and think you can win. 

Although you're not quite sure, you are determined to give it all you’ve got. You push and push and push yourself. Well, it’s terrible when your efforts don’t pay off, but truly incredible when they do.

When I was ten years old I first qualified for Junior Olympics in swimming. In addition to my individual events, I was assigned to the “A” team for the 100-yard freestyle relay. We were racing the fastest person in our age division, Annie Zhu from the Twisters, and her team of very good freestylers. Jacqueline, I think, was going to swim first for us, then Abby. I was going to swim third—a big deal. I was the person who had to give our anchor Lia a big enough lead to hold off Annie.

As we adjusted our caps and lined up, my heart was racing. The gun sounded and Jacqueline jumped into the water. I watched and couldn’t help but think about all the things that could go wrong—all the tricks and techniques I knew but wasn’t quite sure I could perform. Jacqueline finished strong and Abby was off the block. This was it! I was next. I was praying that I wouldn’t let everyone down. The timer told me to get ready. I stepped up onto the block, waited for Abby’s hand to touch the wall, and then dove.

I was even with the girl next to me and felt myself going faster than I had ever gone before. The water was rushing, all around me. Bubbles streamed past me and the air seemed sucked out of me. I kicked, I stroked, and occasionally took a breath, swimming as fast as I possibly could. The wall loomed in front of me and I flipped. I was in the lead. The girl from the Twisters was still at the flags, about half a body length behind and I caught a glimpse of her taking a big breath. I felt adrenaline taking over my body, filling me with energy I didn’t know I had. I had two laps of this amazing race left.

As I turned again I could see I was a full body-length ahead of the closest swimmer. But I was beginning to get tired.

Could I make it the whole way?, I wondered. Yes, I told myself, I can! One more lap, and this must be the fastest of all. I must give Lia enough space. I was at the flags, then boom, touched the wall. I heard Lia dive.

I could barely get out of the pool. I ripped off my cap and goggles, and heard “good job, Charlotte” all around me. I saw Lia turn at the wall. Only two laps left. The whole team was cheering her on. Lia was on her way back going super fast. Oh, my, God, I thought, we are going to win! What’s the time? A record!!! I was so happy. We were all laughing and jumping up and down.

The whole team surrounded us. Eddie and Kostya, our coaches, grinned as they shook our hands. I felt so proud. We had beaten the team record and the metro record for ten and under girls.

These days, I am still swimming, now seven times a week at least two hours a day. It’s not always easy to make myself go to practice after a long day at school, with lots of homework still to do. But I go, and I try. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s just hard.

There have been times when I’ve been hundredths of a second off a qualifying time and stayed that way for months. I keep at it, though. Is it because I like winning? Not really, swimming isn’t like that. There is always another goal, a time to be improved. The fact is, swimming is about 30 percent ability, 68 percent hard work and 2 percent magic. I guess I like that mix—particularly when the magic kicks in.

And that relay swim was magical. The record still stands. It’s posted on the board at the pool. I don’t check often, but when I do, I am happy it’s still there. It reminds me of all I can do and, that sometimes, if I’m ready and willing to give it my all, and the stars just line up right, amazing things can happen.

In this KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Charlotte Chudy recounts swimming in a relay at the Junior Olympics.

The Amazing Relay

Sofiy Inck

You put on my shoes, I’ll put on yours,

We’ll go down the street in each other’s sneakers.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Sofiy Inck suggests we walk a mile in each other's sneakers.

Sneakers

William Berg and Kevin Butterfield

We have been friends for around seven years and have many things in common, but we have contradictory ideas about competition. So, we thought it would be a good idea to get together and write this poem in the form of a debate (a competition of sorts), each of us arguing our own belief.

Winning in sports is as vital as a plant receiving sun.

It’s thrilling to win but what are sports if they’re not fun?

The joy of winning is eternal, mostly when you’ve tried your best.

Appreciate winning but don’t let losing cause unrest.

To lose is to plummet into endless despair.

Don’t torture yourself over defeat (it’s simply unfair!)

Surpass all others; you will never meet your match.

Be confident but humble: some are just too good to catch.

In a KidSpirit poem, friends William Berg and Kevin Butterfield debate the merits of competition.

The Two Sides of Competition

“Stand clear of the closing doors please.”

The tired people late to work, trying to push their way in the crowded train suddenly stop their desperate, violent attempts, and a vague feeling of defeat, muddled by their half-asleep conditions, staggers though their befuddled eyes, accompanied by a low moan and then they dejectedly drift away from the entrance and stand gloomily, waiting for their second, or third or fourth chance of entering the train. Or for the ones in the back, who had just a second ago been struggling to squeeze their way into the hot, cramped metal box, craning their heads over the others who were also brooding over the inevitable fate of being chewed out by their gray-haired bosses, all of a sudden, while unsuccessfully trying to make it look like they were just walking, these outcasts of this competitive system, “Jobs for the smallest,” they broke out in a run to grab the nearest seat of the bench, once again pushing, panting and cursing, and most of them—in fact, all of them except six—sigh, and turn away, having to experience the pains in their arms and legs for another who knows how many minutes—and this awful way of morning life continues.

As for those particularly fast six lucky-out-of-the-unlucky people, they either go straight to a half-sleep, or, not seeing the unlucky-out-of-the-unlucky ones leaning in despair over the track, trying to catch a glimpse of the train that would not come for another ten minutes, curse under their breath, still worrying about those gray-haired bosses, and no appreciation for their current status in this jumbled-up group of workers is felt by them. Some say the kings lord it over the serfs—but in reality, the kings merely pity themselves for their worries.

And, soon enough, another metal box comes roaring down the tracks, and the cycle repeats itself.

And, when some dead-to-the-world person actually enters that place, does he laugh with victory, or does he enjoy relief? No, instead he complains about the clammy conditions he is now in, worries some more about how he is actually going to get out of the train at his stop, and why God subjected him to such awful mornings.

But all in all, whether you’re the king or the serf, the unlucky-out-of-the-unlucky or the unlucky-out-of-the-lucky (there is no such thing as lucky-out-of-the-lucky) everyone achieves the same fate—getting chewed out by their gray-haired bosses.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Akash Mehta explores a daily struggle of city life: the commute.

Status

Colette Gerstmann

In that rectangle of glass is what you have been,

Projected in front of you is what you hope to be,

stretched out in an image of your elongated figure.

And your goal is for those three states—

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Colette Gerstmann contemplates the past, present, and future.

Timeline

Lauren Gelb

Yesterday I found a picture of me and you,

You were holding me tightly with a big smile on your face,

With a look of love that time can’t erase.

In this KidSpirit poem, teen poet Lauren Gelb recounts memories of her grandmother.

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