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Drinking too much - on a single occasion or over time - can take a serious toll on your health. Here's how alcohol can affect your body:

Brain:
Alcohol interferes with the brain's communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination.

Heart:
Drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart, causing problems including:

Cardiomyopathy - Stretching and drooping of heart muscle

Arrhythmias - Irregular heart beat

Stroke

High blood pressure

Liver:
Heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver, and can lead to a variety of problems and liver inflammations including:

Steatosis, or fatty liver

Alcoholic hepatitis

Fibrosis

Cirrhosis

Pancreas:
Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion.

Cancer:
Source: National Cancer Institute -- see https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/alcohol/alcohol-fact-sheet:

Based on extensive reviews of research studies, there is a strong scientific consensus of an association between alcohol drinking and several types of cancer. In its Report on Carcinogens, the National Toxicology Program of the US Department of Health and Human Services lists consumption of alcoholic beverages as a known human carcinogen. The research evidence indicates that the more alcohol a person drinks-particularly the more alcohol a person drinks regularly over time-the higher his or her risk of developing an alcohol-associated cancer. Based on data from 2009, an estimated 3.5 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States (about 19,500 deaths) were alcohol related.

Clear patterns have emerged between alcohol consumption and the development of the following types of cancer:

Head and neck cancer: Alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for certain head and neck cancers, particularly cancers of the oral cavity (excluding the lips), pharynx (throat), and larynx (voice box). People who consume 50 or more grams of alcohol per day (approximately 3.5 or more drinks per day) have at least a two to three times greater risk of developing these cancers than nondrinkers. Moreover, the risks of these cancers are substantially higher among persons who consume this amount of alcohol and also use tobacco.

Esophageal cancer: Alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for a particular type of esophageal cancer called esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. In addition, people who inherit a deficiency in an enzyme that metabolizes alcohol have been found to have substantially increased risks of alcohol-related esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Liver cancer: Alcohol consumption is an independent risk factor for, and a primary cause of, liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma). (Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus are the other major causes of liver cancer.)

Breast cancer: More than 100 epidemiologic studies have looked at the association between alcohol consumption and the risk of breast cancer in women. These studies have consistently found an increased risk of breast cancer associated with increasing alcohol intake. A meta-analysis of 53 of these studies (which included a total of 58,000 women with breast cancer) showed that women who drank more than 45 grams of alcohol per day (approximately three drinks) had 1.5 times the risk of developing breast cancer as nondrinkers (a modestly increased risk). The risk of breast cancer was higher across all levels of alcohol intake: for every 10 grams of alcohol consumed per day (slightly less than one drink), researchers observed a small (7 percent) increase in the risk of breast cancer.
The Million Women Study in the United Kingdom (which included more than 28,000 women with breast cancer) provided a more recent, and slightly higher, estimate of breast cancer risk at low to moderate levels of alcohol consumption: every 10 grams of alcohol consumed per day was associated with a 12 percent increase in the risk of breast cancer.

Colorectal cancer: Alcohol consumption is associated with a modestly increased risk of cancers of the colon and rectum. A meta-analysis of 57 cohort and case-control studiesthat examined the association between alcohol consumption and colorectal cancer risk showed that people who regularly drank 50 or more grams of alcohol per day (approximately 3.5 drinks) had 1.5 times the risk of developing colorectal cancer as nondrinkers or occasional drinkers. For every 10 grams of alcohol consumed per day, there was a small (7 percent) increase in the risk of colorectal cancer.

Immune System:
Drinking too much can weaken your immune system, making your body a much easier target for disease. Chronic drinkers are more liable to contract diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis than people who do not drink too much. Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows your body's ability to ward off infections - even up to 24 hours after getting drunk.

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Drinking too much - on a single occasion or over time - can take a serious toll on your health. Here's how alcohol can affect your body: Brain: Alcohol interferes with the brain's communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works.

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She was 9 when it happened. She says she was at school, in the school yard at recess, standing by the fence, when a thought passed through her "like the barest shadow of a mood." All of a sudden, and for no clear reason, she found herself thinking of her "Papi," her father, who'd been drunk, self-destructive and difficult for as long as she could remember.

It turns out, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor found out later, that as she was having that thought, her Papi, lying in a nearby Bronx hospital, was dying. He died that same afternoon. "Deep down," she writes in her autobiography, "I'd known for awhile that this is where Papi was heading." Drink killed him, and perhaps, the hint of him in her head was his "saying goodbye." When she got home, she says she "ran down the hall and threw myself on the bed. I was sobbing, pounding my fists, when [her aunt] entered the room. 'Sonia, you have to be a big girl now. You have to be strong ... ' " For her, that was a turning point. Without a father, with a mother numb from grief, she writes, "the only way I'd survive was to do it myself."

There's a similar story in The New York Times this week. This one is about Bill de Blasio, now running to be mayor of New York City. His father, Warren Wilhelm, was also an alcoholic, also difficult. From him, de Blasio says, "I learned what not to do." His father was constantly drunk, often angry. The two didn't get along. When Bill graduated high school he changed his last name from Wilhelm to de Blasio-Wilhelm, to honor his mother's side of the family. Then, when his dad killed himself at a motel in Connecticut (Bill was 18), Bill dropped his dad's name entirely.
'Eminent Orphans'
Losing a parent is one of the most devastating things that can happen to a child. The world goes topsy-turvy. The psychologist Felix Brown reports that prisoners are two to three times more likely to have lost a parent in childhood than the population as a whole.

But for some people, Malcolm Gladwell points out in his new book, the death of a mother or father is a spur, a propellant that sends them catapulting into life. Because they are on their own, they are forced to persist, to invent, to chart their own way - into a curious category Gladwell dubs "eminent orphans."

There are, he reports, a lot of them. Historian Lucille Iremonger discovered that 67 percent of British prime ministers from the start of the 19th century to the start of World War II lost a parent before the age of 16.
Almost A Third Of Our Presidents
Twelve presidents - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama - lost their fathers while they were young.

A psychologist, Marvin Eisenstadt, poured through a number of major encyclopedias, looking for people whose biographies "merited more than one column" - and of 573 people, Gladwell reports, "a quarter had lost at least one parent before the age of 10. By age 15, 34.5 percent had had at least one parent die, and by the age of 20, 45 percent. Even for the years before the 20th century, when life expectancy due to illness and accidents and warfare was much lower than it is today, those are astonishing numbers."
Cause Or Correlation?
Gladwell doesn't come out and say that losing a parent early increases one's chances of success later. But in study after study, among those who have succeeded, the incidence of "eminent orphans" is oddly high. The correlation shows up for scientists hereand here. It shows up in a study of "father absence" among eminent poets here.

This is a touchy subject. Nobody wants to say that catastrophe is a career booster; common sense says the opposite, that children with intact families get more love, protection and support, which ought to be an advantage later on. But it's also true that kids with missing parents need extra muscles, grit and self reliance - also ingredients for success.

The surprise here is the proportion of highly successful people who lost a parent early. Their achievements, of course, may have little or nothing to do with how many parents they had at home, but looking through Gladwell's footnotes, it is puzzling to see so many of them at the top of their professions. This suggests, ever so slightly, that pain trumps love at the start of the race. That's a notion that makes me wince.

Is later eminence worth such a price? Because the price is high. Gladwell ends his book with a short sketch of a remarkable French war hero, Andre Trocme, who refused to turn Jewish refugees over to the Nazis during the occupation, who defied them openly, to their faces, even when he was under arrest. His refusal to lie, to back down, to even bend a little is a puzzle, but Gladwell offers this hint of explanation.
'It's Because You Left Me ... '
When Trocme was 10 years old, he was in a car accident. His father drove too fast, the car spun out of control and his mother was thrown through the air and landed, lifeless, 30 feet from the wreckage. Andre saw the body and suffered a hurt so great, the pain, the unfairness of it all, gave him a dark, almost black courage. He had seen the worst. After that, nothing frightened him.

Many years after the accident, he wrote a letter to his dead mother, a confession:

"If I have been a fatalist, and have been a pessimistic child who awaits death every day, and who almost seeks it out, if I have opened myself slowly and late to happiness, and if I am still a somber man, incapable of laughing whole-heartedly, if it's because you left me that June 24th upon that road.

"But if I have believed in eternal realities ... if I have thrust myself toward them, it is also because I was alone, because you were no longer there to be my God, to fill my heart with your abundant and dominating life."

Parents, we all know, can hurt. But losing them hurts more. The hurt is there. It's how we handle it that makes the difference.

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Successful Children Who Lost A Parent - Why Are There So Many Of Them?

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She was 9 when it happened. She says she was at school, in the school yard at recess, standing by the fence, when a thought passed through her "like the barest shadow of a mood."

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Alcoholism affects people from all walks of life. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), more than 80,000 people die from alcohol-related deaths each year in the United States. And alcohol continues to be one of the nation's most preventable causes of death, second only to tobacco and a poor diet/sedentary lifestyle. ¹

Alcoholism has a profound effect on the entire body, especially the brain, heart, pancreas, mouth, liver and immune system. In spite of its negative impact, more Americans than ever before consume alcohol on a regular basis. ² Understanding the dangers of alcohol abuse and its impact on society can help you and your loved ones make healthier choices.

General Alcohol Statistics

Alcohol poisoning kills six people every day. Of those, 76 percent are adults ages 35-64, and three of every four people killed by alcohol poisoning are men.³

The group with the most alcohol poisoning deaths per million people is American Indians/Alaska Natives (49.1 per 1 million).⁴

Alcohol-impaired driving accounts for more than 30 percent of all driving fatalities each year.¹

More than 15 million people struggle with an alcohol use disorder in the United States, but less than eight percent of those receive treatment.¹

More than 65 million Americans report binge drinking in the past month, which is more than 40 percent of the total of current alcohol users.⁵

Teen alcohol use kills 4,700 people each year. That's more than all illegal drugs combined.⁶
Drunk driving costs the United States $199 billion every year.⁶

Kids who start drinking young are seven times more likely to be in an alcohol-related motor vehicle accident.⁶

Alcohol and Women

More than 45 percent of adult women report drinking alcohol in the last month, and 12 percent of these report binge drinking.⁷

About two-and-a-half percent of women who drink meet the criteria for alcohol dependence.⁷

Approximately one in two women of child-bearing age drink, and 18 percent of women in this group binge drink (five drinks per binge, on average).⁷

Excessive drinking can interrupt the menstrual cycle and lead to infertility.⁷

Women who binge drink are more likely to have unprotected sex, increasing the risk of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.⁷

Women who drink while pregnant increase the risk of fetal alcohol syndrome, which can cause mental and physical birth defects.⁷

Binge drinking dramatically increases the risk of sexual assault on women, especially those living in a college setting.⁷

Alcohol and Men

Nearly 60 percent of adult men report drinking in the last month; 23 percent of these report binge drinking five times per month (eight drinks per binge, on average).⁸

Men are twice as likely to binge drink as women.⁸

Approximately four-and-a-half percent of men met the criteria for alcohol dependence in the last year.⁸

Men are nearly twice as likely as women to have been intoxicated behind the wheel or involved in fatal motor vehicle traffic accidents.⁸

Excessive drinking in men increases aggression, raising the risk of physical assault on another person.⁸

Men are more likely than women to commit suicide while under the influence of alcohol.⁸

Excessive alcohol use is a common factor in sexual assault. It also increases a man's risk of engaging in unprotected sex and sex with multiple partners, which increases the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.⁸

Alcohol use increases the risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, liver and colon in men.⁸

Signs of Alcohol Abuse

Knowing the signs and symptoms of alcohol abuse is an important part of getting help. If you suspect someone you love is struggling with an alcohol use disorder, WebMD recommends looking for the following warning signs:

Problems at work or school because of drinking

Engaging in dangerous activities, such as driving, while drinking

Blacking out and not being able to remember what happened while you were drinking

Legal problems, such as being arrested or harming someone else while drunk

Continuing to drink in spite of health problems that are made worse by alcohol (e.g. liver disease, heart disease, diabetes)

Friends and family members who are worried about your drinking ⁹

Finding Help for Alcohol Abuse

If you or a loved one exhibits any of the common warning signs of alcoholism, contact us to learn about what options you have (855-894-3703). Depending on the severity, you may only need an outpatient program. Please don't stop alcohol abuse abruptly. It is a risk to one's life. You or your loved one needs someone to help you through the process. Our admissions coordinators are available 24 hours a day to answer your questions.

Sources:
1. "Alcohol Facts and Statistics." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, June 2017.
2. Domonoske, Camila. "Drinking on the Rise in US, Especially for Women, Minorities, Older Adults." NPR, August 10, 2017.
3. Bernstein, Larry. "Six people die each day of alcohol poisoning and most are middle-aged white men, CDC reports." The Washington Post, January 6, 2015.
4. "Vital Signs: Alcohol Poisoning Deaths - United States, 2010-2012." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, January 9, 2015.
5. Ahrnsbrak, Rebecca, et al. Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, September 2017.
6. "Statistics." MADD, Accessed December 31, 2017.
7. "Fact Sheets - Excessive Alcohol Use and Risks to Women's Health." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 7, 2016.
8. "Fact Sheets - Excessive Alcohol Use and Risks to Men's Health." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 7, 2016.
9. "Substance Abuse and Addiction - Symptoms." WebMD, Accessed January 9, 2018.
By Patti Richards

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2018 Alcoholism Statistics You Need to Know | Talbott Recovery

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Alcoholism affects people from all walks of life. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), more than 80,000 people die from alcohol-related deaths each year in the United States. And alcohol continues to be one of the nation's most preventable causes of death, second only to tobacco and a poor diet/sedentary...

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Alcohol Use in the United States:

Prevalence of Drinking: According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 86.4 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; 70.1 percent reported that they drank in the past year; 56.0 percent reported that they drank in the past month.¹

Prevalence of Binge Drinking and Heavy Alcohol Use: In 2015, 26.9 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they engaged in binge drinking in the past month; 7.0 percent reported that they engaged in heavy alcohol use in the past month.² (See "Definitions" box for definitions of binge drinking and heavy alcohol use.)

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) in the United States:

Adults (ages 18+): According to the 2015 NSDUH, 15.1 million adults ages 18 and older³ (6.2 percent of this age group⁴) had AUD. This includes 9.8 million men³ (8.4 percent of men in this age group⁴) and 5.3 million women³ (4.2 percent of women in this age group⁴).
About 6.7 percent of adults who had AUD in the past year received treatment. This includes 7.4 percent of males and 5.4 percent of females with AUD in this age group.⁵

Youth (ages 12-17): According to the 2015 NSDUH, an estimated 623,000 adolescents ages 12-17⁶ (2.5 percent of this age group⁷) had AUD. This number includes 298,000 males⁶ (2.3 percent of males in this age group⁷) and 325,000 females⁶ (2.7 percent of females in this age group⁷).

About 5.2 percent of youth who had AUD in the past year received treatment. This includes 5.1 percent of males and 5.3 percent of females with AUD in this age group.⁵

Alcohol-Related Deaths:

An estimated 88,000⁸ people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women⁸) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity.⁹

In 2014, alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 9,967 deaths (31 percent of overall driving fatalities).¹⁰

Economic Burden:

In 2010, alcohol misuse cost the United States $249.0 billion.¹¹

Three-quarters of the total cost of alcohol misuse is related to binge drinking.¹¹

Global Burden:

In 2012, 3.3 million deaths, or 5.9 percent of all global deaths (7.6 percent for men and 4.1 percent for women), were attributable to alcohol consumption.¹²

In 2014, the World Health Organization reported that alcohol contributed to more than 200 diseases and injury-related health conditions, most notably DSM-IV alcohol dependence (see sidebar), liver cirrhosis, cancers, and injuries.¹³ In 2012, 5.1 percent of the burden of disease and injury worldwide (139 million disability-adjusted life-years) was attributable to alcohol consumption.¹²

Globally, alcohol misuse was the fifth leading risk factor for premature death and disability in 2010. Among people between the ages of 15 and 49, it is the first.¹⁴ In the age group 20-39 years, approximately 25 percent of the total deaths are alcohol attributable.¹⁵

Family Consequences:

More than 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent with alcohol problems, according to a 2012 study.¹⁶

Underage Drinking:

Prevalence of Underage Alcohol Use:

Prevalence of Drinking: According to the 2015 NSDUH, 33.1 percent of 15-year-olds report that they have had at least 1 drink in their lives.¹⁷ About 7.7 million people ages 12-20¹⁸ (20.3 percent of this age group¹⁹) reported drinking alcohol in the past month (19.8 percent of males and 20.8 percent of females¹⁹).

Prevalence of Binge Drinking: According to the 2015 NSDUH, approximately 5.1 million people¹⁸ (about 13.4 percent¹⁹) ages 12-20 (13.4 percent of males and 13.3 percent of females¹⁹) reported binge drinking in the past month.

Prevalence of Heavy Alcohol Use: According to the 2015 NSDUH, approximately 1.3 million people¹⁸ (about 3.3 percent¹⁹) ages 12-20 (3.6 percent of males and 3.0 percent of females¹⁹) reported heavy alcohol use in the past month.

Consequences of Underage Alcohol Use:
Research indicates that alcohol use during the teenage years could interfere with normal adolescent brain development and increase the risk of developing AUD. In addition, underage drinking contributes to a range of acute consequences, including injuries, sexual assaults, and even deaths-including those from car crashes.²⁰

Alcohol and College Students:

Prevalence of Alcohol Use:

Prevalence of Drinking: According to the 2015 NSDUH, 58.0 percent of full-time college students ages 18-22 drank alcohol in the past month compared with 48.2 percent of other persons of the same age.²¹

Prevalence of Binge Drinking: According to the 2015 NSDUH, 37.9 percent of college students ages 18-22 reported binge drinking in the past month compared with 32.6 percent of other persons of the same age.²¹

Prevalence of Heavy Alcohol Use: According to the 2015 NSDUH, 12.5 percent of college students ages 18-22 reported heavy alcohol use in the past month compared with 8.5 percent of other persons of the same age.²¹

Consequences-Researchers estimate that each year:

1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor-vehicle crashes.²²

696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking.²³

97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report experiencing alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.²³

Roughly 20 percent of college students meet the criteria for AUD.²⁴

About 1 in 4 college students report academic consequences from drinking, including missing class, falling behind in class, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades overall.²⁵

Alcohol and Pregnancy:

The prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) in the United States was estimated by the Institute of Medicine in 1996 to be between 0.5 and 3.0 cases per 1,000.²⁶

More recent reports from specific U.S. sites report the prevalence of FAS to be 2 to 7 cases per 1,000, and the prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) to be as high as 20 to 50 cases per 1,000.27,28

Alcohol and the Human Body:

In 2015, of the 78,529 liver disease deaths among individuals ages 12 and older, 47.0 percent involved alcohol. Among males, 49,695 liver disease deaths occurred and 49.5 percent involved alcohol. Among females, 28,834 liver disease deaths occurred and 43.5 percent involved alcohol.²⁹

Among all cirrhosis deaths in 2013, 47.9 percent were alcohol related. The proportion of alcohol-related cirrhosis was highest (76.5 percent) among deaths of persons ages 25-34, followed by deaths of persons ages 35-44, at 70.0 percent.³⁰

In 2009, alcohol-related liver disease was the primary cause of almost 1 in 3 liver transplants in the United States.³¹

Drinking alcohol increases the risk of cancers of the mouth, esophagus, pharynx, larynx, liver, and breast.³²

Definitions

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD): AUD is a chronic relapsing brain disease characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse social, occupational, or health consequences. AUD can range from mild to severe, and recovery is possible regardless of severity. The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), published by the American Psychiatric Association, described two distinct disorders-alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence-with specific criteria for each. The fifth edition, DSM-5, integrates the two DSM-IV disorders, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence, into a single disorder called alcohol use disorder, or AUD, with mild, moderate, and severe subclassifications.
Binge Drinking:

NIAAA defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels to 0.08 g/dL. This typically occurs after 4 drinks for women and 5 drinks for men-in about 2 hours.³³

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which conducts the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), defines binge drinking as 5 or more alcoholic drinks for males or 4 or more alcoholic drinks for females on the same occasion (i.e., at the same time or within a couple of hours of each other) on at least 1 day in the past month.³⁴

Heavy Alcohol Use: SAMHSA defines heavy alcohol use as binge drinking on 5 or more days in the past month.

NIAAA's Definition of Drinking at Low Risk for Developing AUD: For women, low-risk drinking is defined as no more than 3 drinks on any single day and no more than 7 drinks per week. For men, it is defined as no more than 4 drinks on any single day and no more than 14 drinks per week. NIAAA research shows that only about 2 in 100 people who drink within these limits have AUD.

Alcohol-Impaired-Driving Fatality: A fatality in a crash involving a driver or motorcycle rider (operator) with a BAC of 0.08 g/dL or greater.

Disability-Adjusted Life-Years (DALYs): A measure of years of life lost or lived in less than full health.

Underage Drinking: Alcohol use by anyone under the age of 21. In the United States, the legal drinking age is 21.

¹ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 2.41B-Alcohol Use in Lifetime, Past Year, and Past Month among Persons Aged 12 or Older, by Demographic Characteristics: Percentages, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab2-41b. Accessed 1/18/17.

2 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 2.46B-Alcohol Use, Binge Alcohol Use, and Heavy Alcohol Use in Past Month among Persons Aged 12 or Older, by Demographic Characteristics: Percentages, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab2-46b. Accessed 1/18/17.

³ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 5.6A-Substance Use Disorder in Past Year among Persons Aged 18 or Older, by Demographic Characteristics: Numbers in Thousands, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab5-6a. Accessed 1/18/17.

⁴ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 5.6B-Substance Use Disorder in Past Year among Persons Aged 18 or Older, by Demographic Characteristics: Percentages, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab5-6b. Accessed 1/18/17.

⁵ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). 2015 (NSDUH-2015-DS0001) Public-Use File Dataset. Available at: https://www.datafiles.samhsa.gov/study-dataset/national-survey-drug-use-and-health-2015-nsduh-2015-ds0001-nid16894. Accessed 6/15/17.

⁶ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 5.5A-Substance Use Disorder in Past Year among Persons Aged 12 to 17, by Demographic Characteristics: Numbers in Thousands, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab5-5a. Accessed 1/18/17.

⁷ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 5.5B-Substance Use Disorder in Past Year among Persons Aged 12 to 17, by Demographic Characteristics: Percentages, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab5-5b. Accessed 1/18/17.

¹⁷ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 2.19B-Alcohol Use in Lifetime, Past Year, and Past Month, by Detailed Age Category: Percentages, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab2-19b. Accessed 1/18/17.

¹⁸ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Figure 24. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-FFR1-2015/NSDUH-FFR1-2015/NSDUH-FFR1-2015.htm#fig24. Accessed 1/18/17.

¹⁹ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 2.83B-Alcohol Use, Binge Alcohol Use, and Heavy Alcohol Use in Past Month among Persons Aged 12 to 20, by Demographic Characteristics: Percentages, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab2-83b. Accessed 1/18/17.

²¹ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Table 6.84B-Tobacco Product and Alcohol Use in Past Month among Persons Aged 18 to 22, by College Enrollment Status: Percentages, 2014 and 2015. Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015/NSDUH-DetTabs-2015.htm#tab6-84b. Accessed 1/18/17.

²⁶ Stratton, K.; Howe, C.; Battaglia, F.; Eds. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Diagnosis, Epidemiology, Prevention, and Treatment. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press, 1996.

²⁹ Estimated liver disease deaths include deaths with the underlying cause of death coded as alcoholic liver disease (K70), liver cirrhosis, unspecified (K74.3-K74.6, K76.0, K76.9), liver cancer (C22), or other liver diseases (K71, K72, K73, K74.0-K74.2, K75, and K76.1-K76.8). Number of deaths from Multiple Cause of Death Public-Use Data File, 2015 ( http://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html). Alcohol-attributable fractions (AAFs) from CDC Alcohol-Related Disease Impact ( http://nccd.cdc.gov/DPH_ARDI/Default/Default.aspx, Accessed 5/23/17). Prevalence of alcohol consumption from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2015, for estimating indirect AAFs for liver cancer.

Updated August 2018

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Prevalence of Drinking: According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 86.4 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; 70.1 percent reported that they drank in the past year; 56.0 percent reported that they drank

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Though hemp was grown as a fiber by the earliest American colonists, and cannabis was used as an ingredient in medicines throughout the 19th century, recreational cannabis smoking first took on a negative connotation in the American cultural imagination when people began to associate it with Mexican immigrants arriving in the country after the revolution of 1910.

Many Mexican laborers smoked marijuana to unwind, as a cheaper alternative to alcohol during Prohibition. The drug became associated with immigrants, tied up in xenophobic fears and resentments during the Great Depression.

Soon researchers claimed baseless links between marijuana use and antisocial behavior, crime, murder and insanity. One by one, states passed legislation outlawing the drug.

In 1936, the film Reefer Madness released. Originally conceived as a morality tale to warn parents against the dangers of cannabis, it was recut into an exploitation film, a lurid melodrama about a group of dope-smoking teens who descend into a hell of murder, suicide and madness brought on by the infernal herb.

Though Reefer Madness was the most famous anti-weed screed, it was soon followed by many imitators, including Assassin of Youth, where all-night marijuana parties lead to violence, and Marihuana, where an innocent girl winds up impregnated, addicted to heroin and planning a kidnapping, all because of a single puff.

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13 alarmist marijuana posters from the 'Reefer Madness' era

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Though hemp was grown as a fiber by the earliest American colonists, and cannabis was used as an ingredient in medicines throughout the 19th century, recreational cannabis smoking first took on a negative connotation in the American cultural imagination when people began to associate it with Mexican immigrants arriving in the country after the revolution of 1910.

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1. Many people die from alcohol use. Nobody dies from marijuana use. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than 37,000 annual U.S. deaths are attributed to alcohol use alone (this figure does not include accidental deaths). On the other hand, the CDC does not even have a category for deaths caused by the use of marijuana.

2. People die from alcohol overdoses. There has never been a fatal marijuana overdose. The official publication of the Scientific Research Society, American Scientist, reported that alcohol is one of the most toxic drugs and using just 10 times what one would use to get the desired effect could lead to death. Marijuana is one of - if not the - least toxic drugs, requiring thousands of times the dose one would use to get the desired effect to lead to death. This "thousands of times" is actually theoretical, since there has never been a case of an individual dying from a marijuana overdose. Meanwhile, according to the CDC, hundreds of alcohol overdose deaths occur in the United States each year.

3. The health-related costs associated with alcohol use far exceed those for marijuana use. Health-related costs for alcohol consumers are eight times greater than those for marijuana consumers, according to an assessment recently published in the British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Journal. More specifically, the annual health-related cost of alcohol consumption is $165 per user, compared to just $20 per user for marijuana. This should not come as a surprise given the vast amount of research that shows alcohol poses far more - and more significant - health problems than marijuana.

4. Alcohol use damages the brain. Marijuana use does not. Despite the myths we've heard throughout our lives about marijuana killing brain cells, it turns out that a growing number of studies seem to indicate that marijuana actually has neuroprotective properties. This means that it works to protect brain cells from harm. For example, one recent study found that teens who used marijuana as well as alcohol suffered significantly less damage to the white matter in their brains. Of course, what is beyond question is that alcohol damages brain cells.

5. Alcohol use is linked to cancer. Marijuana use is not. Alcohol use is associated with a wide variety of cancers, including cancers of the esophagus, stomach, colon, lungs, pancreas, liver, and prostate. Marijuana use has not been conclusively associated with any form of cancer. In fact, one study recently contradicted the long-time government claim that marijuana use is associated with head and neck cancers. It found that marijuana use actually reduced the likelihood of head and neck cancers. If you are concerned about marijuana being associated with lung cancer, you may be interested in the results of the largest case-controlled study ever conducted to investigate the respiratory effects of marijuana smoking and cigarette smoking. Released in 2006, the study, conducted by Dr. Donald Tashkin at the University of California at Los Angeles, found that marijuana smoking was not associated with an increased risk of developing lung cancer. Surprisingly, the researchers found that people who smoked marijuana actually had lower incidences of cancer compared to non-users of the drug.

6. Alcohol is more addictive than marijuana. Addiction researchers have consistently reported that marijuana is far less addictive than alcohol based on a number of factors. In particular, alcohol use can result in significant and potentially fatal physical withdrawal, whereas marijuana has not been found to produce any symptoms of physical withdrawal. Those who use alcohol are also much more likely to develop dependence and build tolerance.

7. Alcohol use increases the risk of injury to the consumer. Marijuana use does not. Many people who have consumed alcohol, or know others who have consumed alcohol, would not be surprised to hear that it greatly increases the risk of serious injury. Research published in 2011 in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research found that 36% of hospitalized assaults and 21% of all injuries are attributable to alcohol use by the injured person. Meanwhile, the American Journal of Emergency Medicine reported that lifetime use of marijuana is rarely associated with emergency room visits. According to the British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, this is because: "Cannabis differs from alcohol ... in one major respect. It does not seem to increase risk-taking behavior. This means that cannabis rarely contributes to violence either to others or to oneself, whereas alcohol use is a major factor in deliberate self-harm, domestic accidents and violence." Interestingly enough, some research has even shown that marijuana use has been associated with a decreased risk of injury.

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7 facts that prove alcohol is way more dangerous than marijuana

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1. Many people die from alcohol use. Nobody dies from marijuana use. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than 37,000 annual U.S. deaths are attributed to alcohol use alone (this figure does not include accidental deaths).

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We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Third Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day. You can find them all here.

Below, an essay by Hope Kurth, age 17.
How Ableism Lives On
Five-star restaurant, four family members. A hostess sets down thick, leather menus in one, two, three places before proceeding to drop a flimsy half-piece of paper in front of my brother. He scrunches his eyebrows together and glares at my parents as if to say "not this again" - the kid-menu debacle that automatically ensues when you have Down syndrome. He's 22 years old, a working man with a diploma, yet abled people always seem to have one inability: to see him as anything but a kid.

Fortunately, the world is changing - with implementations like Best Buddies, Rosa's Law and the Americans With Disabilities Act. But a couple of things are keeping America from fully including and involving people with disabilities into everyday life naturally: society's colloquial language and the style of disability advocacy.

Thankfully, Spread the Word to End the Word and similar campaigns have attempted to mark words like "retarded" as taboo (however, 56 percent of Americans don't think it's offensive to call themselves the r-word, and 38 percent don't find a problem in calling their friends it either). But left in their wake are "boom-boom," "mental" and "slow." Of course, any well-intentioned person can forget and succumb to using these words - but if we ever want to see full integration, we have to let them go.

Some say that nitpicking words like "crazy" and "lame" will just start another political correctness battle, and that there is no easy way to eliminate them. But before deeming this challenge "too hard," think about how difficult it is for 48.9 million Americans to not only have a disability, but to be reminded of it in everyday conversations.

Another problem arises in the fact that two-thirds of people claim to be uncomfortable talking to people with disabilities because they don't know how to act politely around them. This awkward silence is too often filled with well-meaning (yet meaningless) statements like "You're God's special gift." But again, people who are uncomfortable around those with disabilities aren't usually out to discriminate. However, with the rise of politicians like Donald Trump, who "mocked" a reporter with arthrogryposis, more citizens are following the path to discriminatory speech.

Lastly, viral posts about those with disabilities have lately been deemed "inspiration porn," mainly for the reason that they've been used to inspire a retweet or a reblog, but no actual action. These posts make it seem as if the only purpose of those with disabilities is to inspire abled people - not to live a fulfilling life in the way they please.

Many of us possess good intentions about disabilities - but if we really want to solve ableism in America, we have to watch our patterns of speech (even jokes) and consider taking action instead of just hitting repost.
Works Cited
Haberman, Maggie. "Donald Trump Says His Mocking of New York Times Reporter Was Misread." The New York Times. The New York Times, 26 Nov. 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

Higgins, Karrie. "Dear Able Friends, I Am Not Your Inspiration Porn." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

"NSIP - Basic Facts: People with Disabilities." NSIP - Basic Facts: People with Disabilities. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

"20 Amazing Disability Discrimination Statistics - BrandonGaille.com." BrandonGaillecom. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

"Announcing 'The Shriver Report Snapshot: Insight Into Intellectual Disabilities in the 21st Century.' " Maria Shriver. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2016.

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Editorial Contest Winner | 'How Ableism Lives On'

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We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Third Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day. You can find them all here. Below, an essay by Hope Kurth, age 17. How Ableism Lives On Five-star restaurant, four family members.

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About the Author

About the Author

The Understood Team is made up of passionate writers and editors. Many of them have kids who learn and think differently.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Jenn Osen-Foss, MAT is an instructional coach, supporting teachers in using differentiated instruction, interventions, and co-planning.

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5 Stress Factors for Teens Who Learn and Think Differently

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The Understood Team is made up of passionate writers and editors. Many of them have kids who learn and think differently. Jenn Osen-Foss, MAT is an instructional coach, supporting teachers in using differentiated instruction, interventions, and co-planning.

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Eighteen states have legalized marijuana for medical use. Should it be legal for medical use all over the United States? Should it also be legal for recreational use for consumers who are 21 and over, as Washington and Colorado have allowed? In general, do you think the current federal prohibition on marijuana is good public policy or not? Why?

In " Americas Coalition Puts Marijuana Legalization Up for Discussion," Randal C. Archibold writes about the Organization of American States's suggestion that countries consider making marijuana legal as a possible way to "reassess how the drug war is carried out."

A comprehensive report on drug policy in the Americas released Friday by a consortium of nations suggests that the legalization of marijuana, but not other illicit drugs, be considered among a range of ideas to reassess how the drug war is carried out.

The report, released by the Organization of American States, walked a careful line in not recommending any single approach to the drug problem and encouraging "flexibility."

Prompted by President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia at the Summit of the Americas last year to answer growing dissatisfaction and calls for new strategies in the drug war, the report's 400 pages mainly summarize and distill previous research and debate on the subject.

But the fact that it gave weight to exploring legalizing or de-penalizing marijuana was seized on by advocates of more liberal drug use laws as a landmark and a potential catalyst for less restrictive laws in a number of countries.

"This takes the debate to a whole other level," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates more liberal drug use laws. "It effectively breaks the taboo on considering alternatives to the current prohibitionist approach."

Students: Tell us ...

Do you think the current federal prohibition on marijuana is good public policy? Why?

Should marijuana be legalized for medical use, as 18 states have done already? Should it be made legal for recreational use for consumers 21 and over, as Washington and Colorado have done?

What do you think might be the dangers of legalization? Do you think it will increase the number of people abusing drugs? Will it lead to more traffic accidents or unproductive workers? Will it lower educational achievement or deepen family problems? Will it lead to more teenagers using drugs?

What do you think might be the benefits of legalization? Do you think it will reduce drug violence, or keep more nonviolent people out of prison? Will it expand individuals' rights and allow the government to regulate marijuana, as it does alcohol and tobacco? Will it increase tax revenue?

What do you think a legal marketplace for marijuana might look like? Would marijuana be sold everywhere cigarettes are, or would there be special stores? Would marijuana be advertised as tobacco is?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

NOTE: We ask that adults respect the intent of the Student Opinion question and refrain from posting here. There are many other places on NYTimes.com for adults to post, while this is the only place that explicitly invites the voices of young people.

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Eighteen states have legalized marijuana for medical use. Should it be legal for medical use all over the United States? Should it also be legal for recreational use for consumers who are 21 and over, as Washington and Colorado have allowed? In general, do you think the current federal prohibition on marijuana is good public policy or not?

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You may have had the debate yourself-what's worse? Alcohol or marijuana? With new studies coming out, more laws legalizing the recreational, and medicinal use of marijuana, the conversation seems to come up again and again.

Even though we may all have different opinions, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, while alcohol is legal to consume for people who are 21 years of age or older.

In a now famous New Yorker interview, President Obama said, "I don't think it [marijuana] is more dangerous than alcohol."

So, is alcohol or marijuana more dangerous? Here we present both sides of the debate so you can decide for yourself.

Overdose

In most cases, drinking alcohol is not life-threatening. However, when people consume too much alcohol, it can be fatal. The CDC reports that nearly 88,000 alcohol-related deaths occur each year. And binge drinking accounted for about half of these deaths.

In comparison, the number of deaths caused by marijuana is almost zero. A study found that a fatal dose of TCH, the potent chemical in marijuana, would be between 15 and 70 grams. To give you an idea of how much marijuana that is, consider that a typical joint contains about half a gram of marijuana. That means that you would have to smoke between 238 and 1,113 joints in a day to overdose on marijuana. That's a lot of joints.

Crime Rates

When it comes to what substance will put someone at risk for getting hurt or hurting others, alcohol is considered to cause the most harm.

A study on marijuana use and intimate partner violence found that couples who used marijuana had lower rates of intimate partner violence in the first 9 years of marriage. In fact, men who used marijuana were the least likely to commit an act of intimate partner violence against a spouse.

Driving

Driving stoned is considerably safer than driving drunk, but it is still dangerous.

Besides alcohol, marijuana is the most commonly detected drug in drivers involved in car accidents. One study found that marijuana increased the odds of being in car accident by 83%.

You may think that 83% is high, but when alcohol was involved, the odds of being in a car accident increased more than 2,200%!

When both alcohol and drugs were in the system, the risk of having a fatal car accident is especially high.

What's the takeaway here? It's never a good idea to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but especially both.

Learning and Memory

After a long night of heavy drinking, you may not remember what happened the night before. This is often referred to as a "blackout."

When you drink heavily it can impair your ability to create new memories. Over 50% of frequent binge drinkers reported at least one time in the past year when they blacked out and forgot where they were or what they did when they were drinking.

In an email survey, college students reported that after a blackout they did things that they could not remember, like driving drunk, having unprotected sex, or engaged in risky behavior.

Along the lines of memory, recent studies have shown that adolescents who smoke marijuana may be at greater risk for problems with memory and learning later in life. The studies remain inconclusive about how much marijuana use causes impairments of learning and memory. But studies have demonstrated that these types of changes in the brain may increase the risk of psychological difficulties later in life.

Controversy remains over what percentage of psychosis risk can be linked to marijuana use and how much depends on a person's genetics.

Pregnancy

Using alcohol even during the first few weeks of pregnancy can cause long-lasting effects on a child. According to the CDC, 3.3 million women are at risk of exposing their baby to alcohol.

If you drink during pregnancy, you are at risk for having a child born with physical, behavioral, and intellectual disabilities-these are called fetal alcohol spectrum disorders ( FASDs). According to the CDC there is no known amount of alcohol that is safe to consume during pregnancy.

But marijuana may not be safe either. Studies show there may be a link between marijuana use during pregnancy and low birth weight. Despite marijuana being the most commonly used illegal drug during pregnancy, it's hard to tell what the effect of marijuana use is, since there are not many studies out there.

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You may have had the debate yourself-what's worse? Alcohol or marijuana? With new studies coming out, more laws legalizing the recreational, and medicinal use of marijuana, the conversation seems to come up again and again. Even though we may all have different opinions, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, while alcohol is legal to consume for people who are 21 years of age or older.

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We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Third Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day. You can find them all here.

Below, an essay by Annie Cohen, age 18.
The Resurrection of Gilgamesh
"If you don't post it, did it really happen?" These words were spoken to me, however satirical in intent, while I was sitting with 50 other teenagers at a cast party after a production of "Grease." Every single teenager present was on the phone, myself included. What else could I do? There was nobody to talk to. I was alone in a sea of phone screens. Although I chose to delete my social media many months ago, I still have not escaped its influence.

My generation has a Gilgamesh Complex, and it is enabled. Gilgamesh, for those unfamiliar, went on a quest for immortality, and when he discovered the impossibility of this act, vowed to make his name live on forever, the closest thing to immortality we humans have. Gilgamesh succeeded, as every high schooler who has read his epic knows. The problem is that fame, however short-lived, is in the grasp of every young human who has access to the Internet, American Dream Style. Everybody must have his or her name known, everybody must know who is doing what, to feed our Gilgamesh Complex.

As Karen Rosenberg said in the New York Times essay "Everyone's Lives, in Pictures," "The act of snapping a picture is no longer enough to confirm reality and enhance experience; only sharing can give us that validation." In an age in which technology reigns, people feel the need to post every meal, every party and every coffee date, to prove that it happened. Susan Sontag, quoted in Rosenberg's article, agrees with this view, saying, "Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted."

The truth of this is proved through social media use in teenagers especially. Nobody is safe from the constant blue-lighted faces of teens, but not everybody understands the inherent addiction of proving you have a life. Teenagers are known for having stages of lower self-esteem and needing confirmation for confidence. Social media provides those confirmations with simple numbers. How many people like this and how many followers you have. It is the most straightforward way to see your status.

In The Huffington Post's article "Inside the Mind of a Teen's Instagram Post," by Lauren Galley, Galley understands that teens use social media "to boost their self-esteem and gain popularity." This confirmation becomes addictive, quickly. Galley discusses how teens use social media to define their self-worth. This is unhealthy behavior, as I, as a teen, know firsthand. I deleted my social media because of the obsessions that overtook me. We are faced with a generation of people who will not all decide to delete these enablers.

Welcome back, Gilgamesh.
Works Cited
Galley, Lauren. "Inside the Mind of a Teen's Instagram Post." The Huffington Post. 21 Mar. 2015.

Rosenberg, Karen. "Everyone's Lives, in Pictures." The New York Times. 21 Apr. 2012.

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Editorial Contest Winner | 'The Resurrection of Gilgamesh'

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We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Third Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day. You can find them all here. Below, an essay by Annie Cohen, age 18. The Resurrection of Gilgamesh "If you don't post it, did it really happen?"

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We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Second Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day, in the order of submission.

Below, an essay by Konrad U. and Che E.
In Three and a Half Hours, an Alarm Will Go Off
In three and a half hours, an alarm will go off, and one of the authors of this article will drag himself out of bed, plop his head in a bowl of cereal, and dive into a swimming pool. The other has a luxurious five hours to look forward to, but don't worry, he'll pay for it tomorrow night; that science fair project won't finish itself, after all.

We are both in high school. We are both juniors. And we both have yet to go to bed.

Welcome to a normal Monday morning.

This is not an anomaly. Sleep deprivation is pervasive in high schools across the country. Fewer than 20 percent of high school students get the recommended nine hours of sleep they need each night, and two-thirds are classified as severely sleep deprived. And yet, just this past fall, schools in New York City started the school day 40 minutes early to accommodate more extracurricular activities, despite evidence indicating that starting school later could reduce teen car accidents by 65 to 70 percent. What are we doing to our students?

Prior to the 1950s, most scientists saw sleep as simply a period during which the brain was recuperating from the constant "bombardment" of information humans receive every day - not necessarily as a fundamental ingredient in a person's well-being. But by the 1990s, studies had conclusively shown that sleep deprivation is a significant problem, and is now considered a public health epidemic by the CDC. Sleep deprivation has been linked to a higher risk of obesity, diabetes, and suicide, not to mention the well known losses in productivity and alertness students experience throughout a normal school day.

As national concern grows over the lagging educational standards of schools in the United States, our natural inclination is to load teens with harder coursework, more challenging extracurriculars and earlier start times. But when the recommended sleep for teens is unheard of in most high schools, enabling students to get more rest becomes not only a priority but an imperative. For many of our high school peers, even severe sleep deprivation (seven hours or fewer) is incredibly attractive when compared to the status quo. It is therefore baffling when discussions on how to improve student performance rarely center on making students themselves healthier and more well rested. Until educators and regulators recognize their actions' effect on students' sleep patterns, students will be stuck trying to forever make up for lost sleep. If we want the future leaders of our nation to continue to innovate, thrive and make the world a better place, they are going to need a good night's sleep.
Sources
Brody, Jane. " Hard Lesson in Sleep for Teenagers." The New York Times. 20 Oct. 2014.

Lahey, Jessica. "Students Aren't Getting Enough Sleep-School Starts Too Early." The Atlantic, 25 Aug. 2014.

Dement, William C . "The Study of Human Sleep: A Historical Perspective." Thorax, 1 October 1998.

Colten HR, Altevogt BM, editors. "Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem." Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research, 2006.

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Editorial Contest Winner | In Three and a Half Hours, an Alarm Will Go Off

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We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Second Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day, in the order of submission. Below, an essay by Konrad U. and Che E.

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Dope Magazine | Cannabis News and Reviews

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Would you rather light up a joint, or drink a beer?

According to new research by the Cannabiz Consumer Group (C2G), which studied the behavior of 40 thousand participants, marijuana is "canna-balizing" the beer industry. In states where cannabis has been legalized, 27 percent of drinkers have already substituted cannabis for beer. And if marijuana were legalized nationally, C2G predicts that the beer industry could lose more than $2 billion in retail sales.

However, just because cannabis is becoming more widely accepted, there's no evidence that alcohol is going anywhere; it's part of our culture. That's why some innovative companies are coming up with new ways to combine the two.

Prohibition Gold is a cannabis product company that introduced the world's first marijuana mixer: Potshotz, a powdered serving of cannabis that dissolves into your beverage. But the idea behind the product wasn't to necessarily take over the alcohol industry.

"When we began development on Potshotz, we were looking to create an ultra-versatile product that the consumer could add to any beverage and not have it affect the taste," said Greg Walters, Managing Partner of Prohibition Gold. "We didn't break it down to specific kinds of beverages, because we wanted to make it work with almost anything liquid. It just seemed to fit in more with people's habits of celebrating by lifting a glass of their favorite drink in a toast. As far as mixing the two, it's nothing new. I mean, how many joints and beer have been consumed together?"

The reality is that no matter how popular cannabis becomes, or how often it is proven to be safer than alcohol-88,000 deaths each year can be attributed to alcohol use, while zero deaths have been linked to marijuana ( Center for Disease Control)-alcohol isn't going anywhere.

"In states where cannabis has been legalized, 27 percent of drinkers have already substituted cannabis for beer. And if marijuana were legalized nationally, C2G predicts that the beer industry would lose more than $2 billion in retail sales."

In fact, in 2012, after legalizing recreational marijuana, Washington State hired the Rand Corporation to create a forecast of what might happen to the so-called "sin industries" as marijuana entered the fold. Their conclusion was that in ten years, marijuana had the potential to become the #2 "sin" in America, with beer remaining #1, wine coming in at #3 and spirits at #4.

"With this prediction, you can see why some people in the alcohol industry are worried, but we're looking at a tremendous playing field that has plenty of room for all," explained Greg. "A study completed by Survey Analytics reported that the average beer drinker in the United States spends over $1,200 each year on beer. So, while I think you will see a dip in beer and alcohol sales in legal states, it will be nothing of any major consequence over time. I am the first to admit that I enjoy beer and various spirits."

As for the benefits of marijuana over alcohol, it's not a fair comparison, at least in Greg's eyes.

"I don't know of any problems solved by using alcohol, and the benefits, if any, are only associated with very modest consumption," he said. "Marijuana, on the other hand, can be very useful. It's incredible how diverse this one plant is. We're just now beginning to hear of the potential benefits in delaying or reducing the impact of Parkinson's, dementia-related diseases and Alzheimer's with regular marijuana use. It's still early, and much study still needs to be done, but the possibilities look extremely promising."

Related - Parallel Industries: Will Cannabis Follow...

And it's not just consumers who see the benefits of cannabis over alcohol. Greg has multiple friends in law enforcement, and they've admitted that legalization has had positive effects on the community.

"It is a safer place when people choose to imbibe instead of drink," said Greg. "Almost universally, police say they would rather arrive at a call when they know people are smoking herb instead of entering a situation where people have been drinking. I've been told the threat of danger skyrockets when alcohol is involved, and diminishes when marijuana is in play. People act more aggressive when drinking, and it's easier for someone to go past a safe level of consumption with alcohol than with marijuana."

So, what's the future of marijuana and the alcohol industry?

"We still have a very long way to go in becoming the juggernaut predicted by some," said Greg. "I will know we've arrived when I can walk into a bar or restaurant, and when I order one of my favorite IPA's, the waitress asks, 'would you like a Potshotz with that, sir?'"

What's it like to drink marijuana?

"When you drink marijuana, there is a delayed reaction, which is different than alcohol, and takes some getting used to," explained Greg. "It's subjective of course, but marijuana has a euphoric quality I tend to like better than the depressive effects alcohol gives me after a few drinks-not to mention the morning hangover. That said, the problem with marijuana is that it's new for most people, especially edible marijuana products. So, while everyone knows how a glass of wine or shot of liquor is going to affect them, we've got a lot of work to do in the marijuana industry to develop standards and educate consumers."

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Cannabis Vs. Beer: Which Industry Will Reign Supreme?

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Would you rather light up a joint, or drink a beer? According to new research by the Cannabiz Consumer Group (C2G), which studied the behavior of 40 thousand participants, marijuana is "canna-balizing" the beer industry. In states where cannabis has been legalized, 27 percent of drinkers have already substituted cannabis for beer.

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The question of whether alcohol or marijuana is worse for health is being debated once again, this time, sparked by comments that President Barack Obama made in a recent interview with The New Yorker magazine.

"As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life," Obama said during the interview. "I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol."

But how apt is the comparison between these substances? While both are intoxicants used recreationally, their legality, patterns of use and long-term effects on the body make the two drugs difficult to compare.

Both alcohol consumption and pot smoking can take a toll on the body, showing both short- and long-term health effects, though alcohol has been linked to some 88,000 deaths per year, according to the CDC, while for a number of reasons those associated with marijuana use are harder to come by. And research into marijuana's health effects is still in its infancy, compared with the rigorous studies looking at alcohol and human health.
Short-term health consequences
Drinking too much alcohol can quickly kill a person. The inability to metabolize alcohol as quickly as it is consumed can lead to a buildup of alcohol in the brain that shuts down areas necessary for survival, such as those involved with heartbeat and respiration. [ 7 Ways Alcohol Affects Your Health]

"You can die binge-drinking five minutes after you've been exposed to alcohol. That isn't going to happen with marijuana," said Ruben Baler, a health scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "The impact of marijuana use is much subtler."

(Of course, subtle effects don't equate with no danger, as is the case with smoking cigarettes, which is linked with 440,000 deaths per year in the U.S.)

Marijuana affects the cardiovascular system, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, but a person can't fatally overdose on pot like they can with alcohol, Baler said.

Alcohol is more likely than marijuana to interact with other drugs. The way that alcohol is metabolized, or broken down, in the body, is common to many drugs that are taken for a variety of conditions, said Gary Murray, acting director of the Division of Metabolism and Health Effects at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

This means that for people taking drugs or medications while drinking, the alcohol can increase or decrease levels of the active drug in the body.

"Those things can make it very hit and miss, whether you're getting an active dose of a medication," Murray said.

Still, both drugs can affect health in indirect ways, too.

Because marijuana can impair coordination and balance, there is the risk of hurting oneself, particularly if someone drives or chooses to have unprotected sex while their inhibitions are lowered, Baler said. These are two areas where people using marijuana could hurt themselves for the short and long term.

You might not think marijuana and quizzes go together, but on the assumption that you arrived at this quiz sober, we pose some serious questions that will require your utmost attention and critical thinking skills. Good luck.

Pot Quiz: Test Your Marijuana Knowledge, Dude!

Long-term health consequences
The long-term effects of drinking heavily are well known. "Excess alcohol is going to lead to very severe consequences, and chronic excess alcohol is the most likely to lead to a lot of threatening issues," Murray said.

Drinking can lead to alcoholic liver disease, which can progress to fibrosis of the liver, which in turn can potentially lead to liver cancer, Murray said.

"I emphasize 'can' - it's not even clear to the best scientists what are the triggers that allow that progression to happen," he said, noting that why some people have a higher risk than others of developing liver disease from drinking is not understood medically or biochemically.

Unlike alcohol, Baler said, the effects of chronic marijuana use are not as well established. Animal studies have indicated some possible impact on reproduction. Additionally, there is evidence marijuana can worsen psychiatric issues for people who are predisposed to them, or bring them on at a younger age. Finally, Baler said, because the drug is typically smoked, it can bring on bronchitis, coughing and chronic inflammation of the air passages.

But while early studies showed some evidence linking marijuana to lung cancer, subsequent studies have debunked that association. Baler said it's unclear why marijuana smoke does not have the same result as tobacco smoke on the lungs, but perhaps some beneficial compounds in the marijuana smoke cancel out the ill effects, or perhaps the other health habits of marijuana smokers are different from those of cigarette smokers.

But cigarette smoking plays a complicated role in studying the impact of marijuana smoke, Baler said. Marijuana smokers tend to smoke much less than cigarette smokers, as some may smoke one joint a few times a week.

"It's a very tough epidemiological nut to break," Baler said.

Additionally, researchers looking to study long-term marijuana use have had difficulty in finding people who regularly smoke marijuana but don't also smoke tobacco cigarettes. And the illegality of marijuana has also limited research in this field.

For marijuana, much of the concern is with young people who use the drug, because the drug interferes with the development of the brain while it is still maturing, Baler said. [ 10 Facts Every Parent Should Know About Their Teen's Brain]

Smoking marijuana interferes with connections being made in the brain "at a time when the brain should be at a clear state of mind, and accumulating, memory and data and good experiences that should be laying out the foundation for the future," Baler said.

"How much you're impaired depends on the person, and how much you smoke," Baler said. Because some people are stoned a lot of the time, while others may use marijuana only on weekends, the health effects become difficult to generalize.

"You're cumulatively impairing your cognitive function. What's going to be the ultimate result, nobody can say."
Benefits
There is no known medical use for consumed alcohol, but there are health benefits observed in moderate drinkers, including lower rates of cardiovascular disease and possibly fewer colds, Murray said.

"We always counsel people to avoid drinking to excess, but moderate drinking is not something that's very dangerous," he said.

As for marijuana, whose legalization for medical uses has been a matter of strong public policy debate for years, there is ample evidence that beneficial compounds can be found in the plant.

"Researchers are working around the clock to try to identify the ingredients in marijuana that have potential," to benefit human health, Baler said.

Once such chemicals are in a pure form, and researchers understand their effects on the body, then they could be put in clinical trials for use in cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, glaucoma and other diseases, he said.

"There are segments of the population that want to bypass the entire process, grabbing this nugget of truth ... and claiming smoking marijuana can be good for your health and have medical uses," Baler said.

Although for palliative care, he said, "that would be a different realm of medicine," in which the goal is to drug a person so they do not feel pain.

The year 2014 has brought with it the first legal sales of marijuana to people who aren't using the drug for medical reasons in the United States since the 1930s, as voters in Colorado and Washington state brought about this policy change.

Public health researchers have said studying rates of injuries, accidents, mental illness and teen use in the wake of the new laws will lead to a better understanding of marijuana's public health effects.

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Marijuana vs. Alcohol: Which Is Really Worse for Your Health?

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The question of whether alcohol or marijuana is worse for health is being debated once again, this time, sparked by comments that President Barack Obama made in a recent interview with The New Yorker magazine.

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Short documentary films and related discussion questions.

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How would you characterize your school assignments?

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Do Schools Provide Students With Enough Opportunities to Be Creative?

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How often does your school encourage you to do something creative? To design, invent and imagine new ideas? Tell us about a creative activity or project you have worked on.

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How well does your school do at teaching you practical skills you'll need in a future job or career? What have you learned that fits this description that you especially value?

In the Op-Ed essay " Straight From High School to a Career," Katherine S. Newman and Hella Winston write:

Candidates from both parties have been talking a lot about the loss of American jobs, declining wages and the skyrocketing cost of college.

But missing from the debate is the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of "middle skill" jobs in the United States that are - or soon will be - going unfilled because of a dearth of qualified workers. Employers complain that electricians, pipe fitters, advanced manufacturing machinists, brick masons and radiology technicians are scarce. More than 600,000 jobs remain open in the manufacturing sector alone. These are jobs that provide a middle-class wage without a traditional four-year college degree.

American high schools once offered top-notch vocational and apprenticeship training, preparing young people for jobs like these. But over the last 70 years, our commitment to such education has waxed and waned, reflecting the country's ambivalence about the role of school in preparing young people for employment and the value of blue-collar work itself. Progressives have argued that technical education tracks low-income and minority youths toward second-class citizenship; hence they often advocate "college for all."

Over the past decade or so, however, there has been a move among educators and policy makers to reinvigorate vocational education, now rebranded as career and technical education. Some schools have been extraordinarily effective; others are struggling. If we are to offer young Americans options that are readily available to their counterparts in countries like Germany, we need to figure out what makes for success.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us:

- What do you think of the model of the Pickens County Career and Technology Center in Liberty, S.C., where there is a commercial kitchen and a machine technology shop for students, as well as training in health sciences, mechatronics, masonry, electrical work, carpentry, mechanical design and more? Would you like it if your school offered these courses, or others like it? What would you be most interested in taking?

- At Pickens, many students spend half their day at their regular high school and half at the career center. Would that model be attractive to you, or do you feel that having a full school day of traditional academic courses is more valuable? Why?

- What career-focused or other kinds of practical "real world" courses do you wish were taught at your school? What local industries should your school connect with to help provide equipment, training and possibly even apprenticeship opportunities?

- What do you think of the argument mentioned here that sometimes students who are on career and technical education tracks like these are considered "second-class citizens," and more likely to be low-income and minority youth? Have you seen that in your school system?

- Do you think everyone should go to college, or do you think that school systems across the nation should offer more career and technical education that allows students to go right from high school to a job? Why?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. All comments are moderated by Learning Network staff members, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

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Student Question | Should High Schools Do More to Prepare You for Careers?

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How well does your school do at teaching you practical skills you'll need in a future job or career? What have you learned that fits this description that you especially value? In the Op-Ed essay " Straight From High School to a Career," Katherine S.

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Some child development experts are concerned that schools today aren't teaching kids the skills they need to succeed. A culture of testing, they say, is inhibiting the development of "life skills." Curricular content aside, what do you think you are really learning at school? Are you developing skills that will carry you through life?

In the Well blog post "School Curriculum Falls Short on Bigger Lessons," Tara Parker-Pope reviews childhood development experts' perspective on education:

They say the ever-growing emphasis on academic performance and test scores means many children aren't developing life skills like self-control, motivation, focus and resilience, which are far better predictors of long-term success than high grades. And it may be distorting their and their parents' values.

"What are we really trying to do when we think about raising kids?" asked Dr. Kenneth R. Ginsburg, an expert in adolescent medicine at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "We're trying to put in place the ingredients so the child is going to be a successful 35-year-old. It's not really about getting an A in algebra."

[...] One strategy is to teach children that the differences between easy and difficult subjects can provide useful information about their goals and interests. Subjects they enjoy and excel in may become the focus of their careers. Challenging but interesting classes or sports can become hobbies. Subjects that are difficult and uninteresting are just something "you have to get past," Dr. Ginsburg said.

"We need to approach failure and difficulty and struggle as data that teach us what we should do with our lives," he said. "It's when you say to a child, 'I expect you to do well in everything,' that we're preparing them to fail."

Students: Tell us what you think you are learning at school - not in terms of academic content, but in terms of "life lessons" and "soft skills." Are you learning, for example, how to follow directions? How to interpret text? How to cooperate and collaborate? How to be open to new ideas? How to think critically? What skills do you think you will most need to succeed in career and life?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Some child development experts are concerned that schools today aren't teaching kids the skills they need to succeed. A culture of testing, they say, is inhibiting the development of "life skills." Curricular content aside, what do you think you are really learning at school? Are you developing skills that will carry you through life?

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How old were you when your parents first let you cross the street alone? Walk home from school or a friend's house? Take public transportation alone? How much, in general, do your parents hover and worry over your academic, physical and psychological development? Would you call them "helicopter" parents? Why or why not?

If so, is this a bad thing?

In "Parenting Advice From 'America's Worst Mom,' " Jane Brody writes:

Lenore Skenazy, a New York City mother of two, earned the sobriquet "America's Worst Mom" after reporting in a newspaper column that she had allowed her younger son, then 9, to ride the subway alone.

The damning criticism she endured, including a threat of arrest for child endangerment, intensified her desire to encourage anxious parents to give their children the freedom they need to develop the self-confidence and resilience to cope effectively with life's many challenges.

One result was the publication in 2009 of her book "Free Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts With Worry)." A second result is the Free Range Kids Project and a 13-part series, starting Thursday on Discovery Life Channel, called " World's Worst Mom." In it, Ms. Skenazy intervenes to rescue bubble-wrapped kids from their overprotective parents by guiding the children safely through a sequence of once-forbidden activities and showing their anxious parents how well the children perform and how proud they are of what they accomplished.

The term "helicopter parents" applies to far more than those who hover relentlessly over their children's academic and musical development. As depicted in the first episode of the series, it applies to 10-year-old Sam's very loving mother, who wouldn't let him ride a bike ("she's afraid I'll fall and get hurt"), cut up his own meat ("Mom thinks I'll cut my fingers off") or play "rough sports" like skating. The plea from a stressed-out, thwarted Sam: "I just want to do things by myself."

In an interview, Ms. Skenazy said, "Having been brainwashed by all the stories we hear, there's a prevailing fear that any time you're not directly supervising your child, you're putting the child in danger." The widespread publicity now given to crimes has created an exaggerated fear of the dangers children face if left to navigate and play on their own.

Yet, according to Peter Gray, a research psychologist at Boston College, "the actual rate of strangers abducting or molesting children is very small. It's more likely to happen at the hands of a relative or family friend. The statistics show no increase in childhood dangers. If anything, there's been a decrease."

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us ...

- What do you think of Lenore Skenazy's decision to allow her 9-year-old to ride the subway alone? Why?

- What do you remember from your own childhood in terms of the freedoms your parents allowed you, or didn't? Were you raised to be somewhat "free range," or were you always directly supervised?

- What milestones of independence or bravery do you remember from childhood? How did your parents handle them?

- How much "helicoptering" do your parents do now? Do you wish they did more or less? Why?

- How do you imagine you'll raise your children in terms of allowing them freedom to try things that feel somewhat dangerous or risky to you? Why?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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How Much Freedom Have Your Parents Given You?

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How old were you when your parents first let you cross the street alone? Walk home from school or a friend's house? Take public transportation alone? How much, in general, do your parents hover and worry over your academic, physical and psychological development? Would you call them "helicopter" parents?

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We often talk about soldiers, firefighters and fictional characters with supernatural powers as heroes. Recently, the news media have used the term to describe three Americans who helped foil an attack on a speeding train in Europe.

But what really is a hero? Does heroism always involve physical strength, or are there other qualities that define being a hero?

In " Americans Resist Hero Label After Foiling Train Attack," Adam Nossiter writes:

PARIS - Looking awed by the sumptuous gilded surroundings of the United States ambassador's residence here, the three young American men who thwarted an attack on a Paris-bound express train appeared at a news conference on Sunday, brushing aside suggestions that they were heroes.

Airman First Class Spencer Stone; Alek Skarlatos, a specialist in the Oregon National Guard; and Anthony Sadler, a friend of theirs, sat side by side, soberly recounting how a European vacation swiftly turned into something else. In their telling, the dramatic moments in the railway car could have been a particularly lively finish to an otherwise great night out: no heroics, and nothing dramatic about it.

Asked what had motivated him to confront a heavily armed man, Mr. Stone, his arm in a sling and one eye bruised from the struggle with the young Moroccan suspect, said simply, "To survive."

There was no mistaking the gunman's determination, Mr. Stone said. "He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end, and so were we," he told reporters.

He was the first of the Americans to tackle the suspect, Ayoub El Khazzani, and he spoke first, blurting out the story as if he were eager to get it over with.

"I kind of woke up from the middle of a deep sleep," Mr. Stone said. "I turned around and I saw he had an AK-47 and it looked like" the weapon "wasn't working, and he was trying to charge his weapon, and Alek just hit on my shoulder and said, 'Let's go,' " Mr. Stone said. "And I went down, tackled him and put him on the ground, and Alek came up and grabbed the thing out of his hand."

But the trouble was not over. "It seemed like he just kept pulling more weapons," Mr. Stone said. Those included a box cutter with which he sliced up the young airman's hand.

The three held Mr. Khazzani and punched him until he fell unconscious. "The guy had a lot of ammo," Mr. Skarlatos said.

Right to the end of the brief encounter with reporters here, the men remained modest. "It was just, mostly, survival," Mr. Skarlatos said.

"Hiding and sitting back is not going to do anything," Mr. Sadler said.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us ...

- What is a hero? What qualities do you look for in a hero? Does heroism always require physical strength, or can it be defined in other ways?

- Does heroism demand extraordinary circumstances, like a train attack or war? Or can heroism take place in our everyday lives? Can anyone be a hero?

- Do you think Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler are heroes? Or are they right in resisting the label? Why?

- In a previous Student Opinion question, we asked students who were their heroes - and answers ranged from important leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to parents and baseball coaches. Who are your heroes? Why?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. All comments are moderated by Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

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We often talk about soldiers, firefighters and fictional characters with supernatural powers as heroes. Recently, the news media have used the term to describe three Americans who helped foil an attack on a speeding train in Europe. But what really is a hero?

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What is hard about being a student today? What do you wish your parents and teachers understood better? What unique stresses and challenges is your generation experiencing, and how would you explain those to someone older?

But ask yourself, too, what's positive about being a student today? What do you think may make school and learning better for you than it was for other generations? Why?

In general, what can you tell people who haven't been in school in years about what life is like? Why is it important for them to understand?
If you're a student who is at least 13 years old, this is your chance to make your voice heard, and to spotlight details large and small. Your answer could appear in print in a new Times section devoted to education that will be published on Sunday, April 8.
We invite you to post a comment here answering our questions in any way you like. Please tell us your age, and please keep in mind that the name you use when you post the comment will be the one we'll use if your comment is printed.

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What Do You Wish More People Understood About What It's Like to Be a Student in 2018?

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What is hard about being a student today? What do you wish your parents and teachers understood better? What unique stresses and challenges is your generation experiencing, and how would you explain those to someone older? But ask yourself, too, what's positive about being a student today?

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Should Farm Animals Have More Legal Protections?

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Are new laws needed to ensure that animals are raised — and slaughtered — in a more humane way?

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Recent factory fires killed more than 400 workers in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Unsafe conditions, like locked exits and barred windows, made the death tolls much higher. In the United States, more than a century of activism and legislation has drastically improved factory safety at home, but so much of our clothing is now manufactured overseas where workers do not have the same protections. American consumers benefit from lower prices, but at what cost?
Should you care about the health and safety of the people who make your clothing?

In the Room for Debate feature "The Human Cost of Cheap Clothing," knowledgeable outside contributors debate what should be done about the issue. Scott Nova and Liana Foxvog, two of the panelists, write:

Workers are dying in preventable factory fires because the world's leading retailers - from Wal-Mart to Gap to H&M - make their clothes in countries where labor laws are not enforced and demand that their contract factories slash production costs to the bone. Factories meet the apparel companies' relentless demands for lower prices by ignoring workers' rights and safety. In Bangladesh, the world's second-largest apparel producer, this has led to a series of horrific fires.

Apparel companies claim they are regularly inspecting their factories and ensuring that they are safe, yet every deadly fire in recent years has happened at a factory that had been subject to numerous such inspections. It is impossible to imagine a more dismal record of failure.

Students: Tell us ...

Should you care about the health and safety of the people who make your clothing?

Do you ever question where and how your clothes are made?

Are you willing to pay higher prices for your clothing to improve working conditions in places like Bangladesh and Pakistan?

What else would you be willing to do to improve worker safety in the factories that manufacture your clothing?

What responsibility do you think clothing brands and United States retailers have to ensure that the workers who make their products are safe?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Should You Care About the Health and Safety of Those Making Your Clothing?

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Recent factory fires killed more than 400 workers in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Unsafe conditions, like locked exits and barred windows, made the death tolls much higher. In the United States, more than a century of activism and legislation has drastically improved factory safety at home, but so much of our clothing is now manufactured overseas where workers do not have the same protections.

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After Sunday's Grammy Awards, Macklemore sent a public apology via text to Kendrick Lamar, whom he had just beaten out for best rap album. Macklemore, who is white, bested four black musicians, including Mr. Lamar, in winning his award in this historically black music genre. Should Macklemore be apologizing? Did he "rob" the other award contenders? Is this just another example of whites appropriating and profiting from historically black music, as some might say Elvis Presley and other early rock 'n' roll musicians did in the 1950s? Can music transcend race or ethnicity to belong to its fans? Or is our history too scarred by inequality?

Who does hip-hop belong to?

In the article "Finding a Place in the Hip-Hop Ecosystem," Jon Caramanica writes about Macklemore's text, and the complex context in which it lives.

A couple of hours after the Grammys on Sunday night, Macklemore sent a text to Kendrick Lamar, whom he had just beaten out for best rap album.

"You got robbed," the text read. "I wanted you to win. You should have. It's weird." He added, "I robbed you."

As a private act, this was a love letter, a way for an artist to honor a peer. As a public act - Macklemore posted an image of the text on his Instagram account, although it's unclear whether it was with Mr. Lamar's knowledge - it was a cleansing and an admission of guilt. Not only did Macklemore want to show respect to his fellow rapper, he wanted the world to know that he understands his place in the hip-hop ecosystem and that he is still careful where he steps.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, the Seattle duo that has spent the last year upending the rules about how hip-hop interacts with mainstream pop, won four Grammys on Sunday night, for best new artist and in three rap categories (best performance and best song for "Thrift Shop" and best album for "The Heist").

The rap awards were the most tortured, for artists and observers alike. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis have experienced a very peculiar sort of hip-hop fame, one that has little to do with approval from the center of hip-hop, and it has unfolded largely without black gatekeepers, a traditional hallmark of white rappers through the years. Instead Macklemore & Ryan Lewis jumped straight from the independent hip-hop underground to the pop charts, which has left them scrambling to shore up their bona fides retroactively.

So when he bests Mr. Lamar - and Jay Z, Drake and Kanye West - for a rap award, he makes sure he kisses the ring. "I robbed you" is a strikingly powerful phrase in this context: a white artist muscling into a historically black genre, essentially uninvited, and taking its laurel. This is the entire cycle of racial borrowing in an environment of white privilege in a nutshell: black art, white appropriation, white guilt, repeat until there's nothing left to appropriate.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us ...

Who does hip-hop belong to?

Are white artists who prosper in hip-hop robbing from black musicians? Or is music fair game for all true fans?

Is the history of white privilege - think of Elvis Presley and the birth of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s - continuing with Macklemore's Grammy Award for best rap album?

Should Macklemore be apologizing? Is his apology sincere? Is it appropriate?

Can rap music ever transcend race and class? Or is it too indelibly tied to black urban culture?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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After Sunday's Grammy Awards, Macklemore sent a public apology via text to Kendrick Lamar, whom he had just beaten out for best rap album. Macklemore, who is white, bested four black musicians, including Mr. Lamar, in winning his award in this historically black music genre. Should Macklemore be apologizing?

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Kids who go to elite private high schools enjoy lots of advantages. They have access to the most challenging academic classes at reputable institutions, with staffs that are well-equipped to help them prepare for college. Parents pay an average of $10,000 per year to ensure their kids this privilege.

And yet the rigor that these opportunities demand can come with an extra cost for the students themselves. A recent study surveyed and interviewed students at a handful of these high schools and found that about half of them are chronically stressed. The results aren't surprising-between the homework required for Advanced Placement classes, sports practices, extracurricular activities like music and student government, and SAT prep, the fortunate kids who have access to these opportunities don't have much downtime these days. These experiences can cause kids to burn out by the time they get to college, or to feel the psychological and physical effects of stress for much of their adult lives, says Marya Gwadz, a senior research scientist at the New York University College of Nursing.

The problem is that at least some of that academic pressure is warranted. It's more competitive than ever to get into college, so it's incumbent on students with the wherewithal to apply to the most competitive schools to present the strongest possible portfolio, and their parents and teachers push them to do so. These kids find different tactics for coping, sometimes in ways that aren't healthy. So how can administrators and parents start to change the culture of stress while still pushing kids to reach their full potential?

At its most basic, stress is defined as any change or pressure in the environment. Most people think of stress as a bad thing, but in reality most people need some of it. "A little stress and in moderation can be helpful to high schoolers in so many ways. It motivates them to study, to do better. It helps push them," says Mary Alvord, a psychologist specializing in teens based in Maryland. Adolescence is an important time to learn to deal with stress because teens can then deal with it better in college and in their adult lives.
"A little stress and in moderation can be helpful to high schoolers in so many ways. It motivates them to study, to do better. "
But too much stress has many effects on the body and mind, Alvord says. In the short term it can cause anxiety; over long periods of time, elevated levels of stress hormones can degrade the immune system, cause heart problems, exacerbate respiratory and gastrointestinal issues, and bring on chronic anxiety and depression. That's bad for anyone, but it can be especially bad for high schoolers: "Colleges are complaining that kids are disengaged, they're dropping out, taking a long time to graduate. It's not developmentally appropriate for them to work so hard," says Gwadz, one of the authors of the recent study. And since everyone has a different psychological capacity for stress, it's hard to know when a student is pushed to the point of degrading his or her health.

The study, published recently in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology, focused on students in two elite East Coast high schools, a population that has received surprisingly little research attention. The researchers surveyed and interviewed 128 students, teachers, and administrators about students' stress levels and coping strategies. They found that 49 percent of students reported feeling "a great deal of stress" on a daily basis. Half reported doing three or more hours of homework per night, and 26 percent noted that they had been diagnosed with depression-over four times the national average of 6 percent.
Roughly half of students reported feeling "a great deal of stress" on a daily basis.
Pinpointing where this stress is coming from is no easy task. "Students described that schoolwork, grades, and college admissions constituted their greatest sources of stress," the study reads. But many students are only stressed about these things because they internalize pressures from parents, teachers, and peers. School culture undoubtedly plays a large role. "Indeed, chronic stress has been cited as the new 'cultural currency' in highly competitive private schools, where students often equate their schools' level of rigor with the amount of stress experienced by its students," the study authors write.

Importantly, chronic stress doesn't just happen to privileged, wealthy kids-in fact, its effects are likely most pronounced on the upper and lower extremes of the socioeconomic ladder, says Bo Paulle, a sociology professor at the University of Amsterdam and author of Toxic Schools, which details Paulle's years of field work in the South Bronx. But comparing stress levels at wealthy and high-poverty schools may prove to be an apples-to-oranges analysis because the causes are so different. "Schools are stressful at the bottom because of physical safety," Paulle says, citing examples of dangerous scenarios to which some of the highest-poverty schools are prone: stabbings, gang activity, fights for perceived slights. And as a result the stress that these students experience is likely more intense-exponentially greater, Paulle estimates-and more woven into the fabric of their everyday lives than the stresses students experience at elite high schools. It's hard to isolate the stressors at low-income schools from those outside of school, such as family issues or unstable living conditions. But even those parents who make their children's education a top priority are often still powerless to prevent the stress that comes with the school environment. "Those parents don't have economic or social resources to keep their kids out of these stressful schools," Paulle says.
"Schools are stressful at the bottom because of physical safety." The stress that these students experience-exponentially greater.
The stress that students experience at these schools may be more all-consuming than at the elite schools, but the way cope with it is surprisingly universal. "We learn a lot by modeling," Alvord says-teens mimic de-stressing techniques of those they see around them and figure out what works. Hopefully, she adds, they're lucky enough to see some healthy coping strategies, like exercise, meditation, listening to or playing music, planning busy days or weeks in advance, or talking about the issue with family or friends.

But if they're less fortunate, or the chronic stress is too intense, they seek less healthy methods of coping with the pressure. Students in low-income communities struggle to find models of good stress-relief tactics around them, Paulle says. Many find themselves unequipped to talk about earlier traumas that may be affecting their behavior as teenagers; instead, even if they know better, they find themselves lashing out or totally shutting down. "We're giving them nothing to actually cope with this, no constant relationships, and maybe one guidance counselor," Paulle says. "And when I was in the Bronx, no one was talking about how your body constantly being on alert [the result of chronic stress] is going to alter your behavior."

Another common way in which teens avoid the issue, no matter their income level, is in drugs or alcohol. In the study of the elite high schools, 38 percent of the students surveyed claimed that they had been drunk in the last month, though few noted that they had gotten in trouble for doing so. Past research shows that the numbers are pretty much the same for students in low-income schools. Starting substance use when a student is just maturing to adulthood can be particularly damaging, Gwadz says-it's a quick fix to forget about the real problem at hand instead of dealing with it, and can also lead to addiction in the long term.
How do parents and teachers create the right kind of school environment-preparing for college, but aren't killing themselves in the process?
Though past studies have focused more on the psychology of stress, in the future, researchers studying student stress will likely incorporate information about biological aspects, measuring students' stress-hormone levels to determine the most stressful factors, and even compare the physiology of stressed and non-stressed students in the same environment. But in the meantime, how do parents and teachers start to create the right kind of school environment for students, one in which the kids are preparing as best they can for college-and with the right amount of stress-but aren't killing themselves in the process?

"That's the million dollar question," Gwadz says. Parents are often the first group to be blamed for their kids' stress, since many equate their children's success with their own, or push their kids to go to an Ivy League college because the parents assume that will help them lead happier lives. But Gwadz thinks that blaming parents is a mistake-the issue is often bigger than just a family dynamic, and it's hard to know what's best for your kids.

Parents can still help their children cope, however. Alvord suggests that parents help their kids find balance, even in their most stressful periods, by encouraging them enjoy free moments and helping them find coping strategies that work for them. Sometimes, parents who address their children's stress head-on find themselves rejiggering their family values, Gwadz says. Parents ask themselves: What is really the most important thing for my kid?
"You can't be 'on' 24/7. How can you allocate some time to an activity that can help relieve stress?"
Ideally, the school culture would shift as well, though Paulle is not very optimistic about it. "School cultures reflect the greater competitive environment of global capitalism," Paulle says. "Our current system is a warped manifestation of our general anxiety about downward social mobility and what it takes to move up." But Paulle is more hopeful that equipping kids to learn better coping strategies will help them to thrive within a dysfunctional system.

Schools can help students achieve that by teaching them coping strategies as part of the curriculum, at both ends of the socioeconomic ladder. There are programs that do this, such as the Guiding Rage Into Power (GRIP) program piloted at San Quentin state prison in California. Programs like GRIP haven't been tested in schools, nor modified to be culturally and developmentally appropriate for students, but researchers are starting figure out what kinds of adjustments would be necessary to do so. "The best thing we can do is really giving these kids the types of programs to teach them to cope, and integrating them front and center into the curricula along with insights from neurobiology," Paulle says.

In some ways the most elegant solution is the one that is the most difficult to execute: letting students themselves learn to strike an equilibrium between stress and relaxation, especially when stress seems to be the more powerful force. "It comes down to balance," Alvord says. "You can't be 'on' 24/7. How can you allocate some time to an activity that can help relieve stress?" Sometimes those activities can look good on a college application, too-a student who plays recreational (not hyper-competitive) soccer for many years is moving to relieve stress and also shows college that she can persevere; clearing hiking trails can be relaxing and constitute community service hours that many kids need to graduate. Teens especially need to make time to sleep. "If you don't sleep enough, your mood and performance are affected," Alvord says-an easy fact to forget when students are staying up until 1 a.m. doing homework and getting up at 6 a.m. to go to school.

The authors of the Frontiers study didn't write about any concrete solutions, either for the wealthy high-school students they studied or those in low-income communities. They hope to address them in future research; "The next step for us would be to develop more actionable strategies and policies, relying on experts, and helping schools interpret the data that we collect," Gwadz says. "Everyone wants to know what the solution is."

Paulle assumes that whatever solutions the researchers find will be implemented slowly. "Everyone's got a role to play. We have to collectively reorient ourselves [towards addressing student stress] and slowly but surely use the insights into what actually works and determine how might it be best translated across different groups of students."

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Today's High Schoolers Are Way Too Stressed

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Kids who go to elite private high schools enjoy lots of advantages. They have access to the most challenging academic classes at reputable institutions, with staffs that are well-equipped to help them prepare for college. Parents pay an average of $10,000 per year to ensure their kids this privilege.

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Whether or not you think Taylor Swift, pictured above, will be one of them, which of today's musicians or bands do you think will still be popular in the years to come? Why? Which artists who are currently hot do you think will be forgotten?
In "No More Kid Stuff for Taylor Swift," Jon Caramanica writes about Taylor Swift's evolution as a pop artist:

Ms. Swift, now eight years removed from her debut single, has become one of the most important pop artists of the last decade. But her evolution has been purposefully slow, making sure not to leave behind any of the young women who hold her up as a paragon of beauty, talent and civility. That she did this as a country singer was both savvy - the genre demands morals in a way pop doesn't - and also, ultimately, limiting.

It was never a question of whether Ms. Swift would become a pure pop star; the only question was what sort. She's without precedent: not as a country star looking for something bigger, but as a pop singer trying hard to maintain an air of innocence. Any young woman who's tried to own similar space has done it by making choices - of subject matter, of outfits, of public melodrama - that Ms. Swift has gone out of her way to avoid. (You could make a case that Adele has skipped these steps too, but her music was never young and therefore never had to find a way to grow up.)

Instead, Ms. Swift has had to find other ways of growing up. "Red" (Big Machine) is by any measure a transitional album, showing Ms. Swift grasping for what her next stage is going to be, and trying to become a sort of pop superstar that currently doesn't exist. Released on Monday, "Red" is expected to sell over a million copies in its first week.

Students: Tell us about the pop stars, bands or other musicians you think are good enough, and smart enough, to keep evolving, and to still matter years from now:

What individual artists or bands do you think will stand the test of time? Why?

Do you think Taylor Swift is one of them?

Which currently popular musicians do you think will be soon forgotten?

What do you think it takes to stay relevant and popular? What musicians of the past can you give as examples?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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What Current Musicians Do You Think Will Stand the Test of Time?

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Whether or not you think Taylor Swift, pictured above, will be one of them, which of today's musicians or bands do you think will still be popular in the years to come? Why? Which artists who are currently hot do you think will be forgotten?

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Liberals And Conservatives Fight Labels And Stereotypes

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Overview | How can writing change people's worldview? How can it influence public opinion? How can it lead to meaningful action?

The persuasive essay is a quintessential high school writing assignment. With the Common Core standards, it seems to have taken on a new urgency in many school districts and classrooms. But students should know that evidence-based persuasive writing is more than just an academic exercise - it is very much alive in the real world. Perhaps one of the best and most widely recognized examples of persuasive writing in action is the classic newspaper editorial, three to four of which The New York Times publishes every day.

In this lesson, we offer suggestions on how to guide students through the writing process when writing editorials - from brainstorming a topic to publishing their work - and all the steps in between. This lesson can be used in conjunction with our Student Contest on editorial writing, or with any argumentative writing project you do with students.

Materials | Computers with Internet access. Optional copies of one or more of these three handouts: Debatable Issues (PDF), Problem-Solution Organizer (PDF), and the rubric for our Student Editorial Contest (PDF).

Step 1 | Brainstorming: What Do You Care About?

Finding the right topic is essential. Students should pick something that a) they genuinely care about; b) other people would want to read about; c) they can make an argument about; and d) they can find evidence about to support their claim.

You might get students started brainstorming ideas by having them journal about or discuss with partners questions like:

What would you like to change if you could? What problems or policies do you think should be addressed - whether something global, like climate change, or something closer to home, like a later start time for your high school classes? Make as long a list as you can.

What issues, topics and fields are you passionate about? Make a list. Your list might included fields as broad as "music" or as specific as "the early days of hip-hop." What questions or controversies in these fields do experts or fans often argue? Where do you stand?

What do you do outside of school? What are some things you're an expert on? What aspects of those hobbies or interests do you find yourself having to explain to others? Why?

What issues or ideas do you often find yourself discussing or arguing about with friends, your family or online?

What issues or controversies have you followed recently in current events? What are your opinions about them? What might you need more information about?

Students can then share their ideas and, as a whole class, compile a list on the board or on a class blog or wiki.

To open the class to even more ideas, you might then invite students look through our list of 200 Student Opinion questions that invite argument. Not only can this list help students pick a topic, but each question links to a relevant New York Times article, which may be very helpful when students begin to look for evidence.

A Note on Collaboration: The editorial writing process at The New York Times is done collaboratively. That means, a team of writers works together from choosing a topic through researching it and drafting the writing. Teachers may want to give students opportunities to collaborate on their editorials as well, whether for only one step of the project, such as research, or from beginning to end.
Step 2 | Modeling: What Is An Editorial?
To help students envision what they will be writing, it is worth spending time discussing what an editorial is and looking at some examples.

Ask students: What is an editorial? Have you ever read any? Where would you find one? What do you think is the purpose of an editorial?

We selected three recent examples from the Times editorial page that students can look over as models, though you or your students may pick others from the thousands in the Opinion archives:

Have students choose an editorial to read on their own or as a whole class. As they read, have them note:

What is the opinion or call to action in this editorial?

What evidence does it use to make its argument?

How persuasive do you find the editorial? Is it effective?

What do you notice about the language and tone of the editorial? About other choices the writer(s) have made?

Students may want make annotations or use highlighters as they read, then discuss their findings as a class.

Note: You may want students to look at the rubric you will be using to grade their editorials before they start the research and writing process. Here is our the rubric (PDF) that we are using for our Student Contest.
Step 3 | Researching: What Do the Experts Say?
Once students have selected a topic, they should begin their research by gathering background information. That might mean reading newspaper articles, consulting an encyclopedia, finding reliable websites or reaching out to an expert to make sure they have enough context about why their topic is important to write a strong persuasive essay.

As they do their research, students can take notes using index cards or in a notebook, or they can use our Debatable Issues (PDF) handout. Alternatively, if students plan to offer a solution to a problem in their editorial, they may want to use our Problem-Solution Organizer (PDF).

For more detail about the nitty-gritty of the research process, the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University provides a guide to conducting research that can be helpful with areas such as evaluating source reliability and doing Internet searches.

Students can find articles in The Times by using the search feature. For our contest, we ask that students have at least one Times and one non-Times source for their evidence, although of course we hope most will read far beyond that requirement as they learn about the topic.

Students might be grouped by common interests to work together during the research portion of this process, then write individual editorials, or they might do the entire assignment in partners or as a group.
Steps 4 and 5 | Outlining and Drafting; Revising and Editing: How Do You Write an Editorial?
Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor at The Times, explains in this brief video that a good editorial consists of "a clear position that is strongly and persuasively argued." He then goes on to recommend seven pointers for students.

1. Know your bottom line. "You have to know what you want to say. You have to have a clear opinion - what we call a bottom line."
2. Be concise. "You need to get to the point of your editorial quickly. You have to state it clearly and you have to be concise."
3. Give an opinion or solution. "There are basically two kinds of editorials. One expresses an opinion about a situation, like if you want to write about human rights abuses in some part of the world or the country that you're concerned about. The other kind of editorial proposes a solution to a specific problem. For example, if you want to write about traffic congestion in northern New Jersey, where I live and there's a lot of traffic, you should have an answer to how to fix the traffic problem."
4. Do your research. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion, you're not entitled to your own facts. Go online, make calls if you can, check your information, double-check it. There's nothing that will undermine your argument faster than a fact you got wrong, that you did not have to get wrong."
5. Write clearly. "Good writing is important. Make your writing clear and easy to understand. Write as if you're sending a letter to a well-informed friend who cares about what you think. But don't use any slang. OMG - no. Use examples whenever you can. It's better to use an example than just to use a word or an adjective that describes something. If you want to say that the mayor's pre-K policy is wrong, explain how - don't say it's just stupid. In fact, never use the word stupid."
6. Every writer needs an editor. "After you've written your editorial, give it to someone you trust to read and listen to what they say. If they don't understand it, that means it's probably not clear."
7. Be prepared for a reaction. "When you write something and you publish it, be prepared for a reaction. If you write a good editorial, people are going to respond to it. And if you criticize people, they definitely are going to respond. So if someone writes you a letter, write them back. Be prepared to defend your position. Don't get defensive, just explain why you said what you had to say. And if they question your facts, be ready to show that you were right."

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University has a guide to writing argumentative essays that may also be helpful for students as they think about organizing their editorial and developing a logical argument.
Step 6 | Publishing: How Can My Editorial Reach an Audience?
Students will have the chance to publish their editorials as comments on the Learning Network on or before March 17, 2014, as part of our Student Contest. Along with our partner, the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University, we will then choose the best to publish in a separate post. But even if your students aren't writing for our contest, the genre is meant to have an audience. That audience can start with the teacher, but it ideally shouldn't end there.

Students can read their editorials to the class or in groups. Classmates can have a chance to respond to the author, leading to a discussion or debate. Students can try to publish their editorials in the school newspaper or other local newspapers or online forums. It is only when editorials reach a wider audience that they have the power to make change.

Teachers: How do you teach the persuasive essay? Let us know, below. And if you ever use The New York Times to do it, consider writing in to our Reader Ideas column.

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For the Sake of Argument: Writing Persuasively to Craft Short, Evidence-Based Editorials

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Overview | How can writing change people's worldview? How can it influence public opinion? How can it lead to meaningful action? The persuasive essay is a quintessential high school writing assignment.

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Evaluating Resources

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Library Guides: Evaluating resources: Home

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Library Guides: Evaluating resources: Home

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What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?

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What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?

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Randolph has been pondering throughout his 23-year career as an educator the question of whether and how schools should impart good character. It has often felt like a lonely quest, but it has led him in some interesting directions. In the winter of 2005, Randolph read "Learned Optimism," a book by Martin Seligman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who helped establish the Positive Psychology movement. Randolph found the book intriguing, and he arranged a meeting with the author. As it happened, on the morning that Randolph made the trip to Philadelphia, Seligman had scheduled a separate meeting with David Levin, the co-founder of the KIPP network of charter schools and the superintendent of the KIPP schools in New York City. Seligman decided he might as well combine the two meetings, and he invited Christopher Peterson, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, who was also visiting Penn that day, to join him and Randolph and Levin in his office for a freewheeling discussion of psychology and schooling.

Levin had also spent many years trying to figure out how to provide lessons in character to his students, who were almost all black or Latino and from low-income families. At the first KIPP school, in Houston, he and his co-founder, Michael Feinberg, filled the walls with slogans like "Work Hard" and "Be Nice" and "There Are No Shortcuts," and they developed a system of rewards and demerits designed to train their students not only in fractions and algebra but also in perseverance and empathy. Like Randolph, Levin went to Seligman's office expecting to talk about optimism. But Seligman surprised them both by pulling out a new and very different book, which he and Peterson had just finished: "Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification," a scholarly, 800-page tome that weighed in at three and a half pounds. It was intended, according to the authors, as a "manual of the sanities," an attempt to inaugurate what they described as a "science of good character."

It was, in other words, exactly what Randolph and Levin had been looking for, separately, even if neither of them had quite known it. Seligman and Peterson consulted works from Aristotle to Confucius, from the Upanishads to the Torah, from the Boy Scout Handbook to profiles of Pokémon characters, and they settled on 24 character strengths common to all cultures and eras. The list included some we think of as traditional noble traits, like bravery, citizenship, fairness, wisdom and integrity; others that veer into the emotional realm, like love, humor, zest and appreciation of beauty; and still others that are more concerned with day-to-day human interactions: social intelligence (the ability to recognize interpersonal dynamics and adapt quickly to different social situations), kindness, self-regulation, gratitude.

In most societies, Seligman and Peterson wrote, these strengths were considered to have a moral valence, and in many cases they overlapped with religious laws and strictures. But their true importance did not come from their relationship to any system of ethics or moral laws but from their practical benefit: cultivating these strengths represented a reliable path to "the good life," a life that was not just happy but also meaningful and fulfilling.

Six years after that first meeting, Levin and Randolph are trying to put this conception of character into action in their schools. In the process, they have found themselves wrestling with questions that have long confounded not just educators but anyone trying to nurture a thriving child or simply live a good life. What is good character? Is it really something that can be taught in a formal way, in the classroom, or is it the responsibility of the family, something that is inculcated gradually over years of experience? Which qualities matter most for a child trying to negotiate his way to a successful and autonomous adulthood? And are the answers to those questions the same in Harlem and in Riverdale?

Levin had believed in the importance of character since KIPP's inception. But on the day of his trip to see Seligman, he was feeling a new urgency about the subject. Six years earlier, in 1999, the first group of students to enter KIPP Academy middle school, which Levin founded and ran in the South Bronx, triumphed on the eighth-grade citywide achievement test, graduating with the highest scores in the Bronx and the fifth-highest in all of New York City. Every morning of middle school they passed a giant sign in the stairwell reminding them of their mission: "Climb the Mountain to College." And as they left KIPP for high school, they seemed poised to do just that: not only did they have outstanding academic results, but most of them also won admission to highly selective private and Catholic schools, often with full scholarships.

But as Levin told me when we spoke last fall, for many students in that first cohort, things didn't go as planned. "We thought, O.K., our first class was the fifth-highest-performing class in all of New York City," Levin said. "We got 90 percent into private and parochial schools. It's all going to be solved. But it wasn't." Almost every member of the cohort did make it through high school, and more than 80 percent of them enrolled in college. But then the mountain grew steeper, and every few weeks, it seemed, Levin got word of another student who decided to drop out. According to a report that KIPP issued last spring, only 33 percent of students who graduated from a KIPP middle school 10 or more years ago have graduated from a four-year college. That rate is considerably better than the 8 percent of children from low-income families who currently complete college nationwide, and it even beats the average national rate of college completion for all income groups, which is 31 percent. But it still falls well short of KIPP's stated goal: that 75 percent of KIPP alumni will graduate from a four-year college, and 100 percent will be prepared for a stable career.

As Levin watched the progress of those KIPP alumni, he noticed something curious: the students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically at KIPP; they were the ones with exceptional character strengths, like optimism and persistence and social intelligence. They were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class. Those skills weren't enough on their own to earn students a B.A., Levin knew. But for young people without the benefit of a lot of family resources, without the kind of safety net that their wealthier peers enjoyed, they seemed an indispensable part of making it to graduation day.

What appealed to Levin about the list of character strengths that Seligman and Peterson compiled was that it was presented not as a finger-wagging guilt trip about good values and appropriate behavior but as a recipe for a successful and happy life. He was wary of the idea that KIPP's aim was to instill in its students "middle-class values," as though well-off kids had some depth of character that low-income students lacked. "The thing that I think is great about the character-strength approach," he told me, "is it is fundamentally devoid of value judgment."

Still, neither Levin nor Dominic Randolph had a clear vision of how to turn an 800-page psychology text into a practical program. After that first meeting in Seligman's office, Levin and Randolph kept in touch, calling and e-mailing, swapping articles and Web links, and they soon discovered that they shared a lot of ideas and interests, despite the very different school environments in which they worked. They decided to join forces, to try to tackle the mysteries of character together, and they turned for help to Angela Duckworth, who at the time was a graduate student in Seligman's department (she is now an assistant professor). Duckworth came to Penn in 2002 at the age of 32, after working for a decade as a teacher and a charter-school consultant. When she applied to the Ph.D. program at Penn, she wrote in her application essay that her experiences in schools had given her "a distinctly different view of school reform" than the one she started out with in her 20s. "The problem, I think, is not only the schools but also the students themselves," she wrote. "Here's why: learning is hard. True, learning is fun, exhilarating and gratifying - but it is also often daunting, exhausting and sometimes discouraging. . . . To help chronically low-performing but intelligent students, educators and parents must first recognize that character is at least as important as intellect."

Duckworth's early research showed that measures of self-control can be a more reliable predictor of students' grade-point averages than their I.Q.'s. But while self-control seemed to be a critical ingredient in attaining basic success, Duckworth came to feel it wasn't as relevant when it came to outstanding achievement. People who accomplished great things, she noticed, often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take. She decided she needed to name this quality, and she chose the word "grit."

She developed a test to measure grit, which she called the Grit Scale. It is a deceptively simple test, in that it requires you to rate yourself on just 12 questions, from "I finish whatever I begin" to "I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one." It takes about three minutes to complete, and it relies entirely on self-report - and yet when Duckworth took it out into the field, she found it was remarkably predictive of success. At Penn, high grit ratings allowed students with relatively low college-board scores to nonetheless achieve high G.P.A.'s. Duckworth and her collaborators gave their grit test to more than 1,200 freshman cadets as they entered West Point and embarked on the grueling summer training course known as Beast Barracks. The military has developed its own complex evaluation, called the Whole Candidate Score, to judge incoming cadets and predict which of them will survive the demands of West Point; it includes academic grades, a gauge of physical fitness and a Leadership Potential Score. But at the end of Beast Barracks, the more accurate predictor of which cadets persisted and which ones dropped out turned out to be Duckworth's 12-item grit questionnaire.

Levin and Randolph asked Duckworth to use the new methods and tools she was developing to help them investigate the question of character at KIPP and Riverdale, and she and a handful of Penn graduate students began making regular treks from Philadelphia to New York. The first question Duckworth addressed, again, was the relative importance of I.Q. and self-control. She and her team of researchers gave middle-school students at Riverdale and KIPP a variety of psychological and I.Q. tests. They found that at both schools, I.Q. was the better predictor of scores on statewide achievement tests, but measures of self-control were more reliable indicators of report-card grades.

Duckworth's research convinced Levin and Randolph that they should try to foster self-control and grit in their students. Yet those didn't seem like the only character strengths that mattered. The full list of 24, on the other hand, felt too unwieldy. So they asked Peterson if he could narrow the list down to a more manageable handful, and he identified a set of strengths that were, according to his research, especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement. After a few small adjustments (Levin and Randolph opted to drop love in favor of curiosity), they settled on a final list: zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity.

Over the course of the next year and a half, Duckworth worked with Levin and Randolph to turn the list of seven strengths into a two-page evaluation, a questionnaire that could be completed by teachers or parents, or by students themselves. For each strength, teachers suggested a variety of "indicators," much like the questions Duckworth asked people to respond to on her grit questionnaire, and she road-tested several dozen of them at Riverdale and KIPP. She eventually settled on the 24 most statistically reliable ones, from "This student is eager to explore new things" (an indicator of curiosity) to "This student believes that effort will improve his or her future" (optimism).

For Levin, the next step was clear. Wouldn't it be cool, he mused, if each student graduated from school with not only a G.P.A. but also a C.P.A., for character-point average? If you were a college-admissions director or a corporate human-resources manager selecting entry-level employees, wouldn't you like to know which ones scored highest in grit or optimism or zest? And if you were a parent of a KIPP student, wouldn't you want to know how your son or daughter stacked up next to the rest of the class in character as well as in reading ability? As soon as he got the final list of indicators from Duckworth and Peterson, Levin started working to turn it into a specific, concise assessment that he could hand out to students and parents at KIPP's New York City schools twice a year: the first-ever character report card.

Back at Riverdale, though, the idea of a character report card made Randolph nervous. "I have a philosophical issue with quantifying character," he explained to me one afternoon. "With my school's specific population, at least, as soon as you set up something like a report card, you're going to have a bunch of people doing test prep for it. I don't want to come up with a metric around character that could then be gamed. I would hate it if that's where we ended up."

Still, he did think that the inventory Duckworth and Peterson developed could be a useful tool in communicating with students about character. And so he has been taking what one Riverdale teacher described as a "viral approach" to spreading the idea of this new method of assessing character throughout the Riverdale community. He talks about character at parent nights, asks pointed questions in staff meetings, connects like-minded members of his faculty and instructs them to come up with new programs. Last winter, Riverdale students in the fifth and sixth grades took the 24-indicator survey, and their teachers rated them as well. The results were discussed by teachers and administrators, but they weren't shared with students or parents, and they certainly weren't labeled a "report card."

As I spent time at Riverdale last year, it became apparent to me that the debate over character at the school wasn't just about how best to evaluate and improve students' character. It went deeper, to the question of what "character" really meant. When Randolph arrived at Riverdale, the school already had in place a character-education program, of a sort. Called CARE, for Children Aware of Riverdale Ethics, the program was adopted in 1989 in the lower school, which at Riverdale means prekindergarten through fifth grade. It is a blueprint for niceness, mandating that students "Treat everyone with respect" and "Be aware of other people's feelings and find ways to help those whose feelings have been hurt." Posters in the hallway remind students of the virtues related to CARE ("Practice Good Manners . . . Avoid Gossiping . . . Help Others"). In the lower school, many teachers describe it as a proud and essential part of what makes Riverdale the school that it is.

When I asked Randolph last winter about CARE, he was diplomatic. "I see the character strengths as CARE 2.0," he explained. "I'd basically like to take all of this new character language and say that we're in the next generation of CARE."

In fact, though, the character-strength approach of Seligman and Peterson isn't an expansion of programs like CARE; if anything, it is a repudiation of them. In 2008, a national organization called the Character Education Partnership published a paper that divided character education into two categories: programs that develop "moral character," which embodies ethical values like fairness, generosity and integrity; and those that address "performance character," which includes values like effort, diligence and perseverance. The CARE program falls firmly on the "moral character" side of the divide, while the seven strengths that Randolph and Levin have chosen for their schools lean much more heavily toward performance character: while they do have a moral component, strengths like zest, optimism, social intelligence and curiosity aren't particularly heroic; they make you think of Steve Jobs or Bill Clinton more than the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi.

The two teachers Randolph has chosen to oversee the school's character initiative are K.C. Cohen, the guidance counselor for the middle and upper schools, and Karen Fierst, a learning specialist in the lower school. Cohen is friendly and thoughtful, in her mid-30s, a graduate of Fieldston, the private school just down the road from Riverdale. She is intensely interested in character development, and like Randolph, she is worried about the character of Riverdale students. But she is not yet entirely convinced by the seven character strengths that Riverdale has ostensibly chosen. "When I think of good character, I think: Are you fair? Are you honest in dealings with other people? Are you a cheater?" she told me. "I don't think so much about: Are you tenacious? Are you a hard worker? I think, Are you a good person?"

Cohen's vision of character is much closer to "moral character" than "performance character," and so far, that vision remains the dominant one at Riverdale. When I spent a day at the school in March, sitting in on a variety of classes and meetings, messages about behavior and values permeated the day, but those messages stayed almost entirely in the moral dimension. It was a hectic day at the middle school - it was pajama day, plus there was a morning assembly, and then on top of that, the kids in French class who were going on the two-week trip to Bordeaux for spring break had to leave early in order to make their overnight flight to Paris. The topic for the assembly was heroes, and a half-dozen students stood up in front of their classmates - about 350 kids, in all - and each made a brief presentation about a particular hero he or she had chosen: Ruby Nell Bridges, the African-American girl who was part of the first group to integrate the schools in New Orleans in 1960; Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor whose self-immolation helped spark the recent revolt in that country; the actor and activist Paul Robeson.

In the assembly, in classes and in conversations with different students, I heard a lot of talk about values and ethics, and the values that were emphasized tended to be social values: inclusion, tolerance, diversity. (I heard a lot more about black history at Riverdale than I did at the KIPP schools I visited.) One eighth-grade girl I asked about character said that for her and her friends, the biggest issue was inclusion - who was invited to whose bat mitzvah; who was being shunned on Facebook. Character, as far as I could tell, was being defined at Riverdale mostly in terms of helping other people - or at least not hurting their feelings.

Randolph told me that he had concerns about a character program that comprised only those kind of nice-guy values. "The danger with character is if you just revert to these general terms - respect, honesty, tolerance - it seems really vague," he said. "If I stand in front of the kids and just say, 'It's really important for you to respect each other,' I think they glaze over. But if you say, 'Well, actually you need to exhibit self-control,' or you explain the value of social intelligence - this will help you collaborate more effectively - then it seems a bit more tangible."

When I spoke to Karen Fierst, the teacher who was overseeing the character project for the Riverdale lower school, she said she was worried that it would be a challenge to convince the students and their parents that there was anything in the 24 character strengths that might actually benefit them. For KIPP kids, she said, the notion that character could help them get through college was a powerful lure, one that would motivate them to take the strengths seriously. For kids at Riverdale, though, there was little doubt that they would graduate from college. "It will just happen," Fierst explained. "It happened to every generation in their family before them. And so it's harder to get them to invest in this idea. For KIPP students, learning these strengths is partly about trying to demystify what makes other people successful - kind of like, 'We're letting you in on the secret of what successful people are like.' But kids here already live in a successful community. They're not depending on their teachers to give them the information on how to be successful."

At KIPP Infinity middle school, which occupies one floor of a school on West 133rd Street, across from the M.T.A.'s giant Manhattanville bus depot, report-card night last winter fell on a cold Thursday at the beginning of February. Report-card night is always a big deal at KIPP schools - parents are strongly urged to attend, and at Infinity, almost all of them do - but this particular evening carried an extra level of anxiety for both the administrators and the parents, because students were receiving their very first character report cards, and no one knew quite what to expect.

Logistically, the character report card had been a challenge to pull off. Teachers at all four KIPP middle schools in New York City had to grade every one of their students, on a scale of 1 to 5, on every one of the 24 character indicators, and more than a few of them found the process a little daunting. And now that report-card night had arrived, they had an even bigger challenge: explaining to parents just how those precise figures, rounded to the second decimal place, summed up their children's character. I sat for a while with Mike Witter, a 31-year-old eighth-grade English teacher, as he talked through the character report card with Faith Flemister and her son Juaquin Bennett, a tall, hefty eighth grader in a gray hooded sweatshirt.

"For the past few years we've been working on a project to create a clearer picture for parents about the character of your child," Witter explained to Flemister. "The categories that we ended up putting together represent qualities that have been studied and determined to be indicators of success. They mean you're more likely to go to college. More likely to find a good job. Even surprising things, like they mean you're more likely to get married, or more likely to have a family. So we think these are really important."

Flemister nodded, and Witter began to work his way down the scores on Juaquin's character report card, starting with the good news: every teacher had scored him as a perfect 5 on "Is polite to adults and peers," and he did almost as well on "Keeps temper in check." They were both indicators for interpersonal self-control.

"I can tell this is a real strength for you," Witter said, turning to Juaquin. "This kind of self-control is something you've developed incredibly well. So that makes me think we need to start looking at: What's something we can target? And the first thing that jumps out at me is this." Witter pulled out a green felt-tip marker and circled one indicator on Juaquin's report card. " 'Pays attention and resists distraction,' " Witter read aloud, an indicator for academic self-control. "That's a little lower than some of the other numbers. Why do you think that is?"

"I talk too much in class," Juaquin said, a little sheepishly, looking down at his black sneakers. "I sometimes stare off into space and don't pay attention."

The three of them talked over a few strategies to help Juaquin focus more in class, and by the end of the 15-minute conversation, Flemister seemed convinced by the new approach. "The strong points are not a surprise," she said to Witter as he got up to talk to another family. "That's just the type of person Juaquin is. But it's good how you pinpoint what he can do to make things easier on himself. Then maybe his grades will pick up."

A month later, I returned to KIPP to visit Witter's classroom. By that point in the school year, character language had permeated Infinity. Kids wore T-shirts with the slogan "Infinite Character" and Seligman's 24 character strengths listed on the back. The walls were covered with signs that read "Got self-control?" and "I actively participate!" (one indicator for zest). There was a bulletin board in the hallway topped with the words "Character Counts," where students filled out and posted "Spotted!" cards when they saw a fellow student performing actions that demonstrate character. (Jasmine R. cited William N. for zest: "William was in math class and he raised his hand for every problem.")

I came to Witter's class to observe something that Levin was calling "dual-purpose instruction," the practice of deliberately working explicit talk about character strengths into every lesson. Levin wanted math teachers to use the strengths in word problems; he explained that history teachers could use them to orient a class discussion about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. And when I arrived in Witter's class at 7:45 on a Thursday morning in March, he was leading a discussion about Chinua Achebe's novel "Things Fall Apart." Above Witter's head, at the front of the class, the seven character strengths were stenciled in four-inch-high letters, white on blue, from optimism to social intelligence. He asked his students to rank Okonkwo, the protagonist, on his various character strengths. There was a lot of back and forth, but in the end, most students agreed that Okonkwo rated highest on grit and lowest on self-control. Then a student named Yantzee raised his hand. "Can't a trait backfire at you?" he asked.

"Sure, a trait can backfire," Witter said. "Too much grit, like Okonkwo, you start to lose your ability to have empathy for other people. If you're so gritty that you don't understand why everyone's complaining about how hard things are, because nothing's hard for you, because you're Mr. Grit, then you're going to have a hard time being kind. Even love - being too loving might make you the kind of person who can get played." There was a ripple of knowing laughter from the students. "So, yes, character is something you have to be careful about. Character strengths can become character weaknesses."

Though the seven character strengths aren't included in every lesson at KIPP, they do make it into most conversations about discipline. One day last winter, I was speaking with Sayuri Stabrowski, a 30-year-old seventh-and-eighth-grade reading teacher at KIPP Infinity, and she mentioned that she caught a girl chewing gum in her class earlier that day. "She denied it," Stabrowski told me. "She said, 'No, I'm not, I'm chewing my tongue.' " Stabrowski rolled her eyes as she told me the story. "I said, 'O.K. fine.' Then later in the class, I saw her chewing again, and I said: 'You're chewing gum! I see you.' She said, 'No, I'm not, see?' and she moved the gum over in her mouth in this really obvious way, and we all saw what she was doing. Now, a couple of years ago, I probably would have blown my top and screamed. But this time, I was able to say: 'Gosh, not only were you chewing gum, which is kind of minor, but you lied to me twice. That's a real disappointment. What does that say about your character?' And she was just devastated."

Stabrowski was worried that the girl, who often struggled with her behavior, might have a mini-meltdown - a "baby attack," in KIPP jargon - in the middle of the class, but in fact, the girl spit out her gum and sat through the rest of the class and then afterward came up to her teacher with tears in her eyes. "We had a long conversation," Stabrowski told me. "She said: 'I'm trying so hard to just grow up. But nothing ever changes!' And I said: 'Do you know what does change? You didn't have a baby attack in front of the other kids, and two weeks ago, you would have.' "

To Tom Brunzell, who as the dean of students at KIPP Infinity oversaw the implementation of the character report card, what is going on in character conversations like that one isn't academic instruction at all, or even discipline; it's therapy. Specifically, it's a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy, the very practical, nuts-and-bolts psychological technique that provides the theoretical underpinning for the whole positive psychology field. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or C.B.T., involves using the conscious mind to understand and overcome unconscious fears and self-destructive habits, using techniques like "self-talk" - putting an immediate crisis in perspective by reminding yourself of the larger context. "The kids who succeed at KIPP are the ones who can C.B.T. themselves in the moment," Brunzell told me. Part of the point of the character initiative, as he saw it, was to give their students the tools to do that. "All kids this age are having mini-implosions every day," he said. "I mean, it's middle school, the worst years of their lives. But the kids who make it are the ones who can tell themselves: 'I can rise above this little situation. I'm O.K. Tomorrow is a new day.' "

For Randolph, the experience that Brunzell was describing - the struggle to pull yourself through a crisis, to come to terms on a deep level with your own shortcomings and to labor to overcome them - is exactly what is missing for so many students at academically excellent schools like Riverdale. And perhaps surprisingly, it may turn out to be an area where the students at KIPP have a real advantage over Riverdale kids. On the professional development day in February when I visited Riverdale, Randolph had arranged a screening for his entire faculty of "Race to Nowhere," a movie about the stresses facing mostly privileged American high-school students that has become an underground hit in many wealthy suburbs, where one-time showings at schools, churches and community centers bring out hundreds of concerned parents. The movie paints a grim portrait of contemporary adolescence, rising in an emotional crescendo to the story of an overachieving teenage girl who committed suicide, apparently because of the ever-increasing pressure to succeed that she felt both at school and at home. At Riverdale, the film seemed to have a powerful effect on many of the staff; one teacher who came up to Randolph afterward had tears in her eyes.

"Race to Nowhere" has helped to coalesce a growing movement of psychologists and educators who argue that the systems and methods now in place to raise and educate well-off kids in the United States are in fact devastating them. One central figure in the movie is Madeline Levine, a psychologist in Marin County who is the author of a best-selling book, "The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids." In her book, Levine cites studies and surveys to back up her contention that children of affluent parents now exhibit "unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems beginning in junior high school." This is no accident of demographics, Levine says, but instead is a direct result of the child-raising practices that prevail in well-off American homes; wealthy parents today, she argues, are more likely to be emotionally distant from their children, and at the same time to insist on high levels of achievement, a potentially toxic blend of influences that can create "intense feelings of shame and hopelessness" in affluent children.

Cohen and Fierst told me that they also see many Riverdale parents who, while pushing their children to excel, also inadvertently shield them from exactly the kind of experience that can lead to character growth. As Fierst put it: "Our kids don't put up with a lot of suffering. They don't have a threshold for it. They're protected against it quite a bit. And when they do get uncomfortable, we hear from their parents. We try to talk to parents about having to sort of make it O.K. for there to be challenge, because that's where learning happens."

Cohen said that in the middle school, "if a kid is a C student, and their parents think that they're all-A's, we do get a lot of pushback: 'What are you talking about? This is a great paper!' We have parents calling in and saying, for their kids, 'Can't you just give them two more days on this paper?' Overindulging kids, with the intention of giving them everything and being loving, but at the expense of their character - that's huge in our population. I think that's one of the biggest problems we have at Riverdale."

This is a problem, of course, for all parents, not just affluent ones. It is a central paradox of contemporary parenting, in fact: we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. And yet we all know - on some level, at least - that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can. As a parent, you struggle with these thorny questions every day, and if you make the right call even half the time, you're lucky. But it's one thing to acknowledge this dilemma in the privacy of your own home; it's quite another to have it addressed in public, at a school where you send your kids at great expense.

And it's that problem that Randolph is up against as he tries to push forward this new kind of conversation about character at Riverdale. When you work at a public school, whether it's a charter or a traditional public school, you're paid by the state, responsible, on some level, to your fellow citizens for the job you do preparing your students to join the adult world. When you work at a private school like Riverdale, though, even one with a long waiting list, you are always conscious that you're working for the parents who pay the tuition fees. Which makes a campaign like the one that Randolph is trying to embark on all the more complicated. If your premise is that your students are lacking in deep traits like grit and gratitude and self-control, you're implicitly criticizing the parenting they've received - which means you're implicitly criticizing your employers.

When I asked Randolph to explain just what he thought Riverdale students were missing out on, he told me the story of his own scholastic career. He did well in boarding school and was admitted to Harvard, but when he got to college, he felt lost, out of step with the power-tie careerism of the Reagan '80s. After two years at Harvard, Randolph left for a year to work in a low-paying manual job, as a carpenter's helper, trying to find himself. After college, he moved for a couple of years to Italy, where he worked odd jobs and studied opera. It was an uncertain and unsettled time in his life, filled with plenty of failed experiments and setbacks and struggles. Looking back on his life, though, Randolph says that the character strengths that enabled him to achieve the success that he has were not built in his years at Harvard or at the boarding schools he attended; they came out of those years of trial and error, of taking chances and living without a safety net. And it is precisely those kinds of experiences that he worries that his students aren't having.

"The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure," Randolph explained. "And in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything."

Most Riverdale students can see before them a clear path to a certain type of success. They'll go to college, they'll graduate, they'll get well-paying jobs - and if they fall along the way, their families will almost certainly catch them, often well into their 20s or even 30s, if necessary. But despite their many advantages, Randolph isn't yet convinced that the education they currently receive at Riverdale, or the support they receive at home, will provide them with the skills to negotiate the path toward the deeper success that Seligman and Peterson hold up as the ultimate product of good character: a happy, meaningful, productive life. Randolph wants his students to succeed, of course - it's just that he believes that in order to do so, they first need to learn how to fail.

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What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?

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Randolph has been pondering throughout his 23-year career as an educator the question of whether and how schools should impart good character. It has often felt like a lonely quest, but it has led him in some interesting directions.

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The 3 Appeals of Argument

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A Call to Action

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Contests

One of this year's winners wrote about school lockdown drills. Related Article Credit... Alec Soth/Magnum, for The New York Times

Update | Read the work of _________ this year's 10 winners here and this year's runners-up here.
For the past four years we've invited students to write short editorials about issues they care about, and each year thousands take up the challenge.

Students often start with thoughtful questions from their own lives: Why is my school's athletic program better funded than its music program? Why do we hide in the corner of our classroom during active shooter drills? Why don't my classmates stand during the Pledge of Allegiance? And they develop sophisticated, sincere and well researched answers in response.

Students look at the nation's and world's problems and hunt for solutions - to improve the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in China, for example, or to reduce recidivism rates for U.S. prisons.

We really like this contest because it asks students to look closely at their world and find something, large or small, they want to change. So, if you don't like being last in line all the time because your surname starts with "Z," then take a stand. If you want more characters in books and movies to be more like you, then write about it. If you want society to be less wasteful or more tolerant, then tell the world. Change starts with noticing, thinking critically, and starting meaningful conversations - and that's what these students have done in their editorials.

But winning this contest? It's no easy task being selected as a winner out of 7,895 entries, a record. How do you make your writing stand out from the piles of other editorials submitted to our contest - especially when you have no more than 450 words to get your point across?

Here's one way: Start strong. Grab our attention in the first few sentences, but don't take too long to state your argument.

Here's another: Pick a fresh topic, or a new angle on a popular topic, and be very clear about what you are arguing. Often when students narrow in on a specific concern, their editorial becomes more persuasive.

What else? Write with an original, confident voice and avoid formulaic language and structure. And if appropriate, acknowledge, and deftly dispatch, counterarguments.

Below, we list 10 winners, 15 runners-up and 45 honorable mentions. We also include a PDF of all the finalists, including 58 who made the cut to the third round of judging, but didn't quite reach the winner's circle.

Starting May 22, we will be publishing one of the Top 10 essays each weekday in posts that we hope you will spread on social media, hang on school bulletin boards and perhaps even use as "mentor texts" for next year's contest.

Thank you for participating - and we hope you'll take part in our Summer Reading Contest, starting June 16.

_________

Each category below lists our favorites in alphabetical order by title. Where titles were missing, we came up with our own.
Top 10 Winners
" A Psychedelic Cure?" by Reagan Briere, age 16
" In Nothing We Trust" by Francesca Kelley, age 18
" Leave the Citizens to Their TV Shows" by Yijia Hu, age 17
" Losing the Internet" by David Scharts, age 15
" Reform the Prison, Then the Prisoner" by Katherine Leonard, age 16
" Stopping Bullets With Locked Doors and Silence Is Already Pulling the Trigger" by Daina Kalnina, age 15
" The Anguish of the Rich" by Yiqi Wang, age 17
" The Asian Misnomer: What the Affirmative Action Debate Misses" by Matteo Wong, age 16
" The Collateral Damage of Defending Democracy" by Sarah Heiland, age 18
" The Missing Anthropological Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History " by Alec Farber, age 16
_________ Runners-Up
"America First" by Safa Saleh, age 17
"America? More Like Ameri-Can't Vote" by Gianni Carcagno, age 17
"Climate Literacy: A Critical Step Toward Climate Stability" by Ella Shriner, age 14 and Hannah Witscher, age 15
"Cultural Appropriation: A Measure of Empathy" by James Chang, age 16
"Discourse Is Democracy: Allowing Uncensored Speech on College Campuses" by Abigail Hogan, age 17
"Drone Warfare: The Failing Fight Against the Modern Hydra" by Michael Levinger, age 16
"Generation Code Red" by Grace Scullion, age 16
"Humane Human Zoo?" by Ella Ward, age 15
"Paper or Plastic? How About a Paper ON Plastic!" by Melody Markert, age 17
"The Future Disintegration of American Democracy Through Athletics" by Julianne Yu, age 16
"The Case for Teaching News Literacy" by Mary Hannah Grier, age 17
"The Unspoken Alphabet Problem" by Stephanie Zhang, age 14
"The 'War on Drugs' Will Never Work; Legalization Will" by Kristina Vakhman, age 18
"There Is No Happily Ever After Without Once Upon a Time" by Bridget O'Leary, age 17
"When Will This Class Be Useful?" by Casey Stark, age 15
_________ Honorable Mentions
"#WorldChanger" by Joyce Zhou, age 17
"A Case for Impassiveness" by Lea Marchl, age 16
"A Scoop in the Right Direction" by Emma S., age 18
"AP Tests Don't Leave Enough Room for the Human Side of History" by Tom Malmgren, age 16
"Are My Shoulders Distracting You?" by Mairi Alice Dun, age 17
"Autism: Educated and Extraordinary" by Isabella Zhang, age 17
"Bittersweet" by Rena Rachlin, age 15 "Child Labor in the U.S. Today" by Jasmine Campos, age 16 and Charlotte Principal, age 16
"China Needs Silver Lining" by Wangchen Zhou, age 17
"Colleges Should Abandon Race-Based Affirmative Action to Achieve True Diversity" by Eric Davis, age 18
"Embrace the Mess" by Chi Yu, age 14
"Fast Fashion Is Destroying Our World" by Melissa Wang, age 17
"Food Stamps Need a Change" by Patrick Meara, age 17
"Governor Cuomo Frees the Plastic Bagss" by Jiayan Chen, age 17
"Help Wanted: Moderate Politicians" by Ireland Degges, age 17
"High School Should Not Just Be About Sports" by Swathi Kella, age 16
"How Far Can Post-Truth Democracy Take Us?" by Jiahe Yang, age 18
"How to Revitalize the Public Education System" by Dhara Yu, age 18
"Last Man Standing" by Kathryn Porter, age 16
"Leave Me Alone" by Celia Silver, age 17
"More Than a Morning Kick" by Emma Cary, age 16
"Multiple Choice: Not Multiple Enough" by Yi-Mei Templeman, age 17
"Picking Cotton: An Immigrant's Perspective" by Allan Njomo, age 16
"Post-Democracy" by Nadav Ziv, age 17
"Should Juvenile Offenders Receive Life Sentences Without Parole on Their First Offense?" by Tayler Gavetti, age 16
"Should Obamacare Be Repealed?" by William Pharo, age 16
"Single Payer: A Cure for America's Healthcare Woes" by Akshay Manglik, age 13
"Streaky Friendship" by Yuxin Long, age 16
"Technology: A Hindrance to Learning" by Zachary Weiss, age 17
"Teens, Technology, and The Pursuit of Happiness" by Sam Jagolinzer, age 17
"The Bluest Note" by Nicholas Dasoveanu, age 18
"The College Conspiracy" by Serenity W., age 17
"The Cost of Health Care May Be in Your Genes" by Sophia Lo, age 16
"The Demoralizing of the Elizabethan Language" by Olivia Seymour, age 14
"The Disposable Nightmare" by Tianxin Guo, age 14
"The Education Gap" by Adam Traweek, age 16 "The Environment in the Age of Trump" by Elliot Tuttle, age 17
"The Growing Problem of Screen Addiction" by Kaitlin Craig, age 16
"The Picture of Education We Must Change" by Danielle Naidrich, age 17
"Tipping the Pay Scale" by Ruhee Damle, age 14
"Untitled" by Melinda Hartz, age 16
"We Should Be Teaching Rap Music in Schools" by Jack Zuckerman, age 19
"What Do You Call Someone That Only Speaks One Language? An American." by Paige Patton, age 16
"Where Are All the Rainbows?" by Storm Viridian Murray, age 17
"Where Trump's Ban Stands Legally" by Marcus Linde, age 16
_________ And All the Finalists, Including 58 More Great Editorials That Made It to Round 3 (PDF) Judges: Amanda Christy Brown, Shannon Doyne, Caroline Crosson Gilpin, Michael Gonchar, Annissa Hambouz, Thomas Houston, Shira Katz, Willow Lawson, Linda Leavitt, Sue Mermelstein, Anna North, Roxie Salamon-Abrams, Katherine Schulten, Matt Schwarzfeld, Natlie Shutler and Kate Spence-Ado

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A Call to Action: Winners From Our Fourth Annual Student Editorial Contest (Published 2017)

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Contests Update | Read the work of _________ this year's 10 winners here and this year's runners-up here . For the past four years we've invited students to write short editorials about issues they care about, and each year thousands take up the challenge.

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Contests

One of our 2017 editorial winners wrote about China's unofficial ban on Korean cultural exports, such as the boy band Exo. Credit... Starnews, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

The challenge is fairly straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from sources both within and outside The Times and write a concise editorial (450 words or less) to convince readers of your view.

Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort or by yourself. When you're done, submit it using the contest form below by Thursday, April 5, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Be sure to read the rules, also below, before posting.

Our judges will then use this rubric (PDF) for selecting winners to publish on The Learning Network.

As teachers know, the persuasive essay has long been a staple of high school education, but the Common Core standards seem to have put evidence-based argumentative writing on everybody's agenda. You couldn't ask for a more real-world example of the genre than the classic newspaper editorial - and The Times publishes, on average, two of them a day.

And at a time when breaking out of one's "filter bubble" is more important than ever, we hope this contest also encourages students to broaden their news diets by using multiple sources, ideally ones that offer a range of perspectives on their chosen issue.

So what issue do you care about? Gun violence? Sexual harassment? Social media? You decide.

Good luck, and please post any questions you might have in the comments. We'll answer you there.

_________
Note: The submission form has been removed from this page. The contest is closed.
_________

Video

The New York Times's editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal provides seven tips for writing an effective editorial.

To help with this challenge, Andrew Rosenthal, in his previous role as Editorial Page editor of The Times, detailed seven pointers in the video above. And we have published related lesson plans, including " For the Sake of Argument: Writing Persuasively to Craft Short, Evidence-Based Editorials," " I Don't Think So: Writing Effective Counterarguments" and " 10 Ways to Teach Argument-Writing With The New York Times," that offer additional teaching ideas.

We have also culled a list of 401 prompts for argumentative writing organized by category, to help inspire you - although, of course, you are not limited to those topics.

We encourage you to look at both our comments on last year's winners and the winning essays themselves. They can serve as excellent models, and they cover topics from active-shooter school lockdowns to Korean television shows in China.

In addition, you can watch our free, archived webinar, featuring the Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and Kabby Hong, a high school English teacher.

1. Use at least one Times source. You can write your editorial about any topic, as long as you use at least one source from The Times. That should pretty much open the whole world to you, as you may be surprised how much you can find in The Times.

Be advised that nytimes.com has a digital subscription system in which readers have access to five free articles each month, but after that you will be asked to become a digital subscriber. The Times also offers K-12 digital subscription plans for schools. But all Learning Network activities for students, including our daily writing prompts, as well as Times articles linked from them, are free, so you can access them without exceeding the five-article limit.

2. Use at least one non-Times source. But make sure that the source you use is a reliable one. We encourage you to find sources that offer different perspectives on an issue.

3. Always cite your sources. Our submission form contains a required field for entering your citations. We include an example as well, though you can use M.L.A. or A.P.A. styles, or just list the website URLs. Even if you use a print source or an expert interview, you must provide a citation. Readers (and judges) should always know where you got your evidence.

4. Be concise. The editorial must not exceed 450 words. Your title and list of sources are separate, however, and do not count as part of your 450-word limit.

5. Have an opinion. Editorials are different from news articles because they try to persuade readers to share your point of view. Don't be afraid to take a stand.

6. Write your editorial by yourself or with a group. If you are working as a team, just remember to submit all of your names when you post your entry. But please submit only one editorial per student. If you're submitting as part of a team, you should not also submit as an individual.

7. Be original and use appropriate language. Write for a well-informed audience, but include enough background information to give context. Be careful not to plagiarize: Use quotation marks around lines you take verbatim from another source, or rephrase and cite your source.

8. Submissions must be from students who are 13 to 19 years old, and they may come from anywhere in the world. Unlike in previous years, students can now use their entire name if they want.

9. All entries must be submitted by April 5 at 11:59 p.m. Easternusing the contest form above. If you have questions about the contest, feel free to post them in the comments section, and we'll respond to you there.

10. Follow these instructions if you need proof that you entered this contest. Within an hour of submitting your editorial, you should receive an email from "The New York Times" with the subject heading "Thank you for your submission to our Student Editorial Contest." If you don't receive the email within an hour, even after checking your spam folder, then you can resubmit your entry. Be sure your settings allow emails from nytimes.com.

After two attempts and waiting over one full day, if you still have not received a confirmation email, you can contact us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com with the email address you used in the contest form. Use the subject heading "Please send me an email confirmation for my editorial contest submission." Be sure to include your name and editorial title (or subject) in your email. You may have to wait up to a week for a reply.

11. We will use this rubric (PDF) to judge entries, and the winning editorials will be featured on The Learning Network.

" Writing an Editorial" Unit Plan, by Lindsay Thompson

" Reader Idea | He Said, She Said, I Say: A Researched Argument Essay," by Danielle Harms

" Reader Idea | Using an Op-Doc Video to Teach Argumentative Writing," by Allison Marchetti

" Reader Idea | Using Room for Debate to Teach Argumentative Writing and Discussion Skills," by Gerard Dawson and Justin Rex

" Reader Idea | An Argument-Writing Unit: Crafting Student Editorials," by Kayleen Everitt

Good luck and have fun. We welcome your questions and comments if we have omitted details that might be useful. Let us know how we can help.

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The Learning Network runs contests for teenagers all year long. See our full calendar.

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Our Fifth Annual Student Editorial Contest: Write About an Issue That Matters to You (Published 2018)

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Contests The challenge is fairly straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from sources both within and outside The Times and write a concise editorial (450 words or less) to convince readers of your view. Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort or by yourself.