Peter "Just Loves Flying"

There is a new Best Evidence in Brief including this interesting bit:

A recent study from Harvard and Brown Universities shows that struggling students did better in school when their teachers communicated with their parents regularly, and suggested specific actions students could do to improve their grades.

 Researchers studied the effects of teacher/parent communication on the academic achievement of 435 struggling high school students enrolled in summer school to recover lost credits in English, history, math, or science two hours a day during a five-week program. Students were mostly Hispanic and African-American, and all were low-income. All students had to have been absent less than 30 days and to have received an “F+” in up to two courses. Students’ parents were randomly divided into three groups: the first group received a short weekly message from the teacher by phone, text, or email about what their child was doing well…

For decades, countries in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe or countries like China, India or South Korea have witnessed how their economies miss out on the skills of their valuable human capital that lives abroad. The brain drain phenomenon has been around for decades, in a few words it means the migration of highly skilled, trained or educated individuals from one country to another. Unsurprisingly, the predominant pattern of brain drain is characterized by the migration from less developed to more developed countries.

Usually, human capital flight or brain drain is a byproduct of several factors like economics, politics, or security. While some individuals willingly leave their countries in pursuit of better economic or professional prospects, others flee their countries of origin as a consequence of turmoil, political instability or insecurity.

According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iran has been one of the countries most affected by the brain drain…

The term “remittance” has been long associated with the following words: migrants and the name of any major money-transfer company. The truth is, the world has been overlooking and underestimating the influence of something that goes beyond what has been thought to be irrelevant or insignificant money transfers. The fact is, remittances are much more important than we actually think they are.

According to the World Bank, by 2016 global remittances will reach a new record high $686 billion, of which $516 billion would go to less developed countries. If we put these numbers into perspective and compare them to other major financial inflows, we reach to the conclusion that remittances are actually three times higher than official development assistance aid, and in many countries (with the exception of China) remittances actually represent a larger share than Foreign Direct Investments (FDI).

Only until recently, our approach to remittances has shifted…

I choose to respond
rather than react
selecting from unlimited choices
from the highest possibilities
grounded in conscious living

Sometimes–more often now
my response is loving silence
stillness of the soul
centered in knowing
no longer pushed and pulled
by external forces
serene acceptance
of who I am