Sublime

An analysis by the economist Robert Jensen subtitled “The Micro and Mackerel Economics of Information” showed how South Indian small fishermen increased their income and lowered the local price of fish by using their mobile phones at sea to find the market which offered the best price that day, sparing them from having to unload their perishable ca

A first factor is a focus on basic skills, and a commitment to the idea that every child can master them as long as she, and her teacher, expends enough effort on it.

five key lessons emerge.

This is the paradox of the poor and their businesses: They are energetic and resourceful and manage to make a lot out of very little. But most of this energy is spent on businesses that are too small and utterly undifferentiated from the many others around them.

one could find other ways to tailor the teaching to the needs of individual students. One possibility is to make the boundaries between the grades more fluid, so that a child whose age puts him in fifth grade but who needs to take second-grade classes in some subjects can do so without additional stigma.

“Children have an initial inclination to help, but extrinsic rewards may diminish it. Socialization practices can thus build on these tendencies, working in concert rather than in conflict with children’s natural predisposition to act altruistically.”