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“A Whole New World” from Aladdin

By tommy wallach.

The day the Aladdin soundtrack came out I was one of the first kids on line. Beyond the fact that Jasmine is the hottest cartoon character short of Jessica Rabbit, my favorite part of the movie was the music. When I watched it, I was forced to silence two well-meaning but over-exuberant twelve years old who had somehow already managed to have memorized all of the music by the three o’ clock show on opening day; displaying my most withering glare and all the authority I was capable of mustering, being twelve myself, I shut them down.

These were the days when Disney still let the music ride over the plot and character. When, like in the Fosse musicals of yore, the only real point of the plot was to facilitate the transition from one fantastic showstopper to another. Ironic then that Aladdin is one of only two of the quadrumvirate of modern Disney movies (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King) that has not been placed on the big stage. Maybe it was the technical nightmare of the magic carpet, or fitting Robin William’s ego into a giant blue hot-air balloon.

There wasn’t a bad song on the whole CD. I spent a few afternoons memorizing all of the fast lyrics to “One Jump Ahead” and “Prince Ali.” I even know the obscure parts of “Prince Ali: Reprise” and “Friend Like Me” (what in the world is a lyric like “I’m on the job / you big nabob” doing in a kids movie?) But every good album has that one song. You know, it’s either the one you heard on the radio, or the one that happens to be about breaking up right when you’re breaking up with somebody. In Aladdin, the song, now a cliché, was “A Whole New World.” You remember, it was the one where Jasmine and Aladdin are out on the magic carpet and touring around the magical city of Agrabah. It’s got these big soaring harmonies that are mirrored exactly by what’s onscreen, and it ends with them falling in love (symbolized in that classic G-rating way, held hands and head resting on shoulder).

When I got the CD home, I ran into my room and closed and locked the door. After listening to the first ten seconds of a few tracks (just to make sure they were there, I suppose), I switched to “A Whole New World.” My mom became aware of a problem after about half an hour, during which time I had neglected to take the track off repeat. She called out for me to open the door, but I bitterly refused. When I finally gave in, another ten minutes later, she found me in tears. I realize moodiness is par for the course for the burgeoning artist, but this was above and beyond the call of duty. My mother couldn’t understand what was wrong.

“I’ll never write anything this beautiful,” I screeched mournfully.

I still haven’t, though I keep trying. Every time I finish something, I hold it up to the perfection that is “A Whole New World.” Would I be up for flying around on a magic carpet with a beautiful woman to the sound of whatever I’m writing? Well, I tried making out with my girlfriend while the computerized voice read this essay back at me; the results were less than stimulating. I guess I still have some work to do.

Short Essays on Favorite Songs, Inspired by Nick Hornby’s Songbook : This Could Be the Night

Short essays on favorite songs, inspired by nick hornby’s songbook : piotr ilyich tchaikovsky’s “1812 overture.”, suggested reads.

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Themes and Analysis

Brave new world, by aldous huxley.

'Brave New World' explores the perils of technological advancement, the consequences of sacrificing individuality for societal stability, and the ethical dilemmas of manipulating human nature.

Main Themes

• Consumerism and capitalism: the citizens are controlled through unbridled consumerism, and they are locked into mindless busy cycles of production and consumption.
• Technological control over society: from breeding to manufacturing of goods, to organizing leisure activities, the World State controls all aspects of the lives of its citizens
• Immediate gratification and pleasure-seeking: members of the World State are kept under control through state-sanctioned systems to alleviate pain and discomfort and maximize pleasure and enjoyment for its citizens.
• Wide literary and historical references: Huxley references the Bible, Shakespeare, and historical events like the world wars and revolutions in Europe.
• Use of satire and irony: lampoons the ideology of World State through satire and irony.
• Character-driven narrative: Bernard, John, and Lenina's character development are important drivers of the novel's action.
• Bottles: the bottle in which the fetuses are developed symbolize the society's total control over the development of its citizens
• The Lighthouse: represents enlightenment; it is abandoned, therefore has lost its purpose in the society.
• Ford: the maker of the Model-T automobile is deified and becomes a symbol of productivity, efficiency and consumption.

The novel opens with a tour of the hatching and conditioning center that produces all the citizens' children in vitro. The reader is introduced to a society that manufactures humans as machines: uniform, stratified in castes, and totally under government control all their lives. Meanwhile, the protagonist, Bernard, is introduced. He is dissatisfied with society and in love with Lenina Crowe.

In the story's middle, Bernard takes Lenina on a trip to the reservation, a technologically and culturally regressed area cut off from the World State, where he meets John. John and Bernard feel outcasts in their respective societies and bond over this shared feeling. Bernard returns John to the World State, where John becomes an attraction.

John becomes disillusioned with his new society, seeing through its technological advancement to its superficial core and government control through the provision of ease and pleasure. He rebels, and Bernard and Helmholtz are also implicated. While Bernard and Helmholtz are exiled, John is detained in World State. He isolates himself but cannot escape the attention of the citizens of the society that see him as another source of entertainment. Unable to resist them, he commits suicide.

Continue down for complete analysis to Brave New World

Article written by Ebuka Igbokwe

Bachelor's degree from Nnamdi Azikiwe University.

Aldous Huxley’s “ Brave New World ” is a thematically rich work. The author delivers profound social commentary with satirical wit and a distinctive style. Huxley references a wide range of literary works and philosophical ideas, a touch that gives the work literary weight and sets it in a broader intellectual context.

The story of “ Brave New World ” deals with certain themes such as consumerism, technological control of society, immediate gratification, and loss of personal identity.

Consumerism and Capitalism

While Aldous Huxley’s “ Brave New World “ primarily critiques totalitarian control and the sacrifice of individuality, it also provides commentary on the role of capitalism and consumerism in shaping the society of the World State. It invites readers to consider how unchecked production and excessive consumption can influence a society’s values, norms, and priorities, sometimes at the expense of genuine human connections and personal development. So central is this theme that Ford, the father of the assembly line and mass manufacture, assumes the figure of a deity in the story.

In the World State, humans are treated as products to be mass-produced and mere cogs in the wheel of society. Citizens are conditioned from birth to value material possessions and instant gratification over healthy and rich interpersonal relationships and individual experiences. The caste system, the technology for developing human embryos, and the conditioning process for the citizens are eerily similar to the manufacturing of goods in a factory.

The World State deliberately fosters a culture of constant consumption and dispensability. Citizens are conditioned to replace and put aside items and people without hesitation and discouraged from being attached to anything. The rapid turnover of possessions and relationships reflects the concept of planned obsolescence inherent in capitalist economies , where goods are designed to have short lifespans to encourage continuous purchasing.

Technological Control Over Society

Aldous Huxley’s “ Brave New World ” explores technocracy, a system of government where experts and technology are the driving forces behind social and political decisions. In this dystopian world, technocracy plays a central role in maintaining control and achieving social stability.

The novel shows the consequences of technocracy when taken to the extreme. While a technocracy can harness science and technology for the betterment of society, it can also lead to the objectification of its citizens.

In the World State, this system of government is evident in nearly every aspect of society. The government, composed of World Controllers like Mustapha Mond, is a technocratic elite that makes decisions based on scientific principles and advanced technology. Human life itself is highly controlled, with citizens created in hatcheries, conditioned for certain specific roles, and sorted into castes based on their preselected intelligence and potential functions.

Technocratic principles also guide the development of the ideas through which the society is stabilized. The World State utilizes reproductive technologies, genetic engineering, and behavioral conditioning to create a population that is docile, predictable, and content. The aim is to eliminate suffering, conflict, and dissatisfaction and create a well-ordered, clockwork society. Here, technical expertise is not merely an aid to governance but radically influences culture. The result is that every aspect of society is meticulously engineered and regulated as if the individual members were parts of a machine.

Immediate Gratification and Pleasure Seeking

Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World ” presents a dystopian society where immediate gratification and pleasure-seeking are cardinal pursuits. The World State is a carefully constructed society that prioritizes shallow, hedonistic pleasures over deeper emotional connections and true intellectual and spiritual pursuits.

The drug “soma” is the primary instrument for immediate gratification. It provides citizens with a quick and artificial sense of happiness, contentment, and emotional numbness. Whenever individuals in that society experience negative emotions, they are encouraged to consume soma, which promptly alleviates their discomfort.

The society of the World State is designed to stave off intense and prolonged desire through a culture of shallow pleasures and hedonism. Citizens are encouraged to frequently indulge in casual sex and recreational activities. There is a conspicuous absence of deeper, meaningful relationships, intellectually engaging activities, or character-building cultural experiences. For example, the Solidarity Service is a communal gathering that features group singing which ends in a sexual orgy.

By conditioning the citizens to avoid any form of suffering, they are prevented from experiencing the profound joys, sorrows, and personal growth that come from facing life’s challenges.

Loss of Humanity and Identity

The World State views individual agency as a potential threat to social stability. Its government fears allowing people to make meaningful choices or experience genuine emotions and intellectual autonomy might lead to conflict, dissatisfaction, or nonconformity. Consequently, individual agency is curtailed in favor of a controlled, harmonious society.

Citizens of the World State lack the freedom to make significant life decisions, pursue deep emotional connections, or engage in intellectual exploration. In their society, happiness is a paramount objective. From birth, individuals are conditioned to accept their predetermined roles in society, conform to societal norms, and avoid discomfort or suffering. This conditioning fosters a conformist culture where citizens find happiness in their assigned roles and shallow pleasures, even if these dehumanize them.

Throughout “ Brave New World “, characters who exhibit any unsanctioned initiative or seek greater agency often face social disapproval and adverse consequences. Bernard Marx, for instance, questions the status quo and longs for more genuine human connections. His desire for agency leads to isolation and eventual exile.

John “the Savage” also embodies the tension between retaining a strong sense of self and succumbing to pressures to conform to the social mold. Raised outside the controlled society, he represents an admirable alternative answer to what it means to be truly human. However, his rebellion comes at a cost. He tries to resist the dehumanizing influence of the society of the World State, but he fails to resist its corruption fully, and he commits suicide.

Social Castes and the Loss of Freedom

“ Brave New World ” explores the theme of social castes and the loss of freedom by depicting a rigid caste system and extensive conditioning processes. From birth, citizens are engineered and conditioned to fit into their designated castes. The Bokanovsky Process allows for the mass production of identical individuals, particularly in the lower castes, reinforcing uniformity and predictability. Conditioning techniques, such as hypnopaedia (sleep teaching), instill a sense of satisfaction with one’s caste and discourage aspirations beyond one’s predetermined role. This process eradicates personal freedom and individual potential, as people are programmed to accept their place in society without question. The caste system eradicates the concept of individual freedom.

Personal choices, desires, and ambitions are sacrificed for social stability. Citizens are conditioned to find contentment in their roles and to avoid behaviors that might disrupt societal harmony. This loss of freedom is evident in the characters’ lives. As an Alpha Plus, Bernard feels alienated despite his high caste. His dissatisfaction highlights the limitations imposed even on those at the top of the hierarchy. A Beta, Lenina exhibits some individual desires but ultimately conforms to societal expectations, showing the pervasive influence of conditioning.

Key Moments

• Introduction to the World State : The novel begins with a tour of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where humans are artificially created and conditioned. This introduction sets the stage for understanding the highly controlled society.
• Lenina and Bernard’s Visit to the Savage Reservation : Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx visit the Savage Reservation in New Mexico, where they encounter a starkly different lifestyle. This trip is crucial as it introduces John, the “Savage.” It sets the stage for the ultimate contest of social ideologies at the end of the book.
• Meeting John and Linda : Bernard and Lenina meet John and his mother, Linda, who lived in the World State before leaving on the Reservation. Linda’s stories of the World State and John’s upbringing at the reservation provide a contrasting perspective on both societies.
• John’s Arrival in London : Bernard brings John and Linda back to London, where John becomes a sensation. His presence exposes the flaws and shallowness of the World State society.
• Linda’s Death : Linda’s death in a soma-induced haze profoundly affects John. His grief and anger highlight the dehumanizing aspects of the World State’s reliance on drugs to suppress emotions.
• John’s Rebellion : John’s growing disillusionment leads to a climactic rebellion, where he tries to incite the citizens to throw away their soma and seek genuine freedom and humanity.
• Confrontation with Mustapha Mond : John, Bernard, and Helmholtz Watson confront Mustapha Mond, one of the World Controllers. This philosophical debate explores the values of freedom, happiness, and individuality, revealing the ideological foundations of the World State.
• John’s Withdrawal and Tragic End : Unable to reconcile his values with the World State, John withdraws to a lighthouse, seeking solitude. The novel ends tragically with John’s suicide, symbolizing the ultimate failure to find a place for individuality and true humanity in the dystopian society.

Style, Tone, and Figurative Language

Aldous Huxley’s writing style in “ Brave New World ” is satirical. He uses humor and irony to criticize social norms, exploring, in particular, the unbridled use of technological and scientific advancements in managing society.

Furthermore, “ Brave New World ” has literary, historical, and cultural references, encouraging readers to engage with a broader intellectual context. The narrative is character-driven, emphasizing personal development and psychological exploration. Aldous Huxley excels in world-building, creating immersive and believable environments that contribute to the depth of his story.

Bleak and foreboding in tone, the novel satirizes a society controlled by advanced technology and radical governmental authority. Huxley writes scientifically to match society’s technocratic leanings and ideal of valuing technical ability and mechanical efficiency over humanist considerations. He manages to mask the dark side of his system in euphemistic terms that society uses to approve of its oppressive policies.

Huxley employs simile in describing the uniformly precise conditioning of infants as “a drop of sealing wax”, and Mond speaks of soma metaphorically as “Christianity without tears”. He makes several allusions by referencing real-world figures and literature throughout the novel. “ Brave New World ” is taken from the Shakespearean play “ The Tempest “. Symbols like bottles, Ford, and zips are also used to represent several ideas in the novel. Situational and verbal irony are also used to underscore the absurdity of social norms and critique certain aspects of human behavior presented in the story.

In “ Brave New World ” Huxley uses symbolism extensively. Here are a few symbols found in the story.

Inspired by the car manufacturer and pioneer of mass production, Ford symbolizes industrialization and consumerism. Revering Henry Ford, society replaces traditional religious figures with Ford. Time is reckoned as A.F. (After Ford) instead of A.D. The cross is replaced with a capital T (taken from Model T, Ford’s card model that pioneered his highly efficient assembly line manufacturing process)as a symbol of worship. This worship reflects how society prioritized efficiency and productivity over individuality and humanity. Humans are effectively turned into mechanized, conditioned cogs in the wheel of the World State. Ford’s name also signifies the dominance of consumer culture, where materialism replaces spiritual and intellectual values.

Bottles symbolize human production’s mechanized and controlled nature in the World State. Through the Bokanovsky Process, humans are artificially created and grown in bottles. This shows the society’s emphasis on industrialization and mass production. Natural birth is rendered obsolete, and the process reduces childbirth to an emotionless mechanical process. Bottles also represent the predestination and conditioning of individuals. People are conditioned to fit into specific castes and functions from creation, symbolizing the lack of free will and autonomy. Finally, bottles emphasize the cookie-cutter sameness of the members of the population, ensuring they conform to standards and expectations. This eradication of diversity maintains stability, but people become dehumanized, objectified, and lacking autonomy.

The zip is a symbol of society’s fixation on efficiency and convenience. Its widespread use in clothing reflects a culture prioritizing speed and functionality in all aspects of life, from daily routines to human interactions. It also represents society’s superficiality and pursuit of instant gratification. Just as zippers allow for quick dressing and undressing, the characters in the novel engage in casual sex and shallow entertainment, activities lacking depth or complexity. Moreover, the ubiquitous use of zips in clothing highlights society’s enforced conformity in behavior, thought, and appearance.

The Lighthouse

Historically, lighthouses guide ships safely through treacherous waters and alert sailors to dangerous coastlines or obstacles. Metaphorically, a lighthouse signifies enlightenment and guidance through uncertainty or difficulty and is a beacon of hope and direction. Lighthouses are often situated in remote or isolated locations, away from bustling cities and communities. This isolation can symbolize solitude, introspection, or a retreat from the noise and distractions of everyday life. In “ Brave New World “, the lighthouse is abandoned, symbolizing society’s forsaking enlightenment, and it is to this place that John retreats to rid himself of the corrupting influence of the World State.

Flowers symbolize the tension between natural beauty and society’s artificial control. One of the novel’s early scenes shows children being conditioned to dislike nature. Flowers are paired with electric shocks and loud noises to instill an aversion to them. By conditioning citizens to dislike nature, the World State ensures that people remain focused on consuming manufactured goods and engaging in controlled leisure activities rather than finding joy in the natural world. In this context, flowers represent the natural beauty and spontaneity that society deliberately suppresses.

Personal Perspective

It seems to me that the desire for utopia is a fundamentally human one. We want to improve on our life conditions. We are always looking for ways to live easier, to eliminate hardships, to have less encumbrances. But the troubles we want to cut out of life are the very same factors that drive human development. They may even be essential for our humanity. Take marriage and family, for instance. One could think of marriage as a coercive union, and the children raised in such a setting under the thumb of parents that could well be oppressive tyrants. But a home is the best place for children to learn duty, care and love. Inter-sibling interactions help them develop social skills and help them build character. The mental health of children raised in by their parents is better than those raised in foster care. Could we really attain utopia? I doubt, because we are always trading off one thing for another. Every social institution we attempt to tweak has advantages as well as disadvantages.

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About Ebuka Igbokwe

Ebuka Igbokwe is the founder and former leader of a book club, the Liber Book Club, in 2016 and managed it for four years. Ebuka has also authored several children's books. He shares philosophical insights on his newsletter, Carefree Sketches and has published several short stories on a few literary blogs online.

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Brave New World

Aldous huxley, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

All of World State society can be described as an effort to eliminate the individual from society. That doesn't mean the elimination of all people—it means the conditioning of those people so that they don't really think of themselves as individuals. Individualism, which encompasses an awareness of one's own opinions and abilities, the joys of personal relationship, and the accompanying sorrows of loneliness and isolation, is suppressed as aggressively as possible by the World State in order to maintain stability. But these safeguards aren't enough for all the citizens of the World State, and they become aware of their individuality, which suggests that human individuality is irrepressible. But through the various triumphs and downfalls of his characters, Huxley argues that even when individuality resists external pressures, it won’t thrive in a society that views individuals as dispensable and dangerous.

Both the Director and Mustapha Mond admit that human individuality is dispensable within their system. The difference is that Mond sees the reality and even the value of individuality, but willingly sacrifices it for the sake of an orderly State. When the Director reprimands Bernard for unorthodoxy, he does so on the grounds that individuality undermines State stability: “We can make a new [individual] with the greatest ease […] Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself.” Yet perhaps more sinister is Mond’s admission that, while he had the option of being sent to an island where he could pursue “unorthodox” science to his heart’s content, he ultimately preferred to be made a World Controller, in charge of determining the happiness of society at large. He recognizes that individuality is a real, valuable thing, yet he prefers suppressing people’s individuality (while having the privilege to privately indulge his own by reading Shakespeare ) in order to keep people comfortable, happy, and complacent. While both men see individuality as a threat to be controlled, neither denies the existence of the individual as such.

Both Bernard and his friend Helmholtz are examples of citizens wrestling with their awareness of their individuality. The difference between the two is that, for Bernard, individuality is something rather forced upon him by his un-Alpha-like physical traits, and he responds to these by resisting aspects of the World State’s consumerist and hedonistic culture. Helmholtz, meanwhile, is truly superior in his abilities and realizes that the constraints of Society won’t let him fully exercise those abilities: “A mental excess had produced in Helmholtz Watson effects very similar to those which, in Bernard Marx, were the result of a physical defect […] That which had made Helmholtz so uncomfortably aware of being himself and all alone was too much ability. What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals.” Despite his prowess at Escalator Squash, his hundreds of lovers, and his social standing, Helmholtz “was interested in something else. But in what?” Helmholtz makes a useful contrast with Bernard, because Helmholtz is such a standout example of “excellence” by World State standards. By those standards, Helmholtz should be a model of happiness, but instead, he’s restless with the realization that his success might actually be a form of mediocrity. Exploring his potential for more involves acknowledging his individuality, and the inability of the State to facilitate that individuality.

Bernard, on the other hand, accepts his individuality uneasily; he experiences it as something that sets him uncomfortably at odds with his society, and when he has the chance to toss it aside for the sake of acceptance, he does so. After his association with John wins him popularity, “Success went fizzily to Bernard’s head, and in the process completely reconciled him […] to a world which, up till then, he had found very unsatisfactory. In so far as it recognized him as important, the order of things was good.” He continues to “parade a carping unorthodoxy” as long as people pay at least superficial attention to him, but it’s mostly a show. In other words, Bernard is happy to be an individual as long as it doesn’t cost him anything. When Mustapha Mond threatens to send him to Iceland for his unorthodoxy, he quickly dissolves into cowardly groveling, showing that, despite his criticisms,  he really does want to remain within the outward safety Society provides.

The Savage (John) is the ultimate outsider in the novel. Even in his accidental upbringing on the Savage Reservation, he never truly belonged—excluded from native rituals and secretly studying Shakespeare. When he visits the “brave new world,” he belongs even less, because his deep yearnings, his knowledge, and his sense of morality find no sympathy among those who outwardly look more like him. In the end, though, even his outsider status doesn’t survive—when he tries to live in solitude, people are drawn to the spectacle of his individuality, and he finally succumbs to a mob mentality himself. Huxley thus suggests that individuality can’t flourish in a world that targets it as a threat to its own existence.

Individuality ThemeTracker

Individuality Quotes in Brave New World

Community, Identity, Stability.

“And that...is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.”

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta.

“Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too—all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions... Suggestions from the State.”

“You all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk.”

“Ford, we are twelve; oh make us one, Like drops within the Social River; Oh, make us now together run As swiftly as thy shining Flivver. Come, Greater Being, Social Friend, Annihilating Twelve-in-One! We long to die, for when we end, Our larger life has but begun. Feel how the Greater Being comes! Rejoice and, in rejoicings, die! Melt in the music of the drums! For I am you and you are I. Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun, Kiss the girls and make them One. Boys at One with girls at peace; Orgy-porgy gives release.”

“A gramme in time saves nine.”

"O brave new world," he repeated. "O brave new world that has such people in it. Let's start at once."

“The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior. Murder kills only the individual—and, after all, what is an individual?”

“Why was [Shakespeare] such a marvellous propaganda technician? Because he had so many insane, excruciating things to get excited about. You've got to be hurt and upset; otherwise you can't think of the really good, penetrating X-rayish phrases.”

“Put your arms around me...Hug me till you drug me, honey...Kiss me till I'm in a coma. Hug me honey, snuggly...”

"Free, free!" the Savage shouted, and with one hand continued to throw the soma into the area while, with the other, he punched the indistinguishable faces of his assailants. "Free!" And suddenly there was Helmholtz at his side–"Good old Helmholtz!"—also punching—"Men at last!"—and in the interval also throwing the poison out by handfuls through the open window. "Yes, men! men!" and there was no more poison left. He picked up the cash-box and showed them its black emptiness. "You're free!"

Howling, the Deltas charged with a redoubled fury.

You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art.

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

"In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you're claiming the right to be unhappy.”

“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.”

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Lapham’s quarterly, a whole new world.

Every scientific struggle is a serious war.

My Dear and Good Father,

I have so much to write of my new creations that it is at the moment impossible for me to enter into great detail, so I write you only on a quarter of a sheet. I intend to write, as soon as I have put it into order, and when possible to publish, a work on parallels. At this moment it is not yet finished, but the way I have hit upon promises me with certainty the attainment of the goal, if it in general is attainable. It is not yet attained, but I have discovered such magnificent things that I am myself astonished at them. It would be damage eternal if they were lost. When you see them, my father, you yourself will acknowledge it. Now I cannot say more of them, only so much: that from nothing I have created a wholly new world . All that I have hitherto sent you compares to this only as a house of cards to a castle.

P.S. I dare to judge absolutely and with conviction of these works of my spirit before you, my father; I do not fear from you any false interpretation (that certainly I would not merit), which signifies that, in certain regards, I consider you as a second self.

[ From his father’s reply :]

If you have really succeeded in the question, it is right that no time be lost in making it public for two reasons: first, because ideas pass easily from one to another, who can anticipate its publication; and secondly, there is some truth in this, that many things have an epoch in which they are found at the same time in several places, just as the violets appear on every side in spring. Also, every scientific struggle is just a serious war in which I cannot say when peace will arrive. Thus we ought to conquer when we are able since the advantage is always to the first comer.

János Bolyai

Born in what was then part of the Hungarian Hapsburg Empire, János Bolyai was the son of a renowned mathematician. By the age of thirteen the younger Bolyai had begun to follow in his father’s footsteps, becoming skilled at both calculus and analytic mechanics. He spent much of his life attempting to prove Euclid’s parallel axiom and, later, worked on theories of non-Euclidian geometry. 

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Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

As you read, hover over the highlighted parts to learn what they do and why they work.

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Table of contents

Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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To Shape a New World

Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Edited by Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry

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ISBN 9780674980754

Publication date: 02/19/2018

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Martin Luther King, Jr., may be America’s most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. On the fiftieth anniversary of King’s assassination, the man and his activism are as close to public consciousness as ever. But despite his stature, the significance of King’s writings and political thought remains underappreciated.

In To Shape a New World , Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry write that the marginalization of King’s ideas reflects a romantic, consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservative—an effort not at radical reform but at “living up to” enduring ideals laid down by the nation’s founders. On this view, King marshaled lofty rhetoric to help redeem the ideas of universal (white) heroes, but produced little original thought. This failure to engage deeply and honestly with King’s writings allows him to be conscripted into political projects he would not endorse, including the pernicious form of “color blindness” that insists, amid glaring race-based injustice, that racism has been overcome.

Cornel West, Danielle Allen, Martha Nussbaum, Robert Gooding-Williams, and other authors join Shelby and Terry in careful, critical engagement with King’s understudied writings on labor and welfare rights, voting rights, racism, civil disobedience, nonviolence, economic inequality, poverty, love, just-war theory, virtue ethics, political theology, imperialism, nationalism, reparations, and social justice. In King’s exciting and learned work, the authors find an array of compelling challenges to some of the most pressing political dilemmas of our present, and rethink the legacy of this towering figure.

Fascinating and instructive…Shelby and Terry may offer the best solution to the pain of thinking about King and our loss of him…King’s philosophy, speaking to us through the written word, may turn out to constitute his most enduring legacy. —Annette Gordon-Reed, New York Review of Books

To Shape a New World firmly situates Dr. King in the canon of American political thought. An extraordinary group of scholars grapple with the subtlety and nuance of King’s political philosophy, and they set the stage for a renewed engagement with his broader work. This is a must -read in our time. —Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Princeton University

The collection brings together a series of impressive scholars—Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, and Robert Gooding-Williams among them—to look at King’s understudied writings on economic inequality, just-war theory, and voting rights… To Shape a New World is a compelling work of philosophy, all the more so because it treats King seriously without inoculating him from the kind of critique important to both his theory and practice. —Shivani Radhakrishnan, Los Angeles Review of Books

To Shape a New World is a milestone in the study of Martin Luther King, Jr., essentially a sanctified figure in American life, whose actual ideas are rarely interrogated in any depth, either in the public realm or in academic circles. What makes this volume particularly striking is the exceptionally high quality of the essays, which are analytically rigorous, impressively researched, and often profoundly original. They highlight the limits of common narratives about King and the civil rights movement, showing the shifts in his own thinking and the unconventional nature of many of his arguments. This is a path-breaking book. —Aziz Rana, Cornell University

This is a powerful and invaluable collection of essays on Dr. King. I hope it will inspire an entirely new generation of readers to go back and immerse themselves in Dr. King’s language and thought and hear and heed his prophetic voice. —Marian Wright Edelman, President, Children’s Defense Fund

King’s theology, philosophy, and nonviolent prophetic engagement are needed now more than any time since his death. In his last speech, Dr. King said that when it comes to the struggle for love and justice, ‘nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn back now.’ We must embrace his challenge in this moment and commit to go forward together, not one step back. —Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

While his birthday has become a national holiday and schoolchildren across the nation and the world know the words of his most famous speeches, there are still many aspects of his life and work that remain lesser known. —Time

Looks at the work of Dr. King as a philosopher, rather than a political figure. By examining some lesser-known writings, the authors draw the conclusion that Dr. King was a much more radical thinker than his watered-down legacy would suggest. —Vox

King was not simply a compelling speaker, but a deeply philosophical intellectual…King drew on theological, economic, and historical ideas to inform his philosophical thinking…We still have much to learn from him. —Olivia Goldhill, Quartz

King’s own scholarship is refreshingly illuminated in To Shape a New World . —Colin Grant, Prospect

[An] ambitious, illuminating volume…The collection facilitates rigorous engagement with King’s thought in its own time and place but also presses the question of what we ought to do with it in this current ‘age of impunity and mendacity.’ —Erin R. Pineda, Journal of the History of Philosophy

Reimagines King as a political thinker for our—and for all—time. —The Point

This book demonstrates the necessity of revisiting King’s philosophy and creed of nonviolence…Perhaps most importantly, this collection gives us a clear look at the mechanisms of the nonviolent approach, a different option to discrimination instead of submission or violent resistance. —Kirkus Reviews

[A] robust and wide-ranging collection...The book as a whole displays the pliability and dynamism of King’s thought, applying it to circumstances both recent (Barack Obama’s presidency) and far in the past (the practice of slavery in 18th- and 19th-century America). Throughout, King’s voice is placed within a community of philosophers…As the nation approaches the 50th anniversary of King’s assassination, this work demonstrates, for anyone who needs convincing, the continued and vital importance of his thinking. —Publishers Weekly

• Tommie Shelby is Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University. In addition to Dark Ghettos he is the author of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity and coeditor with Brandon M. Terry of To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Brandon M. Terry is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and codirector of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He is the coeditor, with Tommie Shelby, of To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and editor of Fifty Years Since MLK .

Book Details

• 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
• Belknap Press

Recommendations

Speaking for Others

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A whole new world: Education meets the metaverse

• Download the policy brief

Subscribe to the Center for Universal Education Bulletin

Kathy hirsh-pasek , kathy hirsh-pasek senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education jennifer m. zosh , jennifer m. zosh professor - penn state university, brandywine helen shwe hadani , helen shwe hadani former brookings expert roberta michnick golinkoff , roberta michnick golinkoff unidel h. rodney sharp professor of education - university of delaware, director - child’s play, learning, and development lab kevin clark , kevin clark children's media producer & consultant chip donohue , and chip donohue founding director - tec center, erikson institute, senior fellow - fred rogers center for early learning and children’s media at saint vincent college ellen wartella ellen wartella professor, school of communication - northwestern university.

February 14, 2022

• 26 min read

The metaverse is upon us. Soon it will be as omnipresent as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook (now Meta). As technology advances to bring us new immersive and imaginary worlds, how we educate children and prepare teachers must also advance to meet these new opportunities. When education lags the digital leaps, the technology rather than educators defines what counts as educational opportunity. This is largely what happened with the introduction of “educational” apps designed to be used on smartphones and tablets meant for adults. Today, as the metaverse infrastructure is still under construction, researchers, educators, policymakers, and digital designers have a chance to lead the way rather than get caught in the undertow. To leverage the potential of the metaverse as a 3D, global, interconnected, immersive, and real-time online space, we need new ways to connect the physical world with augmented and virtual reality (VR) experiences.  

In this policy brief, we offer a path for bringing best educational practices into the metaverse. We suggest a series of well-worn principles derived from the science of how and what children learn to guide the design of new educational technology. We also suggest ways in which design in this new space can go astray. In the end, we challenge those creating educational products for the metaverse to partner with educators and scientists to ensure that children experience real human social interaction as they navigate virtual spaces, children’s agency is supported as they explore these spaces, and there is a real eye to diversity in the representation and access to what is created.  

Imagine a circular classroom, surrounded by white boards and populated with movable chairs. Energized students are mesmerized by the tales of the Greek myths, the power of Zeus the god of the sky, and stories of the great Hercules—his son—whose strength was legendary.  

Suddenly, a timeline is projected onto the middle of the floor. Children whisk away their chairs to stand in the present, ready to move backward and descend into the year 300 BC—a year in which they will encounter a new reality. They enter the metaverse of Greek culture. Carts buzz by them, traders in marketplaces surround them and high atop the hill, they see—with their own eyes—the temples of the gods and the people who worship them. They explore, they ask questions, they ponder, they learn!  

The experience was designed to whet the appetite of the students, but questions remain: “How could we possibly know about the richness of Greek life? If we did not live there, how do we discover what was sold at the marketplace and which gods were all important?”  

Then, the teacher positions each child on the timeline so that they return to the present. The walls around them turn to images of brown dust in which they see ruined old temples and pieces of columns dotted along the ground. Each child is now given a chance to become the archeologist, to use her avatar to find the answers to the question of how we construct the past while nested squarely in the present. The avatars are equipped with a shovel, a brush, and are given a plot to till. The teacher continues, “The society that you witnessed, like all societies of times past, became buried in the dirt. Each layer of dirt is like a story book that you can uncover and piece together.” The children move their avatars and begin to examine the dirt in a new way—in a careful and inquisitive way. Each finds shards of pottery and even partial faces of statues that once stood tall. After 20 minutes of working the soil, they show their discoveries to the others in the class. Opportunities for collaborative learning and co-creation are embedded into the virtual and real learning spaces they have built together.  

Piecing their shards together as if they were solving a historical puzzle, they find an urn and a statue. They learn that the myths are more than stories—they were part of a bygone religion called paganism that real people practiced during time now buried beneath the earth’s surface. Archeologists like them helped to rediscover that society.  

This deep, transferable learning that will last a lifetime comes to us by virtue of the metaverse delivered in a hybrid, guided play environment that could represent the school of the future. But notice that the interaction is inherently social with live people and live moment to moment, emotionally laden interactions. And notice that the teachers are still crucial to this experience. Make no mistake that the metaverse is coming. It is our job to specify how engagement in this always-on, virtual universe augments education rather than detracts from it and how it can preserve the key socially interactive qualities that are core to how humans learn.    

Defining the metaverse  

Forbes Magazine offered varied definitions of the metaverse from tech leaders. Each speaks of a space that is a combination of virtual and live—creating a “third space,” as sociologist Ray Oldenburg noted, that is not home or work.   

The metaverse of the future is likely to fully support augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the connectivity to link all worlds. Indeed, in its most democratic instantiation, anyone will have the opportunity to create a space and be part of a user-generated global community on an interoperable multiplatform where they can share their games or goods with the world. The G5 internet speed should allow this to be a reality.   

To date there are a few better established instantiations of what is to come, including the games Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox. Roblox , for example, offers a wealth of gaming opportunities and these games have attracted over 42 million active users, an increase of over 19 percent from 2019 . And Roblox creators look to attract followers who will use and then heighten the visibility of any particular game .   

It is critical to think about how researchers can inform designers now so that forthcoming educational products and offerings in the metaverse are high quality and optimized.    

A number of other examples highlight the power of the metaverse that is changing daily. Virbela offers virtual meeting and even wedding spaces. And Nike made news when it created Nikeland on Roblox. As VR platforms become easier to use and more interconnected, they will become better populated. Further, as VR accessories like VR goggles become less cumbersome, one can expect their use to be expanded and even adopted into educational settings. Thus, it is critical to think about how researchers can inform designers now so that forthcoming educational products and offerings in the metaverse are high quality and optimized.    

Learning from Web 2.0 and the development of ‘educational apps’  

In 1997, the Nokia 6110 phone offered the first mobile app (of a game called Snake). In 2007, the app market took off in earnest after the introduction of the iPhone and even more so when iPads came into the marketplace in 2011. By 2015, when our research team first wrote a series of guiding principles for developing truly “educational apps,” the market was already flooded with more than 80,000 so called educational apps; the vast majority of these apps had no research behind their design or implementation that was linked to the science of how children learn. They were designed for platforms for adult use, not educational opportunities for children. Even now, designers use the term “educational” quite freely for products that many scientists think have only passing connection to anything educational.   

In our article, we suggested four principles for creating a good educational app. The principles were drawn from consensus on the science of how children learn. We wrote that:  

• Learning should be active , not passive, and that children learn best in environments that are “ minds-on .” This means that a simple swipe did not count as an “active” move in an educational setting. 
• The app should be engaging rather than distracting and only include bells and whistles that are integrated into the narrative of the game, lesson, or storyline.  Many of the apps on the market interrupted the storyline with a chance to probe children’s vocabulary (e.g., “What else is red or starts with a B?”) and/or include persuasive ads that pop up to distract children to buy a different app.  
• The app should tap into something meaningful for the child. There should be some point of connection that will allow children to relate the content of the app to what they know, rather than to start de novo in a foreign space. 
• Finally, the app should encourage social interaction inside or outside of the app space, not just playing solo. 

In 2018, the list of principles was expanded to include that learning should be iterative, such that an app would encourage children to achieve a learning goal through a number of different pathways or allow for a similar but slightly different experience on each encounter. Lastly, the experience should also be joyful, as children learn better when motivated through joy. Together, the principles of active, engaged, meaningful, socially interactive, iterative, and joyful coalesce in what we called “playful learning ,” an umbrella term based in science that broadly incorporates how children learn through both free play and guided play.    

However, the key to making these apps truly educational requires one additional step. Learning occurs best when the playful activity has a well-articulated learning goal, be it in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), literacy, or “learning to learn” skills like memory, attention, and flexible thinking.   

By 2021, our team led by Marisa Meyer and Jenny Radesky reviewed the top downloaded educational apps from places like Google Play and Apple to see if the principles outlined above were becoming more prevalent in current educational apps available for children. Sadly, they were not. Of the highest downloaded paid apps for young children, 50 percent scored in the low-quality range, with only seven apps earning a score that put them in the highest quality category. Free apps scored even worse. 

The bottom line is that developers of so-called educational apps and scientists who study how children learn are not communicating with one another.

The bottom line is that developers of so-called educational apps and scientists who study how children learn are not communicating with one another, although the authors have tried to make this possible . Even accessible papers that are widely read do not change the trajectory. The lesson learned is that the 4-year gap between the time when apps became a dominant activity for young children and when the scientific community became engaged was too long. It allowed for a proliferation of low-quality materials that were rushed to market. The sheer number of available products also make it difficult—if not impossible—for parents and teachers to sift through the offerings to find truly educational products.  

It is imperative at this moment, while the metaverse is being developed, that scientists, educators and developers co-construct engaging, immersive, and collaborative opportunities that are good for children and families. Understanding how to support learning goals through harnessing the power of active, engaging, meaningful, socially interactive, iterative, and joyful contexts will transform flashy and fun digital experiences into truly educational ones with true social interaction at their core. The experience with remote learning only underscored how important the social-emotional interaction is for children and how it needs to be built into the metaverse from the start.  

Restating the principles of learning  

The principles of how children learn are stable whether applied to classrooms, digital games, or community settings, which includes designing playful learning into public spaces like bus stops, parks, or even the metaverse.     

A range of education stakeholders, including learning and development researchers , educators ,   and employers reached consensus that success in the workplace of tomorrow will require mastery of a  suite of skills or what the Brookings Institution has termed, “ skills for a changing world .” Such skills, like collaboration, critical thinking and creative innovation, broaden our view of achievement beyond core academic subjects like reading and math.  

In a paper published by the Brookings Institution, Hirsh-Pasek et al. presented the value of playful learning for enriching a suite of skills that she and Roberta Golinkoff called the 6Cs . Our claim is that educational products and classrooms have been riveted by attention to content that can be most easily measured and tested. While society surely needs children to understand the basics of reading and mathematics, it demands so much more for a child to be prepared for the workplace of the future. The 6Cs or outcomes are based on the science of learning and backed by a large body of evidence. Collaboration or social relationships are the foundation for an interconnected suite of skills. The following is a brief description of the 6 Cs as presented by Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek in their book “ Becoming Brilliant : ”  

• Collaboration: Collaboration reflects how social engagement is central to human nature as a core for learning, community building, and cultural understanding. Interestingly, recent neuroscience research shows how collaborative play yields unique patterns of synchronized brain activity between infants and adults. These initial collaborations further support the development of young children’s self-regulation skills . Children advance their understanding of collaboration through the elementary school years , which supports academic achievement . 
• Communication: Communication—speaking, writing, reading, and listening—is essential in our daily lives. In early childhood, language skills develop through back-and-forth conversations between children and their parents. When children begin kindergarten, their language skills at that time are the strongest predictor of their later academic performance in language, reading, and math, as well as their social skills. Communication builds on—and is contingent upon—infants’ first collaborative interactions with others in their environment. The ability to collaborate and communicate—together—lay the groundwork for all subsequent skills.
• Content: Traditional content includes reading, writing, math, science, social studies, and the arts, but it is also important to recognize “learning to learn” or executive function skills, including attention and working memory , that support children’s academic achievement. Content builds on the scaffold of collaboration—and particularly communication—across the disciplines, including math , literacy , science, and social studies . While we often think of learning in “bins” (e.g., children learn math content only in math class), a growing body of research shows that executive functioning provides a broad foundation for reading and math skills. Only once children have established collaboration and communication skills can they be ready to master content and move toward higher levels of learning.
• Critical thinking: Strong critical thinkers can evaluate the quality of information they receive and ideally use those skills both inside and outside of the classroom . Yet students particularly struggle with this task when evaluating online sources , an essential skill in the 21st-century. The good news is that critical thinking and the related skill of reasoning can be taught. Critical thinking is preceded by children’s abilities to collaborate, communicate, and engage meaningfully with curricular content. Only once they have that content mastery can they begin to think critically about the knowledge they gain.  
• Creative innovation: Creative innovation—the synthesis of content and critical thinking—enables students to use what they know to make something new and develop innovative solutions to the challenges they face now and in the future . Play directly supports that innovation in both language and art . Moreover, because play encourages curiosity and exploration, it also fosters creativity , which can—and should—be seen as an asset to any job . In fact, creativity is ranked as the third most important skill for employment according to the World Economic Forum . Creative thinking depends on collaboration, communication, sufficient content knowledge, and the ability to engage critically with that content by seeing connections between content and real-world experiences. Creativity enables children to make something new out of those connections—to generate original solutions to problems.
• Confidence: Children who are confident in their abilities demonstrate persistence and flexibility, even when they experience failure. Confidence is closely related to “ grit ,” which is defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals” and a “ growth mindset ”—the belief that one can improve her abilities because they are not fixed in time at a particular level. Parents’ attitudes toward their children’s performance—and occasional failure—also strongly predict children’s views of their own abilities, which sometimes leads to the development of a fixed, as opposed to growth, mindset. In this way, children’s interactions with others help to shape their perceptions of their own capabilities. The final skill in the set, confidence, both physical and intellectual, enables children to use their skills in collaboration, communication, content mastery, and critical and creative thinking to push the boundaries of their learning.

Taken together, playful learning provides a checklist for how children learn and the 6Cs offer a systemic checklist of what children learn—or what they can and should learn. Once the formula is clear, it is easy to fashion the digital and live landscapes to conform to best principles for learning. A metaverse can be designed to offer a context and experiences that enable and encourage collaboration, communication, mastery of content, creative thinking, creative innovation, and confidence. Figure 1 offers the twin checklists for playful learning characteristics and the 6Cs—the how and what of learning. With a well-defined learning goal, if designers and educators use this checklist, they can determine whether the virtual space in the metaverse they are designing is likely to be truly educational or merely just fun.

Figure 1. What and how children learn  

Revisiting the previous Greek mythology lesson, it was fun, active and minds on, engaging without being distracting, meaningful in its interconnections, and socially interactive. It also encouraged students to build the project together, to communicate with one another around the content of history, archeology, and STEM. It fostered critical thinking as the students bring the evidence from the dig to bear on their view of the artifacts they find. And in this exercise, they showed persistence in piecing together the pieces of the puzzle—the jug. The learning goal was well defined as one to demonstrate the history of the myths, careful critical reading, and STEM skills through spatial learning and puzzle construction. Finally, the example clearly “jumped” the screen of the fantastical world, when the class re-entered the real world and the teacher, now guide on the side , led the class through the lesson plan, connected today’s insights with what they discovered in their previous lessons, and supported children’s development of skills outside of the metaverse.  

Consider the alternative. A virtual space is created that looks well-designed and is gamified. The graphics are spectacular and there is related content available to explore, but these puzzle pieces do not fit together to result in a full understanding of the times (picture the ability to click on what are essentially Wikipedia articles as children navigate the space). Ads for other virtual spaces abound. Children are given a list of tasks to complete to earn “points” that are linked to a project grade. Teachers log in to ensure that all children meet the minimum requirements, but their role has been minimized as they “supervise” the digital activities of 200 children a year.  These children are solo agents in an attractive space, but designers must note the difference in what Troseth and Strouse call the distinction between attention-directing versus attention distracting features of interactive digital media. Early studies on TV viewing and electronic books in young children show that strategically placed auditory or animated pictures can direct children’s attention to important content and aid comprehension, but that too many interactive features can distract . Educational spaces within the metaverse can align with the science of how children learn. Now is the time to design educational spaces with children at the center.  

Where the principles of learning meet the metaverse: The promise and the worry  

The promise  .

The metaverse is but a context—an immersive one—that can in principle bring the best of digital technologies to bear on education if and only if it is done right, with the science of learning and real children in mind. Dissecting the possibilities, it is clear that games or activities in the metaverse hold the promise of being active rather than passive. Children can explore in this space “physically” and mentally. Whether the activity is engaging or not will be in the hands of the developer. As with apps, there are many products that capture the attention of children, but that interrupt the experience in ways that thwart engagement. Children do not learn when we interrupt a narrative or give too many choices . Thus, designers must be purposeful in creating a story board and having a flow through that board that does not divert a child’s attention to a new and irrelevant task or place.   

The question of meaningfulness should be readily solvable in the metaverse. Indeed, the realities that one can inhabit, if connected well to the child’s real or imagined world, can create a mental web that would support deep transferable learning. In one review, Hopkins and Weisberg ask whether children can transfer knowledge from fantasy in books to real world contexts. Data suggest that they can, though to a lesser degree than if they had learned in real-world contexts; this result also mirrors findings about younger children’s ability to transfer newly learned information from television . Another study , however, hints that children might even learn more from fantasy because fantasy might heighten learning in unusual contexts. In more recent research, Hopkins and Weisberg confirm this hypothesis when testing five-year-olds’ learning of scientific principles.  

The question that is more difficult to ponder is exactly what is meant by creating a social environment for children in the metaverse. The example presented above gives but one glimpse of what this could be if the games created are not for solo consumption but led by teachers for engaging students. Research in the science of how and what children learn squarely puts the foundation for all learning in social relationship building. An infant who is interacting with a parent has well-timed, contingent, semantically appropriate and emotionally aligned responses.  The research suggests that stronger synchrony between caregiver and child supports brain growth and connectivity , as well as early learning.    

Even at two years of age, a virtual agent does not substitute for a real person even if the virtual agent responds in a contingent manner that mirrors the human. Work from our laboratory suggests that at four years of age, children learn more from reading with a parent than they do alone, and measures of physiological arousal and self-reported emotion from the parent suggest a special bonding that occurs between child and parent —human to human. A series of articles in a recent compendium of research on digital versus human learning confirm this assertion.  Finally, even for older children, synchrony plays a role. A recent paper by Lamb and colleagues finds that when elementary school teachers and students are verbally and socially engaged, they not only understand more of the material, but brain activity is synchronized . This is likely just the first of many pieces of evidence coming from this emerging approach of using neuroscience research in real-world classrooms.    

What is so special about social relationships? Why would emotional expression, bonding, touch, smell, and body language matter? Perhaps because they are critical forms of communication that would be absent in a virtual world—or at least in the metaverse as it is now conceived. Note that social interaction could be preserved if the virtual environment served as a prompt for interactions between real people in either the real or virtual setting rather than as a substitute for interaction. By way of example, an intact class that together “visits” Greece with the guidance of a teacher preserves live social interaction even in a digital backdrop, whereas creating a set of avatars to go on a trip together—even if controlled by live students—would not achieve the same effect. More research in this area is critical.  

The augmented reality, VR, and 3D world also holds the promise of porting children to new environments that they could never have explored or visited. For critical thinking, students can solve real problems, enter a makers’ fair and show their wares not only in their school, but to a broader community. They can visit different time periods to bring evidence to bear on age-old questions about Greek culture or even enter scientific laboratories and connect these experiences to real-life learning.  

Students can become creators, even as young children, who paint and compose with the top teachers and artists to assist them. They can even piece together history from fragments and craft their own story behind the Greek myths. From their own classroom, guided by teachers, the metaverse offers a hybrid world of enormous potential if it is done right . And to do that right, teachers and caregivers will play a key role as the guides to faraway places and immersive learning. Only skilled teachers can select lesson plans based on what they have observed spark interest in their students. Teachers can help children navigate in spaces that might bring up difficult feelings (e.g., navigating in a supermarket metaverse that helps build number and money knowledge for a child whose family is food insecure). Teachers can select virtual spaces that they know will help each and every child in their class feel represented. Teachers can help children push beyond their comfort zones and tackle academic and social challenges based on individual’s strengths and difficulties. And teachers and caregivers can link what children are learning with what they already know. The metaverse is not a replacement for teachers, instead, it is a tool through which teachers can spark learning and social interaction in new ways.  

To date, there is little data to help the field forge a direction. Some early research suggested that digital games, including Pokemon GO, could increase physical activity for users by encouraging outdoor experiences . The game also seemed to encourage co-use, and many parents reported that it provided opportunities for family bonding . For example, one study by Jakki Bailey and Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford University and colleagues found that children who see Sesame Street’s Grover in VR are more compliant with his instructions and give him more stickers afterward compared with children who saw the same content on a television screen. However, these same children performed worse on a measure of inhibitory control based on Simon Says—perhaps because the environment seemed so real that it was harder for them to inhibit acting like Grover. Earlier research on VR with young children suggests that the powerfully rich nature of these experiences can shape memory recall , which serves as an important reminder that children’s memories are vulnerable to suggestion . Other work suggests that children reading books with augmented reality were more motivated to read than those reading traditional books, though outcomes from the two sources were no different. And one study with 6- to 8-year-olds suggests that children learned more about physics in an augmented reality environment than in a real one studying concepts like force and friction. Hassinger-Das and colleagues , as well as Hadani and colleagues , provide recent reviews of research on digital technology and child development.  

Caveat emptor  

The rush to market and the enticement of new tools, however, can also be a downfall.  

It is imperative to get the social interaction component right from the start. For children and possibly for adults, the interaction of avatars—even if they look real and are wearing the latest fashions—will never be a substitute for real human interaction. It will be important to find ways to meld the virtual and real worlds in ways that preserve real teacher-child, caregiver-child, and child-child social relationships.  

It is imperative to get the social interaction component right from the start.

It will also be key to avoid distractions. Games in VR environments are chock full of interruptions and distractions. Game builders love to insert bells and whistles—more design is often misinterpreted as providing a better educational experience, but that is not necessarily so. Anna Fisher, of Carnegie Mellon University, found that decorations on school walls can be more distracting than informative. When activities and behavioral interruptions break the flow of book reading, it leads to lower levels of story comprehension. Studies from our labs and others on technoference (i.e., moments when adults using technology like texting or taking a cell phone call interrupt the contingent interactions between parent and child) tell the same story. In those cases, children have been found to learn fewer words , parents to use less rich vocabulary with their young children, and children exhibit more behavior problems.    

It will also be critical to ensure that the child has real agency in these worlds as they explore and discover what they need to do to fulfill the implied learning goal.   

Finally, it will be critical to be culturally diverse and culturally inclusive in any games that are made. Indeed, the metaverse could potentially introduce families to perspectives and cultures that are different than their own in ways that promote understanding.   

We need to also consider issues of access, accuracy, and power dynamics. Many diverse and marginalized communities, particularly in urban and rural areas , may not have access to consistent reliable broadband that allows them to effectively participate in this new metaverse. Because we’ve seen how misinformation and inaccurate content can be spread via digital technologies, we must assure that the systems and games are supported by educational and/or historical content that is accurate, relevant, and authentic.  

The demonstrated and documented shortcomings of today’s technologies when it comes to people of color and marginalized communities show that the metaverse may not be a technological utopia for everyone—from facial recognition software not recognizing and/or misidentifying darker skinned people, to the racial and gender biases in some algorithms, to the proliferation of online hate speech targeting people of color and women.  

As the metaverse is designed and implemented, there must be an intentional effort to involve people from marginalized communities in significant leadership and decisionmaking roles to ensure that all users feel safe and valued as they participate in these environments.  

Back to the future  

And so , we return to the classroom surrounded by white walls that can transport children as if they live in the Magic School Bus. In this world, though, Ms. Frizzle will not be 2D, nor will she be an avatar. She will be a real human teacher, a guide on the side , helping children see beyond their own world into the future and past and even more deeply into the present. In this world, children will have “first”-hand experiences in foreign lands, master a broader suite of skills like the 6Cs, and be better equipped to transfer what they learn into the real world of people and places. The metaverse is coming to education. The question is whether as designers, policymakers, educators, and parents, we can mold intentional and appropriate opportunities that are truly educational within this new and exciting context.   

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A Whole New World ?

E vangelical magazine news rarely draws mainstream attention. Last year’s New York Times coverage of the split between Marvin Olasky and World was a notable exception. It was a well-worn narrative: The magazine had been “conquered by Trump.” The launch of World Opinions, a new section on the magazine’s website, by co-editors Nick Eicher and R. Albert Mohler was ostensibly a manifestation of this hard right turn.

As usual, the facts are more complicated than the story suggests. Senior reporter Sophia Lee resigned in Olasky’s wake, but she also contradicted the Times narrative on her way out, tweeting that despite the “terrible” headline, World magazine “had not gone MAGA.” It was further confirmed at the time that funds were not being diverted to the opinions page from the magazine’s straight reportage arm, which Olasky was deeply concerned to preserve.

Nevertheless, in a new retrospective essay , Olasky maintains that the past year has borne out his concerns. He laments the shift in priorities between the “old World ” and the new “Culture-War World.” Where old World covered scandal around a figure like Madison Cawthorn, new World hasn’t touched his latest shenanigans. Where old World toed an establishment line on the pandemic, new World has run stories that Olasky frames as playing to evangelicals’ “anti-vaccine prejudice.” And stylistically, where old World prided itself on “understated prose,” new World columns “toss hand grenades” at the left. Old World was “conservative on some issues,” but it also covered topics such as homelessness and poverty, which Olasky implies would be intrinsically out of place in “Conservative World.” Given that Olasky himself writes compellingly on homelessness for the Discovery Institute —the conservative think tank where anti-CRT activist Christopher Rufo first got his start documenting the gamut of homelessness and poverty issues—it’s not clear why he thinks this. 

But the whole conceit of an op-ed page contradicts Olasky’s framework for “biblically objective journalism.” He defers to the Bible as the only “objective” source on matters it directly addresses. But on those topics the Bible does not directly address, he believes any human opinion is automatically “subjective.” Hence, he concludes that op-eds in these spheres are not the purview of Christian journalism.

Of course, the Bible doesn’t directly address a plethora of topics, including economics, immigration, gun control, contemporary American race relations, and pandemic protocol. Presumably, these are all topics on which Olasky doesn’t want American Christians to remain disengaged. He accuses “new World ” of “speak[ing] authoritatively on questions where the Bible allows differences of opinion,” yet he still prides himself on the way “old World ” did just that on the pandemic, despite all kinds of objective evidence that many reasonable people’s concerns about vaccines, masks, and social distancing were far from “paranoid.”

Olasky can be justly proud of World ’s many achievements in the sphere of old-fashioned, pavement-pounding journalism. There’s room to lament the decline of something unique. There’s room to lament the death of the “long read,” the overwhelming demand for bite-sized bursts of news. And it would indeed be unfortunate if worthy stories are now being suppressed for political reasons, as he claims. (Though he doesn’t specify in the essay exactly who would have benefited from The Further Adventures of Madison Cawthorn, in Forty Parts.) But in its aim to shape and guide reader opinion on contentious issues, “new World ” is not the radical departure from “old World ” that Olasky claims it is.

Fundamentally, the rift between Olasky and World represents a clash of visions—one suited to a neutral-world context, as Aaron Renn would put it , and the other suited to a negative world. In a reply to a student letter , Olasky clearly locates himself in “neutral world,” rejecting “Flight 93-style” conservative rhetoric and holding out faith in the “common grace” to be found even among one’s political opponents. This presupposes a cultural context where the world outside the church is by and large fair-minded and tolerant, willing to disagree with Christians in good faith. Sadly, we can no longer take such a world for granted. James Wood’s critique of Tim Keller’s evangelistic philosophy also applies to Olasky’s journalistic philosophy. Both men flourished in a socio-political landscape that no longer exists. The point in critiquing them is not to say that there is never a time and place for “winsomeness,” or that Christians should not will the good of their enemies. It is simply to recognize that we do, in fact, have enemies.

But, contra Olasky, this tragic vision of our political reality as American Christians isn’t in tension with neighborly love. We still can and should welcome opportunities to invest in our communities and befriend people regardless of their politics. It is perfectly possible to see a hostile politician as an “enemy” while drinking tea with the Democrat-voting cat lady next door. It is perfectly possible to see a militant activist as an “enemy” while befriending the lonely gay recluse who just needs someone to talk to. To understand the culture war is not to abandon the people inhabiting the culture. It is to love them all the more.

This is where World Opinions seeks to situate itself: precisely in that Protestant commentary market gap where incisive cultural analysis and neighborly love intersect, and the cultural falsehoods that lead our neighbors astray are clearly exposed for what they are. This is certainly my own goal as a contributor . It is precisely because not all Christians have the disposition or the calling to be culture warriors that wise volunteers are so needed. This is necessary work, and further, it is work that can be undertaken “objectively”—not because there is a Bible verse for everything, but because God has revealed himself by the light of nature as well as Scripture. Indeed, this is the source of that very “common grace” Olasky emphasizes. By this light, the Christian can walk forward with confidence, seeking the good of the individual and the nation alike.

Bethel McGrew is an essayist and social critic.

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Guest Essay

Trump’s Next Supreme Court Picks Would Break the Mold

By Jay Willis

Mr. Willis, a journalist and a former lawyer, is the editor in chief of Balls and Strikes, an online outlet for progressive commentary on the legal system.

If Donald Trump wins the White House this fall and has a chance to appoint a Supreme Court justice or two in the years that follow — by no means a certain prospect, but one that must be contemplated — his nominees are likely to be quite different than they were during his first term. Everything we know about Mr. Trump today suggests that he will take his judicial cues not from the conservative legal establishment, as he did previously, but instead from the conservative legal movement’s extreme fringes.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump joined forces with the Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo, who helped assemble a shortlist of conservative judges from which Mr. Trump pledged to select a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia. Mr. Trump’s decision to publicly align himself with Mr. Leo helped settle the nerves of establishment Republicans who were skeptical of the candidate’s ideological bona fides, and played a significant role in the 2016 election. (One exit poll showed that among voters for whom Supreme Court appointments were the most important issue, 56 percent voted for Mr. Trump.) As president, Mr. Trump selected all his nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — from versions of the shortlist, which he periodically updated.

In the past four years, however, Mr. Trump has soured on the conservative legal establishment. He was reportedly furious with lawyers at the White House and the Justice Department — many of them recommended to him by the Federalist Society — who were, in his view, insufficiently willing to help him overturn the 2020 election results. He felt similarly about Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, perceiving their refusals to entertain his various voter fraud cases as disappointing exhibitions of disloyalty.

As a result, Mr. Trump has changed his inner circle of lawyers. As of February, he was reportedly no longer speaking with Mr. Leo or the former White House counsel Don McGahn, two key cogs in his once formidable judicial confirmation machine. The Federalist Society credentials that were once essential for conservative lawyers aspiring to federal judgeships during Republican presidencies are, in Mr. Trump’s world, now apparently a liability.

This shift in Mr. Trump’s judicial brain trust could be disastrous for the country. The sort of far-right candidate who might now appeal to Mr. Trump for the Supreme Court, if confirmed, would make it even easier to overturn Warren court-era decisions that protect cherished constitutional rights. For all the court has already done to lose the public’s trust, the appointments of figures like these would erode whatever legitimacy the institution has left.

In March, Mr. Trump suggested that he’d update his Supreme Court shortlist for a potential second term — by the end of which Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor would have celebrated their 80th, 78th and 74th birthdays — but he has yet to do so. In the meantime, the types of activists who are likely to have Mr. Trump’s ear are busy making lists of their own.

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