【推荐1】At 5, Zhang Haidi found she had a spinal tumor and, due to three operations to remove it, she was left paralysed(瘫痪) from chest down. However, with a strong will, she has extended the meaning of her life in many possible ways, and achieved much more than one might think is possible.

Not being able to go to school, Zhang taught herself to read and write. At 15, Zhang moved to a small village with her parents in 1970. There was no hospital and the villagers had to walk more than 10 km to see a doctor. She decided to make a change. She read medical books and practiced acupuncture (针灸) on herself. Soon she acquired enough medical knowledge to help villagers with basic treatments. During her years there, she treated more than 10,000 people for free.

Zhang also taught herself several foreign languages, including English, Japanese, German and Esperanto. To learn a new English word, she had to repeat it as many as 200 times. To expand her vocabulary, she wrote words on desks, mirrors and even lamps so she could recite them anytime anywhere. She later translated several works of Western literature into Chinese. She also wrote a double-language book called Beautiful English to tell about her experience learning English.

She has encouraged so many young people and was awarded the title of “Excellent Member of the Communist Youth League of China” in 1983. In 2018 she was elected president of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation. She has been using her position and influence to call for more rights for people with disabilities. Before and during the Beijing 2022 Paralympics, Zhang worked as executive president of the organizing committee to promote a barrier-free environment. For example, tactile (触觉的) systems for the blind, lowered service counters for wheelchair users and greater access to buildings. “These practices can set a good example for China in the future,” Zhang said.

【推荐1】On a holiday back home, my wife and I turned right, then right again, following the GPS navigation (导航) system, and found ourselves in a small Cretan town. I spoke to the GPS: “We don’t want to be here; we want the highway.” It instructed me to turn right once more. With every turn, the street narrowed. It was like being in a magical shrinking room. We drew the side mirrors back. We took another turn. The new road was even narrower, the walls so close you feel hard to hold your breath.

Another car appeared, coming towards us from the opposite direction. The driver gestured, telling me I’ll have to make way. But how? I didn’t have the nerve to back up along the impossibly narrow road. Locals appeared. Soon there was a whole group, using sign language to suggest a solution. There was a narrow garage opening to one side. If I could squeeze the car forward into the garage, I could then, through a series of tiny adjustments, back into the side street, allowing the other car to pass.

More locals arrived, standing on various sides of the vehicle, helpfully indicating that I have a centimetre to spare here, a millimetre there. There were brick walls on all 17 sides of the car. There was zero chance that I won’t damage the vehicle. This was significant since, a day earlier, at the Europcar counter, I had refused the additional insurance.

One lady stood at the rear of the vehicle, waving me on. She was making strong “this way, this way” movements with her arms. In an act of blind trust, I followed her instructions, creeping backwards and forwards. Remarkably it worked. I completed my 27-point turn into the side street, with no damage to the vehicle. The other car passed. The driver gave me a grateful wave. The locals applauded happily “Hero! Hero!” I followed her lead, down the narrow lane and—finally—back onto the highway. Free of the town, I clearly knew that I encountered heroes.

I remember the day I sat down and considered my future quite clearly. I had been widowed recently, and I had an elderly mother to support but no income of my own. I no longer had the luxury of a husband supporting me, so it was time to get a job. With my background and qualifications, the easiest way for me to earn money was to become a teacher.

A friend told me his school was looking for an English teacher, so I arranged an interview with the principal. Fifteen minutes after stepping into her office, I was given the job and asked if I was able to begin teaching that same day. The current English teacher appeared very keen to leave!

I wondered why she had made such an abrupt decision, but I was secretly pleased that her loss had become my gain. I walked towards the classroom on that first day, wondering about the wisdom of my decision to accept the principal’s offer. The thought of standing in front of a group of teenagers made me scared and I started to panic.

The classroom was empty when I entered it. Slowly, the teenagers I was expecting arrived in groups of four and five. Finally every seat was taken and I stared out at the blank faces in front of me. They had been shown little respect and so they had given up on education and on themselves. No one was listening or seemed to care what I was doing. I knew I wasn’t a gifted teacher and it was only my first day, but nothing I did motivated these students. They were bored and restless.

I knew why their previous teacher had left. That night I sat at home. The same question kept repeating itself in my head, even when I tried to distract myself by watching late-night movies: “How could I make a huge difference to their lives?”. I decided I would take up the challenge. It was a slow process, but it was also the most rewarding experience of my life. It took time, but my patience was rewarded. They had discovered the joy of learning and I had discovered what it really means to be a teacher.

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【推荐3】Overhead the sky was bright with stars. “Watch!” Incredibly, as his father spoke, one of the stars moved. In a streak of golden fire it flashed across the astonished heavens. And before the wonder of this could fade, another star leaped from its place, then another, moving quickly towards the sea.

“What is it?” the child whispered. “Shooting stars. They come every year on a certain night in August. I thought you would like to see the show.”

That was all: just an unexpected glimpse of something mysterious and beautiful. But, back in bed, the child stared for a long time into the dark, fascinated by the knowledge all around the quiet house. The night was full of the silent music of the falling stars.

Decades have passed, but I remember that night still, because I was the fortunate seven-year-old boy whose father believed that a new experience was more important for a small boy than an unbroken night’s sleep.

No doubt I had some usual childhood playthings, but these are forgotten now. What I remember is the night the stars fell. And the day we rode in a guard’s van, the time we tried to touch the crocodile, the telegraph we made that really worked. I remember the ‘trophy table’ in the hall where we children were encouraged to exhibit things we had found — snake skins, seashells, flowers, arrowheads, anything unusual or beautiful.

I remember the books left by my bed that pushed back my horizons and sometimes actually changed my life. Once my father gave me Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm’s classic story of undergraduate life at Oxford. I liked it, and told him so.

“Why don’t you think about going there yourself?” he said casually. A few years later with luck and a scholarship, I did.

My father had, to a marvellous degree, the gift of opening doors for his children, of leading them into areas of splendid newness. This subtle art of adding dimensions to a child’s world doesn’t necessarily require a great deal of time. It simply involves doing things more often with our children instead of for them or to them.