【推荐1】Bridge of Hope School is a private school.It was set up in Kalangala about two years ago.Unlike government schools，which have very large classes of 90 children，many of whom do not want to learn，Bridge has small classes，so pupils get a great deal of attention．Small classes are good for teaching,but the school is always having difficulty with money since private schools are dependent on parents paying on time．

The school has five primary classes and three nursery classes.As the children progress through the school they will add another class next year.The total number of children in the primary classes is about 50.The parents of Bridge children are often higher earners than those that attend government schools.They want their children to have the best education available．

The school is not yet finished．The classrooms have no windows or doors.But it is very formal and insists on children wearing uniforms（制服）.Discipline is strict and the children are well-behaved.Only English can be spoken and not the local language.Although English is the national language and the language of education,government schools teach in their own language for the first three years．

School starts at 7 a.M.and the children have to be on time.Classes are formal,but children have to copy lots of things from the blackboard,because there are few textbooks,sometimes only one for the teacher to use.Class work is heavy and the children have tests every week.They also study during the holiday．

【推荐2】According to a survey, in Washington, DC, only 69 percent of public school students graduate from high school on time. Many factors influence that low rate. One of the most important ones is whether the people around the students expect them to succeed.

So, for the past 40 years, a DC organization has stepped in to give around 10, 000 students the support and positive environment they need to thrive. This organization, called Higher Achievement, provides students with a welcoming space, help with class work, and caring teachers. More than 95 percent of students who complete Higher Achievement graduate from high school on time.

Katherine Roboff is the group's executive director in the DC area. She gives several reasons for the group's success. One is timing. Higher Achievement does not work with students who are already in high school. It works with students in middle school. They start High Achievement at fifth or sixth grade-in the US, that is usually age 11 or 12.

Roboff says research shows that if students are doing well academically in eighth grade — around age 13-they will have a greater chance of graduating from high school and going to college. In other words, what happens in middle school has a huge effect. The years between ages 10 and 13 may affect a student's future more than anything that happens academically in high school.

Roboff explains that students participate in Higher Achievement after school and during the summer, when public schools take a break of about two months. High Achievement students do homework, have community meetings, and work one-on-one with a mentor.

The purpose of the program is to help them use those after school and summer hours to become better prepared academically and to develop their leadership skills and confidence so that by the time they get into eighth grade they are ready to get into some of the top high schools.

【推荐3】①What is a place where you could find old pictures of camels carrying people to Mecca, Saudi Arabia (沙特阿拉伯麦加),and also books about ancient Aztecs(阿芝 特克人) in Mexico ? It is all found in the World Digital Library (WDL). Its collection is available on the Internet.

②The librarian of the United States Congress, James Billington, established the WDL in 2009. And John Van Oudenaren is the director. They want it to include items that are both interesting and important, which encourages them to look for things from each country, each culture and each civilization. There are 170 partners in 79 countries sending material to it, including national or university libraries, museums and other cultural organizations.

③The library has 8,000 items, including whole books, ancient writings, music and photographs. Every item is annotated (注解)in the 6 official languages of the United Nations: English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian plus Portuguese (葡萄牙语).

④Anyone may search the World Digital Library by subject, time period, kind of document or area of the world, whose website is www.wdl.org. Since 2009, 25 million people have visited the website from 250 places. The greatest number is from Spanish-speaking countries. The users include schools, researchers and anyone interested. A teacher from New York City said happily, “It is really wonderful to have a site where every kid in the class, no matter which country he/she is from or where his/her parents were from could search and find something about that country.”

⑤Mussa Maravl is a researcher for the WDL from Sudan, who works with all the materials that are in Arabic. He recently published rare photographs of Mecca from 1885. “These camels are, you know, lying their heads on the ground, which is very unusual for a camel. It means these camels have traveled so long, so far and half of those are very thin, too, meaning they have   exhausted all the fat they have stored.”

⑥Mussa Maravl believes the library provides tools for understanding, especially among Arabs, Muslims and the United States. He says the WDL is posting many items about important developments in Arabic and Islamic science.

【推荐1】For centuries, people have kept large amounts of cash at home during difficult times. But during the coronavirus crisis, things are different. Metal coins and paper bills can be a source of worry rather than hope.

The fear is that these objects, possibly touched by thousands of people, could provide a way for the coronavirus to spread. Public officials and health experts have said that the risk is small. Still, some businesses refuse to accept cash and some countries have suggested that their citizens should stop using it altogether.

Zachary Cohle is an economics professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. “In many areas, cash was already beginning to disappear due to the increased risk of robbery, the ease of Internet ordering, and the ubiquity of cell phones,” he said. “Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada and others have slowly reduced cash use to the point where using it in large amounts seems unusual. Britain and Australia are expected to become cashless countries. And in China, cash use has dropped as electronic payment services have increased in popularity over the past decade.”

“Cash ist Fesch” is a common saying in Austria and southern Germany. The words mean cash is beautiful. But since the virus outbreak, shops that have remained open there, like grocery stores, have encouraged people to pay with cards. And Germany’s central bank said 43 percent of Germans recently paid for goods and services with a card. The Bank of Japan estimates that cash makes up for 53 percent of household assets. But the threat of the coronavirus could move the country toward going cashless, said Hiroki Maruyama, head of the nonprofit Fintech Association of Japan. He added, “The culture is slowly changing.”

However, cash use is still common in places like West and Central Africa. Some experts say that the world will not be cashless until everyone and every country has reliable access to the Internet.