【推荐1】You may have heard video game characters deliver lines like “Shatter (击碎) the darkness with thunder!” But it’s refreshing to hear it in an unexpected place — the classroom. Xia Zhendong is a physics teacher working at a senior high school in south China. Now in his 30s, Xia has won the hearts of millions of online viewers with his classroom experiments.

In one video, Xia pointed a self-made “thunderbolt wand (魔杖)” toward a hanging light tube in his classroom and said, “Shatter the darkness with thunder.” Suddenly, an electric arc (弧线) emerged from the tip of the wand, illuminating the tube. After the cheers from his students, he went on to explain the science behind it—static electricity (静电) and point discharge (尖端放电).

“The idea came when I enjoyed playing a popular game on my smart phone,” he said. In his spare time, he likes to try out what students are interested in to get closer to them. Apart from the “thunderbolt wand”, Xia has done many other creative experiments. Once, he lit steel wool with a battery to show the heating effect of electric current. Another time, he used a “laser weapon” to pop balloons while explaining the principles of lasers.

For Xia, physics is supposed to be fun. So, when he saw his students struggle with physics, he decided to make a change. “Circuit diagrams (电路图) are abstract, and I want them to actually see the electricity through lightning to realize that knowledge is not just on paper. You can see it and even touch it,” Xia said. Now, Xia has also started free live classes online. “I hope that through online classes, more students can also have access to fun physics lessons. And their parents can also join in. I hope that physics could make them feel happier,” Xia said.

【推荐3】Darrion Cockrell,who wasn't much of a student, has been named Missouri's Teacher of the Year-the state's highest honor for educators, becoming the first male since 2015 to capture the state's top award.

Cockrell-the child of a drug-addicted mother and a father who was killed when he was four years old-was in and out of the childcare centers and eventually became a gang(帮派) member. In his speech, he shouted out the special people who helped to guide him down the right path when he was going off the track.

He thanked his teacher Ken who provided him with life advice while he lived in a group home. "He taught me it's OK to be tough, but at the same time, it's OK to be sympathetic," Cockrell said. "He was like a father figure to me."

The teacher-affectionately known as "DC"-also expressed his gratitude for the football coach that adopted him when he was in the 7th grade and helped to change his whole perspective(视角) on life. "When I changed the way I looked at things, the things around me started to change," he said. "I had a lot of struggles and hurdles, and if not for those educators, I would not be here today."

Now, Cockrell hopes to make an impact on the students at Lindbergh Schools' Crestwood Elementary in St. Louis, where he's been teaching physical education since 2015. Among his many accomplishments at the school, the greatest one is his development of the “Crest-Fit”training program for teachers, students and parents.

"Missouri is fortunate to have so many high-quality educators, and Darrion will be a wonderful representative as our state's Teacher of the Year," Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven said in a statement. "He guides his students towards long-term physical and mental wellness, and the connections he has established will affect Crestwood children for years to come."

As a teenager, I hated P.E. lessons. I was not very good at sports, and I hated team sports because I always felt like I was disappointing the rest of the team. During these years, I sometimes felt disconnected from my body, like only my brain was “me” and my body was just a vehicle for carrying my brain around.

When I started university, I decided to try Kung Fu Club. To my surprise, I loved it! In my first year most of us were beginners. I used to go two or three times a week. Because it is not a team sport, I didn’t feel guilty about not being very good. And because it is a combat(格斗) sport, you train in pairs, which means that you get to meet people and talk to them. I also appreciated that the focus of the classes was on getting better at kung fu, rather than exercising to change my body. When I was doing kung fu, my body changed—I got stronger and quicker—but the changes were a side effect of the sport, instead of the goal.

When I moved to Italy this year, I decided to start doing a combat sport again. I joined a local martial arts(武术) club and I love it. We do lots of sparring. I think that sparring is like chess, but much faster and much more fun! If your sparring partner tries to hit you hard with his fist, you have to move quickly to avoid him, block or even catch his arm and then throw him to the mat.

When I was a teenager, I would say I just wasn’t a sporty person and that I just didn’t like sport and never would. Now I think that everyone should try as many sports as possible because I believe there is something out there for everyone! I feel connected to my body and I am happier and have more energy when I have been doing sport.

【推荐2】Change is as good as a rest, as the old saying goes. Lucy Kellaway took this to extremes when she left to train as a teacher in her nearly sixth decade, after about 30 years working as a journalist.

Doing the same thing in the three decades was simply too long for her, according to Lucy. “I was no longer interested in my job and wanted to do something more useful and purposeful with my life, ”Lucy explains. “I was then aged fifty-seven and had spent almost my whole adult life doing one thing. ”

Lucy tried ringing the government’s helpline and discovered there was no maximum age restraint to train as a teacher. Then she met Katie Waldegrave, a social entrepreneur turned teacher, at a party. ”We met the following morning and talked and talked. We concluded that young graduates had long been the obvious recruiting (征募) into the profession. A new model for entering teaching was needed for career changers. By the time I left that conversation, Now Teach had probably been born, a professional online teacher training program for career-changers in teaching. ”

So successful was the program that it attracted the support of the Department for Education. Further state funding has seen the program rolled out across the country. “We’re delighted by its success. The best aspect of my job that the program brings me is that it makes me optimistic about the future and sometimes makes me feel I’m making a big difference to their lives. ”Lucy goes on, “We have helped 650 people with all sorts of backgrounds to bring their various experiences to secondary schools. ”

For anyone interested in teaching, Lucy tells them to experience school life first. “Go and visit two schools. Spend quality time in the classrooms of the subjects you think you may teach and find out if it seems right for you. You may not get it right at first. ”While Lucy loved her new career, she found teaching maths wasn’t her true calling, so she swapped to teaching economics instead.

【推荐3】Some people get more averse to risk as the years go by. Not so Gail MacCallum, who at age 40 quit a secure job and left the city to explore more possibilities of life.

MacCallum moved quite a bit in childhood and spent her formative years outside Canberra in a farmhouse without electricity, where she enjoyed the freedom of the natural world. In her teens, she and her family moved into the heart of inner-city Sydney, and she found she adored that too.

In 2015, MacCallum and her then partner had a daughter, Amelia. They wanted to make sure that despite being a city kid, Amelia had plenty of natural encounters so they sought out places to climb trees, watch lizards and spot turtles. But one day MacCallum realised her little girl was more at ease with busy streets than bushland. “When she was about seven, we were visiting a friend whose place had a beautiful lawn. Amelia called out to me and said, ‘I can’t go into the wild!’ We decided we had to let her experience a wider world and two months later we were in a camper van heading off around Australia.”

MacCallum admits she felt worried. “I thought we’d need to know some basic things but the trip was like a leap in the dark. ” As it happened, the van they’d bought broke down just 90 minutes into the trip. But after repairs they set off again and travelled the country for six months, during which Amelia became an enthusiastic adventurer. “That trip helped me understand that success doesn’t have to be assured,” MacCallum says. “I realised that you can start something and just work it out as you go along.”