【推荐3】Strict-sounding teachers are worse at inspiring the classroom than their kind colleagues, research has revealed. A ground-breaking psychological study from The University of Essex showed “controlling sounding voices” didn’t gain cooperation from 10-16-year-olds.

It discovered that youngsters faced with a strict teacher were more likely to resist, their well-being was affected, and they were less likely to reveal they were facing problems—like bullying. This is because students felt unable to express themselves when faced with a more controlling tone. Whereas a supportive-sounding voice inspired a connection to a teacher which increased their intention to cooperate.

People often think about what teachers say to their students but rarely talk about how they say it. But the tone of voice teachers use really matters and the way we adjust our voice can have profound effects on listeners.

The study published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology explored teachers’ tone of voice in children’s education. Pre-recorded teachers’ voices were played to 250 children who were then asked to judge how’ the tone affected them. They were asked to rate how it would affect factors such as competence, emotions, trust and their intention to cooperate. Children reacted much better to supportive voices while controlling tones led to lower self-esteem and teachers’ sound samples were perceived to be less trustworthy.

The research is hoped to influence teacher training and help boost classroom results. Future studies may head out of the lab and into schools to see where improvements can be made.

Professor Weinstein, Head of the Department of Psychology at Essex said: “Tone of voice is a powerful way to convey teachers’ caring, understanding, or openness. It’s easy to forget when we are stressed or tired, but teachers can provide a positive learning environment when they are thoughtful in how they use their tone of voice.”

【推荐2】When James Gordon was in school, one teacher wrote a comment on his report card that “James finishes his work first and then breaks classroom rules.” Back then, no one knew what the future would be for one of the funniest actors in Hollywood. Believe it or not, he had a tough time making friends in school, because of his reading disorder. Despite that, his ability to make his classmates laugh helped him make friends.

Unfortunately for Gordon, his life changed greatly after his father lost his job and his mother fell sick. These forced the family to live out of their camper van (野营车) for a full eight months, parking in campgrounds.“When I was about 14 or 15, my father lost his job and I actually became homeless for quite some time, but of course, I grew up in Canada and I thought we’d gone camping,” James said in an interview.

The famous actor attended school until he was in 10th grade when he left to work 8-hour night shifts to help the family make money. Long hours of work made him very tired, especially from the lack of sleep, and he just couldn’t focus during class. When he turned 16, his mother became ill, he had to quit school to care for her and work full-time.

During the unfortunate times Gordon discovered his talent for stand-up comedy. His comedy career rocketed as he scored roles in various Hollywood TV shows and movies throughout the 1990s and 2000s. “I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation,” Gordon told CBS of his early success.“If you aren’t desperate at some point, you aren’t interesting.”

【推荐3】In early August, Hilary Krieger, now 44, was sitting in her parents’ Boston home when her friend accidentally squirted (喷射) himself with an orange slice. She said, “Oh, the orange just orbisculated.” And he said, “It did what?” The two made a five-dollar bet, and Hilary gladly grabbed the family dictionary but found the word “orbisculate” was not in it! Hilary burst into her dad’s study and told him the shocking news. Looking awkward, her father admitted that he had made up the word “orbisculate” as the action that happens “when you dig your spoon into a grapefruit and it squirts juice directly into your eye”.

At first, Hilary was mad. But she quickly came to see her dad’s made-up word as a gift. It speaks to his creativity and the idea that, even when something is painful and annoying, like getting grapefruit juice in your eye, you can laugh and have fun with it.

Hilary’s father Neil Krieger died in April 2020, at age 78. Since the Kriegers couldn’t have a proper funeral, Hilary who now lives in New York, spent a lot of time on the phone talking with friends and family, and the “orbisculate” story kept coming up.

“I began to think ‘orbisculate’ is such a great word; it should be in the dictionary!” says Hilary. She called her younger brother Jonathan, who lives in Boston and runs an online company. Their goal is to put the word to use publicly enough that it has a chance of becoming acceptable. Encouraging people to use “orbisculate” in a wide variety of contexts will leave a compelling (令人信服的) trail of evidence for lexicographers (词典编纂者) to follow.

It has been more than two years since Neil’s death and his children are still struggling from the loss. But their campaign to get their father’s word into the dictionary has helped them win back a little of the joy that has been missing from their lives. “I could picture him being really excited,” Jonathan says. “And not until that day did I know my father had created many ‘words’ that we wouldn’t see in the dictionary.”

【推荐2】Don’t always believe what scientists and other authorities tell you! Be skeptical! Think critically! That’s what I tell my students. Early in my career, I was a conventional science writer, easily impressed by scientists’ claims. But doubt gradually weakened my faith. Scientists and journalists, I realized, by continuously boasting scientific “advances”—from theories of cosmic (宇宙的) creation and the origin of life to the latest treatments for depression and cancer, made science seem more powerful and fast-moving than it really is. Now, I urge my students to doubt the claims of some scientists. This isn’t science anymore; I declare in class, it’s only science fiction with equations! To drive this point home, I assign articles by John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist who has exposed the weakness of most peer-reviewed research. In a 2005 study, he concluded that “most published research findings are false.”

So how do my students respond to my skeptical teaching? Some react with healthy pushback, especially to my suggestion that the era of really big scientific discoveries might be over. “On a scale from toddler knowledge to ultimate enlightenment, man’s understanding of the universe could be anywhere,” wrote a student named Matt. “How can a person say with certainty that everything is known or close to being known if it is incomparable to anything?”

Other students embrace skepticism to a degree that shocks me. Cecelia, a biomedical-engineering major, wrote: “I am skeptical of the methods used to collect data on climate change, the analysis of this data, and the predictions made based on this data.” Pondering (思索) the lesson that correlation does not equal causation, Steve questioned the foundations of scientific reasoning. “How do we know there is a cause for anything?” he asked.

In a similar way, some students echoed the claim of radical (激进的) postmodernists that we can never really know anything for certain, and hence that almost all our current theories will probably be overturned. Just as Aristotle’s physics gave way to Newton’s, which in turn yielded to Einstein’s, so our current theories of physics will surely be replaced by completely different ones.

After one especially harsh paper, I responded, “Whoa!” Science, I lectured sternly, has established many facts about reality beyond a reasonable doubt, embodied by quantum mechanics, general relativity, the theory of evolution, the genetic code. This knowledge has yielded applications—from vaccines to computer chips—that have transformed our world in countless ways. It is precisely because science is such a powerful mode of knowledge, I said, that you must treat new pronouncements skeptically, carefully distinguishing the genuine from the false. But you shouldn’t be so skeptical that you deny the possibility of achieving any knowledge at all.

My students listened politely, but I could see the doubt in their eyes. We professors have a duty to teach our students to be skeptical. But we also have to accept that, if we do our jobs well, their skepticism may turn on us.

【推荐3】Dr. Esther Ngumbi, now a professor of Entomology (昆虫学) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was born in a rural farming community along the Kenyan Coast.     1     There were no societal role models to inspire girls to reach for the stars. Luckily, her parents were teachers and struggled to raise enough money to pay for their children’s school fees.

Her parents would go to town to get their pay checks, but eat nothing before coming back in the evening, hungry and tired. She knew that they were able to buy food in town, but they chose not to spend money on themselves so that Esther and her brothers and sisters could go to school.     2     It inspired her to pursue her academic career goals and fight against challenges however tough they seemed.

    3     She went through high school and eventually college and attained a Bachelor and Master of Science at Kenyatta University. On a beautiful summer day of August 6, 2011, she attained what at times seemed to be an unrealistic dream: a PhD in Entomology from Auburn University.     4    

She cried on her graduation day as she thought of her community in Kenya and many girls in her community.     5     It was during that day that she told herself she would do everything she needed to do, and give the girls more opportunities to break down the poverty barrier, be educated, and achieve great things.

She has devoted all of her passion, efforts, heart and resources to bringing sustainable change in her community and she has become a role model for girls in her community.