【推荐2】Nanjing Yunjin brocade is traditional Chinese silk art with a history of about 1,600 years. Its complex weaving techniques, various colors and patterns, and its particular choices of materials make it valuable and ancient people said, “An inch of brocade, an inch of gold.” Today, the traditional characteristics and unique skills of yunjin remain to be an award-winning art treasure. Its techniques are passed down from generation to generation by artisans.

Zhou Shuangxi, a national-level inheritor of yunjin weaving techniques, is one of them. Back in 1973, he graduated from a mining school and was selected to become a student at the NanjingYunjin Research Institute along with five other students, just because he was “in good shape”. There were only several masters in their 70s and not even a loom (织布机) to use. “The old masters finally remembered a loom was stored somewhere. When I opened the door, I saw what seemed like a pile of wood,” Zhou recalled.

“Weaving was difficult, but different from mining. Mining requires heavy physical labor, but working with the soft and thin silk requires studying and practicing in front of a loom for decades until you master the technique. My hands became quite awkward due to mining, so I used to put my hands in warm water whenever I could. In this way, they could become softer and weave the silk more easily,” he said.

Out of the six or so students, Zhou is the only one who has insisted on the trade to this day. Having devoted the past five decades to yunjin production despite all the sweat and struggles, he has developed his techniques to the point where he can weave the antique dragon robes in all their small details. He also made various artworks that not only show China's intangible cultural heritage but also serve as Zhou Shuangxi's artistic creations.

“I am lucky to be in such a good era and I have the honor of being a representative inheritor,” Zhou said.

【推荐2】Mia Samolinski attended the same school as Anthony Zhongor, an 18-year-old freshman, but the two had never met. That night, their paths crossed in the most remarkable way.

Mia had just gotten into her car and was about to drive away, but she hit the gas instead of the brakes. Security footage (录像) shows the car rushing over a sidewalk, hitting a trash can, and then plunging (突然前冲) into the dark, cold water of the bay in just a few short seconds. People rushed to look in the water, but only one person jumped in after Mia, and it was Anthony.

“She went pretty deep in there,” the teenager recalled. “She was striking the door and the window, trying to break the window, of course, and that got me nervous and scared for her, so I just took my clothes off and went into the water.”

Mia’s car began to sink rapidly, but she couldn’t get the doors or windows open. Anthony tried to get the doors open from the outside, but couldn’t quite manage it. As the seconds ticked by, the teenage hero realized he could use his own body weight to push down the heavy front end of the car, making the back end stick out of the water. Mia climbed into the back and managed to escape through the rear hatch (后备箱盖). She and Anthony swam to the shore together. As soon as they were safe, tearful Mia thanked Anthony sincerely for saving her.

Like so many heroes, Anthony did not set out to save a life that night. But he was in the right place, at the right time. “It doesn’t matter who it was, he or she was suffering,” he said, “I couldn’t watch anybody suffering in front of me.”

【推荐3】When he’d go outside at rest, John Buettner would dream of learning the monkey-bars. The fifth-grader uses a wheelchair, so they aren’t accessible to him — in fact, most of the playground at Glen Lake Elementary School isn’t.

Last fall, Julien and a few of her colleagues applied for, and won, a grant (拨款) for an accessible swing and merry-go-round (旋转木马). The grant fell ＄35, 000 short of the amount the school needed, and so Julien came up with an idea: She asked her combined fifth- and sixth-grade class to help raise the rest.

Her students jumped at the idea and took it a step further. “We were like, ‘Why can’t we make the whole playground accessible?” says sixth-grader Hadley Mangan. “It was $300, 000, which is a lot, but we knew we could do it.”

Then, the students got to work. They brainstormed ideas on how to raise money: door-knocking, partnering with restaurants, handing out flyers, and even cold-calling local businesses. “It takes a lot of work,” says sixth-grader Raqiya Haji, “because you have to write a script and see if they wanted to donate to us.”

Julien’s class reached their $300, 000 goal in a matter of weeks and have increased it twice since then. Now, they aim to raise $1 million so they can completely transform their playground.

Last week, Julien and Glen Lake Principal Jeff Radel loaded the students into two school buses for a field trip to tour the manufacturing plant. After that, John Buettner says he can hardly believe how quickly an idea turned into reality. “I feel astonished,” he says, getting emotional as he talks about the effort his classmates and the entire community have put into this project.

While he may not be able to use the monkey bars, he says the new playground will open up a world of possibilities: “All of this equipment is big enough for my friends and I to play on. I just feel some sense of capability.” Betsy Julien speaks through tears, too, when she reflects on the project and thinks about the playground’s transformation when the work is done a year from now.

【推荐1】Growing up on a farm in northeastern Brazil, I was the first and only person in my family to graduate from high school and pursue higher education. My parents worked on a small farm inherited (继承) from my grandparents. I helped out when I was not in school.

My parents always had a close relationship with nature, so they knew the exact time of year to plant or pick certain fruits. I learned from my parents about the large bees that frequented one of our fruit crops — mangangava, we called them. This was the main reason I became interested in biology.

In college, as a black student, from a rural community, I did not see myself in my professors, most of whom were white and spoke with a different accent. Even if I studied for several hours per day, I fell behind peers who came from private schools. The feeling of not belonging circled in my head. I sometimes thought about giving up.

But one day, when I was asked to give a presentation about bees, I didn’t mention their familiar name; instead I used formal terms when describing their adaptations for pollinating (授粉). I was afraid of being judged for expressing my personal knowledge in a science class. But one of the instructors pressed me to tell the class whether I’d seen the bees myself and what I called them and said tapping into my personal experiences would help me grasp the scientific concepts. No other professors had shown that kind of sensitivity. The instructor made it clear that he valued what I’d learned from my family and from my personal experiences on the farm and that I didn’t need to hide who I truly am.

I’m now a master’s student in education, working on a project that explores the connection between science and traditional knowledge. I don’t think I’d be here today if I hadn’t crossed paths with that instructor. We need more educators and scientists like him, who serves as a role model and knows that the best way to allow students to be themselves.