【推荐3】A Love of Gardening

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” These words come from the author of the book The Secret Garden, first published in 1911. At that time, only the very rich in Britain had gardens. Very soon after this, homes with gardens began to be built. This is what started the British love of gardening! Today, millions of Brits like to say that they have “green fingers”, with around half the population spending their free time gardening.

For many people in the UK, their garden is their own private world. Each spring, children plant sunflowers and wait to see which one is the tallest. Expert gardeners know just the right corner for roses, and others spend hours trying to grow perfect vegetables to enter into competitions. And while many Brits like nothing better than spending their Sunday cutting the grass, some are happy just to sit under the branches of the trees and enjoy the beauty of the world around them.

But in cities, limited space has led to people looking for new solutions. Those without outside space can rent small pieces of land on which to grow things. Today, there are over 4,000 people in London waiting for such pieces of land. One recent idea has been to turn rooftops and walls into private gardens. These gardens have helped make the cities greener and improve air quality.

As well as being good for the environment, gardening is also good for the soul. What other free-time activity allows you to be at one with nature and create more beautiful living things? And if you’re in any doubt about this, take a moment to reflect on this line from The Secret Garden: “Where you tend a rose… A thistle cannot grow.”

【推荐1】Do you have full confidence in your memory? There has been a discussion about whether it is shi or si in the sentence “Thus when Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man...” (“故天将降大任于是/斯人也”). Most people chose si as what they learned at school. However, People’s Education Press, a leading publisher of Chinese textbooks, claimed on Oct 26 that all its textbooks say shi.   

Supporters of si feel shocked and say they’ve experienced the “Mandela Effect” — the situation in which a large number of people believe that an event occurred when it didn’t. Many people believed that former South African president Nelson Mandel died in the1980s in prison. However, Mandela was alive and well, eventually passing away in 2013. US researcher Fiona Broome set up a website to explain her observation of this phenomenon first, coining the term.

Some often joke that our memories have been changed by a strange force. In fact, psychologists have looked into the reasons for the Mandela Effect, as reported on the US-based website Verywell Mind. For example, your mind may fill in gaps missing in your memory to make more sense of it, which is called confabulation (虚构症). However, try not to feel bad — this is not lying, but rather remembering details that never happened.

The Internet may be another reason why we have Mandela Effect events, as the news we read can be false from the beginning. In 2018, Science journal published a study of over 100,000 news stories discussed across Twitter. It showed that false news can spread faster and reach more people than the truth. As a powerful way to spread information, the Internet might be the main reason for falsehoods to enter our minds.

【推荐2】The unusual day of February 29 comes up on the calendar only every four years. In American English, February 29 is called a leap day. And the entire 12-month period with a February 29 in it is called a leap year. The year 2020 is such a year.

As a verb, the word “leap” means to jump, or to move quickly. “Leap” can also be a noun, meaning a jump or a sudden move. In a leap year, the dates jump over one day of the week. In 2017, the last day of the year December 31, fell on a Sunday. In 2018, it fell on a Monday. In 2019, it fell on the Tuesday. But in 2020, December 31 will fall on a Thursday. It just leaps right over Wednesday. “Leap” is also an important word for two American expressions. One is a kind of warning. If you want someone to investigate a situation completely before taking action, you might say “look before you leap”. The other expression is a phrase of hope. Urging someone to “take a leap of faith” invites the person to take action, even if not everything about a situation is known.

Interestingly, both phrases are completely reasonable to say to someone who is about to get married.

On that note, some people choose to marry on February 29 because it is an unusual day. But some ancient people would likely tell couples not to do it. Leap years were believed to be difficult, and leap days were unlucky and a bad time to begin anything new.

Whatever you think about them, the changes in the calendar will be gone soon enough. Then we can return to normal, and leap over February 29 as usual.

【推荐3】The practice of students endlessly copying letters sentences from a blackboard is now a thing of the past. With the coming of new technologies like computers and smart phones, writing by hand has become something of nostalgic（怀旧的） skill. However, while today's educators are using more and more technology in their teaching, many believe basic handwriting skills are still necessary for students to be successful - both in school and in life.

Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, says it's important to continue teaching handwriting and help children acquire the skill of writing by hand.

Beminger and her colleagues conducted a study that looked at the ability of students to complete various writing tasks - both on a computer and by hand. The study, published in 2019, found that when writing with a pen and paper, participants wrote longer essays and more complete sentences and had a faster word production rate.

In a more recent study, Beminger looked at what role spelling plays in a student's writing skills. ”Spelling makes some of the thinking parts of the brain active which helps us gain our vocabulary word meaning and concepts. It is allowing our written language to connect with ideas.” Beminger said.

“Spelling helps students translate ideas into words in their mind first and then to translate those words in the mind into written symbols on paper or keyboard and screen,” the study said. Seeing the words in the “mind's eye” helps children not only to turn their ideas into words, says Bemninger, but also to find spelling mistakes when they write the words down and to correct them over time. “In our computer age, some people believe that we don't have to teach spelling because we have spell checks," she said. “But until a child has a functional spelling ability of about a fifth grade level, they won't have the knowledge to choose the correct spelling among the options given by the computer. "

【推荐3】“Why do people enjoy saying that they are bad at math?” wonders Petra Bonfert, a professor of engineering at Dartmouth College. After seeing too many examples of adults “passing on mathematical anxiety like a virus, ”Bonfert has an important message for math phobic (恐惧的) parents and educators: “We are passing on from generation to generation the fear for mathematics. ”

Many people hold the view that math is incredibly hard, and only people with an inborn mathematical ability can understand it. While well-meaning adults may think they’re encouraging kids by sharing their own math fears, research has shown the opposite. Research has found that the problem is particularly significant for girls, who “are cspecially affected when a teacher publicly announces dislike of math before she picks up the chalk.” Moreover, a study published recently reported that female mathematical achievement was diminished in response to a female teacher’s mathematical anxiety. The effect was obvious: the bigher a teacher’s anxiety, the lower the scores. Parents’ anxiety about math can have a similar effect on kids’ achievement and their attitude toward the subject.

Fortunately, Sian Beilock, a scientist of Barnard College, has found a surprisingly easy way for parents to stop passing on math anxiety and build their children’s math confidence. The most important finding is the importance of normalizing math at home in a way that’s relaxing and playful: from using math-themed books and stories, playing with math games and toys to cooking together. He argues that we need to teach kids that working on mathematical skills is like practicing a sport. Neither can be learned by watching others perform the activity and both require encouragement and effort. You do not need an inborn mathematical ability in order to solve mathematical problems. Rather, what is required is perseverance, a willingness to take risks and feeling safe to make mistakes.”