【推荐2】Gravy started working as a comfort dog at Grand Ledge High School in Michigan in September. She showed off tricks in the hallways with her handler (驯兽员), Capra, and made students laugh aloud. When students learned that Gravy’s first birthday fell just before Thanksgiving break, they asked Capra if they could throw a party. Capra said sure, thinking there wouldn’t be many people interested. However, on the big day, there were several hundred students in this gym.

The pandemic (大流行病) has been hard on students across the United States. Many young people experienced loneliness and the loss of loved ones. To solve the problem, schools have hired social workers and increased the number of their social-emotional learning classes.In some cases, they bought dogs.

Undoubtedly, the dogs make kids happy.“He’s kind of like a rock star; when the kids see him coming, they smile,“ said Traci Souva, an art teacher at North Huron Schools who trains Chipper, another comfort dog. “A lot of times the kids will tell Chipper what’s wrong rather than adults, and that’s pretty amazing.”

There are possible blemishes of having dogs in school. These include cleanliness, and student fears. But school officials say these are all manageable. The dogs are highly trained and always with a handler, so no student is forced to communicate with the dogs if they don’t want to.

Since the pandemic, demand for trained dogs in schools“has just increased,“ said Nikki Brown, a dog trainer and the director of Canines for Change, a nonprofit that trains dogs for work in schools. Over the last year, her organization has provided dogs to at least seven areas in Michigan, including Grand Ledge. “The dogs are highly trained to be in a school environment,” she added.“They are trained to work with kids with emotional problems. They sense stress. By the dogs’ behaviour they might warn a teacher of a kid who is struggling emotionally.“

【推荐3】Experts say over half of the world’s seven thousand languages are in danger of disappearing. Every two weeks one language disappears.

Sometimes a language disappears immediately when the last person speaking it dies. Or, a local language might disappear more slowly. This happens when an official language is used more often and children stop learning the local language of their parents. Official languages often represent a form of control over a group of people.

Throughout history, the language spoken by a powerful group spreads across a civilization. The more powerful culture rarely respects the language and culture of smaller groups. Smaller cultures lose their local language as the language of the culture in power has a stronger influence.

Experts say protecting languages is very important for many reasons. Languages contain the histories, ideas and knowledge of a culture. Languages also contain valuable information about local medicines, plants and animals.

Many endangered languages are spoken by native cultures in close contact with the natural world. Their ancient languages contain a great deal of information about environmental systems and species of plants and animals that are unknown to scientists. As the last speakers of a language die off, the valuable information carried within a language also disappears. Language is, in many ways, a window to the mind and the world.

Any hope for protecting languages can be found in children and their willingness to learn. It is these young people who can keep this form of culture alive for future generations.

【推荐1】How would you go without your smartphone? For many of us, our smartphone is the first and last thing we look at every day. We depend on it to perform a number of tasks and connect with our friends and family. But have we become addicted to our phones?

Certainly, the inventor of the first mobile phone. American engineer Martin Cooper, thinks we might be. In a BBC interview, he suggested people quit scrolling (刷屏) and “get a life”. But of course, once we start scrolling or watching videos, we just can’t kick the habit. Psychologist Jean Twenge says we feel regret for “checking our phone again and again if we’re waiting for a text or getting really into social media then kind of, looking up and realising that an hour has passed.”

But does it matter if we make the most of this technology? Possibly, because like medicine, the problem appears when it is withdrawn. A study from King’s College London found young people couldn’t control the amount of time they spend on their phone. Such behaviour means that people become “anxious” or “upset” if they are not allowed to be on the phone continuously, which can cause anxiety and mental health problems.

Interestingly, another study by the London School of Economics Science suggests we don’t just look at our phones when we receive text or email messages. The people they studied felt an automatical (自动的) need to check their phone, just as a smoker would light a cigarette.

One solution could be an app that rewards (奖励) students for time spent away from their phones. Another choice is changing your smartphone to a dumbphone that has none of the things that turn your attention away. But mainly, perhaps, we just need to look up more and reconnect with the real world!