【推荐1】Everyone has got a plan, a goal, a target that we all want to achieve. However, for many reasons we pause to take a sigh, and most times we don’t do anything about them anymore. So how can you set goals properly?

Reading some good books about setting goals is a great place to start. These books should push you ahead of the rest, and importantly, to make you attain your set goals.

Creating Your Best Life

Written by Caroline Miller, MAPP, she takes the standard SMART formula for goal setting and goes beyond that approach. She makes a point of giving you specific exercises while also sharing related stories. It’s a great book to consider as we connect better with stories and can find more motivation to set goals in the manner that Miller outlines in her book.

The Magic of Thinking Big

“You are what you think you are,” writes David J. Schwartz, PhD in The Magic of Thinking Big. Exceeding your goals is possible when you believe in yourself. Get over the fear of failure and use the power of a positive attitude to achieve big things.

The Book of Mistakes

Skip Prichard is a wonderful storyteller and weaves that skill into this book. This book takes a figurative person who discovers nine mistakes that highly successful people never make.

Goals!

Author of dozens of books on personal development, Brian Tracy explains the 12 steps necessary to accomplish goals both large and small. The author emphasizes self-discipline and persistence and two keys to achieving your goals.

【推荐2】When it comes to reading, we may be assuming that reading for knowledge is the best reason to pick up a book. Research, however, suggests that reading fiction may provide far more important benefits than nonfiction. It may be one of the best methods for building empathy (同理心), critical thinking and creativity.

High-level business leaders have long enthusiastically praised the virtues of reading. But they almost always recommend nonfiction. Reading nonfiction might certainly be valuable for collecting knowledge. However, research suggests that reading fiction predicts a sharper ability to understand other people’s motivations.

In addition, research suggests that reading literary fiction is an effective way to improve the brain’s ability to keep an open mind while processing information, a necessary skill for effective decision-making. In a 2013 study, researchers examined something called the need for cognitive closure (认知闭合), or the desire to “reach a quick conclusion in decision-making and an aversion to uncertainty and confusion”. Individuals with a strong need for cognitive closure rely heavily on “early information hints”, meaning they struggle to change their minds as new information becomes available. A high need for cognitive closure also means individuals are attracted to smaller bits of information and fewer viewpoints. Individuals who resist the need for cognitive closure tend to be more thoughtful, more creative, and more comfortable with competing narratives — all characteristics of high emotional intelligence.

University of Toronto researchers discovered that individuals in their study who read short stories (as opposed to essays) demonstrated a lower need for cognitive closure. That result is not surprising given that reading literature requires us to slow down, take in volumes of information, and then change our minds as we read. There’s no easy answer in literature. Instead, there’s only perspective-taking. As readers, we’ll almost certainly find Lolita’s narrator Humbert Humbert hateful, but we are forced to experience how he thinks, a valuable exercise for decreasing our need for cognitive closure.

【推荐3】At the start of 2012, I set myself the challenge of trying to read a book from every country in a year to find out what I was missing.

So I created a blog called “A Year of Reading the World” and asked for suggestions of titles that I could read in English.

The response was amazing. Before I knew it, people all over the planet were suggesting ideas and offering to help. Some posted titles of books from their books countries. Others did hours of research on my behalf. In addition, several writers, like Panama’s Juan David Morgan, sent me unpublished translations of their novels, giving me a rare opportunity to read works otherwise unavailable to the 62 percent of Britons who only speak English. Even with such an extraordinary team of bibliophiles (蒙书家) behind me, however, sourcing books was no easy task.

This was particularly true for Portuguese-speaking African countries, There’s precious little to offer as far as states such as the Comoros, Madagascar and Mozambique -I had to rely on unpublished manuscripts (手稿) for several of these.

Then here were places where stories are rarely written down. If you’re after a good yam (故事) in the Marshall lslands, for example, you’re more likely to go and hear one of the local storytellers than you are to pick up a book.

All in all, tracking down stories like these took as much time as the reading. It was a tall order to fit it all in around work and many were the nights when I sat bleary-eyed (困倦而视线模糊的) into the small hours to make sure I stuck to my target of reading one book every 1.87 days.

But the effort was worth it. As I made my way through the planet’s literary landscapes, extraordinary things started to happen. Far from simply armchair traveling, I found I was inhabiting the mental space of the storytellers. It took me inside the thoughts of individuals living far away and showed me the world through their eyes. These stories not only opened my mind to the nuts and bolts (具体情况) of life in other places, but opened my heart to the way people there might feel.

One by one, the country names on the list that had begun as an intellectual (智力的) exercise at the start of the year transformed into vibrant places filled with laughter, love, anger, hope and fear. Lands that had once seemed exotic and remote became close and familiar to me — places I could identify with. At its best, I learned, fiction makes the world real.

【推荐1】When London faced the Black Death in 1665, many people desperately sought a way to protect themselves and their loved ones from getting sick. One widely adopted method consisted of mixing two small cloves of garlic in a cup of fresh milk. People believed that drinking this drink in the morning on an empty stomach would prevent the feared disease.

Like those living through the hard time in London, many people searched for treatment that would keep viruses at bay, which is why the claims that garlic could help people spread on social media. The claims caused the World Health Organization to post tweets of warning.

Despite laboratory studies showing that garlic does have special substances, the idea of consuming garlic to prevent becoming infected with any bacteria or viruses is mostly folklore. The idea of garlic as a blanket cure has its foundation in medical folk wisdom, which is an umbrella term for unproven, widespread beliefs about anything to do with health and disease. It can involve herbal treatment, dietary recommendations and advice about following specific behaviors. It is often passed down by word of mouth through generations and may be one of the reasons myths( stories from ancient times) about the causes and cures of diseases continue to exist, despite the progress of medical science.

Medical folk wisdom, like other types of misinformation not backed by science, often spreads quickly on social media. When the UK went into lockdown, the Burns Centre at Birmingham Children’s Hospital saw a 30-fold-increase in the number of injuries. This was caused by folk statements on social media that misled parents into believing that breathing in steam could prevent or treat respiratory tract (呼吸道) disease.

Medical folk wisdom isn’t bad all the time, and nor is it likely to disappear anytime soon. What we need is to understand what makes people believe in it and to what extent it challenges beliefs in science. There seems to be a complex relationship between beliefs in medical folk wisdom and what people actually do to protect their health, which could be key to preventing its harmful effects. Therefore, we should think twice before adopting it. Lives may depend upon it.

【推荐1】I’ve always disliked the term homework. Surely home is where we rest, refresh, recreate — in the truest sense, it’s where we don’t work. What sort of message have we sent our young people all these years by requiring them to work not only at school but at home? No wonder they don’t prefer homework.

At my school, we have kept the older name for homework: prep (or to use the full name and highlight its true purpose: preparation). Prep is designed to help children prepare for the next lesson. A number of short tasks can be part of prep these days: a YouTube clip, a short film made by a teacher, a map or picture to look at. Something visual often suits the child who, by the end of a busy school day, is mentally tired.

Prep can still consist of consolidation exercises but based on past experience, a practical method should be that these are not as many as to be demanding and should be adjusted to suit the child’s needs. Some written work maybe requested but I would hope that it would be a short piece or even a sample paragraph. “Write an essay...” comes with strings attached and usually takes rather longer than the prep time needed.

Ensure that a child’s workspace at home is tidy, quiet and uninterrupted by devices that are not being used for study. On tablets or PCs in use for homework, turn off the notifications or remove any apps you feel are a distraction. Keep an eye on, but not a physical presence in, the workspace until you know your child is truly self-sufficient in terms of focus and pace of work.

Finally, I advise parents to coach children in the Nike approach: “Just do it.” In truth this is generally more favoured by boys than girls, who love wasting time arranging the many coloured pens and crisp stationery. Help your daughter release her inner boy, grab a pen, get the work done, cross out errors with one straight line so that the teacher can see the thought process, finish, pack the bag for tomorrow, and go out to play!

【推荐2】A special spelling event called “The Big Dictation” took place in the famous Champs-Elyseés street of Paris. The event was organized by a writer named Rachid Santaki, who is often called “Monsieur Dictee”, or “Mr. Dictation”. He came up with the idea of large groups of people participating in dictations (听写) back in 2013, thinking it could help people in France get better at reading and writing.

Over 50,000 people applied to join in the special spelling event. In the end, around 5,000 people, aged 10 to 90, were chosen to take part.

A large “blackboard” was set up for the event near a famous monument (纪念碑), the Arc de Triomphe. Three celebrities were there to play the part of the teacher, and read the dictation texts out loud. A total of 1,779 desks were set up in the street to be used in each of three different dictation sessions, each of which had a different theme, including classic French literature, contemporary French literature, and writing about sports.

Ten-year-old Samson thought the dictation was too quick and he couldn’t finish. Another young student agreed. “It was impossible!” he said. “The dictation was for adults.” Even adults found it hard, reporting that it caused “stress and worry”. One retired woman was pleased that she had only made two mistakes.

The organizer said the event wasn’t just about getting all the words right, but something that could bring people together. Another goal of The Big Dictation was to break the Guinness record for the largest dictation event ever. The previous record was set in 2018 at France’s national stadium, Stade de France, with 1,473 people taking part. It’s not clear if the event on the Champs-Elysees managed to beat the record. But even if it didn’t, The Big Dictation will be remembered by the people of Paris for a long time.

【推荐3】Ritz has been teaching for nearly 10 years in a high school where the early graduation rate of the students was just 17%. He discovered a way to connect and intrigue these students, especially the ones who seemed the hardest to reach.

Once, he received a package of flower bulbs (球茎) which he mistakenly thought were onions. He was afraid that they might become weapons (武器) in a classroom fight, so he hid them behind a radiator (暖气片) and forgot about them.

Six weeks later, an angry girl ran after a boy who always made troubles. As usual, Ritz rushed towards them to break up what he thought was about to become a disaster. He saw the boy reach towards the radiator and thought he might have hidden a weapon there. To his surprise, the boy suddenly pulled out a bunch of yellow flowers and gave them to the girl as a peace offering. The girl decided to take the flowers home to her mother and peace came back.

The forgotten bulbs were actually daffodils (黄水仙). The steam from the radiator had forced them into flowers. From such an experience, Ritz realized that if there was power in plants to stop a classroom fight, there must be power in plants to change students’ lives. He turned the moment of growing plants into a green course, a movement that would change his life and the lives of his students. He designed vegetable gardens into part of the school ground and on top of a building.

Ritz’s students now have near-perfect attendance and graduation rates. His efforts have led him to be a great teacher who uses the power of a plant to give a voice to children.