【推荐2】In this modern age, most of us have forgotten to be patient and get angry very quickly over minor things like a traffic jam, a baby crying and such things. It often seems so easy to get what we want right away that when we have to wait even a little while, it seems like we are waiting for ages. We used to be happy to wait 10 - 15 minutes it took to reheat food in the oven(烤箱)，but now we’re impatient when waiting two minutes it takes in the microwave.

With the convenience provided by modern society, is patience still a virtue(美德) in the fast-paced world? To begin with, I'd like to share the meaning of the word “patience”. Generally it means being able to tolerate delay without getting impatient. However, it isn't necessarily a passive activity. It takes an active behavior, knowing when to take action and when not to.

So I would argue that patience is still -and always- a virtue. Sure, I used to be one of those who often stared at the microwave for the full two minutes it took to heat my food. And in the end， the food tasted bad. If I had had the patience to heat the food properly in the oven, I would have enjoyed a delicious meal.

Actually the benefits of patience go beyond just heating up our food. Patience is an exercise in self-control which shows that we can exercise good judgment. Lack of patience can cause us to make wrong decisions that negatively affect our health and happiness, waste our time, put us under a lot of stress and affect our relationships in a very negative way.

Everything in life happens for a reason. Sometimes we face an obstacle(障碍) because we need to grow in ways we didn't realize. It's not always obvious when that was happening, but with patience we will soon see clearly why it occurred and what we were meant to learn from it.

Taking time to think about our actions and being patient are a small price to pay when we determine the best possible solution to any problems.

【推荐1】From kindergarten to graduate school there is a nearly unlimited supply of learning resources (资源) for students. These resources come in a variety of forms, all serving a single purpose—to improve learning outcomes for students.

    1    Educators spend a good deal of time searching for learning resources and are in a position to be approached by educational publishers and software developers. Educators may use open source material from well-known universities like Harvard and MIT or offer learning resources from independent publishers to their students.

While there are a variety of learning resources for all education levels, early-childhood learning resources are probably the most common. A wide range of websites, software and mobile applications are aimed at children and serve as learning resources in math, reading, science, writing, etc.     2    

Learning resources for students in high school and college are also abundant.     3    While there may be a large number of websites and computer applications that serve as an ancillary (辅助的) resource for a given subject, a teacher may recommend a reference book, biography, or literary work as a resource relevant to the specific area of study.

Many learning resources are designed to reinforce (充实) material taught in the class or simply provide additional help for struggling students.     4    The American Disability Act provides the requirements for educational resources for disabled students in the United States, just as the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act in the UK provides for its special needs students.

    5    Libraries, teachers and other educators, higher learning institutions, and the Internet are all excellent sources for learning resources in nearly every area of study and educational development.

【推荐2】For some people, higher education is not just a goal in life, but also an expectation. In the United States, if your parents attended a college or university, there is a good chance that you will, too. Even if your parents did not go to college, you still have a good chance of completing higher education if your family is wealthy.

But your chances are reduced if you come from a needy family, a community with limited educational resources or you simply have no one to follow as an example.

Helping those in need is one of the main ideas behind a strategy of behavioral science called nudge theory or nudging. Nudging is a way of changing people's behavior through indirect suggestion and by supporting positive actions.

A growing number of U.S. colleges and universities look to nudging as way to support poor, minority and first-generation students. They also are using it to increase overall graduation rates. Two common forms of nudging are emails to students and text messages to their mobile phones. Schools and other educational organizations keep in contact with students this way, offering advice and help when needed.

However, Alejandra Acosta---a higher education policy expert at New America---notes that there are several qualities a nudge campaign must possess in order to be successful.

Acosta says messages must be timely, meaning they reach college students well before the date by which a student is required to take action. Additionally nudges should be written clearly and provide as much information as possible. If students start to struggle in class, school officials should not just message them, saying they should seek academic support. The message should give information about what kinds of support the college or university offers and exactly how the student can make use of them. That is why nudges should possess interactive qualities, Acosta says. For example, students should be able to ask questions of school officials or be directed to a website for more information. In addition, colleges and universities must ensure their support services are in place and working as best they can.

When nudges work, they can do a lot of good. In 2018, a nonprofit group launched a nudging campaign at four U.S. community colleges. They worked with nearly 10,000 first-year students at three such colleges in Ohio and one in Virginia. A recent study found that older and minority students who agreed to receive these nudges were 16 to 20 percent more likely to continue into their second year than those who did not.

Being Authoritative Parents

Phrases like “tiger mom” and “helicopter parent” have made their way into everyday language.    1     But is there anything wrong with a kind of “overparenting style”?

Parental involvement has a long history of being studied. Many of the studies, conducted by Diana Baumrind, a famous psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that a good parent is the one who is involved and reacts to her child in a positive way, who sets high expectations but gives her child independence. These “authoritative parents” appear to hit the sweet spot of parental involvement and generally raise children who do better academically, psychologically and socially than children whose parents are not strict and less involved, or controlling and more involved.     2    

Authoritative parents actually help improve motivation in their children. Carol Dweck, a social psychologist at Stanford University, has done research that indicates why authoritative parents raise more motivated children. In a typical experiment, Dr. Dweck takes young children into a room and asks them to solve a simple puzzle. Most do so with little difficulty. But then Dr. Dweck tells some, but not all, of the kids how clever they are. As it turns out, the children who are not told they're smart are more motivated to solve increasingly difficult puzzles. They also show higher levels of confidence and show greater progress in puzzle-solving.

    3     Dealing with more difficult puzzles carries the risk of losing one's status as “smart”. Dr. Dweck's work strongly supports that of Dr. Baumrind, who also found that reasonably supporting a child's independence and limiting interference(干涉)causes better academic and emotional results.

The central task of growing up is to develop a sense of self that is independent and confident. If you treat your young child who is just learning to walk as if she can't walk, you reduce her confidence.    4     It is easier when they are young. The potential mistakes carry greater risks, and part of being a parent is reducing risk for our children.

【推荐2】When your child lies to you, it hurts. As parents, it makes us angry and we take it personally. We feel like we can never trust our child again. Why does lying cause such anger, pain and worry for parents?

Parents are understandably very afraid of their children getting hurt and getting into trouble, but they have very little protection against these things as they send their kids out into the word. Kids learn from other kids and from external media, and this makes parents feel unsafe because they can’t control the information and ideas that their children are exposed to.

When your kid lies, you start to see him as “sneaky（卑鄙的）”, especially if he continues to lie to you. You feel that he’s going behind your back. You begin to think that your kids are “bad”. Because, certainly, if lying is bad, liars are bad. It’s just that simple. Parents need to make their kids responsible for lying. But the mistake parents make is that they start to blame the kid for lying. It’s considered immoral to lie. But when you look at your kid like he’s a sneak, it’s a slippery slope （滑坡谬误）that starts with “You lie” and ends up at “You’re a bad person”.

Kids know lying is forbidden. But they don’t see it as hurtful. So a kid will say, “I know it’s wrong that I eat a sugar snack when I’m not supposed to. But who does it hurt?” “I know it’s wrong that I trade my dried fruit for a Twinkie. But it doesn’t really hurt anybody. I can handle it. What’s the big deal?” That’s what the kid sees.

So I think that parents have to assume that kids are going to tell them lies, because they’re immature and they don’t understand how hurtful these things are. They’re all drawn to excitement, and they’ll all have a tendency to distort(歪曲) the truth because they’re kids.

【推荐3】Adults are often unwilling to ask for aid. The moment you ask for directions, after all, you reveal that you are lost. Seeking assistance can feel like you are broadcasting your incompetence. New research suggests young children don’t seek help in school for the same reason. They hate hearing irresponsible comments.

The research has revealed that youngsters as young as age five start to care about the way others think about them. It also suggests that as early as age seven, children begin to connect asking for help with looking incompetent in front of others.

To learn more about how children think about reputation, researchers crafted simple stories and then asked children questions to allow them to show their thinking. They asked 576 children aged four to nine to predict the behavior of two kids in a story. One of the kids genuinely wanted to be smart, and the other merely wanted to seem smart to others. Both kids did poorly on a test. Children were asked which of these kids would be more likely to ask the teacher for help in front of their class.

The four-year-olds were equally likely to choose either of the two kids as the one who would seek help. But by age seven or eight, children thought that the kid who wanted to seem smart would be less likely to ask for assistance. When assistance could be sought privately, they thought both characters were equally likely to ask for it.

The research shows that children may avoid seeking help when others are present. However, when they are concerned with their appearance to others, learning will suffer.

Such barriers likely require reputation-based solutions. Teachers could make themselves available to students for one-on-one conversations while their classmates tackle group work. They should also help students perceive asking questions as normal, positive behavior. Parents could point out how a child’s question kicked off a valuable conversation in which the entire family got to talk and learn together. Such response sends a strong signal that other people value a willingness to ask for aid and that seeking help is part of a path to success.