Healthy, rested and phoneless

In 2021, China took a series (系列) of actions to improve the quality of education. Let’s check out how this has changed the lives of students.

●More sleep

Almost 80 percent of primary and middle school students are able to get more sleep at night. This came after the Ministry of Education (MOE教育部) advised that middle and high school students should go to bed before 11 p. m.

●Less phone use:

As the ministry reported, 99. 8 percent of primary and middle schools have issued (发布) rules preventing students from bringing smartphones (智能手机) to class. Almost all schools no longer assign (布置) homework through smartphones.

●More physical exercise

Students enjoy better health as efforts have been made to ensure (确保) enough time for physical activities, said the MOE. For example, all middle school students were encouraged to have one physical education course every school day and two hours of exercise daily.

It’s a warm afternoon in a village in India (印度). When a school bus stops, lots of children are running to the bus. They’re very happy to study on the bus.

The school bus is the only hope for a lot of children in the village. They have to work to make money for family and don’t have schools to go to. This bus brings school to them.

On the bus, there are pencils, pens, pictures, books and a TV. There is a teacher, too. The children study with the help of the teacher. A doctor sometimes comes with the bus to check (检查) the children’s health.

Right now, about 40 children are sitting on the bus. They are listening to the teacher and writing in their notebooks. These are their regular teaching (常规教学). Ten-year-old Devi is learning on the bus today. After she finishes working with her father, she comes to the bus to study. Devi wants to be a teacher one day.

The school on a bus is the opinion (想法) of a man called T. L. Reddy. He wants the children to like going to school. “School is fun. It is for every child,” he says.

Zengzi, also called Zeng Shen, became a good student of Confucius when he was 16.

Early one morning, Zengzi’s wife left for the market. Her little son wanted to go with her. But he was too young and the market was too far.

Then she cheated (欺骗) her son and said, “I will soon be back. You stay at home and wait for me. If you do as I say, I will kill a pig and make a nice dish for you.” The child went back to the house happily.

When Zengzi’s wife got back from the market, she showed no sign of killing a pig. So Zengzi himself prepared to do that, but his wife rushed to stop him and said, “Don’t do that. I just cheated the child.”

“Honesty (诚实) is the most important thing,” Zengzi said. “Children are like blank (空白的) pieces of paper. They understand nothing but they can learn from their parents’ actions. Because you have cheated your son, he won’t trust you anymore. In the future he will cheat others.”

Hearing her husband’s words, Zengzi’s wife regretted cheating the child. So she wanted to keep her words. She joined Zengzi in killing the pig and cooked nice dishes for the child. While eating, the boy was happy and thankful to his parents.

One evening, when the child went to bed, he suddenly got up and ran outside. Zengzi asked him where he was going. The boy replied, “I promised I was going to return a toy to a friend today. But I forgot, so I am going to return it now.” The couple exchanged satisfied smiles, and waited until the boy came back.

【推荐1】

They are animals that live in the south of the Yangtze River in China. They have hard scales. They are also known as scaly anteaters because they have ants as their main food. They help to protect trees in the forest. They are Chinese pangolins (中华穿山甲). But they are in danger now.

According to a national wildlife survey, in the 1990s, there were about 60, 000 Chinese pangolins in different places, including Yunnan and Zhejiang. However, since then, this number has gone down by 90 percent.

What are the reasons? The poachers (偷猎者) kill them for their scales and meat. The scales are a kind of traditional Chinese medicine. The meat is believed to be high in nutritional value. Also, Chinese pangolins are functionally extinct, Beijing News reported. This means they cannot give birth to baby pangolins in the wild. What’s more, Chinese pangolins are facing a loss of their homes because of too much pollution and reduction in forests.

What can we do to protect them? The government (政府) should protect them at the same level as giant pandas by passing laws. This means people would not be able to sell or use pangolin products (产品). Only in this way can we save this kind of animals, that is, save the earth. As the old saying goes, helping the earth is helping ourselves.

Rainforests cover（覆盖） 6% of the Earth’s surface（表面）. There are rainforests in many parts of the world, but the biggest forests are in South America, Africa and South East Asia. There aren’t any rainforests in Europe or North America.

About 75% of all the kinds of animals that we know come from rainforests. Thousands and thousands of animals live in rainforests. There are many beautiful birds, insects(昆虫) and reptiles(爬行动物). Many of them live in the trees, more than 30 metres from the ground. There are also thousands of different plants—and lots of them are tall trees! It is always hot in a rainforest and the ground is always wet. It is also dark there.

The rainforests are very important for us. Without rainforests , we can’t live ! The trees and other plants in the forest help to make the air that we breathe(呼吸). They also help to change the weather .They give us wood, rubber, fruits and many of our medicines.

Sadly(遗憾的), in many places, the rainforests are in danger. For example(例如), many years ago there was a large rainforest in Java. There were thousands of different plants and animals in the forest, but now there is nothing. People cut down the trees to grow rice. They also wanted to grow rubber trees to make rubber. Many animals lived in the rainforest. Some of them went to other parts of Java but many of them disappeared(消失) - forever. The same thing is happening now in many other parts of the world.

The good news is that there are a lot of people who want to help save（挽救） rainforests. The bad news is that it is not going to be easy. It will need many people to work together . Here is something we can do to help:

▲Teach others about the importance(重要性）of the rainforests and how they can help save rainforests.

▲Plant more trees on land .

▲Ask people to live in a way that is good to rainforests.

▲Build parks to protect(保护) animals and plants.

【推荐3】If you love music, here is an easy game that you can play with your classmates.

Number of participants: At least three

You will need:

★A music player

★At least 20 different songs

★Paper and a pen for keeping scores

How to prepare:

★One person is the judge. The others will be the players.

★You need to prepare enough music for the game. Make sure you have pop, jazz and other music.

★The judge should know the name of the artist and the title of each song.

How to play:

★The judge randomly picks a song and plays it for around 10 to 15 seconds.

★Players will show the name of the artist and the title of the song in 30 seconds.

★If the first player fails, the question will be passed to the next player. If none of the players knows the answer, the judge will show the answer.

Do you think it is interesting? You can play it with your classmates now!

In China, lots of students often use much of their time to study their lessons and don’t help with housework at home. Some students don’t think they need to do housework. Some parents don’t let their children do it. As a result, students are all in need of basic skills.

Luckily, things are changing. In 2021, many schools began to teach students life skills. Guangming Middle School in Shenyang built some farming clubs. There students learnt to plant vegetables. “At first I thought I could only grow some vegetables here, but in fact, I learnt a lot about vegetables,” said Cheng Bing, a girl at the school.

In Hope Middle School, students have a special life skill class: They learn to make dumplings in different kinds of shapes. “I couldn’t make dumplings before, but now I am good at doing it. I really love my life skill class. It’s my favourite class,” said Jia Yan, a boy at the school.

As we know, learning life skills is as important as learning Chinese and maths, because it helps us prepare for our future life. Boys and girls, do you help your parents do housework at home? If not, maybe you should get started now.