Tears are good for your eyes. In fact, without them, your eyes wouldn’t even be able to move. Some people say tears help us in other ways, too. Maybe you know someone who likes to watch sad movies in order to “have a good cry”. It hasn’t been proven, but tears may be good not only for your eyes but also for your emotional health as well.
We generally only notice tears when we cry, but we have them in our eyes all the time. Tears affect how we see the world while at the same time protecting our eyes from it. Without this liquid covering them, our eyes would be at risk of infection. In addition, we need tears in order to see. The cornea (角膜) of the eye does not have a perfectly smooth surface. Tears fill in the holes in the cornea and make it smooth so that we can see clearly. Without tears, the world would look very strange to us.
There are three types of tears, and they are called basal, reflex, and emotional tears. These three types are different not only in purpose but also in composition.
Tom Lutz, the author of Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears, writes, “Throughout history, and in every culture, ... everyone everywhere cries at some time.” Even men and women who say they never cry can usually remember crying as children. Most of us probably think it’s normal for men or women to cry at certain times, and at such times, we may even encourage them to cry. For example, it’s no surprise when someone cries during a sad movie, and we often expect people to cry when a family member dies. However, we don’t always take this view of tears. Sometimes adults who cry — or even children who do — lose the respect of others. For example, what would you think of an adult who cried over losing a card game? Most people are aware of the social rules about when, where, and why it’s OK to cry. These rules generally differ for children and adults, and often for men and women. They depend on things such as family, culture, and religion, and they change over time.
Some people think it’s not just OK to cry but actually healthy to let the tears flow. Doctors in Greece over 2,500 years ago thought that tears came from the brain and that everyone needed to let them out. Today, many people still believe in getting tears out. They say that through crying, we get rid of emotions we have stored up, which is good for our mental health. Some people report that they feel better after crying. This could be because of the chemicals in emotional tears. One chemical is a type of endorphin, a painkiller that the body naturally produces. Emotional tears increase the amount of endorphin that gets to the brain because tears flow from the eye into the nose and pass to the brain that way. This painkiller may make a person less aware of sad or angry feelings, and that could explain why someone feels better after “a good cry”.
1. When do we have tears in our eyes?
2. How do tears help us see clearly?
3. How many kinds of tears do we have?
4. Please list at least two things that are related to the social rules of crying.
5. In which country did doctors over 2,500 years ago believe that tears came from the brain?
Perhaps he was a defender,
Protecting France.
Perhaps he was an aggressor(侵略者),
Occupying others.
Perhaps he was a revolutionary,
Propagating democratic idea(民主思想).
Perhaps he was a traitor(背叛者),
Becoming an empire builder.
Perhaps he was a god of war,
frustrating London.
Perhaps he was a loser,
Defeated by wellington.
Perhaps he is a man of dubious merit(功过难辨),
But remember his word,
“Able was I ere I saw Elba.”
By Li Jiahang
1. Who does “he” refer to in the poetry?2. What’s the type of this poem? What are the characteristics of this type of poetry?
3. What words can best describe “him?”
Puffin Books, the publisher of UK writer Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books like Matila and The Witches, came under fire in February due to their choice to edit out hundreds of offensive or outdated words such as “fat” and “ugly” in the late author’s stories.
Although the publisher defended the changes, saying that they were meant to allow DahI’s books to continue to be enjoyed by all today, many were still angered by the move. Notable figures like writer Salman Rushdie called the changes “absurd censorship (荒谬的审查)” while UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that “it’s important that works of literature and works of fiction are preserved”, noted Sky News.
DahI’s books and other children’s literature have a unique problem compared to literature for adults when it comes to preservation vs adaptation. Children can be vulnerable to influences which can shape the way they grow up and understand the world. According to The Conversation, “children’s literature implicitly(潜移默化地) shapes the minds of child readers by presenting particular social and culture values as normal and natural .[AKA] ‘socialization’.”
Personally, I believe in the intelligence of children to navigate and explore the world around them. It is the job of teachers, parents and other adult guardians to help children understand that books are products of their times and that authors – even the best among them – are ultimately human beings with their own flaws(缺点).
After all, just as Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, a nonprofit organization that protects writers and freedom of expression, wrote on her Twitter, “If we start down the path of trying to correct for perceived slights(自以为的鄙视) instead of allowing readers to receive and react to books as written, we risk distorting the work of great authors and clouding the essential lens that literature offers on society.”
With this kind of understanding in mind, we can empower children with the tools for critical thinking and improve their ability to judge and sort out the contexts of what they learn and are exposed to. This is a skill needed now more than ever in an era of “fake news” and the rapid spread of fakes.
1. Why did Puffin Books decide to edit Roald Dahl’s books?2. What is the unique problem with children’s literature, according to the text?
3. What does the underlined word “distorting” most probably mean?
4. What does the author believe is important when raising children?
