3 . At its core, social media is about advertising, but not just in terms of the products. Users are advertising themselves, making themselves look special and happy, no matter how many filters (滤镜) it takes. This can actually be damaging, especially to younger people. Because they traditionally look to their peers (同龄人) to help them determine what’s normal and who they should desire to be, and they particularly fear the social exclusion that comes from not fitting in with their peer group’s expectations.

With social media, their peers appear light years ahead in terms of wealth, beauty, and access to the kind of overall resources most of us can only dream of. The problem is that most of them achieved their fabulousness (难以置信的美好) through pure luck.

That’s why the core of our advice, for both adults and kids, begins with learning to accept what you can and can’t control, especially during those times when making things better isn’t really possible. And the one thing you can control when life sucks (令人不愉快) is knowing your standards for being a good person and living up to those standards regardless of how you feel or look or what other people think.

Being a good person isn’t about being perfect or ultra-unselfish; you don’t need to work in a soup kitchen or donate a kidney in order to qualify. In part, that’s because helping others must always come second to doing the smaller things required every day to take care of your own responsibilities and live up to your own values.

After explaining these ideas to their kids, parents can ask them to think about what they can and can’t control given how often life is just plain unfair. They can also ask their kids to think about the qualities they admire in people they believe to be good. This way, parents aren’t lecturing their kids about the importance of real values but encouraging them to make up their own minds about the values they find important. After all, people of any age are much more likely to make smart decisions if they’re asked to think through issues carefully and determine the right thing on their own, rather than being pushed in that direction.

4 . Education isn’t simply about achieving a “higher state of knowledge”; it’s about equipping students with the tools they need to go out into the world and shape it for themselves. Here is a list of how education could improve the world.

    1    .

Education brings up many environmental topics to students and encourages them to think about the ecosystems around them. Today it is becoming important to be aware of this and education allows us to consume more responsibly and take action for the care of our planet.

Education helps people develop skills.

Schools cover many topics, and as you continue through schools’ programs, more and more subjects open up to you.     2    , anyone can find their passion and do what they truly love!

Getting an education not only means learning skills like reading and writing, but also means knowing abstract concepts like teamwork, critical thinking and creativity.    3    , you become an individual who is more likely to live a greater life than someone less educated.

Education is a step toward world peace.

    4    ! Research shows that countries with secondary school enrollment rates that are 10% above the international average have a 3% lower rate of engaging in a war. It has been shown that educated people are less likely to be violent. And this holds true for all regions of the world, whether developed or developing.    5    .

Education is a pretty investment. If one extra year of school can produce such benefits, what will the world be like when universal education becomes a reality?

5 . We always put into children’s minds that learning to read is extremely important to their future success. But we don’t put that same urgency(迫切性) on adults, even though a large percentage of American adults have a low reading or writing ability.

Learning those skills requires many levels of support. Take, for example, the three hours every day in a Louisville community center.

Ardo Ahmed and Yurilia Manzanares are among the people sitting in classrooms and listening to teachers. These three hours are about learning English. Yurilia came to the United States from Mexico, and Ardo from Somalia. “Everyone is coming here to learn English, to have the same kind of support as their children,” their teacher Meagan Lamb said.

Literacy(读写能力) among adults, specifically among moms, is a concern that reaches far beyond Louisville, far beyond immigrant communities. A Barbara Bush Foundation study found fewer than half of American adults can read beyond a 6th-grade level. A study supported by the National Institutes of Health stated “a mother’s reading skill is the greatest determinant of her children’s future academic(学业的) success.”

“There’s a stigma(耻辱) there,” said Felicia Cumings Smith, the new head of the National Center for Families Learning. “There’s quite a bit of funding that goes into literacy for K-12, but if students are not successful during those schooling years, that all comes to an end.”

These three hours, every day, make a difference. But they’re only possible because the community center where they take place provides childcare while the parents learn English.

The children are learning English, which creates even more stimulus for the parents to learn as well.

“The kids are speaking English in school every day,” Meagan said. “And then they go back home, and little by little Spanish doesn’t feel like their native language.” It’s why, in the last of these three hours, Yurilia and Ardo attend “Parent Time”. It’s where they practice not just the language but how to apply it.

6 . For decades the message to students in the United Slates has been nearly the same: You need to go to college. Students have heard this message loud and clear, ever since their childhood. However, while encouraging students to further their education after high school is a noble and well-intentioned action, the current system in the United States has created some damaging side effects.

The largest and most well-known consequence is the student debt. Tuition and fees at our-year universities have risen by around 54% since 1999. Total student debt in the U.S. is estimated at around $1.6 trillion, so much that even the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos would have to increase his wealth by nearly nine times to pay off all of it.

Although the price of acquiring a bachelor’s degree has gone up, the relative value of having the actual degree has been watered down by the fact that holding a degree is now an expectation, not a bonus. The poor return on investment is also evidenced by the massive waves of students earning degrees in fields where there simply are not enough jobs for the number of graduates, leaving young adults in debt and out of work.

The push for students to go to college has also prevented them from considering careers in important fields that don’t necessarily require a four-year degree, such as construction and manufacturing. Despite the good pay and benefits in these industries, the lack of new blood has lded to growing shortages of both workers and skills，causing delays and higher costs in project like road repairs and infrastructure (基础设施) improvements.

Colleges and universities remain critical to our nation. But as a society, it would benefit us greatly to acknowledge that college isn’t the only form of higher education and career preparation. Students and young adults have more options than they think and informing them of those opportunities can go a long way toward making higher education as a whole more effective, efficient and affordable.

7 . STEM vs. STEAM

STEM is short for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The term was coined by Judith Ramaley while a director at National Science Foundation in 2001. Since then, STEM-focused education has been extended to many countries beyond the United States. However, education is a constantly evolving game.     1     One of the latest philosophies gaining steam is adding an arts component to the STEM educational focus, thus, creating the STEM vs. STEAM debate.

The believers in STEM education want the focus to remain on the core STEM principles.     2     Tasks involving product design encourage students to draw and create. Adding arts will take away from the original intention of focusing on the STEM disciplines.

    3     They argue that adding arts to STEM is a way to develop strong STEM students who think creatively. Several studies have shown that engaging students’ arts strength increases their motivation when it comes to STEM activities.     4     Furthermore, for kids who might be turned off from STEM subjects due to a dislike of numbers, highlighting the artistic component of lessons can reach out and draw them in.

While they seem to be opposed, both sides of this argument may have the right idea.     5     Consider the growing field of computer animation, where you must have both artistic abilities and strong technology fields. Also, the most basic of all children’s toys, wooden blocks, are an incredible example of STEAM exploration. They bring design, geometry, and engineering concepts to our youngest learners, setting them up for a lifetime of creative thinking.

8 . Schoolchildren spend most of their time surrounded by their peers (同龄人). They spend a lot more time with classmates, teammates and fellow club members than with adults in their lives. Peer pressure can have a huge influence on the lives of children in grades two through twelve.

From birth through age six, the family shapes a child’s sense of identity (个性). Parents and brothers and sisters affect (影响) a child’s likes, dislikes, tastes in clothing, food and music and, perhaps most importantly, values. Once children enter school, they form connections to the larger group of their peers. This group brings new ideas and experiences. Peer pressure happens when a student’s actions are influenced by this group. The “pressure” happens when peers suggest or demand actions different from the child’s normal behavior and values.

Peer pressure leads to some disturbing negative (消极的) behavior in schoolchildren. In the USA, about 75% of high school students have tried alcohol (酒) offered by their friends in middle or high school. According to a survey, students felt pressured by their peers between 35 and 49% of the time. The power of peer pressure can result from a schoolchild’s growing desire to fit into a group.

Thankfully, peer pressure can also be positive (积极的). For example, wanting to join an athletic group of friends may force a student who has been sitting for a long time to try out for the soccer team. In a survey on peer pressure, 51% of teenagers felt that peer pressure was sometimes positive. One teenager responded, “Sometimes it can help you gain confidence.” Other examples of positive peer pressure include students encouraging a classmate to run for school president, or friends suggesting that that a talented peer try out for a talent show.

10 . Young adults often have a lot to learn in school. However, occasionally, the life skills needed for them to become successful outside of school aren’t learned. This may be why the years after high school can sometimes be the most uneasy and tense times for young adults.

Some may say that life skills are to be taught by their household rather than school, but that’s not exactly true. Some students don’t have a parent figure to teach them the necessary moral lessons needed and habitually rely on school to propound them with this essential knowledge. This is why courses of life skills should be set up in schools.

Over the course of history, students generally go to an educational institution of some sort to find themselves spending their entire time learning math and science, instead of what is required for real world-communication, which is through behaviors and manners. Manners are important when having a conversation with family, friends, teachers perhaps or even employers. Schools should find a way to teach manners as a way for students to have respect and be open-minded when it comes to other individuals.

In addition, the handling of finances is one of the major life skills for students. For people, especially young people, to survive in today⁵s financial environment, knowledge of personal finance is a necessity. For example, schools educating students about building credit scores and keeping up with a credit card is helpful. However, Educational Institutions does not spend a good amount of time talking about the topic of money managing ： paying taxes, mortgage, bills, insurance, etc. It is time to extend financial knowledge by making personal finance a required course at US colleges and universities.

With the essential instructions of communication and financial management provided to the young adults, they will be more successful in their future life.