1 . Should Elizabeth II be the last queen? And should police officers be banned from using guns? Pupils at Redden Court School, a state high school in London’s eastern suburb, compete with interesting topics when they give up their lunch breaks for debate club.

The school is one of many public ones to have taken up debating in recent years. Last year the English- Speaking Union (ESU), Britain’s main debating organization, began to provide free help to 100 schools with lots of poor pupils. It hopes to change the view that debating is for rich kids.

Advocates propose a range of benefits. Duncan Partridge of the ESU argues that the confidence and fluency debating inspires will help children in future university applications and job interviews. Teachers at Redden Court say it has improved pupils’ ability to set out their arguments logically, in writing and in class, and they believe debating can be of wider use still.

Yet, despite these organisations’ best efforts, success in debating competitions is not just becoming more concentrated in private schools, but in a few of them that take it most seriously. Some hire international debating superstars to tutor their pupils. In 2015 Eton College, one of Britain’s grandest schools, opened a debating club that cost £18 million. In the past decade just two state schools have won the ESU’s annual debating competition in England.

Joseph Spence, master of another top private school, says another problem is that “there is something quite white, middle class and male about the debating form.” Some worry that school debating promotes skillful rhetoric (虚华辞藻) but not critical thinking.

To respond to such criticism, the ESU is designing a new debating format that encourages teams to shift their position in response to their opponent’s arguments. It has also introduced a policy that from this year, at least 30% of its competition members must come from state schools. However, is affirmative (积极的) action a just response to continuing inequality?

4 . Boris Johnson has said extending the school day is “the right thing to do” and the government is examining how extra hours could be used for additional tuition and activities. In his strongest commitment yet to imposing the extra hours, the prime minister also criticized the work of the former education recovery chief, Sir Kevan Collins, telling ministers that their catch-up schooling plan was not ambitious enough.

Collins once recommended spending about £ 15 bn on education recovery, including extending the school day by 30 minutes. Government officials said the plan was praiseworthy in some aspects. But they also suggested further cash for education catch-up at the autumn spending review, due to the objection that the plan already announced left much to be desired.

Speaking to the education committee chair, Robert Half on, Johnson said: “We’re looking at the evidence, and if Fm absolutely frank with you and the committee, to begin with some of the evidence that was assembled was not as good as it could have been.” The evidence on lengthening the school day wasn’t as powerful as it was on tuition, for instance, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do. I do think it’s the right thing to do. Question is how you do it. What sorts of activities do you need? Are they academic? As you rightly say, we’re doing a proper review of all of that to get the evidence that we want. Halfon said he was encouraged by the comments. “We need radical thinking and radical action to tackle the disaster which has befallen children in the last 18 months” he told the Guardian, “If the government is seriously looking at a longer school day as the PM has suggested, that is encouraging.”

Teachers’ unions had warned that plans to extend schooling hours could backfire. Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: ”We know that quality of teaching is more important than quantity. It will be vital that these proposals are properly resourced and don’t become an unsustainable burden on schools, leaders and teachers. And there will be many questions about exactly what the expectation will be over the content of longer school days.”

6 . Dalena worked as a teacher in a small Indian village, where girls attended school only for primary education. Mala was a(n) _______ girl in Dalena’s class, whom Dalena was proud of. Dalena always instructed her girl students about the importance of _______, self-respect, and courage. So, it was surprising when Mala was _______ for more than a week.

Dalena decided to _______ in Mala’s home. Mala’s parents _______ their plan to get Mala married. Greatly _______, Dalena argued, “I don’t believe it! But she is too young to know what _______ means and what the responsibilities are. Mala is not ready physically, _______ or emotionally.” Mala’s father said, “But our family _______ won’t allow girls to continue school, and the seniors of the family may also ________.”

Dalena said, “I do respect your customs, but these are old ________. Nowadays, girls can ________ to great heights because of their education. Please reconsider it.”

In the next two weeks, Dalena visited the family many times. Finally, Mala’s father ________ to let Mala go back to school.

Mala ________ her learning opportunities and rose to be a topper in her school. Years later, with hard work, Mala became a senior Civil Services Officer in her city. Mala proudly said, “It is the ________ of my teacher that has made me what I am today.”

7 . How to Develop a Habit of Keeping a Diary

Diaries are wonderful ways that allow you to express your emotions or ideas, and reflect (沉思) on daily life in a safe private space.    1    Here are some tips to help you develop a habit of keeping a diary.

Brainstorming (集思广益) topics. Not sure what to write about? You can choose any event of your day that impresses you deeply. For example, you could write about the English exam you took at school that day. Are you feeling good about the exam?    2    Besides, you can also write down inspiring words from a famous person, your favorite book or movie and what they mean to you.

Choose an exact time each day to write in your diary.    3    Others simply forget to write. Choosing an exact time each day for diary writing may help. For example, you might choose to write in your diary every night right before bed. Don’t set an unrealistic schedule for yourself. If writing every day seems out of reach, plan on keeping a diary 3 times a week instead.

    4     You don’t have to spend much time every day writing in your diary. 10-15 minutes every time is enough when you’re just starting out. For example, you could write a few key points in your diary when you just try writing. Remember that keeping a diary is just an expression, not an unpleasant task, so go easy on yourself.

Use illustrations (插图)if you prefer drawing to writing. Some people find it easier to express their thoughts and emotions through drawing rather than writing. Quick drawings may also help you write down something that you want to remember but don’t have time to write about.     5    

8 . 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!

9 . Our lives are full of habits. Unfortunately a great many of them are bad habits. One way to break these bad habits is to fill our lives with good habits. Most people decide one day that they need to make changes to their lives and then they go all out to make big sweeping changes. This may work for them for the first few days, but then they get burned out.     1     This is a very unproductive way to spend your time and energy.

    2     Say your goal is to get up an hour earlier every day. One day you start setting your alarm for an hour earlier and you keep this up for one week. Then because you are naturally resistant to change, you go back to your old habit. A better way is to set your alarm one minute earlier every day. After two months you are getting up an hour earlier and you will not even notice the change.     3    

This approach can work for just about anything. If you are exercising for half an hour every day and you want to increase that time to one hour then add a minute every day. After one month you will have reached your goal with very little resistance from your body and mind.     4    

This method of change is gentle, but very powerful. Think of everything you can accomplish if you just continuously improve a little at a time. The change itself creates the momentum (动力) you need to keep going.     5     What one minute change can you make to your life today?

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.