1 . In the last school year, nearly 1 in every 10 students in New York City public schools was homeless, according to new data released on Wednesday. A total of 104,383 children lacked permanent housing during the 2021-22 school year across districts, an increase of about 3.3 percent from the previous school year, according to an annual report released by Advocates for Children New York,a nonprofit organization that annually collects data on homeless students.

About 28 percent or more than 29,000 students were living in city shelters, while nearly 5 percent or about 5,500 students were considered “Unaltered”, living in cars, parks and abandoned buildings, according to the report. Nearly 360 children lived in hotels or motels. About 69,000 children were “doubled up”, meaning they stayed with extended family and friends after losing permanent housing or facing economic difficulties, the report found.

Meanwhile,the country’s largest school district has been losing students,with roughly 120,000 leaving over the last five years. Public school enrollment(入学) has dropped by nearly 9.5 percent since the pandemic started.

“While the city works to address the issue of homelessness, we also must ensure that students who are homeless get to class every day and receive the targeted support they need to succeed in school,” Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children, said.

During the last school year, almost 2 in 3 students living in shelters were considered “chronically (经常反复发生地) absent”, which means they missed at least 10 percent of school days. Chronic absence hurts students’ academic performance. In the 2020-21 school year, 70 percent of students who were homeless graduated, compared with 81 percent of all students. They were also more than three times more likely to drop out of high school than their classmates who do have housing.

“If we want to break this bad cycle of poverty and homelessness, we have to make sure we’re prioritizing education of students in temporary housing,”Jennifer Pringle, director of Project Learning in Temporary Housing for Advocates for Children, told The New York Times.“The consequences are just awful and without a coordinated(协调一致的), targeted response, we’re not going to see a change.”

2 . My name is Marceen Farsakian. As a first grade teacher, I try to _______ myself around kind and caring people. I’m happy to teach young children. To me, _______ the social and emotional needs of a child is just as important, if not more important than teaching knowledge. Students seem to grow in all areas _______ a safe, positive, and inspiring environment is provided for them.

At the beginning of each school year, I set a goal for _______: get organized, try new strategies for classroom management, focus on the good, etc. One year I remembered telling myself I would focus on the _______ of kindness. I would be _______ to my students, parents, staff members and myself. That year _______ being one of my most _______ years as a classroom teacher, but I grew greatly as a human. Being kind did make a _______. Kindness spreads quickly.

Teaching kindness creates an environment of mutual (相互的) care and respect. Students become devoted to their school. They are ________ in the fact that they belong there and that their being there matters. I believe that when students feel secure, trusted, and respected, then they will take risks, and take ownership in their actions, and they will have ________ in all areas. Sharing the teaching of kindness to children has taken me on a beautiful new ________. I started a Kind Kids Club in my class and over the last four years it has ________ into a school-wide program. Our kind kids come to life when they are ________ an act of kindness. Their smiles are magical.

My kind kids inspire me every day. I am grateful and ________ blessed to be able to do what I do! Kindness has changed my world, and let it change yours!

3 . Everyone has “down days”. Maybe it’s because of the bad weather, or the disappointing grades on a difficult test, and some days teenagers just act uninterested in life or school. But these symptoms(症状) often pass quickly, as teens move on to new school subjects, or meet with friends to prevent themselves from thinking what troubles them at the moment. But if a teenager displays symptoms of sadness for more than two lasting weeks, it might point to something serious.

As teenagers develop, they push new boundaries(边界), complain about rules and look for more free rights from their parents. According to the online Health Guide on Adolescent Development, parents must be lasting figures in their teenagers’ life, providing safe boundaries for teens to grow, even if the teenagers act like these boundaries are unwanted.

Parents need to provide rules, while also remaining flexible(灵活的) and respectful of the growing teens’ need for freedom. For example, teenagers will often feel frustrated, embarrassed, and even angry that thought they want freedom, they still need to ask their parents for an agreement to go to a friend’s house, or need their mothers to take them to school.

The US Department of Education says that parents should respect and support their teen’s choices as long as those choices won’t have long-term harmful effects. For example, even if a parent doesn’t enjoy the music his or her teen listens to, it’s unlikely that the choice of music will prevent that teen from entering a good college, or lead to health problems. However, if that teen is drinking alcohol and driving, parents must get through strict punishments to teach that there are bad results for poor choices that come with increased freedom.

4 . There’s no doubt that language in all its richness — written,spoken,sung or read aloud — plays a crucial role in our early development. It has become increasingly common to begin teaching children literacy(读写能力)skills at an early age. The thinking often goes that starting early gives children more time to learn and get ahead.

However,many studies show little benefit from an early overly-academic environment. Children who attend academically focused preschools do not have higher academic abilities in later grades than those who did not,several studies now show. Too much academic pressure may even cause problems in the long run. A study published in January 2022 suggested those who attended preschools with a strong academic emphasis,showed lower academic achievements a few years later,compared to those who didn’t.

Anna Cunningham,a senior lecturer in psychology at Nottingham Trent University who studies early literacy,argues that if a setting is too academically focused early on,it can cause the teachers to become stressed over tests and results,which can in turn affect the kids. “Academic requirements early on don’t end up being meaningful. Children end up memorizing rather than understanding context,”adds Anna.

In many countries,formal schooling starts at 4. But not everyone favors an early start. In Finland,often known as the country with one of the best education systems in the world,children begin school at seven. Despite a later start,Finnish students score higher in reading comprehension than students from the UK at age 15. Besides,the Finnish kindergarten years are filled with more play and no formal academic instruction.

Research also found that later readers catch up — even are slightly better than the early readers in comprehension abilities. Learning later allows children to more efficiently match their knowledge of the world to the words they learn. So our craze with early literacy appears to be somewhat unfounded.

6 . During my freshman year at Babson College, I was trying to discover how to get educational resources to the most faraway areas of Yemen, the war-stricken country. Soon I learned that I couldn’t send _______ or even deliver online courses because Yemen's access to the Internet is extremely _______ .

After months of hard thinking, I realized that the best way to _______ education would be through _______ , which are accessible to users and help to _______ concepts into bite-size pieces.

Then, I worked with a few professors to _______ the first text message course. Every morning, students were texted about two pieces of screen-length _______ explaining a certain concept or case study _______ , normally ending with a test. Our team began to build Artist, the first text message learning app, to make something greater out the idea.

Our team members were totally _______ for the first seven months of the company. The ________ part was staying on the same page when we're apart all day and making sure everyone was ________ everything well. It’s important to ________ from time to time and have very clear roles and responsibilities. When we first created our app, our email system ________ and we couldn’t get emails for two weeks. It was a ________ .

________ , we didn’t give up and realized that putting confidence in the team and task was the only way we were able to deal with ________ . We trusted each other and had the same ________ . Actually, if you like the people you’re creating something with and believe in where you’re going, everything else can be easily ________ .

After several months, summer came and our team finally got our business back ________ . We received very ________ reviews, with most of students liking text message learning more than any other form of digital learning.

Learning for a Distracted Generation

Today's students have a problem, and it is not the one written on the board. They were born into a world where algorithms (算法) keep them clicking, scrolling and swiping at a rapid pace. Technology, smartphones, social media, and immediate access to the internet are hurting their ability to focus and changing the way they think.

Now teachers have a problem too. They find it particularly exhausting to ask students to read complex or long texts without taking regular     1    . Smartphones have clearly affected the younger generation, but how education should evolve for digital-native students was not something that was covered when they were getting     2     .   

A common     3     among teachers is that short is good. When students can't seem to pay attention to long lectures, many teachers simply hack lessons into smaller chunks (模块). In fact, students need time to     4     with a topic once the teacher introduces it before moving on. Switching between small lessons too quickly could rob them of valuable comprehension.

A 2018 study from educational publisher Pearson found that students aged between 10 and 24 tend to stay away from physical books. They prefer video as a source of information     5     only to teachers. Therefore, some tech-forward teachers choose to “meet kids where they are" on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. Asha Choksi, vice president of global research at Pearson, gives the example of a teacher who     6     himself performing a science experiment and posts it to YouTube. When it is time for class, he uses the video to     7     materials in the textbook, which can seem boring to students.

Still, while those educators are     8     technology in the classroom to meet students’ needs, they are also finding value in traditional methods, and so suggest a blended (混合的) learning approach. Diregt instruction from them will never be replaced in their classes. Technology will be     9     only when it improves a lesson in ways that are impossible offline.

Digital natives will continue to eagerly adopt new media. Teachers have no choice but to adapt. They are making an effort not only to ensure that students take advantage of new technologies, but to teach students valuable skills that can help them succeed in a world     10     trying to distract them. Think of the Zuckerbergs, the Gates, the Jobs and all those pioneers in the tech world. They became successful not because they could code; it was because they could think.

10 . I’d like to talk about my first teaching experience. It was in the fall of 2010—I had to teach integral calculus (积分学). I had taught before but it was always 2-3 students at a time. I had no experience of classroom teaching. So I had butterflies in my stomach.

Anyway, the appointed hour came and I had no choice but to go on. I introduced myself, asked each one of them to do a brief introduction and got down to business. Fortunately, it was a worksheet session, so I didn’t have to do much. The students were well prepared—most of them had done AP calculus. The first day was a success.

As the quarter went by, I found the work more and more easygoing. So I was lax and stopped preparing the homework problems beforehand. How wrong I was!

One day we were doing surfaces of revolution. I used to do them in a more different way than it was taught in the text. I tried to do the first problem but it wasn’t just a piece of cake—I had to step back and think for five minutes before the solution came to me. To the credit of my students, no one showed any sign of impatience in the meantime. I was feeling doubly uncomfortable because it was a day of observation by the school leaders.

The next class I tried to give some additional resources on advanced materials, especially to students who would stay after the class or come to my office hours.

My evaluations were mixed. Two major complaints were about my accent and my handwriting on the board.

I learned a lot about teaching after this course. In my view, teaching is like a performing art. No amount of reading or attending workshops will prepare you for the challenge. You only get better with practice.