1 . It is true that people with better education are usually able to get better paying jobs. In other words, they have more chances to choose a good job while people with little or no education don’t. It seems that the purpose of education is to make people get jobs. But this isn’t accepted by all people.

Some people may think that a person should spend the best years of his life to get education only for a way of living. This was probably one of the earliest reasons of education. In fact, if education is just a way of making a living, people don’t need to spend so much time in school. People can get education for a living in a short time. Subjects like history and geography need not be taught to everyone. Even languages and mathematics need not be taught in detail, either. Here it is clear that education is much more than teaching a man to get a way of living.

Education is well-rounded and it is mainly for improving a man. It is not only to teach him to speak, read and write, but also to develop his creative thinking and other abilities. After that, it is to make him a wise man and thankfully enjoy the achievements of humans. Education is to make a man lead a better life. Educated people are expected to be able to listen to good music, read good books, watch plays, and most of all, take an interest in the world.

I would agree that making a good living is an important reason for education, but certainly not the most important or the main reason.

3 . Recently I had the opportunity to reconnect with an old friend, Chris Besse. One of the things I always admired about Chris was the way that he saw education as a mission, not a job. Chris called me last week to tell me he is CEO of a company called EdgeMakers, which is a new company that is bringing one of the missing ingredients(要素)to education: innovation.

I am always calling for changes in the way we educate our children. It is important that we prepare our children for a different economy and a different world. Employers of the future will demand creativity from their employees.

A tech company owned by a friend of mine has grown from a handful of employees to over 100 in the last seven years, and he still has 90 percent of all the employees he hired. He doesn’t pay more than other tech firms. He doesn’t have a Disney-like campus. What he does is pose interesting problems, not get involved in the solutions and allow employees to get to the solution in any way they want. His employees stay because they are motivated and interested.

This is the definition of modern industry and in many ways, the future of education. Successful employers now encourage innovation. Schools should create an innovative environment. But it appears that our current education system has a long way to go to achieve this.

The good news is that some schools are making changes. California and Texas just approved EdgeMakers’ courses for use in their high schools. According to John Kao, founder of EdgeMakers, “Creativity is inside every student, waiting to be freed. But without intentional programs in our schools, creativity is underdeveloped. We cannot allow this to continue, as our society is faced with problems that appear unsolvable unless we innovate to find solutions. Our goal with these courses is to combine students’ natural creativity with purpose, helping them develop as innovators whose work is truly meaningful and makes a difference to issues that matter.”

4 . I have spent my entire life either at the schoolhouse, on the way to the schoolhouse, or talking about what happens in the schoolhouse. Both my parents and my grandparents were educators. For the past 40 years I’ve done the same thing. Needless to say, over those years I’ve had a chance to look at education reform from a lot of aspects. And we know why kids drop out. We know why kids don’t learn. It’s either poverty, low attendance or negative peer influences. But one of the things that we never discuss or we barely discuss is the value—the importance of human connection and relationships.

James Comer says that no significant learning can occur without a significant relationship and all learning is understanding relationships. Everyone has been affected by a teacher or an adult. I have looked at the best and I’ve looked at some of the worst.

A colleague said to me once, “My duty isn’t to like the kids, but to teach a lesson. The kids should learn it. I should teach it. This is the case.” Well, I said to her, “You know, kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.”

I have had classes that were so low that I cried. I wondered, how was I going to take this group in nine months from where they were to where they needed to be? And it was awfully hard. How did I raise the self-confidence of a child and his academic achievement at the same time?

One year I came up with a bright idea. I told all my students, “You were chosen to be in my class because I am the best teacher and you are the best students. They put us all together so we could show everybody else how to do it.” And I gave them a saying: “I am somebody. I was somebody when I came. I’ll be a better somebody when I leave. I am powerful , and I am strong. I deserve the education that I get here.”

Teaching and learning should bring joy. How powerful would our world be if we had kids who were not afraid to take risks, who were not afraid to think, and who had a champion! Every child deserves a champion. An adult who will never give up on them, and who understands the power of connection, insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.

6 . What time does your school start? Do you wish you could get up later every morning? You are not alone if your answer is “Yes.” In the US, many middle school students have the same wish.

In America, many schools start before 7:30 a.m.. But that may change soon. A new law has been passed in California. According to the law, middle schools should not start before 8:00 a.m.. The government hopes school children will have longer time in bed.

Many scientific studies show that teenagers are more active in the afternoon and in the evening. Simply telling them to go to bed earlier doesn’t work well. Most of them don’t get enough sleep because of bad sleeping habits and early school starting time. They need more sleep in the morning. Scientists suggest middle schools should start at 8:00 a.m. or later. Students can get well ready to learn and they won’t fall asleep in class. ________________ The change can help improve students’ grades.

While scientists are happy with the new law, many parents disagree with it. They won’t be able to send their children to school before they go to work. They also fear that later school starting time will lead to later ending time. As a result, their children will have less time to take part in after-school activities.

7 . By age 18, many teens are felig a combination of excitement and fear about the future. They tend to be very focused on their friends, social lives, and future. There are a lot of decisions to be made about life after graduation, including potential careers, college plans, or military service paths. Many 18- year- olds spend a lot of time into thinking about what type of life they want once they’re on their own, but they also may just be enjoying the present.

The day your child turns 18, they become a legal adult in most states. This means that they can vote, sign contracts, and join the military. By law, you are no longer required to support them and they are considered fully responsible for their own actions. And while you likely want to continue to help support your child to some level, you are now limited in what you can do. For example, you cannot call up their college professor to see how they are doing in their Calculus class—they have to do that themselves.

Parenting your 18- year- old can be a tricky balance of guiding them towards autonomy(自主) while also keeping them safe and supported. “Teenagers can be all gas and no brakes(刹车), and that’s scary, which is why it’s so important to keep an open, honest dialogue with them,” says Aliza Pressman, PhD, a professor of peditrics and psychologist at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital in New York City.

Teens who have plenty of life skills often feel ready to move out of the home and begin the next chapter. But others may feel less than ready for life as an adult. Those who are less mature (成熟的) or experience self- doubt may step back a bit as they think about entering the next stage of their lives.

9 . How to Teach Your Child the Value of Money?

Do your teens understand the power of money? Do they know how to stop wasting and begin valuing money?     1    .

Set up the family’s money values

Since there is a lot of money decisions we have to make in a lifetime, it makes sense to set up foundational money values. Have you ever sat down to figure out your family’s money values?     2    . Communication helps set the stage for money management in your house, which is a great exercise for them.

Help them make calculations

    3    . Instead, you should have them see it with their own eyes. Calculating a cost-per-use for whatever your teens want to buy will help them in making their spending decisions. To do this, your teens will need to estimate how many uses they’ll get out of what they want to buy. Then, they’ll divide the cost of the item by the number of uses to find what the cost of use is.

    4    

This calculation is going to help your teenagers see how many hours they need to work in order to buy what they want. Let’s say their hourly pay is $5. If they want to spend $70 buying a pair of shoes, they have to work 14 hours to pay for them. That will tell them how many hours this item or event will cost them.     5    

Hopefully, these will help your teenagers become a financially aware person — the actual end-goal of money education.

10 . In the United States and other countries, schoolchildren have long learned from one kind of world map. It is called the Mercator projection. This version of map is more than 450 years old. Gerardus Mercator, a European mapmaker, designed it for the purpose of helping sailors and ships on the high seas.

But map experts say the Mercator projection should not be used in schools. They say it does not correctly show the sizes of countries and continents. For example, Mercator maps make Greenland appear bigger than China. In fact, China is about four times larger than Greenland.

Now, school officials in Massachusetts are replacing the Mercator map with the Peters projection. German historian Arno Peters worked on the projection in the 1970s. Peters’ aim was to fix Mercator’s problems with sizes.

Seeing a Peters map for the first time can be a strange experience. Land masses may look stretched (拉伸的) compared to how they look on the Mercator s and some other world maps.

Every map has its purpose. At first, the main purpose of Gerardus Mercator’s map was to help sailors get across the open seas without getting lost. When the Mercator map is used for other purposes than navigating (航行), such as on classroom walls as a representation of the real world, that’s like using a telephone to brush your teeth. The aim of the Peters projection was to show all countries, all regions, all continents, at their own actual sizes.

The Mercator and Peters projections are just two of many kinds of world maps that may hang in school classrooms. Many public schools in China, for example, use a map that shows East Asia near the center. It is human nature to view one’s own place near the center of the world. Mercator himself put Germany—his adopted homeland—near the middle of his map.

Maps are powerful tools. And the map from which students learn about the world can make a big difference in their understanding of others.