One evening, a workman was exhaustedly making his way home after work. When he stopped to rest by the side of the road, a woman came by, pushing a cart full of flowers. The smell of her blossoms filled the air with sweetness, and it seemed to take away the tiredness in his bones and lift his spirits. He had never experienced such wonder from the many blooms of his own garden. “How much must I pay, or what must I do, to have some of your wonderful flowers?” he asked the woman.

“Oh, sir,” she said, “take what you wish for.”

“What return must I make for them?” he asked again.

“Your gratitude is enough,” she said, “and it’s a pleasure to share the beauty of flowers with you.”

So the man filled his arms with blossoms and hurried joyfully home. His wife and his children were also glad about the remarkable flowers. They also discovered that the sight of them was a delight and the smell of them refreshed the soul.

In order not to lose his valuable possession, the man planted the blossoms in a small plot of land behind his house. Sunlight and water kept them amazingly beautiful—they still performed their fantastic magic.

Every day, his children took delight in playing in the yard and always sang and danced around the flowers. They all liked the lovely gift their father had received and even invited many of their friends to share this fantastic magic together. When children came to play near the flowers, the man over and over warned them against carelessness and wild play for fear that they would walk on the flowers and damage them. But the flowers remained strong as long as there was enough sun and water to nourish(滋养) them. Nowhere else could the man or his wife or children find such remarkable relaxation from tiredness, such comfort in sadness, such spiritual nourishment as those remarkable flowers provided.

With the news spreading and more people coming to appreciate his treasure, the man became even more concerned about his remarkable flowers.

He was determined to protect the flowers.

However, the flowers seemed to fade day by day, so the man went everywhere for help.

It was an art lesson. Rachel sat at the desk watching her classmates busy preparing the water jars and paints. She understood why Mrs. Weston asked her to sit down and got Lisa to fetch everything for her. It was always a disaster when Rachel tried to do art!

Rachel sighed and reached out to dip her brush in some black paint and—oh, no! She knocked over the jar. The water spread across the desk and drowned the paper. Lisa called Mrs. Weston to see what Rachel had done. Rachel went red in the face. She jumped to her feet to get a cloth. Her chair fell over backwards. She turned round and her paintbrush caught Lisa across the face, giving her a black moustache. Lisa was so surprised that she fell back against a wire bookstand. It came crashing down and the books went all over the floor.

How clumsy (笨拙的)! Rachel thought as she went home on the bus. The bus stopped outside her house. She jumped up and her elbow (肘部) knocked a woman’s hat right over her eyes. Oh, no! Rachel said sorry, got off and ran indoors. Mum wasn’t in the kitchen but lay in bed as she caught an awful cold. Rachel offered to make a cup of tea but Mum would rather wait for Dad. Rachel sighed. She understood Mum was afraid that she would spill (溅出) it.

“But would you go to Mrs. Willow for some cold medicine?” asked Mum. Rachel turned to the door at once. “But Mrs. Willow’s house is full of beautiful things, so if she asks you to come in, you’d better say no.” Rachel sighed and ran out.

Mrs. Willow was an old lady with white hair and sharp blue eyes living in an old house. She opened the door and invited her in. Rachel said why she came and that she preferred to wait outside remembering her mother’s warning. Mrs. Willow insisted Rachel come inside. Rachel took a deep breath and stepped in. She looked round Mrs. Willow’s sitting room and saw at once why Mum had been worried.

There were beautiful things everywhere — pretty vases and pots.

With a smile, Mrs. Willow comforted her saying it had been broken before.

5 . When you’re giving a speech to an audience, there isn’t a one-stop-shop approach that will address everyone.     1     The following advice may help adapt your speech for your audiences.

Preparing your speech based on your audience size should be one of your first action-points. Larger audiences often have little participation, so ensure that your speech fills the given time. It’s also much harder to get the attention of a larger group.    2       Remember to have eye contact with as many individuals around the room to keep them engaged.     3     This means you’ll need to prepare extra material if needed and allow for questions or comments throughout while still delivering your message in the given time.

    4     Generally, there are four different ways in which people learn: visual, auditory, reading and writing and kina esthetic(动觉 ). Including elements of each learning style in your speech will help to engage more of your audience. Slides and images for visual learners, using sound effects for auditory learners, providing copies of the slides which can be noted and interactive parts of the speech will all be helpful in connecting with different audiences.

No matter how much you prepare and adapt your content for your audience, you may find yourself in the situation where you are losing their engagement during your speech. It’s essential that you read and act on these signals, like lack of eye contact, yawning or your listeners being on their phone. Take the time to observe these reactions in the crowd and understand what interest or bore your audience.     5    

Video Games Foster Creativity?

Video games that foster creative freedom can increase creativity under certain conditions, according to new research from Iowa State University. The experimental study compared the effect f playing Mine-craft(《我的世界》-一款游戏), with or without instruction, to watching a TV show or playing a race video game. Those     1     (give) the freedom to play Mine-craft without instruction were most creative.

“It’s not just that Mine-craft can help induce creativity. There seems to be something about choosing to do it that also matters,” said Douglas Gentile, a professor of psychology.

    2     you are not familiar with the game, Gentile says Mine-craft is like a virtual Lego world. The game, which has sold more than 100 million copies, allows players to explore unique worlds and create anything they can imagine. Study participants randomly assigned to play Mine-craft were split into two groups. The one receiving instruction was told to play as creatively as possible.

After 40 minutes of play or watching TV, the 352 participants completed several creativity tasks.     3     (measure) creative production, they were asked to draw a creature from a world much different than Earth. More human like creature scored low for creativity and those less human-like scored high. Surprisingly, those instructed to be creative while playing Mine-craft were the     4     (creative).

Gentile says there’s no clear explanation for this finding. In the paper published by Creativity Research Journal, he, Jorge Blanco-Herrera, lead author and former master’s student in psychology: and Jeffrey Rokkum, former Ph. D. student in psychology, outlined possible reasons why the instructed Mine-craft group scored lower. Blanco-Herrera says the instructions may have changed subjects’ motivation for play.

“    5     (tell) to be creative may have actually limited their options while playing, resulting in a less creative experience,” Blanco-Herrera said. “It’s also possible they used all their ‘creative juices’ while playing and had     6     left when it came time to complete the test.”

Video games can have both harmful and beneficial effects. Gentile’s previous research has shown the amount, content and context and video games     7     (influence) what players learn through repeated experiences.     8     much of Gentile’s research has focused on aggression or pro-social behavior, he says the same appears to be true for creativity.

Most video games encourage players to practice some level of creativity. For example, players may create a character and story for role-playing games or be rewarded for creative strategies in competitive games. The researchers say even first-person shooter games     9     potentially inspire creativity as players think about strategy and look for advantages in combat.

“The research is starting to tell a more interesting, nuanced picture. Our results are similar to other gaming research     10     you get better at what you practice, but how you practice might matter just as much, ” Gentile said.

Art into Campus