It was warm for a Sunday afternoon in early January. Kevin loved being outdoors among the wild rosebushes in front of his house with a view of distant mountains.

    It had been a good day for his wife, Sharon, too. They spent the morning in front of the house, talking and drinking tea. Sharon felt strong and tried her best to cook, starting a pot of homemade soup — a task that would have been nothing a few years ago, but is a little hard for her now. Her illness had left her weak, often puzzled.

    Sharon was the take-charge person in the family. She was seldom sick until 1997, when she began suffering from terrible headaches. One day at work, colleagues said she didn't look right and urged(敦促) her to go to the hospital. She rose from her chair and fell over. She could hear voices, but couldn't speak. It looked as if she'd had a stroke(中风).

    Other stroke-like symptoms (症状) followed. She had difficulty walking. She ran a fever all the time. The headaches never stopped. She and Kevin spent all their savings seeing doctors and on medical tests.

    In 2000, physicians said Sharon had brain damage that left her with symptoms resembling dementia (痴呆症). Once, she visited a familiar store and couldn't remember where the exit was. Another time, she was making spaghetti, but didn't know what to do after the water boiled.

    After seeing specialists, Kevin and Sharon came to believe that exposure(接触) to mould(霉菌) had caused Sharon's condition. Her world was certainly getting worse. At times she needed a wheelchair. The woman who never liked asking for help had to stay at home and rely on her husband.

    Academic learning is usually in the spotlight at school, but teaching elementary-age students “soft” skills like self-control and how to get along with others might help to keep at-risk kids out of criminal trouble in the future.

    Once a program called Fast Track was started in the early 1990s for more than 7,600 children of 55 schools in America. They were identified by their teachers and parents to be at high risk for developing aggressive behavioral problems. The students were randomly divided into two groups; half took part in the intervention, which included a teacher-led curriculum, parent training groups, academic tutoring and lessons in self-control and social skills. The program, which lasted from first grade through 10th grade, reduced delinquency(少年犯罪), arrests and use of health and mental health services as the students aged through adolescence and young adulthood.

    In another latest study, by looking at the data from nearly 900 students in previous findings, researchers found that about a third of the influence on future crime outcomes was due to the social and self-regulation skills the students learned from ages 6 to 11.

    The academic skills, or hard skills like learning of physics, which were taught as part of Fast Track, turned out to have less of an influence on crime and delinquency rates than did the soft skills, which are associated with emotional(情绪的) intelligence. Soft skills might include teaching kids to work cooperatively in a group or teaching them how to think about the long-term consequences when they make a decision.

    Researchers drew the conclusion that these soft skills should be emphasized even more in our education system and in our system of socializing children. Parents should do all they can to promote these skills with their children as should education policymakers. To the extent we can improve those skills, we can improve outcomes in delinquency.

    What do you often do when you wait for a bus or a train at the station?

    Tom arrived at the bus station quite early for Paris bus. The bus for Paris would not leave until five to twelve. He saw a lot of people waiting in the station. Some were standing in line, others were walking around. There was a group of schoolgirls. The teacher was trying to keep them in line. Tom looked around but there was no place for him to sit.

    He walked into the station cafe. He looked up at the clock there. It was only twenty to twelve. He found a seat and sat down before a large mirror on the wall. Just then, Mike, one of Tom's workmates, came in and sat with Tom. "What time is your bus?" asked Mike. "There's plenty of time yet," answered Tom. "Well, I'll get you more tea then," said Mike.

    They talked while drinking. Then Tom looked at the clock again. "Oh! It's going backward!" he cried. "A few minutes ago it was twenty to twelve and now it's half past eleven."

    "You're looking at the clock in the mirror," said Mike. Tom was so sad. The next bus was not to leave for another hour. Since then Tom has never liked mirrors.

    The town of Green Bank, West Virginia, is the site of the largest radio telescope in the world, so Internet connections and anything else that can create electromagnetic(电磁的) waves, such as smart phones and microwave ovens, are banned.

    Green Bank is frozen in time, somewhere in the 1950s, because there's a 33,000-square-kilometer zone of silence due to the telescope. Cell phone towers are forbidden.

    The closer you get to the telescope, the greater the restrictions. There's a 16-kilometer radius(半径) around the observatory where radio-controlled items, even toys, cannot be used.

    Telescope employees even work in a special room that blocks electromagnetic waves from leaving it. “Here imagine a submarine(潜艇), water cannot get inside, and so this room is an electric submarine. No electromagnetic waves can get into this room, just as you can't go beyond it,” Michael Holstein, an observatory officer, said.

    The size of a football field, the telescope is so sensitive that it could pick up signals sent from an alien world. And scientists can't wait for that to happen.

    “All the signals that we now receive with the help of telescopes are signals that come from cosmic objects — stars, galaxies. We have not yet received anything from intelligent civilizations,” scientist Richard Lynch said.

    Local people respect the work of the scientists. “Yes, we are different. Many would say that we live the old-fashioned way, in the past. But for us, it's just the way of life that we have always lived,” Sherry said.

    “When we want to meet friends, we just call each other on a wire phone. And instead of sitting in front of your screen, we talk, we go fishing, to the mountains,” resident Sherry said.

    For the latest news, residents read the weekly local newspaper. When she's looking for a phone number, Sherry reaches for the phone book.

    And instead of Facebook, Sherry enjoys daily conversations with her customers. In this town, everyone knows each other and communication is face to face.

    When 12 girls from San Fernando high school in California received a grant (助学金) to develop an invention to solve a real-world problem, they decided to create a solar-powered shelter. Now for over a year, the girls have been working after school and over the winter and spring breaks to complete their project. "They have this amazing drive that I've never seen before," said Violet Mardirosian, a math teacher at San Fernando High. "I thought at the beginning that maybe some of them would give up, saying 'I didn't expect this much work,' but they don't. They're just working hard and they're not giving up."

    Living in a low-income community (社区), the girls have seen the problem of homelessness first-hand, which is why they chose that population to create a product for. Many of them are also from immigrant families and hope the solar-powered shelter might help refugees (难民). Seventeen-year-old Maggie Mejia said that while she had no engineering experience, the girls figured out as a team how to create the prototype (雏形), using how-to videos and books that taught them how to code. But the most important lesson she's learned over the course of the project isn't technical. "I've learned a lot about helping others, helping the community and showing a better world to other people," she said.

    The girls have been invited to MIT to show their invention. Mardirosian says all the participating students have expressed interest in going into STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields and that students from lower grades are already expressing interest in being involved next year. She says, "Many of them didn't think about engineering before. They thought maybe they're not made out to be an engineer. But working together, now they realize they're all needed in this field. Everyone has found their importance in this picture."

All students are expected to read and learn the School Rules. These rules aim to make each student aware of the value of self-control, orderliness and the need to develop a sense of responsibility for their own behavior and for the larger community of which they are a part.

Dress Regulations

The School expects its students to wear their full school uniform correctly and with pride. It is our expectation that uniform and shoes will be clean and in good repair. Boys' hair should be combed and of an acceptable length (not over the collar, ears or eyes), with no artificial coloring. Girls' hair should be of a natural color. Shoulder-length hair must be tied back.

Absence, Illness and Punctuality

All students must be at school on time. If late, the student must sign in the late book in the General Office. Parents are asked to inform the school if their child is absent by 8:30 am on the day of absence. A written note from a parent explaining the absence MUST be provided to the General Office the day after return.

Should a student be ill during school hours he is to go straight to the School Medical Center. The sister will then take appropriate action.

Safety

◆ Proper behavior is expected within and around buildings and on the sporting field at all times.

◆ Students are not to enter laboratories, language rooms, the Technics and music rooms until invited to do so by teachers.

◆ The riding of bicycles or skateboards is prohibited along the front drive. Students riding bicycles must wear an approved bicycle helmet.

◆ No knives, explosives or dangerous materials may be brought into the school or boarding houses.

◆ Students are forbidden to interfere with fire safety equipment. An automatic fine will be imposed if this occurs.