When John was growing up, other kids felt sorry for him. His parents always had him weeding the garden, carrying out the garbage and delivering newspapers. But when John reached adulthood, he was better off than his childhood playmates. He had more job satisfaction, a better marriage and was healthier. Most of all, he was happier. Far happier.

These are the findings of a 40-year study that followed the lives of 456 teenage boys from Boston. The study showed that those who had worked as boys enjoyed happier and more productive lives than those who had not. “Boys who worked in the home or community gained competence (能力) and came to feel they were worthwhile members of society,” said George Vaillant, the psychologist (心理学家) who made the discovery. “And because they felt good about themselves, others felt good about them.”

Vaillant's study followed these males in great detail. Interviews were repeated at ages 25, 31 and 47. Under Vaillant, the researchers compared the men's mental-health scores with their boyhood-activity scores with their boyhood-activity scores. Points were awarded for part-time jobs, housework, effort in school, and ability to deal with problems.

The link between what the men had done as boys and how they turned out as adults was surprisingly sharp. Those who had done the most boyhood activities were twice as likely to have warm relations with a wide variety of people, five times as likely to be well paid and 16 times less likely to have been unemployed. The researchers also found that IQ and family social and economic class made no real difference in how the boys turned out.

Working—at any age—is important. Childhood activities help a child develop responsibility, independence, confidence and competence—the underpinnings (基础) of emotional health. They also help him understand that people must cooperate and work toward common goals. The most competent adults are those who know how to do this. Yet work isn't everything. As Tolstoy once said, “One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one's work.”

    The more interested you are in a topic, the more likely you may be to form “false memories” about the events related to that topic.

    “Most people are pretty confident about their own memory for some events, but new research shows that false memory is a lot more frequent than many people realize. In terms of daily life, the key point here may be to understand that someone who remembers an event differently from yours isn't necessarily lying—someone's memory may be faulty, or it might be you,” said study co-author Ciara Greene, a psychologist at the university College Dublin.

    In the study, the researchers asked 489 people to read four news stories about events that were related to the topics they ranked as the most interesting, and four stories about events related to the topics they rated as the least interesting. In each case, three of these events really did occur, but the fourth one was made up.

    It turned out that people tended to remember the stories of the topics they said they were more interested in compared with the topics they were not interested in. However, the participants also tended to store more false memories related to the topics they were interested in compared with the topics they were not interested in, the researchers found.

    The more people know about a topic, the more memories related to this topic they have stored in their brains, the researchers said. Therefore, when a person meets new information on this topic, that information may find traces of similar memories that have already stored in the brain, Greene said.

    “This can result in a sense of familiarity or recognition of the new material, leading to the conviction (确信) that the information has been met before and is in fact an existing memory,” Greene said. In other words, this new material or information may “feel” familiar and therefore the person may believe it must be true, he said.

    Learning more about how false memories work may help protect against the harmful results of them, such as when eyewitness accounts(证言) of crimes are faulty.

    Most nations have at least one type of food that people from other countries think is unusual or unacceptable to eat. In France, people eat horse meat and frog legs. In South Korea and parts of China, restaurants serve dog meat. And in Australia, it's common to cook kangaroo meat on the barbecue and use emu eggs to make pancakes.

    The kangaroo and emu are native to Australia. Both animals are important to the national image of Australia and appear on the Australian coat of arms. They're also central figures in the history of the native Australians. However, they still hunt these animals for their meat, fur and fat.

    Today, Australian people continue to eat these animals. One of the reasons people eat kangaroo meat is that it's high in protein and low in fat, so eating kangaroo is a good option for anyone on a diet. It's also cheaper to eat kangaroo meat than other red meats. Because of this, a lot of university students choose to buy kangaroo meat. BBC News also reported that Australian scientists believe that eating kangaroo meat is good for the environment— kangaroos have different digestive systems than cows and sheep, meaning they produce less methane, the second biggest contributor to global warming.

    While emu meat is high in iron and vitamin C, most people don't think it tastes good. For this reason, they prefer emu eggs. One egg is large enough to make seven omelettes (煎蛋). And while ifs illegal to collect emu eggs from the wild, they can be bought from emu farms. Rather than cracking the beautiful dark shell, it's better to dry it by putting a small hole at each end and blowing. Afterwards, you can even carve a design into the eggshell.

    Many Americans buy an evergreen tree for Christmas. They put the tree in their home and hang small lights and colorful things on it. The evergreen is usually a pine or a fir tree (冷杉树). It remains green during the cold, dark months of winter in the northern part of the world. So it is a sign of everlasting life.

    Early long ago, Romans probably planted evergreen trees during a celebration in honor of their god of agriculture. The Christmas tree may have developed from a popular play performed hundreds of years ago in what is now Germany. Traditionally, the play was on December 24th, the day before Christmas. The play was about the first people that God created—Adam and Eve. People put apples on an evergreen tree to represent the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

    By the year 1600, some Germans began bringing evergreen trees into their homes. They put fruit, nuts and sweets on the trees. They gave the food to the family members and friends after the holiday season. Some people say the German religious reformer (宗教改革者) Martin Luther was the first person to add lighted candles to the tree. They say he did this to show how wonderful the stars had appeared as he travelled one night.

    In the early 1800's, German settlers in the state of Pennsylvania were the first to celebrate the holiday with Christmas trees in the United States. The Christmas tree tradition spread to many parts of the world. Today, some form of the Christmas tree is part of most Christmas celebrations.

    October 15^th is the Global Handwashing Day. Activities are planned in more than 20 countries to get millions of people in the developing world to wash their hands with soap. For example, donators (捐赠者) will give 150,000 bars of soap to schools in Ethiopia.

    Experts say people around the world wash their hands every day, but very few use soap at so-called important moments. These include after washing the toilet, after cleaning a baby and before touching food.

    Global Handwashing Day is the idea of the Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap. Partners include the United Nations Children's Fund, American government agencies, the World Bank and soap makers Unlever and Procter and Gamble. The organizers say all soaps are equally effective at removing disease-causing germs(细菌). They say the correct way to wash is to wet your hands with a small amount of water and cover them with soap. Rub(揉搓) it into all areas, including under the fingernails. Rub for at least twenty seconds. Then rinse well under running water. At last, dry your hands with a clean cloth or wave them in the air.

    The Partnership for Handwashing says soap is important because it increases the time that people spend in washing hands. Soap also helps to break up the dirt that holds most of the germs. And it usually leaves a pleasant smell. The Partnership for Handwashing also says washing with soap before eating or after using the toilet could save more lives than any vaccine(疫苗) or medicine. Hand washing could also prevent the spread of other diseases. When people get germs on their hands, they can infect(感染) themselves by touching their eyes, noses or mouths. Then they can infect others.

    There have been many problems with our schools today, the biggest of which is closely related to our culture. In general, our culture, as represented in the media, gets excited by famous stars, and constantly stresses that it's what you have, not what you are, that counts. Parents are encouraged to be away from even very small children for most of the day. Too many voters go for politicians who would rather cut school funding than to get rid of tax cuts for the wealthy. All contribute greatly to the problems of educating our children.

    Today's teachers have to deal with a culture that is vastly different than in the past. They report that there is, among more children than ever, a lack of motivation, no drive to succeed or even try. The role models that boys view in the media mostly consist of men in comedies and other shows who are rude and often extremely immature; self-centered overpaid athletes; men in movies, television dramas, video games, etc. who are preoccupied with violence and power. As Leonard Sax wrote in "Boys Adrift", "Teenage boys are looking for models of mature adulthood, but we no longer make any collective effort to provide such models." Girls are attacked not only with such annoying images of males, but also with women who are preoccupied with appearance and are extremely materialistic.

    In such a cultural environment, it is more important than ever to have responsible, loving and caring parents who have enough time and motivation to devote to their children and see to it as their duty to model for them and raise them with high standards of honesty and responsibility along with tending to their physical needs. They need to care enough to see that their children are not attacked with the garbage that comes from movie, television and computer screens. In today's culture, they are basically alone in this effort since, unfortunately, so much is working against them.

    Until we, as a culture, face the truth about ourselves — that we are not providing adequately for a great many of our children — the storm will continue to rage over our education system.