Summer Holiday Fun 2018!

    The summer holidays are upon us again. Here is our guide to summer holiday fun in Peterborough!

    Peterborough Museum

    The Age of the Dinosaurs is the museum's main attraction this summer. Get up close to prehistoric creatures via some great hands-on exhibits! Watch out for monsters lurking around every ember! The museum is open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday to Saturday, and from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm on Sunday in August.

    Call 01733 864663 for details.

    Saxon Youth Club

    School holiday fun: Young people aged 13-19 will be able to produce their own music, compete in sports activities, or try their hand at cooking at Saxon Youth Club, Saxon Community Centre, Norman Road, Peterborough every Monday and Wednesday from 3:00 pm. PLUS an aero ball tournament will take place on Thursday, 12th August between 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm.

    Call 01353 720274 for details.

    Houghton Mill

    Through the Looking Glass – a new production of the family favorite on Monday 30^th, August. Bring rugs or chairs to sit on and a picnic if you wish to eat during the play. Gates open 5:30 pm, performance 6:30 pm-8:30 pm. Tea room will be open until the end of the interval. Adult £ 10. Child £ 7. Family £ 20.

    Booking advisable on 0845 4505157.

    Farmland Museum and Denny Abbey

    Farmland Games: From Wellie Wanging to Pretend Ploughing matches, come and join the Farmland Team. Collect your sporting stickers and create a colorful rosette that is fit for a winner! No need to book, just turn up between 12:00 pm and 4:00 pm on Thursday, 19th August. Suitable for children aged four and above, each child should be accompanied by an adult and all activities are included in the normal admission price. Tickets Cost: £ 7 per child.

    For further information, call 01223 810080.

    "Stop making excuses for him. Mom," I said. "But maybe he is feeling unwell..." Mom said. "Maybe nothing." I interrupted. I had been tending Mom since her health began to decline and this would be the first time in a year that my husband and I had a night out together. Jerry had promised to stay with Mom. But again he let us down. And more often than not, his drinking had a lot to do with it. His irresponsibility upset me.

    I remembered our happy growing-up years in a small town in West Virginia. With good family education. Jerry had been a kind kid. He was only 15 when Dad died. Unlike him, I got over the sorrow soon, but he started drinking. Soon he began hanging out with bad guys.

    Jerry and I didn't see each other often, but we talked on the phone. Usually, though, we ended up fighting. When Mom came to live with us, Jerry dropped in regularly at first, but after a while his visits became sporadic. He explained he couldn't handle seeing Mom in such a bad condition. Another excuse, I thought.

    One day I went to see the doctor about my back. It had been aching for months. "I can't find anything wrong with you physically," the doctor said. "But I can tell you're very tense. Is something bothering you?" I poured out my story about Jerry. "Do you think he's likely to change?" he asked. I shrugged."Probably not." "But, you can," he said gently.

    Me? Why did I have to change? He was the one who constantly let us down. But what had I done? Maybe the doctor was right. I couldn't love his behavior, but I could love him—the way 1 did when we were little. As I walked intothe house I sensed a relief.

    Jerry died young due to drinking. I miss him. But Pm grateful I was given the opportunity to show him I lovedhim—as he was, not as I wanted him to be.

    American high school students are terrible writers, and one education reform group thinks it has an answer: robots. Or, more accurately, robot-readers—computers programmed to scan students' essays and spit out a grade.

    Mark Shermis, professor of the College of Education at the University of Akron, is helping to hold a contest, set up by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (WFHF), which promises $ 100,000 in prize money to programmers who write the best automated grading software. "If you're a high school teacher and you give a writing task, you're walking home with 150 essays," Shermis said. "You're going to need some help."

    Automated essay grading was first proposed in the 1960s, but computers back then were not up to the task. In the late 1990s, as technology improved, several textbooks and testing companies jumped into the field. Today, computers are used to grade essays on South Dakota's student writing assessments and a handful of other exams, including the TOEFL test of English fluency, taken by foreign students.

    The Hewlett contest aims to show that computers can grade as well as English teachers—only much more quickly and without all that depressing red ink. "Automated essay scoring is objective," Shermis said. "And it can be done immediately. If students finish an essay at 10 pm, they will get a result at 10: 01 pm."

    Take, for instance, the Intelligent Essay Assessor, a web-based tool marketed by Pearson Education, Inc. Within seconds, it can analyze an essay for spelling, grammar, organization, and help students to make revisions. The program scans for key words and analyzes semantic (语义的) patterns, and Pearson claims that it can understand the meaning of text much the same as a human reader.

    What a day! I started at my new school this morning and had the best time. I made lots of new friends and really liked my teachers. I was nervous the night before, but I had no reason to be. Everyone was so friendly and polite. They made me feel at ease. It was like I'd been at the school for a hundred years!

    The day started very early at 7∶00 a.m. had my breakfast downstairs with my mom. She could tell that I was very nervous. Mom kept asking me what was wrong. She told me I had nothing to worry about and that everyone was going to love me. If they didn't love me, Mom said to send them her way for a good talking to. I couldn't stop laughing.

    My mom dropped me off at the school gates about five minutes before the bell. A little blonde(金发的) girl got dropped off at the same time and started waving(招手) at me. She ran over and told me her name was Abigail. She was very nice and we became close straight away. We spent all morning together and began to talk to another girl called Stacey. The three of us sat together in class all day and we even made our way home together! It went so quickly. Our teacher told us that tomorrow we would really start learning and developing new skills.

    I cannot wait until tomorrow and feel as though I am really going to enjoy my time at my new school. I only hope that my new friends feel the same way too.

DEAR Daughter,

    We have not seen you for a while now, so I thought we might check in. Did you fall off the edge of the Earth? Your mother worries, you know, and I am just curious. Well, I am more than curious. I feel abandoned.

    Apparently you've dumped us for your career. I can understand that, because you've always had a wonderful work ethic (道德).

    Look, obviously your long absence has confused us. As we go about our daily routines, your mother and I are distracted – both by your absence and our pride in your career. The other day, I entered my work password into the microwave, then stood there cursing it for not working. And I was so off my game (状态差) that I actually used that cholesterol-free mayo (不含胆固醇的蛋黄酱) your mother insisted on buying in an effort to drive me from the house.

    Listen, a lot has happened since you've been away. Abraham Lincoln was shot. We had two more children – a princess, now 23; a boy, now 12.

    Yesterday I bought a very clean 2001 Camaro car from an older woman. Your mother is not happy about this. She says it is the kind of muscle car driven by ex-convicts (有犯罪前科的人) when they examine your house at 2 am.

    In response, I tell her it was the car of my dreams (when I was 18). So that's where your long absence has left us. Your long absence is not so bad, though we miss your roaring laughter ... the way your cheeks flush (晕红) when you eat Thai food. How you always march too hard into the house, like a Scotsman stepping on snakes.

    Each evening, your mother now waits by the window the way she did when you used to step off the bus in first grade, your hair full of rubber bands.

    Bet that drove you crazy even then, her running out on the porch (门廊) like you'd just returned from a month-long journey to the moon.

    Look, parents are not easy people.

    But should the urge ever hit you, feel free to stop by some time. Our house is your house. Our hearts are yours too.

    And your mother is still waiting by the window.

Love,

Dad

In recent years American society has become increasingly dependent on its universities to find solutions to its major problems. It is the universities that have been to blame for developing the expertise to place men on the moon; for dealing with our urban problems and with our worsening environment; for developing the means to feed the world's rapidly increasing population. The effort involved in meeting these demands presents its own problems. In addition, however, this concentration on the creation of new knowledge significantly impinges on the universities' efforts to perform their other principal functions, the transmission and interpretation of knowledge-the imparting of the heritage of the past and the preparing of the next generation to carry it forward.

With regard to this, perhaps their most traditionally acknowledged task, college and universities today find themselves in a serious situation. On one hand, there is the American commitment, especially since World War Ⅱ, to provide higher education for all young people who can profit from it. The result of the commitment has been a dramatic rise in enrollments(登记入学) in our universities, coupled with a striking shift from the private to the public sector of higher education. 

On the other hand, there are serious and continuing limitations on the resources available for higher education. While higher education has become a great "growth industry", it is also at the same time a tremendous drain(耗竭) on the resources of the nation. With the vast increase in enrollment and the shift in priorities away from education in state and federal(联邦的) budgets, there is in most of our public institutions a significant decrease in expenses for their students. One crucial aspect of this drain on resources lies in the persistent shortage of trained faculty(全体教师), which has led, in turn, to a declining standard of competence in instruction.

Intensifying these difficulties is, as indicated above, the concern with research, with its increasing claims on resources and the attention of the faculty. In addition, there is a strong tendency for the institutions' organization and functioning to fulfill the demands of research rather than those of teaching.