Boys'schools are the perfect place to teach young men to express their emotions and involve them in activities such as art, dance and music．

    Far from the traditional image of a culture of aggressive masculinity(男子气概)，the absence of girls gives boys the chance to develop without pressure to be consistent to a stereotype(传统观念),a US study says．

    Boys at single-sex schools were said to be more likely to get involved in cultural and artistic activities that helped develop their abilities to express their emotions,rather than feeling they had to obey the “boy code” of hiding their emotions to be a “real man”.

    The findings of the study are against the received wisdom that boys do better when taught alongside girls．

    Tony Little，headmaster of Eton，warned that boys were being ignored by the British education system because it had become too focused on girls．He criticized teachers for failing to recognize that boys are actually more emotional than girls．

    The research argued that boys often perform badly in mixed schools because they become discouraged when their female peers do better earlier in speaking and reading skills．

    But in single-sex schools teachers can adjust lessons to boys' learning style，letting them move around the classroom and getting them to compete in teams to prevent boredom, wrote the study's author, Abigail James of the University of Virginia．

    Teachers could encourage boys to enjoy reading and writing with “boy-focused” approaches such as themes and characters that appeal to them．Because boys generally have sharper vision，learn best through touch, and are physically more active, they need to be given “hands-on” lessons where they are allowed to walk around.” Boys in mixed schools view classical music as feminine(女性的)and prefer the modern type in which violence and sexism are major themes.” James wrote.

    Single-sex education also made it less likely that boys would feel they had to give in to a stereotype that men should be “masterful and in charge” in relationships.“In mixed schools boys feel pressed to act like men before they understand themselves well enough to know what that means.” the study reported.

    I set out to change the lives of those who need help by joining my school's newly formed Free The Children Club. Through the determination of friends, the group has grown bigger and stronger each year. Over the past two years my friend, Alex Auclair, and I have become the leaders of the club.

    Already, after only two years of fundraising, we have accumulated over three thousand dollars and almost two thousand food items through various fundraising efforts. For example, each year a 24-hour famine (饥饿) is planned resulting in absolutely no consumption (消耗) of food. By taking part in these activities, we put ourselves in the shoes of someone living in poverty.

      No money raised goes to waste. At the end of each school year, the group takes a vote to determine where our funds will be spent and donated. Last year, we bought enough desks, chairs, supplies and textbooks for every student in a Kenyan school. This year, we plan to spend our earning helping out families in Sierra Leone.

    Poverty is a worldwide issue affecting the lives of people in not only developing countries, but also first-world countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan. Living in poverty can result in hunger, many forms of disease, lack of education, and for millions, death. It does not have to be this way. You too can form a club like the Free The Children Club or you can participate in events outside of school. Get your friends, family, even your community involved in fundraising. Do what you can to change the world.

    When I was younger, I thought that boys and grown men should not cry. The tears were signs of being weak and a sissy(胆小鬼), which a man is not supposed to be. This was even strengthened in my young mind when the song, Boys Don't Cry, came out in the early 1980s.

    But just this June, I discovered that courage is not all about trying to keep all the pain inside in check. Courage is not all about trying to hide the tears. It is the opposite — the tears strengthen the heart's courage. And I saw this in my father. That day my father cried.

    My 18-year-old sister eloped (私奔) and from it I saw how weak my father's heart was. My sister and I were used to seeing him as an iron-willed figure and authoritarian father.

    For three days after my sister eloped, he would not talk. He would just sit quietly outside our house in the dark. On the fourth night, I sat beside him and asked him to tell me what he felt about everything.

    It has been years since I have laid my hand on my father's shoulder as we have drifted apart (疏远) farther and farther while I was growing up. That night，though, I sensed my father trying to control his pain and I wanted him to be able to let it out. We have all cried over what happened except him. All of us except him.

    The simple touch and my words, "Dad, it is not your fault.", broke my father's dam.

    In the darkness, he began to cry. I felt his shoulders shaking as he whispered, "Where did

    I go wrong? All I ever wanted was for my children to grow up right. Why couldn't your sister wait?"

    I understood then why he preferred to be in the dark. By being there, he hoped to spare his family of a father's pain. His tears, though we did not see them before that night, were there all the same. I saw his courage, that night when my father cried with my hand on his shoulder, and understood his pain.

    College graduation brings both the satisfaction of academic achievement and the expectation of a well-paid job. But for 6, 000 graduates at San Jose State this year, there's uncertainty as they enter one of the worst job markets in decades. Ryan Stewart has a freshly-minted (新兴的) degree in religious studies, but no job prospects.

    "You look at everybody's parents and neighbours, and they're getting laid off and don't have jobs," said Stewart. "Then you look at the young people just coming into the workforce... it's just scary."

    When the class of 2003 entered college, the future never looked brighter. But in the four years they've been here, the world outside has changed dramatically.

    "Those were the exciting times, lots of dot-com opportunities, exploding offers, students getting top dollar with lots of benefits," said Cheryl Allmen-Vinnidge of the San Jose State Career Center. "Times have changed. It's a new market."

    Cheryl Allmen-Vinnidge ought to know. She runs the San Jose State Career Center, sort of a crossroads between college and the real world. Allmen-Vinnidge says students who do find jobs after college have done their homework.

    "The typical graduate who does have a job offer started working on it two years ago. They've postured (定位) themselves well during the summer. They've had several internships (实习)," she said. And they've majored in one of the few fields that are still hot, like chemical engineering, accounting, or nursing, where average starting salaries have actually increased over last year. Other popular fields (like information systems management, computer science, and political science) have seen big declines in starting salaries.

    Ryan Stewart (he had hoped to become a teacher) may just end up going back to school. "I'd like to teach college some day and that requires more schooling, which would be great in a bad economy," he said.

    To some students, a degree may not be a ticket to instant wealth. For now, they can only hope its value will increase over time.

    Forget Cyclists, Pedestrians are Real Danger

    We are having a debate about this topic. Here are some letters from our readers.

    ■ Yes, many cyclists behave dangerously. Many drivers are disrespectful of cyclists. But pedestrians are probably the worse offenders.

    People of all ages happily walk along the pavement with eyes and hands glued to the mobile phone, quite unaware of what is going on around them. They may even do the same thing while crossing a road at a pedestrian crossing or elsewhere. The rest of us have to evade (避让) them or just stand still to wait for the unavoidable collision.

    The real problem is that some pedestrians seem to be, at least for the moment, in worlds of their own that are, to them, much more important than the welfare of others.

—Michael Horan

    ■ I loved the letter from Bob Brooks about cyclists (Viewpoints, May 29). I am afraid they seem to think they own the roads.

    I was walking across Altrincharn Road one morning when a cyclist went round me and on being asked what he was doing he shouted at me.

    The government built a cycle lane on the road but it is hardly used.

    The police do nothing. What a laugh they are!

    The cyclists should all have to be made to use the cycle lanes and wear helmets, fluorescent (发荧光的)jacket and tights at night and in the morning. They should pay some sort of tax and be fined for not wearing them.

—Carol Harvey

    ■ Cyclists jump on and off pavements (which are meant for pedestrians), ride at speed along the pavements, and think they have a special right to go through traffic lights when they are on red.

    I was almost knocked down recently by a cyclist riding on the pavement when there was a cycle lane right next to him.

    Other road users, including horse riders, manage to obey the rules so why not cyclists?

    It's about time they had to be registered and insured, so when they do hit a pedestrian or a vehicle, or cause an accident, at least they can be traced and there might be an opportunity to claim.

—JML

    Write to Viewpoints of the newspaper.

A new study examined scientists' peer reviews, or researchers' official statements on others' work, across multiple AI-related conferences. At one such conference, those peer reviews used the word "meticulous" — a buzzword often associated with generative A.I., like ChatGPT — almost 3,400 percent more than the previous year. Other major conferences showed similar patterns. In other words, many researchers were handing, at least, parts of their peer review over to A.I.

What's going on in science is a slice of a much bigger problem. Any viral post on social media now almost certainly includes A.I.-generated elements. There are synthetic videos for children on YouTube, like music videos about parrots where the birds have eyes within eyes, singing in an unnatural voice. The narratives make no sense, and characters appear and disappear randomly.

As a neuroscientist, this worries me. Isn't it possible that human culture contains within it cognitive micronutrients — things like reasonable sentences, narrations and character continuity — that developing brains need? Einstein supposedly said: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales." But what happens when a child is consuming mostly A.I.-generated waste? We find ourselves in the middle of a vast developmental experiment.

A.I.'s cultural pollution is driven by a desire to fill the Internet's appetite for content as cheaply as possible, which in turn pollutes our culture. And despite public appeals to act against it, A.I. companies are dragging their feet because it goes against the industry's bottom line to have detectable products, which they fear might weaken the model's performance, although there is no current evidence.

To deal with this general refusal to act, we need a Clean Internet Act. Perhaps the simplest solution would be to force built-in watermarking to A.I. generated outputs, like patterns not easily removable. Just as the 20th century required action to protect the shared environment, the 21st century is going to require actions to protect a different but equally critical resource: our shared human culture.