Kong Zi , also called Confucius (551-479 B.C) , and Socrates(469-399 B. C) lived only a hundred years apart , and during their lifetimesthere was no contact between China and Greece, but it is interesting to look athow the world that each of these great philosophers came from shaped theirideas , and how these ideas in turn ,shaped their societies.

Neither philosopher lived in times of peace, though there weremore wars in Greece than in China. The Chinese states were very large andfeudal, while the Greek city-states were small and urban. The urban environmentin which Socrates lived allowed him to be more radical than Confucius. UnlikeConfucius, Socrates was not asked by rules how to govern effectively. Thus,Socrates was able to be more idealistic, focusing on issues like freedom, andknowledge for its own sake. Confucius, on the other hand, advised those ingovernment service, and many of his students went out to government service.

Confucius suggested the Golden Rule as a principle for theconduct of life:” Do not do to others what you would not want others to do toyou.” He assumed that all men were equal at birth, though some had morepotential than others, and that it was knowledge that set men apart. Socratesfocused on the individual, and thought that the greatest purpose of man was toseek wisdom. He believed that the superior class should rule the inferior(下层的)classes.

For Socrates, the family was of no importance, and the communityof little concern. For Confucius, however, the family was the center of thesociety, with family relations considered much more important than politicalrelations.

Both men are respected much more today than they were in theirlifetimes.

    First Lady Michelle Obama is a big fan of volunteering. Volunteering means working for free to help someone else. Mrs. Obama says volunteering is very important. “It should be part of everyone's life,” she says.

    Many teens agree. They say that helping others feels great and makes a difference. These days, more teens volunteer than work for pay. Teens clean up parks, walk dogs at animal shelters, visit the elderly and more.

    Some cities —including Seattle, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. —require high school students to volunteer. Students must volunteer in order to graduate. The student volunteers learn new skills and help their communities.

    Many parents are in favor of the idea —they say volunteering helps teens build job skills. But most teens don't want to be forced to volunteer. They say they are busy. And they say volunteering is only fun if it's a choice.

Read both sides of the debate and decide.

YES

Volunteering can help teens get into college or get a job.

Many cities and towns need help. Volunteers can help keep important programs going.

Not all teens will volunteer if it isn' t required. Schools should require students to do all they can to get ready for adult life.

NO

Most teens are already very busy with classes, homework, jobs and sports. Forcing them to do more isn't fair.

It should be up to each person. Helping out doesn't feel as good if you have to do it.

Finding a volunteer job isn't always easy. Students shouldn't be kept from graduating because of something they can't control.

    Miles was born in Alton, a city on the Mississippi River in Illinois on May 26, 1926. Miles's father was a dentist, while his mother was a music teacher. Miles had a good childhood, catching fish and riding horses with his older sister and younger brother. He was known as a naughty boy in school.

    He recalls his story, “By the age of 12, music had become the most important thing in my life.” His mother, a violinist herself, dearly wanted her son to play the violin. But brass (铜管) was Miles's calling, and he remembers arguments between their parents as his dad overruled her to fight his son's corner. He received his first trumpet (喇叭) in 1935 and began weekly music lessons with his father's friend Mr. Elwood, his life-long teacher.

    Talking about his school days, Miles said that Mr. Buchanan was the biggest influence on his life. He was the person who took Miles all the way into music at that time. He wanted to be a musician that he had dreamed.

    When he was 16, Miles met his girlfriend, Irene Birth. Although she was a beautiful young woman in many ways, it was her easy-going character that attracted Miles. At the weekends, Miles and Irene would take the bus over the Mississippi River to St Louis to watch movies and go dancing. Although Miles was too shy to really enjoy dancing, he always felt confident when he danced with Irene.

    When he turned 17, she persuaded him to ask for a job in his band—Eddie Handle's Blue Devils. It worked. Joining the band was a breakthrough for Miles, and marked the time when he first began to write and arrange music.

    Anyone who cares about what schools and colleges teach and how their students learn will be interested in the memoir(回忆录)of Ralph W. Tyler, who is one of the most famous men in American education.

    Born in Chicago in 1902, brought up and schooled in Nebraska, the 19-year-old college graduate Ralph Tyler became hooked on teaching while teaching as a science teacher in South Dakota and changed his major from medicine to education.

    Graduate work at the University of Chicago found him connected with honorable educators Charles Judd and W. W. Charters, whose ideas of teaching and testing had an effect on his later work. In 1927, he became a teacher of Ohio State University where he further developed a new method of testing.

    Tyler became well-known nationally in 1938, when he carried his work with the Eight-Year Study from Ohio State University to the University of Chicago at the invitation of Robert Hutchins.

    Tyler was the first director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a position he held for fourteen years. There, he firmly believed that researchers should be free to seek an independent(独立的)spirit in their work.

    Although Tyler officially retired in 1967, he never actually retired. He served on a long list of educational organizations in the United States and abroad. Even in his 80s he traveled across the country to advise teachers and management people on how to set objectives(目标)that develop the best teaching and learning within their schools.

    The New Caledonia Barrier Reef (新喀里多尼亚堡礁)is located in New Caledonia in the South Pacific, and is the second-longest coral reef in the world, after Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The New Caledonia Barrier reef surrounds Grand Terre, New Caledonia's largest island, as well as the Ile des Pins and several smaller islands, reaching a length of 1, 500 km. The reef encloses(围住) in a lake of 24, 000 square kilometers, which has an average depth of 25 meters. The reefs lie up to 30 kilometers from the shore, but extend almost 200 km to the Entrecasteaux reefs in the northwest. This northwestern extension encloses the Belep Islands. Several natural passages open out to the ocean. The Boulari passage(通道), which leads to Noumea, the capital and chief port of New Caledonia, is noted for the Amedee lighthouse.

    The reef has great species diversity with a high level of endemism(动植物的特有分布), and is home to endangered dugongs, a kind of sea animal, and is an important nesting site for Green Sea Turtle.

    Most of the reefs are generally thought to be in good health. Some of the eastern reefs have been damaged by wastewater from nickel mining(镍开采)on Grand Terre. The waste from mining, agriculture, and grazing(放牧) has affected reefs near river mouths, which has been worsened by the destruction of mangrove forests, which help to keep wastes. Some reefs have been buried under several meters of wastes.

    In January 2002, the French government proposed(提议) listing New Caledonia's reefs as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO listed New Caledonia Barrier Reef on the World Heritage List on 7 July 2008.

    Women are friendly. But men are more competitive. Why? Researchers have found it's all down to the hormone oxytocin （荷尔蒙催生素）. Although known as the love hormone, it affects the sexes differently.

    "Women tend to be social in their behavior. They often share with others. But men lend to be competitive. They are trying to improve their social status," said Professor Ryan.

    Generally, people believe that the hormone oxytocin is let out in our body in various social situations and our body creates a large amount of it during positive social interactions （互动） such as falling in love or giving birth.

    But in a previous experiment Professor Ryan found that the hormone is also let out in our body during negative social interactions such as envy.

    Further researches showed that in men the hormone oxytocin improves the ability to recognize competitive relationships, but in women it raises the ability to recognize friendship.

    Professor Ryan's recent experiment used 62 men and women aged 20 to 37. Half of the participants（参与者）received oxytocin. The other half received placebo （安慰剂）.

    After a week, the two groups switched with participants. They went through the same procedure with the other material.

    Following each treatment, they were shown some video pictures with different social interactions. Then they were asked to analyze the relationships by answering some questions. The questions were about telling friendship from competition. And their answers should be based on gestures, body language and facial expressions.

    The results indicated that, after treatment with oxytocin, men's ability to correctly recognize competitive relationships improved, but in women it was the ability to correctly recognize friendship that got better.

    Professor Ryan thus concluded: "Our experiment proves that the hormone oxytocin can raise people's abilities to better distinguish different social interactions. And the behavior differences between men and women are caused by biological factors （因素） that are mainly hormonal. "