Suppose you become a leader in an organization. It's very likely that you'll want to have volunteers to help 

with the organization's activities. To do so, it should help to understand why people undertake volunteer work and

what keeps their interest in the work.

       Let's begin with the question of why people volunteer. Researchers have identified several factors that 

motivate people to get involved. For example, people volunteer to express personal values related to unselfishness, 

to expand their range of experiences, and to strengthen social relationships. If volunteer positions do not meet these 

needs, people may not wish to participate. To select volunteers, you may need to understand the motivations of the 

people you wish to attract.

         People also volunteer because they are required to do so. To increase levels of community service, some 

schools have launched compulsory volunteer programs. Unfortunately, these programs can shift people's wish of

participation from an internal factor (e.g., “I volunteer because it's important to me”) to an external factor (e.g., “I

volunteer because I'm required to do so”). When that happens, people become less likely to volunteer in the future.

People must be sensitive to this possibility when they make volunteer activities a must.

          Once people begin to volunteer, what leads them to remain in their positions over time? To answer this 

question, researchers have conducted follow-up studies in which they track volunteers over time. For instance, one 

study followed 238 volunteers in Florida over a year. One of the most important factors that influenced their 

satisfaction as volunteers was the amount of suffering they experienced in their volunteer positions. Although this

result may not surprise you, it leads to important practical advice. The researchers note that attention should be 

given to “training methods that would prepare volunteers for troublesome situations or provide them with 

strategies for coping with the problem they do experience”.

         Another study of 302 volunteers at hospitals in Chicago focused on individual differences in the degree to 

which people view “volunteer” as an important social role. It was assumed that those people for whom the role of 

volunteer was most part of their personal identity would also be most likely to continue volunteer work. 

Participants indicated the degree to which the social role mattered by responding to statements such as 

“Volunteering in Hospital is an important part of who I am.” Consistent with the researchers' expectations, they

found a positive correlation (正相关) between the strength of role identity and the length of time people continued 

to volunteer. These results, once again, lead to concrete advice: “Once an individual begins volunteering, 

continued efforts might focus on developing a volunteer role identity.... Items like T-shirts that allow volunteers to 

be recognized publicly for their contributions can help strengthen role identity”.

    Phrases like “tiger mom" and "helicopter parent” have made their way into everyday language. Many of us find ourselves drawn to the idea that with just a bit more parental hard work and effort, we might turn out children with bright futures. But is there anything wrong with a kind of“over parenting style”?

    Parental involvement has a long history of being studied. Many of the studies, conducted by Diana Baumrind, a famous psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that a good parent is the one who is involved and reacts to her child in a positive way, who sets high expectations but gives her child independence. These “authoritative parents”appear to hit the sweet spot of parental involvement and generally raise children who do better academically, psychologically and socially than children whose parents are not strict and less involved, or controlling and more involved. Why is this parenting style so successful?

    Authoritative parents actually help improve motivation in their children. Carol Dweck, a social psychologist at Stanford University, has done research that indicates why authoritative parents raise more motivated children. In a typical experiment, Dr. Dweck takes young children into a room and asks them to solve a simple puzzle. Most do so with little difficulty. Butthen Dr. Dweck tells some, but not all, of the kids how clever they are. As it turns out, the children who are not told they're smart are more motivated to solve increasingly difficult puzzles. They also show higher levels of confidence and show greater progress in puzzle-solving.

    As the experiment suggests, praising children's talents and abilities seems to shake their confidence. Dealing with more difficult puzzles carries the risk of losing one's status as “smart”. Dr. Dweck's work strongly supports that of Dr. Baumrind, who also found that reasonably supporting a child's independence and limiting interference (干涉) causes better academic and emotional results.

    The central task of growing up is to develop a sense of self that is independent and confident. If you treat your young child who is just learning to walk as if she can't walk, you reduce her confidence. Allowing children to make mistakes is one of the greatest challenges of parenting. It is easier when they are young. The potential mistakes carry greater risks, and part of being a parent is reducing risk for our children.

    Since his students began using Quizlet, English teacher Tristan Thorne has noticed an improvement in their ability to learn and use new words. Quizlet is a learning App, a computer program you use on your mobile phone. It can help users build and test their knowledge of English words. Quizlet has word sets for millions of subjects. And, it is quickly becoming a useful mobile tool for language learners.

    Thorne teachers at Columbia University in New York City. Thanks to learning Apps, Jeff Strack, another English teacher, has also notice improvement in his students' ability to remember information. He teaches at Hostos Community College, also in New York. He and Thorne are part of a growing number of language educators adding mobile Apps to their classes.

    Strack and Thorne seem to agree that the days when teachers would not permit the use of mobile phones are gone. When they use Apps, language learners communicate more differently than in a traditional classroom. Users act on or respond to something, instead of just listening to new information.

    Thorne believes that Apps can help learners become more active in learning. For example, each week, his students are required to add vocabulary words into Quizlet for others to use. He says some Apps also make it easy for students to know their language strengths and weaknesses.

    The biggest improvement Strack has seen in his students is that they are much more active in whole-class or small-group discussions. “Apps let all students take part in the activity, whether it's a game, quiz or practice activity.” he says.

    Many existing learning Apps are designed for students of all ages and levels. Some are designed for group activities. some support independent learning. Still some are good for homework. Thorne says he especially likes Quizlet and three other Apps: QR Codes, Socrative and Evernote.

    Many years ago, when I was fresh out of school and working in Denver, I was driving to my parents' home in Missouri for Christmas. I stopped at a gas station about 50 miles from Oklahoma City, where I was planning to stop and visit a friend. While I was standing in line at the cash register (收款台), I said hello to an older couple who were also paying for gas.

    I took off, but had gone only a few miles when black smoke poured from the back of my car. I stopped and wondered what I should do. A car pulled up behind me. It was the couple I had spoken to at the gas station. They said they would take me to my friend's. We chatted on the way into the city, and when I got out of the car, the husband gave me his business card.

    I wrote him and his wife a thank­you note for helping me. Soon afterward, I received a Christmas present from them. Their note that came with it said that helping me had made their holidays meaningful.

    Years later, I drove to a meeting in a nearby town in the morning. In late afternoon I returned to my car and found that I'd left the lights on all day, and the battery (电池) was dead. Then I noticed that the Friendly Ford dealership—a shop selling cars—was right next door. I walked over and found two salesmen in the showroom.

    “Just how friendly is Friendly Ford?” I asked and explained my trouble. They quickly drove a pickup truck to my car and started it. They would accept no payment, so when I got home, I wrote them a note to say thanks. I received a letter back from one of the salesmen. No one had ever taken the time to write him and say thank you, and it meant a lot, he said.

    “Thank you” — two powerful words. They're easy to say and mean so much.

Teaching Poetry

    No poem should ever be discussed or "analyzed", until it has been read aloud by someone, teacher or student. Better still, perhaps, is the practice of reading it twice, once at the beginning of the discussion and once at the end, so the sound of the poem is the last thing one hears of it.

    All discussions of poetry are, in fact, preparations for reading it aloud, and the reading of the poem is, finally, the most telling "interpretation" of it, suggesting tone, rhythm, and meaning all at once. Hearing a poet read the work in his or her own voice, on records or on film, is obviously a special reward. But even those aids to teaching can not replace the student and teacher reading it or, best of all, reciting it.

    I have come to think, in fact, that time spent reading a poem aloud is much more important than "analyzing" it, if there isn't time for both. I think one of our goals as teachers of English is to have students love poetry. Poetry is "a criticism of life", and "a heightening of life". It is "an approach to the truth of feeling", and it "can save your life". It also deserves a place in the teaching of language and literature more central than it presently occupies.

    I am not saying that every English teacher must teach poetry. Those who don't like it should not be forced to communicate this to anyone else. But those who do teach poetry must keep in mind a few things about its essential nature, about its sound as well as its sense, and they must make room in the classroom for hearing poetry as well as thinking about it.

    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 Robed 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 spirit in their work.

    Although Tyler officially retired (退休) 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.