I grew to be a tall girl but I tried to be as ordinary as possible. At school, I always chose a seat in the back of the room, and never raised my hand in class. When I was 16, I went to my new school. And I liked the English teacher. In my last year in high school, however, we were told that a new English teacher, Oliver Bascom, was going to teach us.

    Oliver Bascom! The girls laughed as we imagined a short and bald（秃头的）man．The situation was not funny, because this man would teach us for the whole year. Surprisingly, after we opened the door, there in front of the blackboard, we saw a young and handsome man!

    What followed was chaos, seventeen-year-old girls flying to get to seats in the front of the room. And I managed to get a front and center desk.

    I really wanted to make a good impression on my new teacher, but I usually kept quiet. The day that directions were given for our first major writing assignment, I arrived late to class. A friend later gave me the guidelines and I thought I understood them. I worked the whole weekend on the essay and waited nervously for Mr. Bascom's evaluation.

After three days, he arrived in class holding the corrected papers. "I've chosen the ten best essays for class discussion." he said.

    Twenty minutes later, my heart sank when he got to the last essay, and I didn't hear my name.

"These are all great essays," Mr. Bascom continued. "However, I am now going to read you the most successful of all…" We were all surprised as I was the author of this unusual work. A different girl walked out of the classroom that day. I knew that I had a new set of standards to live up to and that anything was possible in the future. Finally, I raised my head.

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 "analysing" 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 lief". 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.

    Scientists recently discovered that pictures on cave walls at Creswell Crags are the oldest known in Great Britain. But they didn't find out in the usual way.

    Archaeologists often date cave art with a process called radiocarbon dating. The technique can measure the age of carbon found in charcoal (木炭) drawings or painted pictures. Carbon is an element found in many things, including charcoal and even people. But in this case, there was no paint or charcoal to test. People carved the pictures of animals and figures into the rock using stone tools. The scientists had an "aha!" moment when they noticed small rocks stuck to the top of the drawings. The small rocks must have formed after the drawings were made.

    "It is rare to be able to scientifically date rock art," said Alistair Pike, an archaeological scientist at Britain's University of Bristol. "We were very fortunate that some of the engravings were covered by stalagmites(石笋).

    When a test proved that the stalagmites formed 12,800 years ago, the scientists knew the art underneath them had to be at least that old. And some of the animals shown, like the European bison, are now extinct-another tip-off that the art is quite old.

    The artists came to Creswell Crags, This place is one of the farthest points north reached by our ancient ancestors during the Ice Age. At that time, much of the North Sea was dry, so people could move about more easily.

    Some tools and bones found there are 13,000 to 15,000 years old. They show that the travelers hunted horses, reindeer, and arctic hare. Their artwork is similar to art in France and Germany. It tells scientists that the Creswell Crags artists must have had a close connection to peoples several thousand kilometers away—another important clue to understanding how humans spread out across the world.

    The best movies for teenagers are listed here. You can pick one for your teen to watch it with you or their best friends.

    ⒈Eighth Grade

    Kayla is a shy, socially anxious girl trying to get by the last few weeks of middle school. She earns the "most quiet" girl title in school, but at home, she posts online self-help and motivational videos that not many people watch. Kayla is raised by her single father Mark, who tries to disconnect Kayla from the social media.

    ⒉Dead Poets Society

    Mr. Keating, an English teacher, introduces his students, all set to become doctors and lawyers, to poetry and free-thinking. Each of his students deals with several issues. He encourages them to form the Dead Poets Society where they read and write poetry.

    ⒊The Hunger Games

    Based on a book by Suzanne Collins, the story is set in a country called Panem, which was once the ruins of North America. Every year, young boys and girls from the 12 districts of Panem fight in the Hunger Games, a televised competition in which the contestants (参赛者) compete against death.

    ⒋The Break fast Club

    It begins with five students at the Shermer High School, Claire, a princess, John a criminal, Andrew, an athlete, Brian, a bookworm and Allison, an unfortunate person, who are forced to spend 9 hours together on a Saturday. In spite of their differences, they find that their social problems are more similar than they think. The film tries to encourage breaking social boundaries for positive self-identification in the world.

Many families take their children on vacation. They will usually travel for a few days or weeks during school breaks. But Julie and Tim Smith planned a longer vacation with their two children. The Smith family is on a one-year trip around the world. They plan to visit 30 countries in all. Right now, the four travelers are about halfway through their trip. Ms. Smith says they are trying to see as much of the world as they can.

Mr. Smith says one of the most interesting experiences of the trip has been meeting new people. He says people have been extremely friendly, very welcoming and love their kids. Eleven-year-old Tyler says he has enjoyed learning about the people they have met. He said, "I learned in Africa that people have very different lifestyles than in America. "His sister, 9-year-old Kara, discovered that she liked Thai food. Ms. Smith says that the trip teaches the children a lot.

It took the family a year to prepare for the trip. They had to sell their house and cars. Ms. Smith left her job and her husband is using unpaid leave. They carry small bags filled with lightweight clothing and whatever else they need. Ms. Smith says she enjoys being able to carry everything she needs on her back. She says she does not miss the things she has back home. "What has become more important is making these memories as a family and taking those with us instead."

The Smiths will continue to head east for the next six months.

The Stanford marshmallow（棉花糖）test was originally conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in the late 1960s. Children aged four to six at a nursery school were placed in a room. A single sugary treat, selected by the child, was placed on a table. Each child was told if they waited for 15 minutes before eating the treat, they would be given a second treat. Then they were left alone in the room. Follow-up studies with the children later in life showed a connection between an ability to wait long enough to obtain a second treat and various forms of success. 

As adults we face a version of the marshmallow test every day. We're not tempted（诱惑）by sugary treats, but by our computers, phones, and tablets — all the devices that connect us to the global delivery system for various types of information that do to us what marshmallows do to preschoolers. 

We are tempted by sugary treats because our ancestors lived in a calorie-poor world, and our brains developed a response mechanism to these treats that reflected their value — a feeling of reward and satisfaction. But as we've reshaped the world around us, dramatically reducing the cost and effort involved in obtaining calories, we still have the same brains we had thousands of years ago, and this mismatch is at the heart of why so many of us struggle to resist tempting foods that we know we shouldn't eat. 

A similar process is at work in our response to information. Our formative environment as a species was information-poor, so our brains developed a mechanism that prized new information. But global connectivity has greatly changed our information environment. We are now ceaselessly bombed（轰炸）with new information. Therefore, just as we need to be more thoughtful about our caloric consumption, we also need to be more thoughtful about our information consumption, resisting the temptation of the mental "junk food" in order to manage our time most effectively.