Parents who help their children with homework may actually be bringing down their school grades. Other forms of prenatal involvement, including volunteering at school and observing a child's class, also fail to help, according to the most recent study on the topic.
The findings challenge a key principle of modern parenting(养育子女) where schools except them to act as partners in their children's education. Previous generations concentrated on getting children to 
school on time, fed, dressed and ready to learn.
       Kaith Robinson, the author of the study, said, "I really don't know if the public is ready for this but there are some ways parents can be 
involved in their kids' education that leads to declines in their academic performance. One of the things that was consistently negative was
 parents' help with homework." Robinson suggested that may be because parents themselves struggle to understand the task." They may 
either not remember the material their kids are studying now, or in some cases never learnt it themselves, but they're still offering advice."
       Robinson assessed parental involvement performance and found one of the most damaging things a parent could do was to punish their children for poor marks. In general, about 20% of parental involvement was positive, about 45% negative and the rest statistically
 insignificant.
      Common sense suggests it was a good thing for parents to get involved because "children with good academic success do have involved
 parents ", admitted Robinson. But he argued that this did not prove parental involvement was the root cause of that success." A big 
surprise was that Asian-American parents whose kids are doing so well in school hardly involved. They took a more reasonable approach, conveying to their children how success at school could improve their lives."

    Teachers' Day around the world is not celebrated on the same day.In some countries，Teachers' Day is celebrated on working days.However，in other countries，it is celebrated on holidays.

Here we are giving you a list of countries that celebrate Teachers' Day on holidays.

    China

    The Teachers' Day was proposed(提议)at National Central University in 1931.It was adopted(被采纳) by the central government of Republic of China in 1932.In 1939，the day was set on August 27，Confucius's birthday.People's Republic of China government called it off in 1951.It was reestablished in 1985，and the day was changed to September 10.Now more and more people are trying to celebrate the Teachers' Day back to Confucius's birthday.

    India

    In India，Teachers' Day is celebrated on September 5，in honor of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan，the second President of India.Because his birthday was September 5th.At schools on this day，students in India celebrate this day to show their respect and love to their teachers.

    Russia

    In Russia Teachers' Day is on October 5th.Before 1994，this day was set on the first Sunday of September.

    USA

    In the United States，Teachers' Day is a holiday on the Tuesday of the first full week of May.

    Thailand

    January 16 was adopted as Teachers' Day in the Thailand by a resolution(决议) of the government on November 21，1956.The first Teachers' Day was held in 1957.

    Iran

    In Iran，Teachers' Day is celebrated on May 2nd every year.It is in honor of the famous Iranian professor Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari who died on May 2，1980.

    Although different countries celebrate Teachers' Day on different days，the activities people take to celebrate it just stay the same.

    The British are known for their sense of humor. However, it is often difficult for foreigners to understand their jokes. The main point to remember is that the British often use understatement.

    Understatement means saying less than you think or feel. For example, if someone gets very wet in a shower of rain, he might say, “Its a little damp (潮湿的) outside.” Or, if someone is very impolite and shouts at another person, someone else might say, “She isn't exactly friendly.” Understatement is often used in unpleasant situation or to make another person look silly. Understatement plays an important part in British humor.

    Another key to understanding British humor is that the British like to make fun of themselves as well as others. They often laugh about the silly and unpleasant things that happen to our everyday life when someone accidently falls over in the street. They also like to make jokes about people from different classes of society. They like to make jokes about their accents, the way they dress and the way they behave. What's more, the British love to watch comedies (喜剧) about people who do not know how to behave in society. The comedies series Mr. Bean is a good example of this kind of humor.

    Mr. Bean is the character created by British actor Rowan Atkinson in 1990. Mr. Bean doesn't talk often, and instead he uses his body movement and facial expressions to make people laugh. Perhaps what makes Mr. Bean so funny is that he does things that adults in the real world cannot do. Mr. Bean is popular in many countries around the world because you do not have to speak English to understand the humor. Because of this, many people have become familiar with the British sense of humor.

    In addition to the official basketball world, various other types of basketball are practiced around the world.

    Wheelchair Basketball

    Wheelchair basketball was invented in 1946 by former American basketball players, who, after wartime injury, wanted once again to experience the excitement of a highly athletic sport within a team environment. It is now played in more than 80 countries by over 25,000 men, women and children with a physical disability which prevents them from playing competitive basketball on their feet.

    http://www.iwbf.org

    Beach Basketball

    Beach basketball is an exciting, non-stop action game played in the sand. The game was born more than forty years ago on the physical education fields of Gulf Shores School. This kind of basketball, invented by Philip Bryant, has grown from an extremely effective skill improvement game to a very popular, widespread competitive sport.

    http://www.beachbasketball.com

    Street Basketball

    Street Basketball or streetball is mainly played as a leisure game, but streetball players can also compete against each other. There are no specific streetball rules and the game is played outdoors; the players make up their own rules to play. Streetball is very popular among younger players and allows players to publicly show their own individual skills.

    http://www.streetball.com

    Deaf Basketball

    Basketball for the deaf (unable to hear in one or both ears) men and women has been played since the early 1920s. The game today has exactly the same rules as FIBA (International Basketball Federation).

    http://www.dibf.org

    Bankshot Basketball

    Bankshot is a new game of skill and challenge that is often described as “mini golf, but with a basketball.” Bankshot is the only sports system that allows the able-bodied and athletes with a disability to play together at the same time. This game is about no running, jumping, or body contact(接触)and relies on the shooting skill.

    http://www.bankshot.com

    A recent study led by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has found a clear link between the color of a taxi and its accident rate. An analysis of 36 months of detailed taxi, driver and accident data from two fleets of yellow and blue taxis in Singapore suggested that yellow taxis have fewer accidents than blue taxis. The higher visibility (能见度)of yellow makes it easier for drivers to avoid getting into accidents with yellow taxis, leading to a lower accident rate.

    The study was led by Prof Ho. To test whether there was a causal relationship between the color of a taxi and the number of accidents the taxi had, the research team analysed data collected by the largest taxi company in Singapore. The researchers found that yellow taxis have about 6.1 fewer accidents per 1,000 taxis per month.

    The researchers also studied the economic effect of changing the color of the entire fleet of taxis to yellow. The Singapore taxi company involved in the study owns about 16,700 taxis in a ratio(比例) of one yellow to three blue taxis. If a commercial decision is made to switch from blue to yellow taxis, 76.6 fewer accidents would occur per month or 917 fewer accidents per year. Assuming an average repair cost of $1,000 per car and a downtime of six days, switching the color of all taxis to yellow could produce an annual savings of $2 million.

    "We are eager to continue to validate(证实) the findings of our study by looking at the use of yellow in other types of public transport, such as school buses. For instance, we hope to compare the accident rates of yellow school buses against other colors to find out if yellow is indeed a safer color for school buses. Besides, we are also interested to look at private-hire vehicles and do a comparison of the accident rates of vehicles that are of different colors," explained Prof Ho.

    Right in front of the Minneapolis Central Library, a row of green hikes sits parked in a special stand. Each hike is designed with the logo "Nice Ride" the name of the city's bike-share program.

    Nice Ride bikes are a lot like the library books that people come here to borrow. To rent a bike, you simply use your membership card at a Nice Ride bike station. Members can rent one of 1, 200 bikes from 138 stations throughout Minnesota's largest city. People use the Nice Ridebikes to go to work, to go out on business, or just to enjoy the city's many bike paths.

    The rise of bike-share programs like Nice Ride is encouraging more people than ever to choose biking over driving. Skyrocketing gas prices and concerns about the environment have also gotten people to dust off their bike helmets, pump air into flat tires, and hit the road.

    Why ride? Not only is biking good exercise, but switching from a car to a bike also reduces the amount of pollution in the air. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to climate change, is one of the many polluting substances that come out of a car's tailpipe.

    Bike-share systems are found around the world in cities like London, Paris, Barcelona, and Melbourne, Australia. The largest program—with 70, 000 bikes—is in Wuhan, China.

    To make roads friendlier to non-motorists, the U. S. Department of Transportation has invested more than a billion dollars in cycling and pedestrian projects in recent years. The money went toward building thousands of miles of on-street bike lanes and bike-and pedestrian-only passages called greenways.