The “babies” tend to be on or near me, or crying, or both. I spend a fair amount of time trying to get William to sleep, to get Elliott to get involved in something that will actually keep him happy for a little while, or to get William to play on the floor for 10 minutes straight so that I can get something done. But, a lot of days, it seems like I'm not succeeding in any of those efforts.

    So, yesterday, a friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook. This particular friend has a baby who is about a month younger than William. The picture was of the baby, who had made his way across the floor to the toys housed along the side of the room. I just kept looking at that picture and thinking that if only William had some different toys to play with, perhaps he would stay occupied a bit longer at a stretch. But William seems so bored with all of his toys! And I am so ready for him to be ready to play. In order to find a way to make him playing longer, I kept looking at that picture. Suddenly, I realized my sons need to play closer to me.

    So I cleared off the cubby(围起来的)shelves in the playroom, and my husband and I moved it to the living room. We found all of the toys that would be safe for William and put them in the cubbies. Then, we pulled the play kitchen in.

    William was so interested in what I was doing that he sat there and played and chewed on his toys while we moved furniture. When we were done, I moved him over closer to the cubbies and he got so excited that he didn't disturb for an hour, while I made dinner and cleaned up! Even Elliott played happily for a few hours. It was a dream come true! And I got to know that my lack of happy children was because of my desire for a toy—free living room.

    Language learning begins with listening. Children are greatly different in the amount of listening they do before they start speaking, and later starters are often long listeners. Most children will “obey” spoken instructions some time before they can speak, though the word “obey” is hardly accurate as a description of the eager and delighted cooperation usually shown by the child. Before they can speak, many children will also ask questions by gesture and by making questioning noises.

    Any attempt to study the development from the noises babies make to their first spoken words leads to considerable difficulties. It is agreed that they enjoy making noises, and that during the first few months one or two noises sort themselves as particularly expressive as delight, pain, friendliness, and so on. But since these can't be said to show the baby's intention to communicate, they can hardly be regarded as early forms of language. It is agreed, too, that from about three months they play with sounds for enjoyment, and that by six months they are able to add new words to their store. This self-imitation leads on to deliberate imitation of sounds made or words spoken to them by other people. The problem then arises as to the point at which one can say that these imitations can be considered as speech.

    It is a problem we need to get our teeth into. The meaning of a word depends on what a particular person means by it in a particular situation and it is clear that what a child means by a word will change as he gains more experience of the world. Thus the use at seven months of “mama” as a greeting for his mother cannot be dismissed as a meaningless sound simply because he also uses it at other times for his father, his dog, or anything else he likes. Playful and meaningless imitation of what other people say continues after the child has begun to speak for himself. I doubt, however, whether anything is gained when parents take advantage of this ability in an attempt to teach new sounds.

    Long long ago there were a lot of donkeys. The donkeys worked hard every day. They had no time to play or to relax, but they never felt appreciated（得到赏识的）for the work they did.

    One day two donkeys got bored. They wanted to live a comfortable life, so the donkeys went to see a wise old man. They told him their problem. The wise old man agreed they worked too hard, and he wanted to help the donkeys. “I have an idea,” he said.

    “What is your idea?” asked the donkeys.

    “I will paint you and no one will know you are donkeys,” said the man.

    The man went off to find some paint and he returned in just a matter of minutes. He had two pots of paints. One pot was filled with white paint, and the other black paint.

    The old man first painted them white, and then painted stripes（斑纹）over the white paint. When he finished, the donkeys did not look like donkeys at all. “You no longer look like donkeys,” the old man said. “Everyone will be fooled（欺骗）. I will call you something else, zebras（斑马）.”

    The zebras went to a field to eat grass. Now they did not have to work.

    Soon, other donkeys saw the zebras. They asked the zebras where they came from. When the zebras told the donkeys their secret, the donkeys all rushed to see the old man.

    “Please make us into zebras, too,” they pleaded. So the wise old man painted more donkeys. As he did, more and more donkeys came.

    The old man could not paint fast enough. Soon the donkeys became impatient （不耐烦的）. They began to kick about, and they knocked over the paint pots.

    There was no more paint. The painted donkeys ran off to become zebras. The unpainted donkeys, because of their impatience, had to return to work.

    Edward Hibberd Johnson was an American inventor. He lived in New York City in the 1800s. In 1882, Johnson had an idea. It would change the look of Christmas forever.

    Johnson worked as a boss at a technology company. In 1871, he hired a young man to work for him. The man's name was Thomas Edison. Edison was a great worker. He came up with many new ideas. Later, Edison left to start his own company. Johnson followed him. Johnson started turning Edison's ideas into money. In 1880, Edison invented the light bulb. No one knew how much it was worth. At the time, most homes did not have the electricity to power it. However, Johnson helped start a company to sell the bulbs.

    Before long, Mr. Johnson had a bright idea. Christmas trees were very popular. They were so beautiful because of their candles. Flickering (闪烁的) flames were perfect for Christmas. But they were also dangerous. They could easily start a fire.

    Mr. Johnson thought of a way to fix this. He set up a Christmas tree by one of his windows. Then he took 80 colored light bulbs and hung them around it. The lights were red, white and blue. People on the street stopped to look. They admired the shining Christmas tree. It was so popular that Johnson made it a tradition. Each year he added more lights. In 1884, there were 120 light bulbs on his tree. The lights were not cheap. In 1900, a string of 16 bulbs cost $12. That was a lot of money back then, because people made less. In today's money, that is about $350. But over time, they started to cost less. By the 1930s, colored light bulbs were everywhere.

    Today millions of light sets are sold in America each year. They light 80 million homes. Some of them are now used for other holidays too. They are used on Halloween and Valentine's Day. But it all started with Johnson's Christmas tree.

    Running your small business requires good staff. Once you find them, you don't want to let them go elsewhere.

    During an employee's time with a company, there are a number of forces that influence his or her behavior. I like to refer to them as "push" and "pull". You're either pushing an employee towards the door, or pulling them deeper into your organization.

    Suppose that you've made a good hire and you want to keep the employees, the trick is to recognize individual needs of employees and satisfy those needs, within reason, in order to keep pulling them away from the door. Even if you can't pull them away from the door, at least don't do things to push them out of the door.

    Recognize that some employees will lose interest and need something fresh to keep their interest. If you can't continually provide challenges, opportunities for promotion and other interesting and rewarding opportunities, then you'll have some employees leave through no fault of your own.

    The important thing is to identify your key employees and make certain they are being treated well. Communicate with them on a regular basis to make certain that you understand what makes them behave in a particular way, and be aware of concerns they may have about job satisfaction.

    A recent documentary produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has caused a stir in China and in the UK.

    The documentary, titled Are Our Kids Tough Enough? focuses on five Chinese teachers who are sent to teach 50 UK teens at a school in Hampshire.

    The teachers instruct the students for a month. The pupils are then tested, and the results are compared to the ones of those who have continued in the regular UK education system. The idea is to see if the Chinese method improves academic performance.

    The Chinese teachers use their own teaching methods but receive strong resistance from the students. A clip from the documentary online shows some problems, with Chinese teachers calling their students lazy and lacking in discipline, while the students say the high pressure and harsh teachers are driving them crazy.

    This has aroused a new debate in both China and the UK, with some arguing the teenagers need more regulation and discipline. Others say Chinese methods encourage rote learning (死记硬背) instead of independent thinking. For instance, Chinese language teachers should do more than pass on knowledge about words and characters. They should inspire students, helping them feel the sentiment from Chinese literature. This is a higher level of teaching.

    Yang Dongping, dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, says, "The Chinese teaching methods are designed to strictly train the majority. Foreign teaching methods, however, are more natural and relaxing, and designed to inspire students' interest in learning. Education methods are based on culture. That is why a successful education method in one place may not work that well when simply 'transplanted' into another place."

    Yang Dongping says, "The documentary does reflect some problems rooted in traditional Chinese teaching methods. Nobel prize winner, Yang Zhenning, gave a very fair comment on this issue. He said the Chinese-style education method works for most ordinary qualified students effectively, helping them reach high standards. However, it may weaken the training for high-potential outstanding students."