The back-to-school season is upon us, and once again, parents across the country have loaded their kids' backpacks up with snack packs and school supplies. It's a good moment to reflect on what else we should be giving our kids as they head off to school.

    American parents are feeling particularly anxious about that question this year. The educational process feels more than ever like a race, one that starts in pre-school and doesn't end until your child is admitted to the perfect college. Most parents are more worried than they need to be about their children's grades, test scores and IQ. And what we don't think about enough is how to help our children build their character—how to help them develop skills like perseverance, optimism, responsibility, and self-control, which together do more to determine success than S.A.T. scores or I.Q.

    There is growing evidence that our anxiety about our children's school performance may actually be holding them back from learning some of these valuable skills. If you're concerned only with a child's G.P.A., then you will likely choose to minimize the challenges the child faces in school. With real challenge comes the risk of real failure. And in a competitive academic environment, the idea of failure can be very scary, to students and parents alike.

    But experiencing failure is a critical part of building character.A recent research by a team of psychologists found that adults who had experienced little or no failure growing up were actually less happy and confident than those who had experienced a few significant setbacks in childhood. “Overcoming those obstacles,” the researchers assumed, “could teach effective coping skills, help engage social support networks, create a sense of mastery over past adversity, and foster beliefs in the ability to cope successfully in the future.”

    By contrast, when we protect our children from every possible failure—when we call their teachers to get an extension on a paper; when we urge them to choose only those subjects they're good at—we are denying them those same character-building experiences. As the psychologists Madeline Levine and Dan Kindlon have written, that can lead to difficulties in adolescence and young adulthood, when overprotected young people finally confront real problems on their own and don't know how to overcome them.

    In the classroom and outside of it, American parents need to encourage children to take chances, to challenge themselves, to risk failure. In the meantime, giving our kids room to fail may be one of the best ways we can help them succeed.

Time for a Brainstorm

    A brainstorm is a session where a small group of people come together to solve a problem．People voice spontaneous ideas, sometimes just shouting , and a note-taker writes them all down．{#blank#}1{#/blank#}By getting different ideas out there, ideas are said to bounce off each other and even can help solve the problem at hand．Brainstorming is often a group exercise but individuals can also conduct personal brainstorms．

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}He defined it as using the brain to storm a creative problem and do so in commando (突击队）fashion，with each stormer attacking the same objective．According to him,, it was easier to tone down a wild idea than think up a new one．He placed importance on the collection of as many ideas as possible and dismissed scientific thinking．

    Brainstorming has become one of the most popular ways to solve problems and hold discussion in schools and businesses．Many students brainstorm for a group assignment or even for a personal essay． Sarah Grace, 24, is an Australian marketing analyst and uses brainstorming during all her creative duties． She thinks brainstorming is the best way to work as a team．The sessions get everyone on the same page，everyone moving together and with a clear understanding about the foundations of an event or idea．{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

However, a big problem with brainstorming is creating a mess that leads people further away from a solution．{#blank#}4{#/blank#} If you don't have a strong moderator or leader of the brainstorm, can go really off track，and people just start discussing something totally different． Brainstorming can sometimes confuse the human brain． {#blank#}5{#/blank#} If you brainstorm too much and your page is filled up with all the messy links, you can paint yourself into a bit of comer and get trapped with ideas． You need to move past brainstorming as soon as you have something workable．

A．The ideas can be smart，strange or crazy．

B．It is caused by a lack of direction from a leader．

C．Brainstorming really helps her organize her thoughts．

D．Brainstorming really is the best way to build team spirit．

E．It can open too many doors and not suggest a clear direction．

F．Brainstorms were popularized in the 1940s by American advertising boss Alex Osborn．．

G．They can be words, phrases, paragraphs and anything that can help answer the question．

    A class teacher, in my opinion, plays an important role in a child's development.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} This year, she is moving to Class Three and I can't wait to see how things are going on.

    Last year, my daughter did not like her teacher at all. It was so bad that she did not look forward to school. It was a year full of trouble and that worries.

   This year, Miss Purity is gentle and humorous. It's hard not to like her.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}.

    She becomes an early bird. Last year, mornings were like a fight because I had to force Tasha to hurry up when she was preparing for school. I had to pull her out of bed, tell her to take breakfast and then drove her to school. But now, our mornings are like a party. She wakes up early, prepares everything at a high speed and then rushes to school to be with Miss Purity.

    She's happy. She enjoys school and school work and keeps talking about what they did at school when she comes home.

    She's responsible.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} But now she never forgets even her water bottle at school. She makes her bed and helps in the kitchen.

    Her diary is full of praises. The diary is the tool of communication between the teacher and the parents. Last year, her diary was always full of negative reports. One time, she poured water in a child's lunchbox, another time she threw another kid's textbook in the toilet.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} She's always volunteering to clean the blackboard, the teacher's chair and desk.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Finishing her classwork was such a big problem. She had to do it at home. But now, she finished both the classwork and homework at school.

A. Here are the changes in my daughter.

B. Now she began to share her snacks with those who did not have anything.

C. Every year when my daughter moves to a new class, I have a usual big worry—her new class teacher.

D. Her diary was good.

E. She has a good class teacher.

F. She used to be careless and forgetful.

G. She does well in school.

    All company leaders will face major business decisions throughout their time as the heads of their organizations. Difficult decisions related to activities such as M&A, leadership changes, restructuring, and massive growth plans will directly impact the company's employees.

    If you've already established trust with your workforce, you can significantly minimize potential negative impacts and make sure your employees will buy into your decisions, even if they don't necessarily agree with them. But earning their faith takes time. As a leader, you are trusted only to the degree that people believe in your ability, consistency, and commitment to deliver. The good news is that there do exist some strategies to help you earn confidence.

    Instill trust through an employee engagement program

    By encouraging consistent feedback and establishing an honest environment, employees will trust the direction and information you give them. Create a highly engaged culture by prioritizing real-time recognition, continuous feedback, and ongoing goal-setting.

    Change and react with meaningful conversations. You've likely had to adjust your business plan in the middle of the year. Real-time, continuous communication helps you keep employees in the loop and adjust to expectations as your organization's needs change.

    Giving timely feedback is the most effective way to communicate expectations. Not only that, but saving your big praise until the end of the year isn't just ineffective—it makes it more difficult to deliver.

    Ongoing goal-setting can help people understand where their contributions fit within the organization and where they need to aim. Better yet, these can be transparent across the organization so everyone is held accountable for the outcomes and behaviors that drive your business and cultural success.

    Gather and measure sentiment (情感) during times of change

    Part of the difficulty in making tough business decisions is that leaders don't want to surprise or disappoint employees. Think about the last time you made a major company-wide announcement. Did you know if employees were happy? Were they shocked? Or even worse, did you have no insight into their reactions at all? If you regularly measure employee sentiment through real-time pulse surveys—especially during times of change—you can more accurately pinpoint reactions and cope with issues immediately. The results of these pulse surveys empower your leadership team to be more forthcoming, moving forward, earning the trust of employees and strengthening a transparent company culture.

    If there is a strong link between employees and managers to the goals of the organization, the vision and values of the company will be embraced by all.

    At the end of the day, the mindset shouldn't be about how you can make tough decisions easier, but how you can make those decisions in a way that won't negatively impact your employees or your organization's objectives. Create a cooperative feedback culture, and when the time comes to make difficult decisions, you know that with your team's insights in mind and trust in the leadership, the decision will be accepted willingly.

Study in Canada

    Why Canada?

    Canadians place a premium(保险) on education and demand first-rate schools. Canada is among the top three countries in the Organization for Economic. International students who graduate from Canadian universities land successful and promising careers.

    Ranked as #1 in the World

    For the past several years, a United Nations survey has found Canada to be the best place in the world to live in. Conducted every year, the survey evaluates quality of life in 174 countries, using over 200 performance indicators. Canada earned particularly high marks for its access to education, high life expectancy(长寿), and low crime and violence rates.

    Canadian Education is Competitively Priced

    Tuition fees for international students in Canada are comparatively much lower than in any other English speaking country

    More than 800000 Canadians trace their roots back to India!

    High Standard of Living

    Canadians enjoy a standard of living among the highest in the world. More than 65 per cent of Canadians own their own homes, with a higher percentage owning durable goods. Canadians are proud of their world-famous and highly advanced broadcasting system which includes more than 1,000 AM and FM radio stations and some 719 television stations to serve, entertain and educate the listening and viewing audience.

    The vast majority of Canada's population of more than 30 million people lives in urban areas.

    Welcoming & Beautiful Environment

    All major urban centers have a variety of shopping malls, restaurants, theaters, art galleries and museums. Canadian cities provide numerous parks, gardens and beaches for public use, as well as excellent sports and recreation facilities. Canadians place a high value on their natural environment.

    Canada is well-known as a safe, just and peaceful society. Canadian crime rates have been falling steadily since the 1990s. In 1997, Canada's police-reported crime rate decreased for the sixth year in a row, falling by five per cent. Violent crimes declined for the fifth year in a row in 1997 and Canada's homicide (杀人) rate now accounts for less than one percent of all reported violent incidents. Unlike its US neighbors to the south, firearms are strictly controlled and generally are not permitted in Canada.

    Canada is a country with two official languages, English and French. The vast majority (75 per cent) of Canada's French-speaking inhabitants(居民) live in Québec(魁北克), which is located in the eastern part of the country but there are French-speaking communities throughout  the country.

    Internationally, it is estimated that more than 800 million people speak English and 250 million speak French. Canada offers superior English as a Second Language (ESL) and French as Second Language (FSL) training for students wishing to learn either or both languages.

    A 2014 study found that readers of a short mystery story on a Kindle were significantly worse at remembering the order of events than those who read the same story in paperback.

    The brain reads by constructing a mental representation of the text based on the placement of the page in the book and the word on the page. The tactile (触觉的) experience of a book aids this process, from the thickness of the pages in your hands as you progress through the story to the placement of a word on the page.

    Surveys about the use of e-readers suggests that this affects a reader's sense of control. The inability to turn back to previous pages or control the text physically, either through making written notes or bending pages, limits one's sensory experience and thus reduces long-term memory of the text.

    Before the Internet, the brain read in a linear (线状的) fashion, taking advantage of sensory details to remember where key information was in the book by layout.

    As we increasingly read on screens, our reading habits have adapted to skim a text rather than really absorb its meaning. A 2006 study found that people read on screens in a "F" pattern, reading the entire top line but then only scanning through the text along the left side of the page. This sort of nonlinear reading reduces comprehension and actually makes it more difficult to focus the next time you sit down with a longer piece of text.

    Tufts University neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf worries that "the superficial way we read during the day is affecting us when we have to read with more in-depth processing." Individuals are increasingly finding it difficult to sit down and involve themselves deeply in a novel. As a result, some researchers and literature-lovers have started a "slow reading" movement, as a way to counteract their difficulty making it through a book.

    Slow-reading advocates recommend at least 30 to 45 minutes of daily reading away from the distractions of modern technology. By doing so, the brain can reengage with linear reading. The benefits of making slow reading a regular habit are numerous, reducing stress and improving your ability to concentrate.

    Reading an old-fashioned novel is also linked to improving sleep. When many of us spend our days in front of screens, it can be hard to signal to our body that it's time to sleep. By reading a paper book about an hour before bed, your brain enters a new zone, distinct from that enacted by reading on an e-reader.