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    "There's Always a John" By Darla Boyd

    My first year of teaching, there was a kid named John in my class. John was difficult to control and he nearly drove me crazy. While talking about him one day, an old teacher put his hand on my shoulder and said, "There will always be a John. Your job is to learn to discover what makes him different and help him succeed." The next year, there was indeed another John. But that advice taught me that there is something to appreciate in everyone.

    "An Early Key Lesson" By Elaine West

    Before I began my first teaching job, my mother, a teacher of 30 years, gave me a very special gift, five simple words that have had an effect on my entire life." Make friends with the janitor（门卫）." Her wisdom taught me the respect for all types of characters and continues to enrich my life to this day. Just five little words but what an impact they can have when you take them to heart.

    “Raising Mommy” By Jan Davis

    Being a mother can always present challenges and rewards. Someone told me early that children will teach you everything you need to know. Being a mother is being raised. Our children become our advisers. Their dreams become our professors, as we are taking notes carefully. The sounds of their laughter and smiles are a great reward to us. Their tears remind us that it is okay to fail, and that we should wipe the tears away and try again.

    When people today talk about a tiny house, they probably mean the trendy living space that's about the size of a shed (棚). But you would have to be five inches tall to live in the original tiny houses. Dollhouse(小房子)，which have been around for several centuries, don't offer shelter to real people, but they provide a vivid（生动的） experience of life in times and places both real and imaginary.

    The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., lets visitors time travel in this tiny world through ―Small Stories: At Home in a Dollhouse,” an exhibit that opened Saturday. Visitors can see twelve dollhouses from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, which contain amazing tiny furnishings. But those people who put together the exhibit also wanted visitors to know the characters inside.

    “It's 300 years of British homes told through their inhabitants (居民),” said Alice Sage, who is in charge of the London museum.

    So as visitors look inside the Tate Baby House, a fancy townhouse from 1760, they can push a button to hear a young woman get a lecture from her mother on the proper way to run a home. In the Killer Cabinet house, a servant named Betsy complains about the problems of city life in the 1830s. “We've got the cat to keep the rats away,” she says.

    That dollhouse was John Killer's gift to his wife and five daughters. The girls were allowed to play with the house, but they probably also learned a few lessons, Sage said.

    “The kitchen of the house would have been the perfect way to teach the girls about the management of a home,” she said, noting the tiny dishes and pots.

    Those who prefer a more modern look won't be disappointed. There are two rooms displaying a white dollhouse from 1935, an apartment house from the 1960s and a brightly colored 21st-century design.

    The end of the exhibit shows how imaginative design sometimes works best in small spaces.

    The Building Museum asked twenty-four artists, designers and architects from across the United States to each create a “dream room” from the past, present or future. Some of these unique small rooms were made using traditional furnishings, others from materials such as clay, insects, 3D-printing, and even peeps marshmallow candies!

    A characteristic of American culture that has become almost a tradition is to respect the self-made man--the man who has risen to the top through his own efforts, usually beginning by working with his hands. While the leader in business or industry or the college professor occupies a higher social position and commands greater respect in the community than the common laborer or even the skilled factory worker, he may take pains to point out that his father started life in America as a farmer or laborer of some sort.

    This attitude toward manual (体力的) labor is now still seen in many aspects of American life. One is invited to dinner at a home that is not only comfortably but even luxuriously (豪华地) furnished and in which there is every evidence of the fact that the family has been able to afford foreign travel, expensive hobbies, and college education for the children; yet the hostess probably will cook the dinner herself, will serve it herself and will wash dishes afterward, furthermore the dinner will not consist merely of something quickly and easily assembled from contents of various cans and a cake or a pie bought at the near- by bakery. On the contrary, the hostess usually takes pride in careful preparation of special dishes. A professional man may talk about washing the car, digging in his flowerbeds, painting the house. His wife may even help with these things, just as he often helps her with the dishwashing. The son who is away at college may wait on table and wash dishes for his living, or during the summer he may work with a construction gang on a highway in order to pay for his education.

    Visual language is a form of communication that uses visual elements (元素) as opposed to formal written language to convey meaning or an idea, Graphicacy, the ability to communicate visually, is considered as important as literacy and numeracy, the abilities to read and count. Some people are visual thinkers, using that part of the brain that is emotional and creative to process and give meaning to information. Visual communication can find expression in paintings, drawings, symbols, or simply lines and shapes arranged for a specific effect.

    Art is an example of visual language. A painting or sculpture can convey ideas or arouse specific kinds of emotional responses. It may also express ideas about historical events, abstract concepts, or simply be about the way certain shapes or forms "work" together or create a certain effect on the mind. Some researchers believe that different parts of the brain respond in unique ways to colors and shapes.

Pictograms (象形文字) and ideograms (表意文字) are types of visual language. Pictograms are pictures that are similar to what they represent. They are still used today to communicate information. Many people around the world are familiar with the pictograms indicating such things as airports, public facilities, and non-smoking areas indicated by a cigarette in a circle with a line across it. Ideograms are pictures that represent ideas and can often be understood without the aid of written language. Some scholars track modern alphabets to pictures Letters are actually ancient pictures, and words are a series of pictures. Modern alphabet letters are not only phonetic (语音的) symbols but are based on ancient religious images and symbols.

    Musivisual communication is also a part of visual language. The term refers to music created specifically to improve the visual experience of film. It corresponds to the images being seen on the screen, and the music may arouse a sense of terror, fear, or other emotions. Most movie goers understand the language of musical clues showing that something dramatic or important is about to happen.

Four Best Zoos in the US

Saint Louis Zoo

Saint Louis Zoo is devoted to research and conservation. In 2022, it received the Worldwide Conservation Award from the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums for research and work in the Galapagos Islands. The zoo is home to more than 16.000 animals, which are kept in clean and spacious natural habitats （栖息地）. Open year-round and free to visit, Saint Louis Zoo houses Andean bears, polar bears and Sumatran orangutans, to name a few.

Zoo Atlanta

Opened in 1889 and one of the oldest zoos in the US. Zoo Atlanta is one of the top zoos worth visiting in Atlanta. Home to giant pandas. Sumatran tigers and western lowland gorillas （猩猩）. the zoo participates in local and global conservation programs. Visitors say the gorilla s and giant pandas are two of the highlights here. Adults (12-64): $34; Seniors (65 &over): $32; Children (3-11): $26; Children (3 &under): free.

Bronx Zoo

With more than 700 species and an area of 265 acres, Bronx Zoo in New York City is the largest urban zoo in the US. Since it's hard to see the entire zoo in one day, prioritize must-see attractions like the Wild Asia Monorail （单轨列车） and the Congo Gorilla Forest during your visit. Adults (13 &over): $33.95+; Seniors (65 &over): $28.95+; Children (3-12): $23.95+; Children (2 &under): free.

Oakland Zoo

Oakland Zoo is situated about 20 miles east of down town San Francisco. It is home to more than 850 native and foreign species. Visitors can see African lions, American alligators and grizzly bears in large natural habitats. Zoogoers say they like the hillside layout and the Sky Ride that affords bird's-eye views of the animals. Children under 2 years and seniors (76+): free; Children (2-14) and adults (15-75): $15.75.

When Jeff Sparkman draws his cartoon superheroes with coloured pencils, he often has to ask other people to tell him what colour his masked men turned out to be because he's colour blind. Now, a new smart phone application (app) can help him figure out what colours he's using and how the picture looks to most everyone else.

The DanKam app, available for iPhone and Android for $2.99, is an application that turns the vague (模糊的) colours that one percent of the population with colour-blindness see into the "true" colours as everyone else sees them. In America, an estimated 32 million colour-blind Americans—95% are males—can soon have their life improved.

"DanKam takes the stream of data coming in through the phone's camera and changes the colours slightly so they fall within the range that people who are colour-blind see," developed Dan Kaminsky told CNET. He came up with the idea after watching the 2009 film Star Trek with a colour-blind friend.

It was then that he got to know more about colourblindness like its varying types and degrees. A vast majority, for instance, have trouble seeing red or green due to a genetic defect (遗传缺陷), Blue-yellow colourblindness, however, is rarer and develops later in life because of aging, illness or head injuries, etc. He started experimenting with one of the most common representations of points in the RGB colour model. What the DanKam app attempts to do is clean up the colour space of the image or video signal so that colours can be visible to those suffering from viewing problems. "You can adjust the app to fit your needs. There is a range and not everyone who is colour-blind sees things the same," Says Kaminsky.

Sparkman, a copy editor at CNET, tried out the app and was pleased with the result: "It would be useful for dressing for a job interview," he said. But using it for his art is "the most practical application". It worked well on LED and other lights on electronic gadgets (器械), which means Sparkman can now identify the power light on his computer display green.