Who is the greatest teacher in Chinese history? Many people would think of Confucius, whose birthday was September 28. Although he lived over 2,000 years ago, people still remember and respect him for his contribution to the education today.

 Confucius lived in the Kingdom of Lu, which lies in Shandong Province. He lived during the Spring and Autumn Period. He had a hard childhood. His father died when he was only 3. His mother brought him up. As a child, he had to work to help his mother, but young Confucius didn't give up studying. He visited many famous teachers and learned music, history, poetry and sports.

 Later, he became a teacher and started the first public school in Chinese history. At that time only children from noble families could go to school, but Confucius believed everyone should go to school if they wanted to learn. He had about 3,000 students in his lifetime.

Today, people still follow Confucius' lessons. He told us that we all have something worthy to be learned. "When I am with three people, one of them must be better than me in some areas. I choose their good qualities and follow them.”

 He also taught us that thinking is very important in study. “All study but no thinking makes people puzzled (困惑的). All thinking but no study makes people lazy.”

 Confucius is not only a great teacher, but also a famous thinker with wise thoughts about the world and society. His most important teachings are about kindness and good manners. “A person should be strict with himself, but be kind to others.” he said.

      More and more people think it necessary to study in an English-speaking country and it didn't take long at all for me to decide to come and study in UK.

      I have been used to school life since I came here two months ago, and I am starting to enjoy most of my time in here. School starts at 9 o'clock every morning, and every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we have long days, in which we have 9 lessons and school finishes at 4 o'clock. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday we have short days, in which we have only 6 lessons and finish at 1 o'clock. After lessons, we have  hours of activity time, when you can choose from a number of activities, including many sports, such as rugby(英式橄榄球) , football, basketball and tennis.

As a boarder(寄宿者), the quality of food is something I consider very important, and Merchiston has not let me down. The school kitchens are run by a professional company, and the quality of food is excellent, and they are always trying to make the diet healthy. One of the obvious advantages of being a boarder is that we can have breakfast in the school, which means we don't have to pull ourselves out of bed as early as the day pupils!

B

    Wang Fuman is a 10-year-old student. He is now studying in Zhuanshanbao Primary School in Zhaotong, Yunnan Province. On Monday morning (January 8, 2018), he braved -9℃ weather to travel over an hour to reach his school.

    When he arrived, his hair and eyebrows had been completely frozen with snowflake (雪花). This made his 16 classmates laugh a lot. Fu Heng, Wang's teacher saw this and took a picture. He uploaded (上传) Wang's picture. The picture soon has got much attention to children from poor families in the countryside. Wang, who has been nicknamed “Snowflake Boy” by netizens, became famous online overnight. By Wednesday morning, his picture had been “liked” more than 260,000 times on Sina Weibo and shared more than 40,000 times.

    After hearing Wang's story, the Yunnan China Youth Development Foundation held a public donation ( 捐赠) activity for children from poor families. The Foundation has promised to give each poor child 500 yuan ($75) to help them stay warm in winter.

    By 1 pm on Wednesday, the Foundation had collected about 300,000 yuan in public donations, according to their website. Wang's village now has electricity and tap water, “…and my family is getting help to build a new house close to the school”, Wang said, “I think our life will get better.”

Bad things happen to many of us. Something makes you sad, angry, frustrated or disappointed. But you still have to get up and go to work. Everything others say to you sounds stupid. Everyone seems to annoy you from time to time. Luckily, you can do something about it. Here are some ways to turn around a bad day.

Accepting that you're in a bad mood is not that hard. If you're mad, be mad. If you are sad, be sad. This does not give you license to be rude and unpleasant to others. It just means that you need to recognize and accept your bad mood to be able to do something. 

You can try to keep your bad mood a secret and put on your happy mask. But guess what! You're fooling nobody around you but yourself. The best thing to do is to tell the people you work closely with what is happening to you. Just simply tell them "Listen, I'm in a really bad mood today. I'm not sure why, but it has nothing to do with you. If I bite your head off. I say sorry in advance."

Spend a few moments trying thinking of at least one or two things that aren't all bad: Something that you look forward to, such as a person you like at work or something nice that happened recently.

Take some quiet time. Have a walk in your lunch break. Sit and work somewhere peaceful alone. Take a relaxing long bathroom break. Consider going home early or taking the day off.

We all know that it is important to be honest, but who can honestly say that they've never told a lie(谎言)? Perhaps we comfort ourselves that most of the lies are "white lies". For example, someone cooks a terrible meal for us, but we lie and say that the food is"delicious". Or if a friend asks us what we think of his or her new haircut, we say"It's great!", even if we think it's awful. 

One of the main reasons that we tell a white lie is to try to make others feel better. However, when we lie and say that someone's haircut looks good, or when we say that we love a meal that we secretly don't like, are we really hoping to improve the situation for someone else?

Another reason for telling a white lie is to give encouragement. For example, when your friend asks you what you think of his or her singing, you say it's"wonderful", although you think it's not good. Perhaps your friend wants some frank opinions from you to improve. 

Finally, we may also tell a white lie when we want to protect others from bad news. If you have a bad day, do you tell your parents about it, or do you hide your tears and lie that your day is"fine"? When you tell a lie, don't you think your parents would want to listen to you and understand your feelings?

Perhaps the meal you said was"delicious" will be served every time you visit. Your friend may not trust your opinion again if he or she found out you had lied about his or her"wonderful" singing. Others couldn't truly understand you if you only share good news instead of bad news.