"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."—Albert Einstein

If you have a kid with special needs in the school system, chances are you have come across that saying hanging on a classroom wall. My five-year-old daughter Syona has cerebral palsy (a medical condition affecting someone's control over their movement ) and it means, combined with her communication challenges and sight problems, that standard assessments (and by "standard", I mean the ones used to assess kids with special needs ) aren't always an accurate measure of her abilities.

By now you have probably heard about Chris Ulmer, the 26-year-old teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, who starts his special education class by calling up each student individually to give them much admiration and a high-five (a gesture of greeting or congratulation). I couldn't help but be reminded of Syona's teacher and how she supports each kid in a very similar way. Ulmer recently shared a video of his teaching experience. "I have seen their confidence and self-worth increase rapidly, " he said. All I could think was: How lucky these students are to have such inspirational teachers.

    Syona's teacher has an attitude that can best be summarized in one word: awesome. Her teacher doesn't focus on what can't be done—she focuses on what can be done. Over the past several months, my husband Dilip and I have seen Syona's confidence increase tenfold. She uses words she wouldn't have thought of using before. She recently told me about her classmate's trip to Ecuador and was very proud when I understood her on the first try.

    I actually wonder what the influence would be if we did something similar to what Ulmer does with his students in our home. We've recently started our day by reminding each other of the good qualities we all possess. If we are reminded of our strengths on a regular basis, we will become increasingly confident about progress and success.

    Ulmer's reach as a teacher goes far beyond the walls of his classroom. In fact, he teaches all of us to take a moment and truly appreciate the strengths of an important person in our lives.

    Watching some children trying to catch butterflies one hot August afternoon, I was reminded of an incident in my own childhood．When I was a boy of 12 in South Carolina, something happened to me that cured me forever of wanting to put any wild creature in a cage.

    We lived on the edge of a wood, and every evening at dusk the mockingbirds would come and rest in the trees and sing. There isn't a musical instrument made by man that can produce a more beautiful sound than the song of the mockingbird.

    I decided that I would catch a young bird and keep it in a cage and in that way would have my own private musician.

    I finally succeeded in catching one and put it in a cage. At first, in its fright at being captured, the bird fluttered about the cage, but eventually it settled down in its new home. I felt very pleased with myself and looked forward to some beautiful singing from my tiny musician.

    I had left the cage out on our back porch, and on the second day of the bird's captivity my new pet's mother flew to the cage with food in her mouth. The baby bird ate everything she brought to it. I was pleased to see this. Certainly the mother knew better than I how to feed her baby.

    The following morning when I went to see how my captive（被俘虏的） was doing, I discovered it on the floor of the cage, dead. I was shocked! What had happened! I had taken excellent care of my little bird, or so I thought.

    Arthur Wayne, the famous ornithologist, happened to be visiting my father at the time, hearing me crying over the death of my bird, explained what had occurred. “A mother mockingbird, finding her young in a cage, will sometimes bring it poison berries. She thinks it better for her young to die than to live in captivity.”

    Never since then have I caught any living creature and put it in a cage. All living creatures have a right to live free.

    The most important lessons in life that we need to learn are the results of our poor decisions. Although time and experience are the best teachers, we also suffer from experiences such as our sacrifices, suffering and the hardships. Good judgment develops only when we truly learn from our mistakes. However, many people keep repeating the same mistakes before learning their lessons because as they say, they are just humans who are subject to making mistakes.

Our weaknesses in life can be turned into our strengths if we immediately acknowledge and recognize the fact that we mess up and learn from them. Our good or bad experiences help us learn better judgment in life. Yet, too many people are in denial and place the blame on others without realizing that the minute they take responsibility for their action is when the learning process begins. Apart from learning from our own experience, we can also learn valuable lessons from the experience of others. It allows us to observe our behavior from another angle. When we recognize our mistakes and prevent them from happening again, we are, therefore, learning.

    Quickly identifying our mistakes and changing behavior accordingly requires less time and energy than denying mistakes. However, acknowledgement of mistakes requires belief in the idea that the perfection is not possible.

    It is easier to analyze our mistakes especially when we talk to others, which can help people to sort out comments or criticisms after a mistake is made. Despite our tendency to avoid mistakes, timely acknowledgement is one of the best ways to prevent them from repeating.

    On the morning of May 20, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. took off from a muddy airfield in New York and headed for Paris. During the first fourteen hours of flying, he had had some anxious moments. Sleet had gathered on the wings of the plane and the fog was so thick that he could hardly see the tips of the wings. However, he had come across equally dangerous flying conditions before. Of course, now that he was over the ocean, his parachute（降落伞）was useless. He had only one choice: he had to go on.

    Although he had waited a long time to make this trip, he did not feel strange or nervous. He was accustomed to flying alone, and he had flown this route in his imagination many times. The idea of flying across the Atlantic had occurred to him one night when he had been carrying the mail between St. Louis and Chicago. That night, he told himself that a solo non-stop flight between New York and Paris was possible. He knew that airplanes capable of making the long flight over the ocean could be built. A man of skill and endurance could make his dream come true.

    As he was recalling that night, he reduced the altitude of the plane. Close to the surface of the ocean, he found that the ice on the wings began to melt and the fog disappeared. For the time being, at least, he was safe. The steady sound of the motor seemed like music in his ears. He had perfect confidence in his plane because he knew that there was not a more dependable plane than his. The Ryan Aircraft Company had constructed the plane to meet his special needs. He had worked with the chief engineer of the company, Donald Hall, to produce the airplane as rapidly as possible. Although Hall had worked with the basic design of the Ryan airplane, he had had to make many modifications. As a result, it was a very special airplane. He had named it “The Spirit of St. Louis,” in honour of the St. Louis businessmen whose financial backing had made the trip possible. Besides their money, he had invested all of his own savings, which came to two thousand dollars, in the venture.

    At 12:10 on the afternoon of May 21, Lindbergh caught sight of the coast of Ireland. Now that the flight was almost over, he began to relax a little. Finally, after thirty-four hours in the air without sleep, he arrived at Le Bourget Field, in Paris.

    Daylight-powered germ-killing equipment（杀菌设备）may someday help protect health workers from deadly virus like Ebola virus. That is a finding from a study published in the journal Science Advances.

    Study organizers say they've developed membranes（薄膜）that produce very small amounts of hydrogen peroxide（过氧化氢）when left in daylight. Membranes are thin plastic, structures that can serve as barriers. They let some things pass through, but other things art blocked. Hydrogen peroxide, a liquid sold in drug stores, works as a disinfectant（杀菌剂）.

    Nearly 500 health workers were infected and died in 2014 when Ebola spread through parts of West Africa. Caregivers wear full-body protective suits when they come into contact with patients with infectious diseases. But the process of removing the suits is a time when infection can spread if the surface is covered with virus. “If there's any live bacteria or virus on the surface, it's still transmissible and could cause infection,” said Gang Sun of the University of California. He is one of the researchers that worked to develop membranes that could cover the outside of protective equipment.

    When the chemical molecules（分子）on the surface of these membranes are put in sunlight, they react with oxygen in the air to produce small amounts of hydrogen peroxide. Gang Sun explains that the process creates less hydrogen peroxide than what you would use to remove dirt on clothing, for example. But it is still enough to kill organisms.

    Rohan Tikekar is a food scientist with the University of Maryland. He described the development as “quite novel,” or new and different, Tikekar was not involved with the recent study. He said others have developed materials that produce disinfecting chemicals. But most only work under high-energy ultraviolet（U V）light, and not usual daylight. The new membrane also works in the dark for at least an hour or two because of chemical properties that can recharge its germ-killing powers. Tikekar called that an important improvement.

    Gang Sun said the new membranes, though still Far from perfect could be used for things other than protective equipment for health workers. They could also be added to packaging for fruits and vegetables to keep foods fresher and reduce the risk of being polluted. Some versions of the material use natural chemicals' Sun says that one of the next steps is to make it safe to sat

    Youth football team members rescued more than two weeks after sudden flooding trapped them in a cave in Thailand are now being well looked after at a hospital in the northern city of Chiang Rai. In addition to treating the boys for potential body fluid loss, inadequate nutrition and lack of oxygen, their doctors also plan to closely monitor them for symptoms of diseases that may have been infected by animals living in the cave.

    "The next step is to make sure those kids and their families are safe, because living in a cave provides a different environment, which might contain animals that could transmit…disease," said the local hospital. The boys and their family members have been told to watch for symptoms such as headache, nausea(反胃), muscle pain or difficulty breathing, the reports added.

    Yet based on the location where the boys were trapped—more than four kilometers from the cave complex's main entrance, past some fully submerged passages—and the fact they have been swimming out wearing full scuba face masks, it seems unlikely that they were living with bats in the cave or breathed in bat-associated bacteria during their rescue, several infectious disease experts said. "It's hard to imagine bats got that deep into the cave because of all those narrow passageways, but it is possible," says Ian Lipkin, an animal expert and professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. "It's unlikely that there would be many animals in there," notes Jonathan Epstein, a doctor at EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that studies diseases and how to prevent them. Bats typically like to rest in areas they can easily enter and exit, not in places that fully flood, he adds.

    Bats in Thailand have been linked with a wide range of viruses that are similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)—Lipkin says. But it seems more likely the boys would have been exposed to infection-causing bacteria when they swam through the dirty water with cuts and scrapes. "If you are trying to prioritize issues with respect to health care for these kids, number one would be psychological damage and second will be bacterial infections from the cuts and scrapes they may have encountered." Lipkin says.