I started reading Shakespeare when I was nine, after my grandfather, an actor, sent me a copy of Romeo and Juliet. The story and the language attracted me. I found out about Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand (SGCNZ) and started volunteering for them when I was about 10. When I was 13, I managed to run a film project with SGCNZ.
I'm home-educated and a part-time correspondence student (函授生) as well. We have a drama group made up of quite a few people who are also home-educated .I've also joined Wellington Young Actors, a youth theatre company. There are many similarities and differences between being home-educated and attending a five-day programme. I love hearing other students' reactions when meeting them and share my different ways of experiencing the world with them. While explaining the way I learn can be a challenge, I love helping people to understand there isn't just one way of learning.
Being home-educated has offered me the freedom to have an individualized education and to pursue my passions. My education has always been about making those focuses but I do lots of the same things as people who attend five-day programs do. Shakespeare is a great approach to lots of things around English, history and the arts. I think something you learn when you perform is connection. You have to have a connection with your fellow actors, with the audience and with Shakespeare. I learn this from actually being on stage and from taking part in different Shakespeare festival programs.
I believe it's the emotion in Shakespeare that makes it relevant today. You can be reading something that was written 400 years ago and be able to see parts of your life in the work as it shows you how to understand the world and explore a lot of different ideas.
If 62 is the number in red on the top of your math test, for most of us, it's a total disaster. Your entire week is ruined, and 62 is what races through your head for the rest of the day. If 9 is the number of likes on that cute photo you posted the other day, many will feel rather disappointed.
Our lives have become a constant system of ranks, assessments, and numbers. The days of passing judgment on others based on personality are gone, and now we judge based on how good a person's numbers are. We compare ourselves to the numbers of others, such as how low another person's weight is how high their paycheck. Self-worth is no longer based on quality of character, but quantity of numbers.
In today's social media consumed society, it has never been easier for people to broadcast their numbers to the world. A simple click of a button can take you to a page where you can observe the number of friends or followers a person has. Teenagers have taken on this mentality that if you don't have a certain number of followers, then you aren't "cool". Many feel they are not important if very few people are witnessing their status updates. This state of mind is harmful and not at all accurate. Twitter and Facebook can let the world witness your updates, but they will never let anyone see who you really are. In the end, self-worth should be based on what you think of yourself, not what the world thinks of you.
So next time you receive a failing grade or you lose a follower, remember that these things cannot and should not define (定义) you. You are not your numbers. You are a person-a3-D living and breathing person with ideas and creativity and love that the rigidity of numbers cannot represent. You are the things you love and the things you laugh at and the way you treat others.
The clock always seems to be ticking rather too fast in the doctor's office and the queue of patients outside the door seems to be pressing rather too hard. Some say it's high time for the model of short, sharp one-to-one appointments to give way to shared medical appointments (SMAs).
SMAs are doctor-patient visits in which a group of patients receive patient education and counseling (咨询),physical examination and medical support in a group setting. Typically SMAs are designed to have one or more doctors attend to a group of patients who share a common illness or medical condition. In contrast to one-to-one visits, SMAs provide a longer appointment time-frame as well as the opportunity for patients to have improved access to their physicians and meanwhile pick up additional information and support from peers.
However, doctors who have pioneered the shared appointment approach report that there are significant challenges involved. Dr. Sumego, director of shared medical appointments, Cleveland Clinic, identifies culture change as the most significant challenge. Physicians and nurses are trained in a model of personal service and privacy; the SMA approach is a fundamental challenge to those fixed ideas. They need shared goals and a way of testing the innovation against agreed standards. Dr. Sumego says, "The physicians may be worried about the possible chaos and efficiencies that are marketed. They also have to make the patients understand what their appointment is, and what the expectation is."
"So, if an organization was looking to start shared medical appointments, I would advise them to start the buy-in from a few champion physicians, develop the work-flow and develop some experience. Provide some support behind what that best practice should look like. Create some standards so that, as the concept spreads, you can employ that experience to start the next shared medical appointments and the next."
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A. He smiled back at the baby. B. Well, force yourself to smile. C. Smile gets much easier with practice. D. So, naturally, we are glad to see them. E. Your smile brightens the lives of all who see it. F. The effect of a smile is powerful, even when it is unseen. G. We should give others a real smile, a smile that comes from within. |
Actions speak louder than words. A smile says, "I like you. You make me happy."
That's why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skins.
A baby's smile has the same effect. Have you ever been in a doctor's waiting room and looked around at all the sad faces waiting impatiently to be seen? There were six or seven patients waiting when a young woman came in with a nine-month-old baby. She sat down next to a gentleman who was more than a little impatient about the long wait for service. The baby just looked up at him with that great big smile that is so characteristic of babies. Soon he struck up a conversation with the woman about her baby and his grand-children and then the entire reception room joined in, and the boredom and tension were changed into a pleasant and enjoyable experience.
Telephone companies throughout the U.S have a program called "phone power which is offered to employees who use the telephone for selling their Services or products. In this program they suggest that you smile when talking on the phone. Your "smile" comes through in your voice.
You don't feel like smiling? If you are lone, force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.
Your smile is a messenger of your goodwill. To someone who has seen a dozen people frown or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds. Especially when that someone is under pressure from his bosses, his customers, his teachers or parents or children, a smile can help him realize that all is not hopeless-that there is joy in the world.
It was just a harmless Valentine's Day joke. Old Lady Hayes 1 it. She used to scream at us for "borrowing" a few of her precious raspberries (木莓), like we were 2 gold.
George practiced 3 the box out of reach by the string. I couldn't wait to see it fly away when she tried to pick it up.
I was first to 4 my dad in the doorway. I froze. Within seconds, my 5 was shared by all. Dad walked slowly to the empty candy box. He picked it up, and watched it swing back and forth. Then he looked into the eyes of the 6 boys.
"It doesn't seem so long ago that I was playing Valentine's Day 7,"he said, "One year my cousins and I decided to try one on our Grandma Walker 8 we loved her. We just wanted to have some 9. We sneaked up to her 10 and drew a gift there with red paint. Then we kicked the door and 11 behind the bushes. When Grandma 12 appeared, she looked down. Even from 15 feet away we could see the 13 in her eyes. Grandma 14 for the fresh paint. Slowly, she 15 our joke. She tried to smile, absently wiping red paint on her clean and white apron (围裙)."Dad 16 and for the first time I noticed that his eyes were 17."Grandma died later that year. I never had another 18 to give her a real valentine."
Later that night a red. heart-shaped box was 19 on Mrs. Hayes' front doorstep We hid behind the bushes to see how she would 20 to receiving a full box of candy.
Wherever you look these days something's looking back at you. There are video cameras on street (corner), vehicles and our own front doors.
A Chicago company (call)Cooler Screens believes that you won't mind if they put cameras into the display cases (展柜) in stores. The cameras aren't placed there (prevent) you from stealing. Instead, they're part of a system that tries to guess you will buy next, based on how you look.
The doors on the cases (be) video screens that show images of the goods, so a customer can see what's available inside. The screens also show vivid ads. They decide which ads to show by (study) video images of the customers.
A camera feeds images of each customer into a computer guesses his or her sex and age. In addition, the system tracks (exact) where the customer is looking. Do the eyes come to rest a bottle of Red Bull, or does the shopper fancy Coca Cola? The Cooler Screens system instantly (analyze) all of this data, and then starts showing ads on the cooler door.
High school exit tests are tests that students must pass to graduate from high school. In the last few years. However, a number of states in America have dropped them. Although some states still use them for diplomas, the number is down from a high of 27 states during the testing craze promoted by No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
The appearance of this phenomenon is small wonder. Researches clearly show that exit tests have little positive effects on students. A 2014 report found exit testing was associated with lower graduation rates, negatively affected labor market outcomes, and, most alarmingly, produced a 12.5 percent increase in incarceration (监禁) rates. Exit exams, the study concluded, had tended to add little value for most students.
Exit testing relies on the following assumptions. One is that standardized testing can serve as a kind of "quality control" for high school graduates, guaranteeing that graduates are college ready. The other is that they have predicting value for future success in academic situations.
But there is little evidence. The tests don't exactly measure what they pretend to measure. For example, qualities such as intelligence, academic ability, college readiness are not determined. Those that should be developed in all young people, like responsibility, critical thinking, and empathy (移植), are not measured, either. Even supporters of exit tests have acknowledged that they don't offer reliable data.
Thus, more and more people are suggesting that exit test scores ought to be just one component of the high school diploma. Schools should consider many other records including credits earned, courses taken, activities, service, projects and other elements of academic accomplishment so that students can be evaluated flexibly. In other words, exit test scores should never be the only criterion for high school diplomas.
