How a Teacher Can Change Your Life
Smiling with satisfaction, Karin Anderson continues to conduct while dozens of students were playing their instruments, and Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony fills the hall. The emotional (情感的) drama of conducting an orchestra (管弦乐团) of teenagers is part of a typical day's teaching for Karin. "Teaching is like surfing," she says. "You have no idea what's going to happen and there's no guarantee that things will go according to plan. You have to be on guard at all times." But the unpredictability of her students doesn't make her job hard, she says. In fact, working with sometimes difficult teenagers, which she says might exhaust other teachers, is what keeps her coming back day after day.
Karin believes music lessons may have unexpected benefits. Research has found that they improve a child's language development, and the reasoning skills extremely important to maths and science. "We can't be sure if music really makes kids perform better academically, or if smarter students just naturally become involved with music anyway, but there might be a connection. Certainly, schools need something for those brighter students. It's not so much giving them a release from studying hard, but more that they need to be stretched, and pushed in a different direction."
But the benefits of music education are for everyone, not just the clever kids. Karin points out that there are strong connections between music and the motivation to learn, the ability to focus, and even someone's confidence and tolerance.
Music can also help to create a positive, supportive learning environment, which Karin always tries to create in her orchestra. Being grouped by age, not ability, makes everyone new feel welcome and part of a family. "In school you're very aware of social classes—the rich kids and the poor kids—and all the little groups that gossip all the time," says orchestra member Laura Greene. "But in the orchestra, everyone is part of the group, and equally important. We're all trying to improve together. We've all got unique talents."
In Karin's classroom, there are no awards decorating the walls. She says this might put the orchestra under pressure or make them worry about competition, though in fact the school has won many prizes, which she is clearly proud of. "What's most important to me is that everyone works as a team," she says. "It's a magic moment when there's absolute unity."
Karin wants the orchestra to widen the horizons of everyone who joins. When some parents weren't able to afford certain trips of the orchestra, Karin surprised everyone by organizing what she called "scholarships", with the school paying part of the money to students who had been positive and cooperative. They weren't awarded on the basis of who had a special gift for music.
In her office, Karin proudly displays a picture of another student. Karin says, "Thomas was smart, but he hated school, and he seemed cut off from his peers, alone in a world of his own. The orchestra made him come out of his shell." After graduating, Thomas wrote to Karin, "I'm so grateful to you for allowing me to play the most beautiful music in the world, even though I never took it up professionally. I understand now that music educates the mind and the heart, and helps you to connect with others."
A 293-million-mile journey of the NASA Perseverance rover (探测器) to Mars: ended successfully on February 18, 2021, with a picture-perfect landing inside the Jezero Crater. The car-sized, six-wheeled rover, nicknamed Percy is the US space agency's biggest and most advanced explorer to date. Its primary mission is to search for signs of ancient microbial (微生物的) life on Mars.
Landing on Mars is extremely tricky. The Red Planet's gravitational pull causes approaching spacecraft to go faster to high speeds, while its thin atmosphere-just 1 percent that of Earth's-does little to help slow it down as it approaches the surface.
The scientists had to reduce Percy's 12,000 mph speed to a safe landing speed of less than five mph-in just six and a half minutes. The target entry angle also had to be a precise 12 degrees-any steeper, and the spacecraft would burn up; any flatter, and it would get lost in space. It is no wonder that the final approach is often referred to as the "seven minutes of terror. "
Upon attaining a manageable speed, Percy briefly flew over the Martian surface to seek out the perfect landing spot. Its complex map-reading system rapidly scanned the area and matched it with maps in its database to find the best location.
The NASA scientists will spend the next two months testing Percy's scientific instruments. Once ready, the rover will begin to carry out its mission.
"Perseverance is the smartest robot ever made, but confirming that microbial life once existed carries an unusually large burden of proof," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division. "While we'll learn a lot with the great instruments we have aboard the rover, it may very well require the far more well-equipped laboratories and delicate instruments back here on Earth to tell us whether our samples (样本) carry evidence that Mars once harbored life. "
Geographical, the official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) has been published continuously since 1935. Each month, Geographical brings the world into its readers living rooms, highlighting the rich diversity of the world's cultures, wildlife and places. Geographical also provides an authoritative (权威性的)voice on the important social and environmental issues that face humanity, educating and informing is readers. Employing inspiring photography and exclusive in-depth editorial features, the brand offers a unique blend of:
●People and cultures
●Exploration and discovery
●Responsible travel
●Outdoor-equipment advice
●The natural world
●Environmental issues
●Science and technology
●The best of Britain
THE NUMBERS
Our 106, 000 readers are well educated, literate, and affluent (富裕的) They approach their purchasing decisions with a mixture of thorough organisation and meaningful intent.
82% of readers subscribe to the magazine.
Readers spend an average of 94 minutes reading each issue of Geographical.
On average, our readers pick up the magazine 5. 8 times per issue.
Each issue of Geographical is read by an average of 4. 1 people.
81% of readers archive their copies of the magazine for future use.
What it all adds up to... There is simply no other audience that has the all-round knowledge of, and ongoing interest in, the environment, geography and travel.
45% of readers agree that Geographical 'gives me ideas for things to buy'.
67% of readers contact advertisers in the magazine.
48% of readers are professionals.
19% of readers are students.
16% of readers are self-employed.
After releasing a short video on April 27 about planting and cooking peas, Chinese food blogger Li Ziqi witnessed her followers on YouTube go beyond 10 million.
This puts Li, who shot to fame with short videos recording her traditional and peaceful lifestyle in China's countryside, among the ranks of the most popular Chinese-language content creators on the platform.
"It's really surprising. I didn't expect such a wide response," Li told Xinhua in an interview, noting she was surprised by how foreign fans were taken with her works. "What I present is just a lifestyle I've long followed and appreciated," she said. "Maybe it's also what many other people have valued."
Li's YouTube videos center on her life with her grandmother in the rural parts of Sichuan Province. In the videos, Li, often dressed in graceful traditional dresses, rises at sunrise, rests at sunset, plants seeds and harvests flowers, cooks Chinese dishes and crafts bamboo furniture. Unlike many other food bloggers, Li's videos set China's countryside as the stage and start with how the foods are planted and harvested on the farm. She rarely speaks in the process.
Li's overseas followers have praised her videos for showing the amazingly charming, simple and beautiful side of China's rural life, but back home, there have long been debates on whether her presentation is unrealistically poetic.
In response, Li, who was raised in the countryside, said she never needs special arrangements when shooting a video about rural life as "everything is in my mind." "In the countryside, planting flowers, vegetables and trees is not difficult. There are tough elements of rural life of course, but I didn't put them in my videos," Li said. "Most people today are facing much stress in work and life, so I hope they can feel relieved and relaxed when watching my videos."
