Mr Smith had recently joined the school as an English teacher, and within his first two weeks, he had already won over his students with his lively and interesting classes. The students were enthusiastic about reading pages from the novel they were studying, working hard to write wonderful articles and fearlessly giving presentations in front of the class. Mr Smith’s approach had breathed new life into the classroom, changing what used to be dull lessons into exciting learning experiences.

Despite the overall success, Mr Smith couldn’t help but notice one student who seemed to be struggling — Jeremy. This quiet student always sat at the back of the classroom, unwilling to speak or cooperate. Although his grades weren’t terrible, there was some clear room for improvement. Mr Smith wondered whether it was because of his lack of confidence in class and his below-average school performance.

One day, Mr Smith approached Jeremy with great concern, asking how he was finding the class. Jeremy’s reply was brief and shy, avoiding eye contact with his teacher. After replying to his teacher, Jeremy slowly left the class, walking behind the other students alone. It was clear to Mr Smith that this was a student who needed a helping hand, a bit of inspiration and motivation.

Mr Smith decided to call Jeremy’s mother to see if she could give him some ideas on how to bring him out of his shell. “I’m sorry, Jeremy is so busy helping me at home that sometimes that he doesn’t spend as much time on his homework as maybe he should,” she said. Mr Smith heard this and started to understand. “However, whenever he is helping me around the house, singing never fails to put a smile on his face.”

With this newfound knowledge, Mr Smith walked into the next class with a plan.

After class, Jeremy approached Mr Smith’s desk with a big smile on his face.

Alan had loved poetry since fourth grade. In his spare time, he would sit alone, absorbed in creating a poem, carefully designing its content and sound. More often than not, he would read poems with full emotion and a beautiful voice, which brought him spiritual pleasure.

However, when he turned 13, he was going through puberty. Puberty is when kids start to become mature and experience many physical and emotional changes. Alan already hit his growth spurt (成长高峰期). He was very tall. Now, he was just waiting for his voice to deepen. Before the voice deepens, it will crack (破裂) and sound high-pitched (尖锐的).

In Alan’s English class, his teacher would have students do “Popcorn Reading”. Popcorn Reading is when one student reads and then calls on another student to continue reading. Alan was eventually called on. He started to read the sentence. He noticed that his voice came out all high-pitched. It sounded like he had a sore throat. His classmates started laughing at him. “What happened to your voice?” they joked. Alan was so embarrassed. He sunk into his chair and put his jacket hood over his head.

After class, the teacher went to Alan to talk to him. The teacher said Alan should not feel embarrassed. Voice cracking happens to everyone. Alan still felt pretty bad about it. For the next few days, word got around about Alan’s voice. People kept asking him to talk, but Alan wouldn’t. He just stayed quiet. Even when teachers called on him to read or asked him a question, he just wrote it down. Even for his love for poems, Allan just kept creating, but dared not to read them out.

One afternoon, his teacher called him into his office, and said with a smile, “Alan, to celebrate the coming Thanksgiving Day, our school decides to organise an activity presenting shows with dancing and singing. All the students will join in it. Could you write a poem and read it on the event?”

Hearing the teacher’s words, Alan froze on the spot.

On the Thanksgiving Day, the skills worked and Alan gave a perfect performance.