From that day on, when eight-year-old Charlie with gray eyes began riding my school bus, he was a trial. If a fight ______ out, it must have been Charlie. If a girl was crying, ______ were that Charlie had pulled her hair. I practiced every bit of patience, but all ______. However, I spoke to him ______ but firmly, he would stare at me with those big gray eyes without a word.

A little girl sent me a small tin ______. She had written, “To the Best Bus Driver Polly.” One day, I was ______ because of a talk with the headmaster. When I got on the bus, I ______ that the tin heart was gone.“Charlie was the first one on the bus. Check his ______, ”insisted the girl who had given me the heart.

I asked him to come forward, and ______ into his pocket. Then I felt it—the ______ small tin heart. Charlie stared at me for a long time. There were no ______ in those big gray eyes and no plea(恳求) for ______ He seemed to be waiting for what would happen. I was about to pull the tin heart out of Charlie’s pocket when I ______ myself. “Let him keep it,” a ______ seemed to whisper.

Many years later, I was in a department store ______ someone said, “Polly?” I turned to see the big ______ eyes. There was no doubt. It was Charlie. To my ______, he hugged me and pulled ______ from his pocket—the little tin heart that ______, “To the Best Bus Driver Polly.”

“You were the only one who kept ______,” he explained.

Studies have shown kids from low income families are generally less ready to start school. They score lower on vocabulary tests and have ________ trouble concentrating in class. What's more, being hungry, unsafe, or ________ can bring stress to the children.

New research published in the journal Pediatric Research in April ________ there may be one simple character that can help kids learn and ________ in school, regardless of their background.

Researchers who looked at the reading and math ________ of 6,200 kindergarteners in 2006 and 2007 found that those kids who were curious did the ________ in school, regardless of social and economic status.

The high-performing kids from all ________ of life liked trying new things, and were ________ as more imaginative in both work and play. The more ________ they were, the better the kids' reading and math results were.

The findings suggest that ________ characters like paying attention and controlling emotions may be important, being curious might matter more when it ________ learning new things.

As early the childhood pioneer Jean Piaget once ________ out, kids are not “empty vessels to be filled with knowledge”. Instead, they're “little scientists who ________ their own theories of the world”.

Developing a ________ of curiosity, trying new things, and asking new questions of the world are not the ________ ways that little ones cross the gap. For years, studies have shown that early childhood learning and preschool programs like the Head Start program can ________ better educational outcomes for a lifetime. Kids who ________ Head Start are more ________ to go to college, and get more ________, eventually make a big ________ to the whole family, and even to the world.

Learning to share, even when it’s hard, is a basic skill to teach children, right? One mom thinks _______.

When Alanya Kolberg took her son Carson to the park, at least six other boys rushed at him, asking him to _______ his toys. As the boys _______ the Transformer, truck, and Minecraft figure, Kolberg told her frightened son that he could say _______. The boys looked to Kolberg, feeling _______ that her son wouldn’t share. But she told them that _______ he wanted to share, he would.

Kolberg asks anyone who doesn’t understand her _______ to take a different perspective. “Whose manners are _______ here? ” she writes. “The person _______ to give his 3 toys away to 6 strangers, or the 6 strangers demanding to be given something that doesn’t ________ to them, even when the owner is ________ uncomfortable? ”

But the mom wasn’t ________ other kids for being demanding. Instead, she wanted to teach Carson how to ________ himself when he’s being bullied(欺负). “The ________ is to teach our children how to function as adults,” she writes. “While I do know some adults who never learned how to share as children, I know far more who are ________ to say no to people. They don’t know how to set boundaries(边界) or how to practice ________. Myself included.”

After all, Carson does share—just not with ________ all the time. Actually he’d brought the toys so he could ________ another friend with them, Kolberg writes.

Most comments ________ the mom for her behavior. They said it could prevent children from becoming pushovers(易于控制的人).

If you ask my ________, I’d say kids should be taught to share, but meanwhile they should be taught to say “no”.