“I have something important I would like to read to you,” Ava told her parents. They were sitting side by side on the couch as she stood in front of them. They looked at each other a little cautiously, but smiled. Ava took that as a good sign.

“In school,” she told them, “we’ve been working on persuasive essays. My teacher said that in order to persuade people you have to have reasons and evidence. You can’t just say the same thing over and over again.”

“Well that’s certainly true,” her father said. But Ava wasn’t done yet. “My essay is called Why I Am Responsible and Ready for a Cell Phone,” she continued, smiling as she read.

It had been a problem for months. All three of her best friends received cellphones for Christmas. But Ava’s parents would just shake their heads whenever she asked them.

For weeks it seemed like there was nothing she could do. But then, a week ago, they had started working on writing persuasive essays at school. It occurred to her that why not write a persuasive essay?

For a whole week, she’d worked on her persuasive essay, coming up with all the reasons why she should have a cell phone. She was confident that this essay was the best thing that she had ever written. There was no way her parents wouldn’t be persuaded.

“Alright Ava,” her mom said. “We both wanted to wait until you were older to get you a cell phone.” “But, Ava, since you think you are ready for it, this weekend you shall get it. But we want you to understand, a cellphone is not all just fun and games,” her Dad said. “This is a high responsibility.” He started to list all of the ways that she had to be responsible with her phone, but Ava wasn’t listening anymore. She was too busy trying to decide what apps she could download. On the weekend, her plan worked! She had a cellphone!

She couldn’t wait to show it to her friends.

She thought maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t ready for a phone yet.

If it had not been for COVID-19, Tom Watkins would have been in China, serving as the China partner and managing director of WAY American Schools, a private US school using the internet to teach students in China and offering them an American High School Diploma program.

Watkins is enthusiastic about education. As early as in 2005, he has written an article on e-learning reform. “I recall the blank stares I encountered both in the United States and China in the early 2000s when I attempted to introduce e-learning into the mainstream,” said Watkin. “There was little appetite to be early adopters of this teaching method in public and private schools in the United States and across the globe.”

Then suddenly, online learning has popped into the spotlight. In an initiative in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Michigan, to support its newly enrolled graduate students in China, allows students to join the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute to take UM courses remotely.

In Watkins’ eyes, e-learning has its advantages, the most important of which are greater flexibility, personalized learning and globalization of education. By e-learning, one can learn 24 hours a day and seven days a week, access the study content an unlimited number of times, and easily tap global educators. If e-learning becomes a norm in the next few years, it may lead to restructuring, reform and reinventing in teaching and learning, Watkins said.

And the benefits are particularly concrete under the current circumstances when the pandemic is still ongoing. As the global pandemic has made it increasingly difficult for students to travel globally, the use of remote learning has enabled teaching and learning to continue without interruption. “When COVID-19 struck, wise policymakers and educators wasted little time casting blame or cursing the darkness but reached for new technology tools to enable quality teaching and learning to continue,” he said.

Whether a thing is worth doing or not really depends on how you look at it. If we always ignore our own intention, we will obviously feel unhappy. Thus, take all your courage and do something your heart tells you to do so that you may not regret doing it later in life.

The following story happened in a battlefield during the World War I. The soldiers from two sides were fighting against each other fiercely and there was no sign for the war to stop. All of a sudden terror attacked the heart of Peter, one of the French soldiers, as he saw his friend—Tom, who was born in the same village as him and had played with him happily and joined the army at the same time falling in the battle. Caught in the trenches (战壕) with continuous gunfire whizzing (嗖嗖地移动) over his head, Peter was lost in thought. He couldn’t decide whether he should lend a hand to Tom. Eventually he gathered all his courage and asked his officer if he could be allowed to go out into the“No Man’s Land” between the trenches to bring his helpless partner back because he thought there might be some chances of saving him.

“You can certainly go,“ said the officer, who couldn’t understand why Peter had made such a crazy request,“but I don’t think it will be worth it. As you know, your friend is probably dead and if you rush out of the trenches you may possibly throw your own life away.”

Considering the situations of the war, what the officer said really made sense because he didn’t want Peter to risk doing so. However, the officer’s words didn’t matter to Peter, and he had obviously made up his mind and he went anyway bravely.

Much to the officer’s surprise, Peter managed to reach his friend.

“I told you it wouldn’t be worth it,“ the officer said.