Recently, we’ve been talking about how we need better teachers. There’s no doubt that great teacher can help in a student’s learning but here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents.

Every three years, the organization called O.E.C.D. organizes exams as part of the Program for International Student Assessment(评估), or PISA, which tests 15-year-olds on their abilities to deal with real problems. America’s 15-year-olds have not done as well as students in Singapore, Finland and Shanghai in the PISA exams.

To better understand the reasons, the PISA team, starting with four countries in 2006, and then adding 14 more in 2009, went to the parents of 5,000 students. They interviewed them about how they raised their kids and then compared it with the test results for each of those years. Two weeks ago, the PISA team published the main finding of its study.

Fifteen-year-olds whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school get much higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents don’t often read with them or not at all. Parents’ concern for their children is strongly connected with better results in PISA.

According to Schleicher, the leader of the team, just asking your children how their school       day was and showing great interest in their learning can help a lot. It is something every   parent can do, no matter what their education level is.

The study found that getting parents concerned about their children’s learning at home is more powerful than parents attending parent-teacher meetings, volunteering in classrooms,     taking part in money-raising, and showing up at back-to-back nights.

To be sure, nothing can replace a good teacher. But let’s stop putting the whole duty on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make teaching more beneficial.

Everyone needs friends. As the old saying goes, “No man is an island.” In other words, no one can survive without the help and friendship of others. 【小题1】Society is made up of people, and making friends is a very important part in our life.

【小题2】Firstly,if you have trouble with some problems, you can talk to your good friends and exchange opinions. Thus you will feel comfortable and encouraged. Secondly, if you wish to do some physical exercise, such as playing table tennis , you can play with friends and have a good time. 【小题3】

【小题4】Some people think friends are people whom they can play with,     and others believe true friendship lies in similar interests. However, in my opinion, “A friend in need is a friend indeed. ”True friendship can encourage you when you are in difficulty. True friends can give you warnings against danger. True friends not only share with you your joy and happiness, 【小题5】When you need him, he will give you a hand and spare no effort .Of course ,these principles（原则） are the same to you when you treat your friends.

When I went off to college in the fall of 1991, I was an 18-year-old man whose favorite letters were the ones on the sports sweater. Four years later, I was crazy about the letters of the poet Keats, but one author’s penned letters stood out above the rest. You see, my father wrote me one letter per week from the time I left home.

In an age before email, these letters seemed too ordinary. But they arrived. Each week. One after another. Again and again. In snowstorms. On holidays. From foreign countries. They detailed what Dad referred to as “the week that was”—a day-by-day description of my father’s life.

In 1995, I graduated from college, like many 22-year olds, with plenty of uncertainty. Some of my questions were pretty typical: What was I going to do? Where was I going to live? When was I going to apply for graduate school? But one question was more vital than any other thing. What would happen to the weekly letters? Would they continue? To my surprise, the letters kept coming, more heartfelt and emotional than before and always on time. I mean the guy never missed.

As much as I enjoyed my father’s weekly letters, I didn’t fully appreciate them all those years when they arrived like clockwork. And I never fully understood why my dad would always ask if I’d received the letter when we spoke.

But now, as I pen my first official letters to my own sons Jackson and Cassius, it all seems clear. Although our boys have yet to leave for college, I have to accept that day will soon come. Just the idea of their leaving from our home makes me ache with sadness only a parent can know.

I am writing about “the week that was” with my daily details. With a box of over 500 of Dad’s letters nearby and his pen in hand, I write a letter, fighting back the tears I make it to the end and sign it just as he did. All my love, Dad.