Many Chinese primary and middle-school students can’t do housework today and do not take such work seriously. As a result, some are unable to cook or wash their own clothes when they enter college.

The Ministry of Education has recently released the new curriculum standard(新课程标准) for housework education for students from Grade 1 to Grade 9, making it an independent course that students must take at least once a week. The new standard requires students in Grade 1-2 to learn to sweep the floor, Grade 3-4 to learn to plant cabbages, and Grade 5-6 to master the skills of cooking two to three dishes. Students in junior middle schools will learn to repair simple electrical machines. This new standard has been widely welcomed by the public.

Wang: We all know the importance of housework education. However, at home, some students are unable to do the simplest housework, as their parents insist they should devote themselves to study. Some of them gradually grow to be unwilling to do any kind of housework. Housework education is supposed to raise students’ interest in labor, help them experience different kinds of housework and, most importantly, correct their attitudes toward labor. The housework course will become an important step to develop and improve personalities of students.

Li: In order for students to develop in an all-round way, it’s absolutely necessary to add the housework course to school curriculums, which aims to encourage students in primary and secondary schools to progressively learn and love housework. It is important to make the housework class interesting, so that the students will really gain some practical skills. For this reason, schools should add professional(专业的) teachers to give the classes, instead of adding this new stress on parents and other teachers who are already busy with their daily work.

Zhang: Some people think it’s unnecessary to waste time on learning housework. If you want to have a meal, you can order food online, and for electrical machine repairs, you can ask for specialized help. However, people with the basic skills for daily life can go much more confidently and smoothly through everyday life.

It is the first step in encouraging young students to develop a healthy concept(观念) of labor and to be able to take care of themselves in daily life.

What do you call a school with no tests, no grades, no classes, and no teachers? Students of the Met School and their parents think it to be the best school in the world.

The school is in Rhode Island, USA. Dennis Littky opened it in 1996. He was fired(解雇) from two other schools, because many parents of the school students were unhappy with his unusual ideas. The school takes poor kids who are failing at schools. Nearly everybody has already given up these students and their parents want to try anything. The Met School gives Littky a great place to try out his new ideas.

“The word that most kids use when they talk about high school is ‘boring’,” says Littky. “But no one would say the Met was boring.” Advisers (指导老师) (not teachers) work with small groups of students for four years. Students spend almost half of their school time learning real-life skills, such as working for business, spending time with government people, and helping teach younger children. Instead of tests, the students give shows about their work outside school.

In fact, students work harder here than in other schools. All the students from the Met graduate (毕业) and can choose to go to a good university. Now, Bill Gates is starting schools like this one around the USA.

A group of boys, ten and eleven years old, walk into a classroom at Collegiate School. 【小题1】. The boys are curious about their new class. It is called “babies”.

【小题2】. They are volunteers. The babies are not dolls. They are real, live babies. The boys learn how to feed, dress, wash, and carry them. They even learn how to change diapers(尿片) and what to do in emergencies(紧急情况). 【小题3】. Some of them ask to take it again.

【小题4】. The boys take required courses in math, English, social studies, and science. They can also choose electives(选修课) in weight lifting, photography, kite flying, and computer science. Recently, the headmaster at Collegiate decided to try something different. 【小题5】. In the class the boys use real babies to learn about child care.

Where does the school get the babies? Mothers in the neighborhood near the school volunteer their babies for a few hours each week. These mothers like sharing their children with others.