Ann: I am thinking about this summer job. What do you think?
| GREEN LAKE CAMP · Summer Guide |
|---|
| July 1 to August 20 |
| Six days a week, 8:00 to 16:00 |
| Must be polite and responsible with children |
| No experience needed; we will train you |
| Week 3: a wonderful trip to see the hippopotamus in its large cage |
Ben: Six days a week for seven weeks? That is your whole summer.
Ann: I know. But I want to find out whether I am good with kids before I choose a subject.
Ben: Then it is worth it. Just ask them now whether you can have one Saturday off in August.
Room 302 · Made by the class, not by the teacher
We wrote these rules in September after a long talk, not after a speech from anybody about what makes a class easy to be in. Everybody had to agree to every line, so it took two afternoons.
These rules are not about being good. They are about being able to work beside each other for a year. We will read them again in January and change any line that has stopped being useful.
Dear Mrs. Kao,
You asked us to write about a classmate who should get the character prize. I choose Lin Wei.
Wei is not the top student and he never speaks in class. But he is the one who stays behind on Friday to put the chairs back, and he does it whether or not anybody is watching. When Ming lost his textbook in May, Wei gave him his own for three weeks and told nobody.
I know the prize often goes to a student with high marks. I am not saying Wei should win because he is kind and quiet. I am saying that what he does takes more work than it looks like, and that nobody has ever thanked him for it.
Chen An
Most people are honest when somebody is watching. The interesting question is what happens in an empty room.
In one famous test, a shop left a box of coffee with a price list and no person at the desk. On weeks when a picture of eyes was placed above the box, people paid nearly three times as much as on weeks with a picture of flowers. Nobody in the shop knew why they paid more.
This is not a sad fact about people. It shows that honesty is not only a thing inside us; it is something a place can make simple or hard. If we want a school or a town where people behave well, we should spend less time asking who is good, and more time building rooms where being good is the simple choice.