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The quiet heroism of mail deliveryA) On Wednesday, a polar wind brought bitter cold to the Midwest. Overnight, Chicago reached a low of 21 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, making it slightly colder than Antarctica (南极洲), Alaska, and the North Pole. Wind chills were 64 degrees below zero in Park Rapids, Minnesota, and 45 degrees below zero in Buffalo, North Dakota, according to the National Weather Service. Schools, restaurants, and businesses closed, and more than 1,000 flights were canceled.B) Even the United States Postal Service (USPS) suspended mail delivery. "Due to this arctic outbreak and concerns for the safety of USPS employees," USPS announced Wednesday morning, "the Postal Service is suspending delivery Jan. 30 in some 3-digit ZIP Code locations." Twelve regions were listed as unsafe on Wednesday; on Thursday, eight remained.C) As global surface temperatures increase, so does the likelihood of extreme weather. In 2018 alone, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, mudslides, and other natural disasters cost at least $49 billion in the United States. As my colleague Vann Newkirk reported, Puerto Rico is still confronting economic and structural destruction and resource scarcity from 2017's Hurricane Maria. Natural disasters can wreck a community's infrastructure, disrupting systems for months or years. Some services, however, remind us that life will eventually return, in some form, to normal.D) Days after the deadly 2017 wildfires in Santa Rosa, California, a drone (无人机) caught footage (连续镜头) of a USPS worker, Trevor Smith, driving through burned homes in that familiar white van, collecting mail in an affected area. The video is striking: The operation is familiar, but the scene looks like the end of the world. According to Rae Ann Haight, the program manager for the national-preparedness office at USPS, Smith was fulfilling a request made by some of the home owners to pick up any mail that was left untouched. For Smith, this was just another day on the job. "I followed my route like I normally do," Smith told a reporter. "As I came across a box that was up but with no house, I checked, and there was mail -- outgoing mail -- in it. And so I picked those up and carried on."E) USPS has sophisticated emergency plans for natural disasters. Across the country, 285 emergency-management teams are devoted to crisis control. These teams are trained annually using a framework known as the three Ps: people, property, product. After mail service stops due to weather, the agency's top priority is ensuring that employees are safe. Then it evaluates the health of infrastructure, such as the roads that mail carriers drive on. Finally, it decides when and how to re-open operations. If the destruction is extreme, mail addressed to the area will get sent elsewhere. In response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, USPS redirected incoming New Orleans mail to existing mail facilities in Houston. Mail that was already processed in New Orleans facilities was moved to an upper floor so it would be protected from water damage.F) As soon as it's safe enough to be outside, couriers (邮递员) start distributing accumulated mail on the still-accessible routes. USPS urges those without standing addresses to file change-of-address forms with their new location. After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, mail facilities were set up in dozens of locations across the country in the two weeks that USPS was unable to provide street delivery.G) Every day, USPS processes, on average, 493.4 million pieces of mail -- anything from postcards to Social Security checks to medicine. Spokespeople from both USPS and UPS told me all mail is important. But some mail can be extremely sensitive and timely. According to data released in January 2017, 56 percent of bills are paid online, which means that just under half of payments still rely on delivery services to be completed.H) It can be hard to identify which parcels are carrying crucial items such as Social Security checks, but USPS and UPS try their best to prioritize sensitive material. They will coordinate with the Social Security Administration to make sure that Social Security checks reach the right people in a timely fashion. After Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael last fall, USPS worked with state and local election boards to make sure that absentee ballots were available and received on time.I) Mail companies are logistics (物流) companies, which puts them in a special position to help when disaster strikes. In a 2011 USPS case study, the agency emphasized its massive infrastructure as a "unique federal asset" to be called upon in a disaster or terrorist attack. "I think we're unique as a federal agency," USPS official Mike Swigart told me, "because we're in literally every community in this country... We're obligated to deliver to that point on a daily basis."J) Private courier companies, which have more dollars to spend, use their expertise in logistics to help revitalize damaged areas after a disaster. For more than a decade, FedEx has supported the American Red Cross in its effort to get emergency supplies to areas affected by disasters, both domestically and internationally. In 2012, the company distributed more than 1,200 MedPacks to Medical Reserve Corps groups in California. They also donated space for 3.1 million pounds of charitable shipping globally. Last October, the company pledged $1 million in cash and transportation support for Hurricanes Florence and Michael. UPS's charitable arm, the UPS Foundation, uses the company's logistics to help disaster-struck areas rebuild. "We realize that as a company with people, trucks, warehouses, we needed to play a larger role," said Eduardo Martinez, the president of the UPS Foundation. The company employs its trucks and planes to deliver food, medicine, and water. The day before I spoke to Martinez in November, he had been touring the damage from Hurricane Michael in Florida with the American Red Cross. "We have an obligation to make sure our communities are thriving," he said.K) Rebuilding can take a long time, and even then, impressions of the disaster may still remain. Returning to a normal life can be difficult, but some small routines -- mail delivery being one of them -- may help residents remember that their communities are still their communities. "When they see that carrier back out on the street," Swigart said, "that's the first sign to them that life is starting to return to normal."1. () The United States Postal Service has a system to ensure its employees' safety.2. () One official says USPS is unique in that it has more direct reach to communities compared with other federal agencies.3. () Natural disasters can have a long-lasting impact on community life.4. () Mail delivery service is still responsible for the completion of almost half of payments.5. () The sight of a mailman on the street is a reassuring sign of life becoming normal again.6. () After Hurricane Katrina interrupted routine delivery, temporary mail service points were set up.7. () Postal service in some regions in the U.S. was suspended due to extreme cold weather.8. () Private postal companies also support disaster relief efforts by distributing urgent supplies.9. () A dedicated USPS employee was on the job carrying out duties in spite of extreme conditions.10. () Postal services work hard to identify items that require priority treatment.

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Make Stuff, Fail, And Learn While You're At ItA) We've always been a hands-on, do it-yourself kind of nation. Ben Franklin, one of America's founding fathers, didn't just invent the lightning rod. His creations include glasses, innovative stoves and more.B) Franklin, who was largely self-taught, may have been a genius, but he wasn't really an exception when it comes to American making and creativity.C) The personal computing revolution and philosophy of disruptive innovation of Silicon Valley grew, in part, out of the creations of the Homebrew Computer Club, which was founded in a garage in Menlo Park, California, in the mid-1970s. Members-including guys named Jobs and Wozniak-started making and inventing things they couldn't buy.D) So it's no surprise that the Maker Movement today is thriving in communities and some schools across America. Making is available to ordinary people who aren't tied to big companies, big defense labs or research universities. The maker philosophy echoes old ideas advocated by John Dewey, Montessori, and even ancient Greek philosophers, as we pointed out recently.E) These maker spaces are often outside of classrooms, and are serving an important educational function. The Maker Movement is rediscovering learning by doing, which is Dewey's phrase from 100 years ago. We are rediscovering Dewey and Montessori and a lot of the practices that they pioneered that have been forgotten or at least put aside. A maker space is a place which can be in a school, but it doesn't look like a classroom. It can be in a library. It can be out in the community. It has tools and materials. It's a place where you get to make things based on your interest and on what you, re learning to do.F) Ideas about learning by doing have struggled to become mainstream educationally, despite being old concepts from Dewey and Montessori, Plato and Aristotle, and in the American context, Ralph Emerson, on the value of experience and self-reliance. It's not necessarily an efficient way to learn. We learn, in a sense, by trial and error. Learning from experience is something that takes time and patience. It's very individualized. If your goal is to have standardized approaches to learning, where everybody learns the same thing at the same time in the same way, then learning by doing doesn't really fit that mold anymore. It's not the world of textbooks. It's not the world of testing.G) Learning by doing may not be efficient, but it is effective. Project-based learning has grown in popularity with teachers and administrators. However, project-based learning is not making. Although there is a connection, there is also a distinction. The difference lies in whether the project is in a sense defined and developed by the student or whether it's assigned by a teacher. We'll all get the kids to build a small boat. We are all going to learn about X, Y, and Z. That tends to be one form of project- based learning.H) I really believe the core idea of making is to have an idea within your head—or you just borrow it from someone—and begin to develop it, repeat it and improve it. Then, realize that idea somehow. That thing that you make is valuable to you and you can share it with others. I'm interested in how these things are expressions of that person, their ideas, and their interactions with the world.I) In some ways, a lot of forms of making in school trivialize （使变得无足轻重） making. The thing that you make has no value to you. Once you are done demonstrating whatever concept was in the; textbook, you throw away the pipe cleaners, the straws, the cardboard tubes.J) Making should be student-directed and student-led, otherwise it's boring. It doesn't have the motivation of the student. I'm not saying that students should not learn concepts or not learn skills. They do. But to really harness their motivation is to build upon their interest. It's to let them be in control and to drive the car.K) Teachers should aim to build a supportive, creative environment for students to do this work. A very social environment, where they are learning from each other. When they have a problem, it isn't the teacher necessarily coming in to solve it. They are responsible for working through that problem. It might be they have to talk to other students in the class to help get an answer.L) The teacher's role is more of a coach or observer. Sometimes, to people, it sounds like this is a diminished role for teachers. I think it's a heightened role. You're creating this environment, like a maker space. You have 20 kids doing different things. You are watching them and really it's the human behaviors you're looking at. Are they engaged? Are they developing and repeating their project? Are they stumbling （受挫）？ Do they need something that they don't have? Can you help them be aware of where they are?M) My belief is that the goal of making is not to get every kid to be hands-on, but it enables us to be good learners. It's not the knowledge that is valuable; it's the practice of learning new things and understanding how things work. These are processes that you are developing so that you are able, over time, to tackle more interesting problems, more challenging problems-problems that require many people instead of one person, and many skills instead of one.N) If teachers keep it form-free and student-led, it can still be tied to a curriculum and an educational plan. I think a maker space is more like a library in that there are multiple subjects and multiple things that you can learn. What seems to be missing in school is how these subjects integrate, how they fit t together in any meaningful way. Rather than saying, "This is science, over here is history," I see schools taking this idea of projects and looking at: How do they support children in higher level learning?O) I feel like this is a shift away from a subject matter-based curriculum to a more experiential curriculum or learning. It's still in its early stages, but I think it's shifting around not what kids learn but how they learn.1. () A maker space is where people make things according to their personal interests.2. () The teachers, role is enhanced in a maker space as they have to monitor and facilitate during the process.3. () Coming up with an idea of one's own or improving one from others is key to the concept of making.4. () Contrary to structured learning, learning by doing is highly individualized.5. () America is a nation known for the idea of making things by oneself.6. () Making will be boring unless students are able to take charge.7. () Making can be related to a project, but it is created and carried out by students themselves.8. () The author suggests incorporating the idea of a maker space into a school curriculum.9. () The maker concept is a modern version of some ancient philosophical ideas.10. () Making is not taken seriously in school when students are asked to make something meaningless to them based on textbooks.

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