1. 学习目标
In this unit, you will learn
● what is meant by “being creative”;
● the differences between Chinese and American education;
● the big problem in school education;
● things parents can do at home to encourage creativity;
● the importance of stimulating students' imagination;

2. 语言精要

重点单词 (28)：
boundary, dismiss, mask, practically, scorn, vital, agenda, appoint, attendant, encounter, hesitation, kindergarten, manual, rear, tease, withdraw, audience, desirable, dominant, enhance, illuminate, incident, primary, principal, relevant, reliance, subsequent, ultimate

重点词组 (10)
involve in, sacrifice … for … , (be) up to … , for the sake of, not in the least, on occasion, time and again, feed back, proceed to, to the point

重点句型
● It is a strategy that more and more companies are employing and one that experts around the country say we ought to be following with our children, both at home and at school.
● Experts say that it is important to create an atmosphere in which there is no risk in being creative — a place where weld ideas are honored and valued, never scorned or dismissed.
● But it also became clear to us that we were dealing with totally different attitudes about it preferred behavior for children and proper role of adults in their socialization.

重点语法
as 用法小结：
● 用作介词，意思是“作为、当作”
● 用作连词，表示时间，引导时间状语
● when, while, as的用法比较
● as构成固定搭配

3．课文主题
This passage is about the importance of creativity during the children's growing.
The author starts with the story of Dick Drew who invented masking tape, which indicates that the human beings have benefited a lot from creativity. Then the author turns his story from creativity to education, that is how to make full use of creativity of everyone. But the reality is that many schools and parents don't pay much attention to the development of the children's creativity. So the educator advice schools and parents to encourage the children to develop their own creativity.

4．佳句背诵
● Creativity is not something one is just born with, nor is it necessarily a characteristic of high intelligence.
● The feeling is that if we teach them to think creatively, they will be better able to function in tomorrow's society.
● The result is that children can give back information but can't recognize ways to apply it to new situation.
● With strong emphasis on test scores and the development of reading, writing and mathematical skills, many educators sacrifice creativity for correct answers.
● When parents show a sense of humor, children can see creativity in its purest form.

5．专家建议 —— 阅读时，要注重联系生活，跟着作者的思路走
这是一篇关于“创造性”的议论文。
文章一开始就点明问题所在，“教育界和商业界的专家们说，具有创造性是通向光明前程的关键”。第一自然段两句话便让读者明白作者的写作意图。然后通过例证说明创造力培养的重要性和必要性。接着作者指出目前学校存在的问题，“学校往往不促使学生发挥创造性”。接下来作者指出，然而有些学校正在逐渐意识到问题之所在，并致力于问题 的解决。
本文的话题与我们的生活息息相关，所以读起来感觉作者所论述的与我们所面对的很贴近。阅读这类文章时，一要联系生活，二要跟着作者的思路走，以求准确理解。