Question

If you are a sleep deprived(被剥夺) teacher, you may not be aware of the term woodpeckering(啄木鸟式点头), but you’ve probably done it. It happens the day following a bad night’s sleep. You’re sitting in a long meeting and you can barely keep your eyes open, so you support your head up with your hand. Next thing you know, you are moving your sleeping head back to its upright position. Do this a few times and you are woodpeckering.

I thought I knew sleep deprivation when I did my medical internship in hospital. That year I frequently went 36 hours with no sleep. When I finished my stay in neurology(神经内科), I welcomed the promise of full nights of sleep ever after. It went pretty well for the next 10 years until I became a school teacher and experienced a whole new level of sleep deprivation.

Teachers’ working hours go far beyond the 8 am to 5 pm schedule of kids in school. There are hours spent at staff meetings, correcting homework, preparing for the next day and then there is the worrying. What I did in a hospital emergency room required no more intensive mental energy than what is need to keep 30 kids attentive enough to learn what I was teacher.

Good teachers are like magicians keeping a dozen balls in the air to come at right time, with alarm set for 6 am to finish grading papers, memories of the day that’s gone- including the students who didn’t understand something, forgot their lunch or were embarrassed by wrong angers. All these will become sleep-resistant barriers. And also with some financial stress, you’ll have a cycle of insomnia(失眠) with unwelcome consequences.

With inadequate sleep comes irritability(易怒), forgetfulness, lower tolerance of even minor annoyances, and less efficient organization and planning. These are the very mental muscles that teachers need to meet the challenges of the next day. In wanting to do a better job the next day, the brain keeps bringing up the worries that deny the rest it needs.

1.After a bad night’s sleep, usually the direct effect for the next day is to ______.

A. keep one’s eyes open all the time

B. move head back and forth

C. raise one’s head in upright position

D. keep nodding like a woodpecker

2.Good teachers’ sleep problems are mainly due to the _____.

A. common sleep-resistant barriers

B. embarrassment for wrong answers

C. diligence and devotion to teaching

D. misunderstanding of their students

3.What does the writer really want to tell us in the last paragraph?

A. Unfavorable effects of inadequate sleep are various

B. Lay down worries and sleep well first for the next day.

C. Teachers should often practice mental muscles.

D. Better job has nothing to do with inadequate sleep.

Answer 1