Letters from China

Stories from a Chinese Middle School:
Girl

It was early in my first semester teaching in a Chinese high school, (also my first semester teaching, ever). As a new and inexperienced teacher I was feeling kind of useless. The fact that the ‘foreign teacher English classes’ aren’t taken too seriously at my school didn’t help. Sitting alone in this foreign land, I was often left wondering, ‘why am I here? What am I doing? What do I have to offer?’

I was giving my first test of the semester to one of my classes. There was a girl in the class, sitting near the front by the window, and I saw that she wasn’t doing any work on her test. Sometimes students have a hard time with these tests, but I thought she was one of the smarter students in the class. She looked really upset, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know her name yet.

Once I collected all the tests back and started marking them, I realized that not only did she not write anything on the test, she didn’t even write her name. Not knowing the answers to the questions is one thing, but not even writing her name, that was another thing all together.

The next day, I asked her to stay after class and talk to me. I asked why she didn’t write the test and she began to explain how she had thought about killing herself the night before the test. She wanted to take some medicine so that she would never wake up. But when she thought about her mother and how upset she would be, she decided against it.

We continued to talk for a while about her life, her goals, her dreams. How she was often sad and depressed, how she missed being home in her village, how she had no friends at school and really didn’t like school. But she knew she must study hard in order to get a good job and take care of her family. I did my best to encourage her, and mostly just to listen.

After about an hour, she said, “Thank you. You are the first person that has talked to me.”

I almost started crying when she said that. After being at school for 6 months no one – student or teacher, had really talked to her? Sure her teachers had noticed a drop in her grades on the latest exam scores. But no one had bothered to talk to her, ask her if there was a problem.

Over the next few months Sarah and I wrote letters back and forth. She described her home to me, and was always happy when she got a holiday so she could go home for a few days for a visit.

Meeting Sarah confirmed to me that I was in the right place at the right time. God really does know what He’s doing. If in the year or two of teaching in China the only thing I accomplished was putting a smile on one girl’s face, then it was all worthwhile.

Boys

I was in the middle of a lesson about ‘modal verbs’ – exciting, I know. The students know their grammar very well from English class they have with their Chinese teacher, so I was just going over it quickly for practice. I asked them to write a sentence for each verb – should, need, must, might – to demonstrate their understanding of the difference between each one. Then I asked for examples from some of the students:

“I should do my homework everyday.”

“I might go shopping tomorrow.”

Good sentences, nothing surprising. Then I asked Bill for a sentence using ‘need’. He stood up confidently.

“I need to get some girlfriend in the future,” he said with a smile. Everyone in the class was giggling away, and I couldn’t help but laugh myself

“Some girlfriends?” I asked. “You want some girlfriends?”

“Yes,” he said, “2 or 3.”

He sat down. His ideas caught me by surprise. These are such serious students. They’re smart, hardworking, and very respectful. But I probably shouldn’t be surprised. They are 16 year-old boys after all.