A grin

    It was a sunny morning when I captured this delightful moment. I was working as a volunteer teacher in a primary school of immigrants’ children in mainland China. Immigrants are a special group in mainland, especially in big cities like Guangzhou. Their children had lesser opportunities to receive education compared to the local ones. So, I worked there and hoped to do something for it.

    This boy was one of the immigrants’ children in my class. Before coming to classes, I firstly saw him lower his head among all the children and seemed unwilling to talk. I arranged an interesting class that day. It was about safety education. I put the children into groups, let them watch a fun cartoon about self-rescue in danger. After watching, groups had to compete to answer my questions. I would add points to the group who gave right answers and finally rewarded the one with highest score. Through this, I wanted them to learn cooperation.

     At the beginning, all went through quite well. But the boy I mentioned above did not want to take part in group discussion. I decided to talk to him during the break. I patted on his shoulder and asked: “Hello Tom, how are you going on with your group members?”

    He shyly lowered his head and said: “It’s not funny.”

    “Then what is funny in your eye?” I asked.

    “Playing computer games is much more interesting.” He answered honestly.

    I knew it was children’s nature from my own experience. They were not to be blamed. They just resorted to exciting computer games as a result of lack of parents’ company.

    “Oh, really?” I asked, pretending to be interested in it, “Then we can talk about it after class because I’ve played many computer games, too. But, you have to follow me the next class.”

    I seriously promised the deal. He did so, too.

    The next class I found him totally different from the previous class. It turned out that he had inspiring ideas over some issues and he cooperated with his group member well, too.

    When the children cheerfully walked out of the classroom in lines after class, I practiced my promise and introduced a lot of playing-and-learning games to him. At the end, he suddenly gave me a bright grin, a grin that was like a flower blossoming in the sunlight. I could not help holding my mobile phone and grabbed this moment forever. It was not only in my album but also in my memory.

    It kept telling me that, education is a process of exchanging emotional feelings but not a mere knowledge “push and pull”.