Some Thought to Share

                        My heart  leaps up when I behold                    

                                  A  rainbow in the sky.                              

                                   -William Wordsworth 

Basically I'm a simple person with a simple mind, easily touched by a simple thing like seeing a rainbow after the rain.  Being honest with others as well as myself is always my belief.  I used to see much of the sophisticated, cynical and hypocritical world that made me once feel depressed, frustrated and disappointed in human nature.  Luckily, I'm now in a field that meets both my expertise and my personality.  For this, I should be feeling grateful, and indeed I am.  Being an English teacher in an elementary school is perhaps a blessing.  I can be with those young and most innocent minds that bring me simple joy and laughter and also make me become a more thoughtful and self-reflective individual.  

      During the years of my teaching in high school and now in Tien-Mu, I've been enjoying the simple life with children and many enthusiastic working associates.  However, I have been struggling with conflicting thoughts as well.  In children, we see simplicity, innocence, potential and hope.  That's why education is so crucially important that we as teachers or parents should feel most responsible.  I believe in Howard Gardner's saying that every child is a genius in a different way.  Yet the pity is that our society's common values, criteria and collective bias may be misleading sometimes.  Some children with special talent and gift but do not have relatively outstanding academic performance at school are easily ignored and lose confidence in themselves.  How pathetic!  Why can't we build up a supportive learning environment in which every child can learn and feel happy and confident, too?  Each child has his/her learning style and pace.  Why can't we just respect this and try to help them to develop themselves? 

     I truly hope that even only as an English teacher in an elementary school, I still can contribute myself by leading my students to learn happily and think positively, helping them to form good learning habits and take positive attitude.  Attitude is something small that makes a big difference.  For most parents and children, learning English is to memorize lots of grammar, sentence patterns and vocabulary.  It's simply partially true.  Actually it's much, much more than that.  As an internationally adopted tool of communication, English opens up a door to the world where we can gain more knowledge and learn to appreciate other cultures as well.  It's my expectation that my students can recognize the joy of learning through my guidance and the interaction with their classmates and hopefully, learn to do independent learning, seek help or solve problems on their own. 

      Finally and above all, sometimes I would like to see our children's hearty smile as they behold a rainbow in the sky.