Grace

I have a student in one of my middle school age classes on Saturday afternoons that is quite a bit younger than the other girls in the class by about two years. She is really excited to learn English and is a fantastic English speaker. Today, we we started a unit on sports and hobbies. This is only the fourth class that I have taught with this particular group and we are still warming to each other, although I did make a breakthrough with a few of the other older girls who like Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, too.

Anyway, little Grace is willing to share her thoughts and answers when no one else will. I had asked the class to free write for five minutes about their favorite hobbies. The two boy talked about playing sports and computer games. The three older girls talked about listening to music and playing computer games. Then, Grace talked about how she gets on her bike after her dinner and tries to find the magical world where she visits her fairy friends. Then, she comes home and writes a few poems before she goes to bed.

It was the most unique response to any question I have asked here.

From my viewpoint, and this viewpoint about life in China is changing every day, so take this as you will, and this is probably a huge generalization, but children in China are not encouraged to use their imagination. Today, in an earlier class, I was teaching conditional language with a group of students and I was trying to have the students pretend it was snowing outside. Just getting them to a mindset that they can "pretend" a different scenario then the reality they are living in right now took a long, long time with me carefully searching for the right words. This is not the first time when I have been take aback that the students don't really practice "pretending" for play. Seriously, I've had a group of four-year-olds laugh at me for coloring a cow pink! I'm starting to understand how much many parents sacrifice their own time with their children to make sure they are learning English or taking additional math classes or are learning an instrument. In a country with the world's largest population, I can only imagine that parents want their child to have as many options to stand out against their peers as possible.

So, when Grace started telling us about her powerful imagination, I got upset when the older girls smirked at her, even though I get that what Grace said probably sounded pretty juvenile to them. I told Grace that I am sure her poetry is lovely and that her imagination is something no one can ever take away from her.

I have a feeling that Grace's creativity is going to help her stand out, in good ways and bad ways, socially, until she gets a bit older when being different becomes special again.

So tonight, I am going to bed thankful for my imagination. And all the people who have never smirked at it.