Sometimes when I think about my job, it kind of freaks me out a little bit to think that I am responsible for little humans. Parents leave their prize possessions in my care for 6 hours a day and expect me to empower then with an abundance of knowledge and transform them into outstanding little people. At times, my job is fun and entertaining and my children are caring and kind and hilarious. On the other hand, sometimes they are resistant, aggressive and mean. My job here in China is more demanding than your average preschool for obvious reasons and I am challenged daily. I have grown fond of all of my children, but there is one child that I have really connected with… his name is Yushi.
Yushi is a brand new Japanese student. He has only been in China for a couple of months, and here at MRA since early January. Yushi speaks only Japanese. We are fortunate enough to have a couple multilingual students that speak Japanese, English and Chinese so it helps communicate with him a little bit. When I first meet Yushi, my heart just broke for him. He always just looked sad, he never paid attention during lessons, and he was really aggressive towards teachers and other students. All of the Chinese teachers would talk about how “bad” Yushi was and that they were not fond of him but I, on the other hand, was very fond of him and so patient with him.
During work time and outdoor time, Yushi would run up to people, hit them and then run away. The teachers would get really made and grab him and scold him. When he would do it to me, I would drop down to his level and hold his hand very gently and tell him, “I don’t want you to hit me” and shake my head. Whenever I interact with him, I am calm and gentle and I smile a lot and use my hands a lot to talk to him.
There was one day when Yushi broke down during class. I don’t even know if there was a reason or what the reason was, but he lost it and became hysterical. I picked him up and took him into the hallway and just sat with him while he cried. There really was nothing that I could say to him to make him feel better, and he wouldn’t understand, but I still talked to him in a calm and warm voice. My heart just broke for him. This poor guy, only 4 years old, moved to a foreign country and dropped into a preschool of ten different languages. I am sure he felt terrified and alone and he had every right to be upset. No wonder he was aggressive and withdrawn – I would be too.
I have a new appreciation and respect for children like Yushi (like many of my other children), and for the first time, I really understood what it was like to be the outsider and the Second Language Learner. So while he sat there and just cried, I wanted to cry with him.
After a week or two, Yushi’s demeanor completely changed toward me. He was no longer as aggressive, in fact, he was much more loving. At play time outside, instead of running around hitting people, he would just walk around with me holding my hand. He also began interacting with me more during class as well. He still was not speaking, but he was becoming pretty good at sign language. Throughout the day anything that he would “sign” to me, I would repeat back to him in English several times. I wanted him to repeat the word back to me, but he never would. Still, every time he pointed to a chair, I said chair; and every time he grabbed his water bottle, I said water; and every time he would shake his head no, I would say no thank you. It was slow, but it was a work in progress.
One day, I was setting up snack for the kids. I know that Yushi never wants snack, but I still ask him every day, and he will shake his head, and I will say, “Ok, say no thank you” but he doesn’t say it. On this day, however, Yushi came up to me while I was preparing it and said, “No thank you” and pointed to the snack. It was the first time that I ever heard him speak any English and it was the first time that he made any kind of language initiation. I smiled at him, repeated it and gave him a big thumbs up. I was so excited and everything came together for me and I felt that I really did have a purpose here. In that moment, I was reminded of my passion for teaching and I knew that I was able to make a difference – even if it was only one child, and only one small phrase, it was a huge step for him and for the trust in our relationship.
Since that day, all of the words that I have been saying to Yushi, he is now saying to me. It kind of makes me laugh every time because he would never say or repeat them, but it is like he was taking them in and storing them in his memory for later. Now, he was say line up when he is asking if it is time to line up; he will say water when it is time to get water, and coat when he is asking if he needs to wear a coat. He also says some other things such as; yes, no, chair, art, house, blocks and his favorite song is Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes.
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