Seven years

What can one do in seven years?  Start a Chinese language program, see it grow, nurture it, and integrate it into a school's curriculum.  This year, I am saying goodbye to a robust, healthy, rigorous Chinese language program, which will probably be one of the most rewarding experiences in my working life as a teacher.

It is important to reflect on what worked and what contributed to the health of a language program.  Unlike other academic subjects, a school's language department is unique in that one can never predict enrollment in specific subsets of classes, if students are given the choice of languages to study.  Even when the teachers have done everything, there is no guarantee how many students will choose any language in any given year.  There are so many factors that contribute to the students' choice that are not within our control.  Some people put all their eggs in the fun and game, bells and whistles; some swear by doing the food-inspired cultural activities; some think it's about the easiness of the courses; some believe language choice has everything to do with global economy and politics.  I think they all seem like contributing factors, and yet nothing really stands alone in causing programs to fluctuate.

What can one do in seven years?  Build a lot of lifelong relationships, those with students, friends, and colleagues.  I started this post a while ago, and until now, I have avoided coming back to it because it took me down the memory lane of that first year when I was on all fours with my second graders on the carpet of my shared classroom planting sunflower seeds in Dixie cups, that second year when I went for a colorful autumn walk with my fourth graders collecting leaves, or that third year when I finally got to know all my middle school colleagues like never before.

In retrospect, it was really not about building the biggest and the most successful Chinese program in the area.  Learning a language is more than that.  It's about connecting with my students.  I often say to new teachers - If you want the students to speak your language, you've got to speak theirs.  My biggest hope and wish for all my students, past and present, is not for them to sit in my classroom and be good students, but rather, that they love learning languages, all languages, and all cultures that bring them outside of their everyday, in hope that one day they will be able to make their own connections.

In a recent conversation, someone asked me about the program, and whether I thought of myself as a "WOW" sort of teacher, and why I thought that.  It was very un-Chinese to talk about oneself this way, but I had to expand on it on that single occasion -- It's about the science and the art of teaching.  Anyone can learn the methods.  In teacher school, we learned how to incorporate backward design,  plan good lessons, implement differentiation, the list goes on.  But how about the art in the teaching?  It's the magic that happens when we interact with our students.  Can the art be learned?  Though I can't answer the question, I hope I brought the magic to my classroom seven years ago.

What can one do in seven years?  A lot of things I would say.

Thank you.