Teaching our Chinese Teachers each day is a real stretch for these two teachers.  Rollin's experience is all about music and mine doesn't go past the third grade.  We are analyzing reading texts and learning writing strategies.  We're wading through it but sometimes we feel over our heads with the subject matter.  We study several hours each night and try to come off sounding like we know what we're talking about.  

Today our students were studying descriptive writing.  When Chinese people write, they tend to not be as direct as we are so we worked through all the steps of writing in English.  They were to choose a subject (a person, a gift they had received, a room, an item they cherished, etc.) and then describe it.  They worked with a mind map organizing their thoughts and then put pen to paper and wrote their paragraphs.  

I had been peeking over their shoulders but one young lady was not allowing me to see what she had written.  At lunch she told us that she was writing about a gift she had received and was going to share that gift with all of us (except me).  She is a very clever person and keeps us on our toes.  

When they were finished with their writing, I asked them if they would like to share their paragraph with the class.   "Becky" was VERY anxious to be the first.  She began to read about the gift she had received and began to describe this gift as having eyes like lakes, a loving personality and a big smile.  She talked about how this person had shown love to lonely students, her fellow teammates from America, and love to her husband.  It was a warm day and I had been sweating drops but the drop that fell from my eye had nothing to do with sweat.  You see, Becky had been describing me.  I didn't realize how much she had observed in our few days together.  It was a reminder of how much our students watch us wherever we are and whatever we do.

I hope I can continue to be a gift to Becky.  I'm certainly not perfect and it humbles me to know that as imperfect as I am I can be a gift to Becky and maybe others like her.