Why Do We Teach?

How can we use our own personal experience to offer to our children and parents?

The Emerging Stories in Chapter 3 of New Possibilities for E.C.E. demonstrated the bravery of these women. They had contradicted that “According a large body of research, these painful experiences were supposed to be predictors of a disturbed personality, of a person likely to be abusive to others.” (p. 29) They had broken the poverty cycle. If one is a non-White, growing up in a single parent family, and neither one of one’s parent has a marketable career, one has to beat all odds. Like the Lotus flower, it is usually grown in the muddy and murky water. When you look at a Lily pond, it is just a pool of muddy water. And yet when the pinkish brilliant colored Lotus flower pushes its way through the heavy muddy water and emerges to the top of the pond; you will stop and admire how beautiful it is. Like these women, they took a lot of courage, perserverance and resiliency to become the Lotus flower. I had the opportunity to become a teacher/case manager. Two weeks after I took over a classroom in the middle of a school years, I was faced with a sexual abuse case in my classroom. The text books never told me that I would be emotionally involved. The books told me about how to do the legal procedures. I held the hands of the victimized mother and child, together we went through the whole painful experience. I learned to look beyond our children and our parents’ silences. I learned to be empathetic. I learned to feel the pains that our children and parents went through and I learned to be a good listener.

Should I have taught my children to speak in Chinese?

In Strawberries Forever, I can relate to the experience that I had. As an immigrant, I had the hardest struggle while bringing my children up. Should I teach them my native tongue or should I help them to concentrate on one language only. One time my husband had invited a few friends to come to a barbeque, and he yelled from the patio,”Bring me some mayonnaise and ketchup.” I stood and looked at the fridge for a quick while. What were mayonnaise and ketchup? Feeling liked a dummy, I told him I did not know what he asked for. I told myself that I would concentrate on learning English. My cousin has a son who was the same age as my son. She only spoke Chinese at home. When the children went to kindergarten together, her son was always being teased of his poor English. So I was more determined to omit the Chinese language spoken to my children. When I took the ED classes, I learned that children could learn more than one language and they could master the languages when they were young. I regret that I had never taught my children how to speak in Chinese. I will work on my grandchildren.

Woven Words or Books that our children are interested in?

A few years ago our organization spent thousands of dollars and purchased a reading program to promote children’s literacy. We were told to read weekly and towrite in our lesson plan the small group reading activity. When I opened the big box, I was disappointed at the three sets of 20 newspaper printed books. The stories were long and I felt they were designed for the kindergarteners. My children were aged from 2 years 8 mos to 5 years old. Each week was a chore as the children were unable to sit through the stories. I did try to read only a few pages a day. Every time I told myself they were not interested in the books. But I did as I was told weekly. In addition, I had also incorporated a lot of children’s books that they were interested in and we read them together daily.