Teacher, What is Your Dream

When I was going through elementary school, it was a normal “public” education where anyone that lived inthe area can attend the school.

We had one special situation: it was the first Chinese-English billingual school outside of a Chinese speaking country.

This school was special - I am proud to be part of it. I didn’t appreciate this school at the time - I just hated my parents couldn’t help me with my homework, even though they helped start the school!

Since the school was new, there was only one teacher for the Chinese parts - half the curriculum was in Chinese, the other in English. The English teachers were there half the time and changed year to year.

One teacher taught Chinese curriculum the whole time I was there.

This is interesting - where I had one teacher year after year for seven years and where I also had different teachers that same period.

The teacher that stayed with us for seven years was a happy accident - as a class, we knew and trusted them so well, that during the “your dream” part of the curriculum that we could ask

Teacher, what is your dream??

The class brave enought to ask that one question and the teacher vulnerable enough to give an answer from their heart started a whole new set of experiences for everyone.

I still remember that moment when we asked that question.

I don’t think the class would have asked that question when teachers change every year. I don’t believe that trust would be there - and even the teacher vulnerable enough to give an honest answer.

This is one of the first times where I remember seeing vulnerability of an adult toward younger people and it was awesome.

I am so glad we asked that question.