Flashback of Childhood in AFLS

I have been teaching English in AnQing Foreign Language School to primary students for the last one month. I have four years of teaching experience in China. I have been teaching English to different age and grade level students: from Kindergarten to college students. During this time, I’ve got different and amazing life experiences but more on teaching. Especially, I’m having a wonderful time with these little kids who leave me with unforgettable memories deep in my heart. When you love children, you enjoy teaching them.

Let’s have a spot light on AnQing Foreign Language School’s primary students. The primary school students are so lovely, kind and well disciplined that I am so impressed by them. They are innocent and show me their love and respect with all their deep inner most feelings. They remind me of my childhood. It is true that children and childhood are inseparable. Childhood is the period of innocence, the unwinding, quenchless, happy time of our life back.

I regard these children as little Angels. They are sacred gifts and blessings from God. They are sources of happiness to their family and teachers. My students are amazingly generous to me. Their generosity starts when our eyes start to meet. They smile at me which they don’t save for tomorrow. Their smile energizes my spirit of teaching like the morning sunshine nourishes bones. It is like a non-stop gushing holy spring water with power to open my heart and take away all my problems and make me ready with my teaching job.

Just being curious, they have endless questions to ask. According to their understanding, there is no word that is offending or disappointing to any body. They just keep on inquiring, discovering and retrieving as much as they could. The second and the third questions come before I finish answering the first question. They don’t even care about my answers but keep on forwarding their endless inquiries. Is more giving than taking their motto of love?...

It always amazes me to see them jostling with each other to greet me first and try to say “Hello! How are you teacher?” This jostling is happening on the play ground before class time. After a while, all the jostling comes down as the bell rings to tell us class begins. In the classroom, they are the first to start teaching me when my eyes meet their kind and innocent eyes. They use their eyes to teach me love, respect and truth. This is a magic that only Angeles, saints and little children are endowed with.

As I see it, teaching children also implies learning from them. Every minute that I’m spending with them is like reading a beautiful poetry book with deep concepts and intensive meanings of life. They always inspire me to write about them but couldn’t do the way I wanted to. They are too big for me to understand well. But what I know for sure is I still do have a lot more to learn from them if I open the eyes of my heart.

Eyasu Tarekegn, AFLS

(September 24, 2009)