力行植林慈善基金會

Dong Shan Summer English Program Reflection ( Shing Kei Lok Louisa)

Throughout this brief but fruitful period of ten days, I felt an internal struggle to fulfil the role of a teacher. In the eyes of the children, I was not seen as a teacher. Instead, I was a sister to babysit and play with them. They yearned for my attention, constantly pulling my arms, yelling and jumping on to my back simply because they wanted to play with me. Early in the morning, even before our breakfast at seven am, they would yelp and even order me from the bottom of the staircase to hurry up and piggyback them. It was hard to reject them with those teary, puppy-eyes. I would even have to carry children like Pak Sing and Chau Lai, who were already ten in age, and run around the basketball court until they were finally satisfied and were willing to let go. Although I was slightly overwhelmed with physical exhaustion, I made efforts to attend to these energetic, loud and needy children, giving them love both physically and in time because I could see how desperate they were just for some attention to fill their inner insecurities resulting from lack of parental supervision and guidance. Through play and games, I not only became familiar with each child’s personalities, but more importantly their social and familial backgrounds.

Frankly, I was not entirely happy to be a babysitter or even a teacher, in which I was supposed to fulfil. As the saying ‘teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’ entails, I frankly did not see much of a purpose of teaching the students dictionary and translation skills in a limited ten day duration especially if they were actually reluctant to learn. What I truly tried to achieve was to be a ‘fire starter’, to inspire change in their mentality: a determination not simply to study English, but to improve in their personal academic and moral development by establish a drive for learning, for self-discipline by setting and reaching goals, and finally for a better future for themselves and their family.

During my brief journey of ten days at Dong Shan, I was fortunate to have a glimpse of their improvement in both English and character. In particular, it was incredibly encourage to see the group 5 students blossom with more confidence to read English sentences out aloud and attempt to guess the meanings of the phrases to the degree that they began shouting and competing. Seeing how the introverted, shy only boy in the class open up himself and transform to be the class clown. Neither would I forget how an irreverent, temperamental 11 year old girl, who cried in my class after I scolded her for her reluctance to attempt at the set questions and focus in class, became so serious about her studies that she revised hard for the final test and teared up because she was disappointed in her test performance. There are too many indescribably memorable memories for me to note and I will never forget.

I believe there is a life plan for everyone set by a higher power in this universe and it is no coincidence for certain people to meet at specific time and plan. I feel very blessed to have been able to met and taught these classes of students, who I feel have great potential within themselves that have yet to be discovered. I have yet to fully understand the reason for why I was placed in their lives, but I know that they have at least humbled and opened my eyes to see the world in a new perspective.

Now that the trip has concluded, where do we go from here? The children have a heart to learn and a seed for maturity. However, like seeds on a hard, infertile soil, they are unable to establish proper foundation. Without proper guidance, they get lost easily in the weeds, yielding to adversity. They need a gardener to nurture them, shower love appropriately, prune them when they are growing the wrong way and fertilize them when their growth has stunted. The implications of our visit are limited by the short timeframe and whether or not the children were able to gain anything from our visit depends on them. I guess this is the harsh reality of this program because it is an annual project. Instead of giving them hope that a group of people like us will come and visit next year, I hope that I left an impression that there is a bigger world out there beyond that short, plain stretch of houses and cornfields waiting for them to discover. I hope that they will remember that thousands of miles, there are people who would be willing to ‘stand by them’ and these people will always carry a memory of them for the rest of their lives. Most importantly, I hope that they will never forget to strive and not yield because they are the future of Dong Shan.

For those who missed the point, I sighed endlessly in my class whenever I noticed this particular child in my class who was unwilling to learn and only saw me as a playmate. In a brief period of ten days, there is only so much that we can do for them –we can give them books in the library, but these books are meaningless because no one reads them. It is up to them to step up for themselves. Fundamental and sustainable change can only be derived from themselves.

Shing Kei Lok Louisa

(HKU Year1)