Teacher Appreciation Day

The first thing I heard last Wednesday when I walked past one of my kindergarten classes was "Happy Teacher's Day!" Until then, I had forgotten about Teacher's Day, but once the day started, it was hard to forget. Every single time that I passed a class in the hallways of the school, a group of students, or just a student by him or herself, they would wish me "Happy Teacher's Day". It was very sweet - especially when the four and five year old children in my classes would crowd around me and say, "Miss Abbie, Miss Abbie, Happy Teacher's Day Miss Abbie!".

To start off each of my seven classes, the Chinese teachers made sure that the children told me, as a group, "Happy Teacher's Day" and in two of my classes, I even got roses! Teacher Appreciation Day seems to be a big event in China. At first I thought that perhaps it was just at our school in which it was important, but when I looked on the news site online, there was an article about Teacher Appreciation Day, so I realized that it is important all over China. It is nice to know that teachers are so appreciated here.

In order for the teachers to celebrate the special day, we had an assembly with live entertainment (each group of teachers - high school, elementary school, kindergarten, and foregin teachers) had to perform. We also had a buffet with a lot of good food. Most of the teachers sang songs or did traditional Chinese dances. It was wonderful to hear the songs and see the dances and to eat dinner with both my Chinese friends and my foreign teacher friends.

The foreign teachers put together a skit and a song: we did a skit about a Chinese child that was learning a tongue twister and having a difficult time with the "th" sound. The foreign teacher who was teaching the child got very frustrated and was about to give up, but then realized that teachers should never give up and after hard work, got the child to say the tongue twister correctly. Then, a Chinese person came to the foreign teacher, who did not speak Chinese, and asked the foreign teacher a question in Chinese. The foreign teacher did not understand and the Chinese person became frustrated, but after working through the question and being patient, the Chinese person was able to help the foreign teacher to understand what the question meant and to answer it. The skit was all about helping each other - the foreign teachers help the children to learn English and the Chinese people help the foreign teachers to learn Chinese. This then went into our song, which was "With a Little Help From our Friends" by the Beatles.

It was a very fun night. I felt like I was a part of the school - not just a part of the group of foreign teachers, but instead as though I was a part of all the teachers, both foreign and Chinese. When I went up to do the skit (I played the young Chinese girl), the Chinese kindergarten and preschool teachers that I teach with all applauded me and were excited to see me up there. It was very sweet. At the end of the night, I felt very lucky that I could be a part of this school, teach with such kind people, and already have such a great group of friends. It was a great Teacher Appreciation Day!