Ender's Game is paying off!

Looking back, my blog recently has been so introspective! And as fun as that is for me, probably about now would be a great time for something lighter. Time for a China story!

This one is from March 17th! St. Patrick's Day :)

We have a slightly different set up student-wise than when I was in Nanlang. In Nanlang, there were 9 children total. Two in the youngest group, four in the middle and three in the oldest, and the three of us teachers taught all of them. Here in Xiaolan, there are 26 in the youngest, 26 in the middle, and 27 in the oldest. Three of our teachers are dedicated to just teaching the youngest kids (ages 3-4) and the other six teachers teach all of the middle/older kids (ages 4-6). Each class has 8 or 9 kids in it, and all of the kids are awesome, particularly our older kids.

In the older class, we have some really awesome speakers. My story today comes from one sweetheart named Jimmy. I actually started out the semester not liking him a ton (he thought it would be fun to squish up my face. I thought otherwise), but he grew on me really quickly! He's a good little kid. Very smart and considerate-- as soon as he realized I don't like the face smushing, he stopped-- and he wants to be a good kid, so he'll obey you and follow the rules adamantly.

Well on St. Patrick's Day, I was sitting in his class watching Chelsey teach, and she was handing out token bags to all the kids. They each have their own token bag that has their name on it, and as the kids get stickers, a lot of them like to decorate their bags with said stickers. One girl, Lucia, didn't have her token bag. Which is weird, we're the ones who keep them, so it was just MIA, and it actually had been since the day before. I looked around and couldn't find it, so we were just taking the token bag of one girl who hadn't been here in a while and flipping her name tag over and letting Lucia use it for the day.

I was writing Lucia's name on the paper and decorating it a little, drawing the four suits of a deck of cards on it, and Jimmy would turn around to watch me. He kept saying, "Lucia token bag snow," and I'm sitting here like, "Yeah, this is Lucia's token bag, and sure, I suppose that club looks a like a snowflake." Haha. But he was so insistent! Lucia token bag, snow! I mean, dang Jimmy, I'm not a bad artist, this is clearly not a snowflake.

When I was satisfied with the name, I handed the token bag to Lucia, and Jimmy was still stressing out a bit, not paying attention to class at all, and at this point he tries telling Chelsey. "Lucia token bag! Snowman! Token bag!" Chelsey's trying to teach a class and her class has nothing to do with snowmen, so she's a touch confused and just writes Jimmy off. "Yes, that's Lucia's token bag today," and moves on. Which is totally understandable, I don't fault her at all. But he seemed a little disheartened, and I realized it was probably because he knows where her token bag is and we're just not listening well enough. As his attention shifted back to class, I left them and went looking through all our props, looking for anything that might be vaguely snowman related. Bags, hats, puppets... nothing.

After our first class with the middle and older kids, we have a water break, so I took that time to find Jimmy. At this point, he has already moved on from whatever he was trying to say, and he was just enjoying his break. But I grabbed Chelsey to come listen and then pulled him aside and got down on his level--

"Hey Jimmy, where is Lucia's token bag?" He looks at down at his.
"Token bag."
"Yeah, but where's Lucia's?" and I find her across the room and point at her. "Do you know?" He nods and starts thinking. After a few seconds, I start getting nervous. I know this kid knows, but his silence is unsettling. He communicated with me, I understood him! Just not well enough, and I'm starting to lose conviction that he knows.
Then he pops his head up. "Yesterday, a snowman bag."

I look up at Chelsey, "Do you have a snowman bag?"
She pauses for a second, "Yeah, I do! I had it yesterday!"
"Is it here?!"
"No it's back at the apartment."
I nod, "It's in there." And then I thanked Jimmy and he went back along his way.

It was the coolest. Later we went back to their apartment for a meeting and the first thing I did was make Chelsey check for the bag, and sure enough it was there. I was so proud, in part because this little kid had knowledge he needed to share in another language and he was able to, but also because no one else really seemed to think he would know or try to work with him. He's just a kid, right, barely 6 years old, what does he know?

But I was able to listen to him! I've read Ender's Game, I know how it is. And it was such a proud moment in my life to be able to work with this little genius. Bah! I love it.

Sometimes, my job is kinda cool. And now you can all be jealous.