Teaching the Blind

Me and the Kids

 

I’ve had the privilege these past two weeks of being able to help teach at a new school.  My good friend, DC (“Buddy”), invited me to co-teach his class at a special school in the southern side of Langfang.  The school is an institute that focuses on helping children with special needs.  They work to educate children with autism, downs syndrome, and other disabilities.  My friend, DC, is a volunteer at the school and he teaches two classes of children with blindness.  There are nine children in each of his classes and their ages range from 6-10.  These children are simply amazing.

The School

DC has been working diligently this term to help these kids learn English.  They can recite poetry and even sing songs.  I asked them if they knew any English songs and they started singing, “There was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo was his name, oh.”

My New Friends

 On the first day of class we played games together, we sang songs, and we worked on learning some new words like “mouse” and “monkey.”  The kids were really shy when they met me for the first time.  They did not want to speak and they seemed unsure of themselves.  Shyness seems to be the norm when it comes to a foreigner teaching any new class in China.  However, I’m used to the silence and I can handle it with ease.  DC brought a globe with him, which I used as an ice breaker.  I used the globe to explain about how the earth is round and how I come from the other side.  I let each of the children feel the globe and then I helped them walk their hands from China to America so they could feel the distance.  That thought it was very strange that I come from the opposite side of the round planet.  I also taught the children the word for friend and shook their hands so they could understand a common American greeting.  They really warmed up to me after this point.

The Rock Reads: "To Love all People is to Know Truth"

On the second day the kids were over their shyness.   They were asking me all sorts of questions.  They wanted to know what I ate in America and what I thought of Chinese food.  I told them that I like Chinese food very much and that made them all very happy.  I taught them about Thanksgiving and we even learned a poem about being thankful.  We also sang, “If you’re happy and you know it.”  The kids helped me come up with another verse that even included some Chinese words.  It went, “If you want your team to win shout 加油 (Jiāyóu)!”

The Kids are Hard at Study

 Sometimes it’s hard to teach without getting tears in my eyes.  I was teaching the kids a poem about thanksgiving and in the poem there is a line about how the stars glow at night.  It struck me at that moment that none of these children will ever know what a starry night sky looks like.  However, blindness doesn’t stop these kids from being amazing.  They can hear extremely well.  They know when I enter their noisy classroom simply by the soft sound of my shoes on the floor.  They can skim through books in brail at lightning speed and even punch out their own sheets with a needle and rule.  The best part about these kids is their love.  They love having DC and I as their teachers.  There is nothing better than seeing their faces light up with the biggest smile simply by hearing my voice say, “Hello.”  

The Principles of Truth and Love

I really appreciate DC for inviting me to teach with him.  DC has been a good friend to me here in China and he has a good heart that desires to help others.  It’s encouraging to find a kindred spirit in this land who desires to help make the world a better place.  DC told me today that the highest principle of mankind is the pursuit of truth and love.  I could not agree more.