As we get closer to the school, it felt like slowly unveiling a new-discovered artifact from ancient times. Life at that school must be extremely different from any kind that I have experience before. With that in my mind, I’m still shocked when we arrive at the school.
I never thought that a school could be located at somewhere like this. It was in a factory, about 100 metres from the factory’s gate. The factory is very quiet. In fact, the whole area is pretty quiet. The dark red gate of the school forms a not so clear contrast with the grey walls of the factory, this is the only thing which hints that this place is not a part of the factory.
The school is nothing but two two-storey high buildings with a small playground between them. The buildings are painted light red, it certainly stands out with the cloudy sky as the background. Whoever built this school must favour red colour very much. They didn’t even care that the red colour might be mismatching with the grey colour of the entire region.
The BCIS students arrived a few minutes before us. They were separated by grades already when we got there. It wasn’t long before they were sent into different classrooms to meet their new friends and teammates for today’s activity. The BCIS students and the students from this school need to cooperate to create a small play or poster that explains a four-word Chinese phrase (成语) in English, including its meaning and origin.
Frankly, I had my worries about this teamwork between them. In my perspective, the kids grew up in very different environments, you can even say that in terms of experience, they are at two ends of one spectrum. I told Michael that these children have literally nothing in common except for their ages. This should help you imagine my surprised face when I saw these kids bond in no time when they are put into teams.
I’m not completely wrong though. There is a group with two BCIS girls and two boys from this school, I started observing them when their teacher asked me to go help them out. Their conversation is dead silent. The two girls are whispering to each other about something, and the two boys just stood there. So, I walked up and asked them some questions about the story, and tried to start the discussion between them, but it didn’t work. I changed my approach and asked them how they want to present it, which character are they interested in playing. Still nothing. I looked at Michael with my best “I need help” face, and he told me he’s busy right now by not looking at me at all.
I thought about it a few minutes and realized the problem here. First of all, the four of them are all pretty shy, so they don’t really get along with total strangers. Also, they don’t really know how to cooperate with other people, so they thought that it would be easier to for them to just work with people they are familiar with. Knowing the problem, I started giving a speech to them about teamwork and I taught them how to work as a team.
It’s not a Disney story, they didn’t start having a very engaging discussion right after I gave my speech, but some discussion happened, which is certainly a great leap compared to none at all. I was really proud of myself at this moment, and the teacher who asked for my help also gave me a thumbs up when she saw the kids working together.
After the activity, when we were leaving, I took a last glance at the school before I got in the taxi. In the red colour, I see someone who’s leading people away from the path of life laid out for them, to embark on a journey to a destination they believe is better.
We can’t ensure that the journey will end well. All we can do is keep the building there, and keep it red.