Green Shoots

     Leah attends an American international school here in Shenzhen, where a number of the students are Chinese.  At a school event a few weeks ago, I sat next to a Chinese mother who told me about her son Andrew, who is a senior just as Leah is.  He has a plan to start up a Saturday-morning English tutoring program at a local public elementary school.  He's calling his ambitious project Green Shoots Academy, which is an offshoot of a tutoring project he did this summer for children of the workers in his parents' electronics factory.  Many students at American schools have to log community service hours in order to graduate, and Andrew knew this would be a motivator for fellow students to sign up to be a Green Shoots tutor.  I met Andrew at the post-event reception that night and told him that I'd be interested in going along with the group to the elementary school.
     The first Green Shoots meeting was held today.  I had been told that there might be 60 kids from the elementary school who would show up.  What a relief that there were only 28, that they were 6th graders who spoke some English, and that they wanted to be there.  For some reason I'd been vaguely dreading lots of squirrelly little kids running around and yelling and hitting each other, not listening, not following directions--the worst of all the exasperating behavior I've experienced in urban classrooms at home.  These kids were a teacher's dream.  Today anyway.
  

Here are some of the students who showed up at Yucai Elementary School this morning for the Green Shoots tutoring program. While we were waiting to get started, I first noted that there were 46 desks in this Chinese public school classroom.  Then I went around to all the kids individually to introduce myself and ask them their names.  The high school tutors and I had brainstormed a long list of English names ahead of time so each of these kids could get one today.  However, the majority of the kids introduced themselves to me with their already-in-use English names, among them Jenny, Lydia, Helen, Amy, Jimmy, Luke and...Bob Johnson.  Not just Bob, but Bob Johnson.  One of the tutors asked him how he had gotten that name.  He said that his father had given it to him.

5 tutors came today.  They were an exceptional group of sharp, enthusiastic, take-charge high schoolers.  Each tutor lead a small group of 6th graders as they did introductions,  chose a group mascot and played an animal guessing game.  Then the whole group went outside and played several rounds of Simon Says.  A mother who came along with her 6th grader commented to me afterwards that students who understood English more quickly were perhaps less likely to win.  On the left in the photo is Romzy, who co-leads Green Shoots Academy with Andrew.  The boy on the far right is Bob Johnson; I can tell already that he'll likely add some zip to the group.  I'm looking forward to going along next Saturday.