Random thoughts: What I want...

There is this passage in the curriculum that write about the woods wanting to see the world and was made to a ship, bamboo wanting to sing, and make into a flute.

So I give my class a task, I ask them what they want. I give them 12 choices.

智慧 = wisdom
运气 = luck
健康 = health
名气 = fame
钱财 = wealth
幸福 = bliss
美貌 = beauty
自信 = confidence
爱 =love
梦想 = dream 
自由 = freedom
尊重 = respect

Why these 12 choices? Because these are the words they learn, LOL, I am doing revision at the same time. They are supposed to write a short paragraph of what they want, why they want it, and how are they going to achieve it.

To give them an example, I wrote a "model answer" for their reference. I wrote it in less than 5 minutes. But when I read it aloud in class, it gave me goosebumps. It really describe how I feel, what I wanted. I would say it is 80% accurate in describing how I feel.

It goes like this:

我想要智慧。

让我明白世界的真理。

让我明白什么是幸福，

怎么得到幸福，

也怎么让人幸福。

于是，我努力生活。

我做好一切事物，

常常为别人着想。

我有了知足，我快乐了。

For those who cannot understand Chinese, it is something like this:

I want wisdom,
for me to understand the truth about the world
for me to understand what is happiness
and how to achieve happiness
and at the same time, give happiness to others.
I give my best in all I do,
I think of others,
I learned contentment, I am happy.

When I marked their books today, I am not surprised to see that the majority choose wealth, followed by health. The rest choose fame, freedom and happiness. Love and dream are selected by one pupil each respectively. 

The ironic thing is, we all know the standard answer of choosing anything except wealth, but we live our life putting wealth accumulation at the forefront.

There are a few that wanted wealth so that they can be happy! Hey!! Happiness is one of the options!! Why not choose it directly, why put the cart in front of the horse? The nice thing about teaching young kids is that they are still innocent, and write very honestly. I am not going to destroy that by telling them what is the "right" choice or "standard" answer. How honest and cute can they get? I have a girl writing that one way of getting wealth is to marry well! I have a good laugh. Do note that I am not making fun of any pupil work, but really enjoy the innocence and purity in their answers. 

I ask them to share with others what they want, why and how to achieve it.

I then ask them to ask themselves is what they choose what they really want?

How hard and persistent they are in pursuit of that goal tell a lot if they really want it, most importantly, they need to ask themselves when they achieve what they want, how would they feel. 

How to see through red dusk if we do not chase after dusk at the first place?

What would you choose? LOL

Cheers
Sillyinvestor aka dark teacher