What would you sacrifice?

Last year, my school put in for a grant to receive a Chinese Teacher for one year. This teacher would be fully immersed in the school and the community. Many people helped in the grant process.  We had a board member who would be the community liaison and our Japanese Teacher would be the mentor teacher. I helped obtain the grant by creating an introduction video about our school. We were lucky enough to be selected.

At the beginning of the school year, Mrs. Wei Wei came to here from China. She was selected out of 700 applicants. I was interested to see her teach Chinese (I took an intro class in college) and her interaction with the students. In the first few weeks, I went and talked with her about life in China. She informed me that she was married and had a 7 year old daughter. I was taken back to see an educator who left her family for one year to have this opportunity. I wanted to get to know her better so I invited her to meet my family. It was a great evening.

In December, her family came to America to visit. This is not allowed in the exchange program and she was almost sent back to China. What a stressful situation for her and her family. She was not only able to be allowed to stay in America, but to help open up the conversation to allow for families to visit once during program.

Over the school year, she took time to visit many classes and learn about the American Education system. She came every week to my "Tech Tuesday" class. Her biggest concern was whether the tools we discussed would be accessible in China. She took the students on many field trips and created many exciting experiences.

She continually wrote about her experiences and told me the #1 thing she learned was that we have to keep learning and growing to get better.

I'm so inspired by this truly amazing educator. She came to America to be a better educator for her students and her school. Her methodology changed over the course of the year. She learned best practices and new strategies. She was an amazing choice for an exchange program. She's been a pioneer at Roton because now we have a Chinese language program. She sacrificed so much to be better and to grow. Inspiration comes in many shapes and sizes, her journey inspired me.  What would you sacrifice to be better for your school, students and country?

For more information on the grant visit http://tclprogram.org/