Dear friends,
This Sunday, September 28, is Confucius Teacher's Day. To honor the great teacher Confucius and all teachers in Taiwan, a dance is held at Lotus Lake. I do not know whether I will go to the dance this Sunday because a typhoon is coming. But, nevertheless, I was able to celebrate Confucius Teacher's Day at Hua Shan Elementary School.

Like the United States, Taiwan's students will give their teacher's little gifts on Teacher Appreciation Day. However, unlike the United States, Taiwan has an entire assembly/ceremony where they honor their teachers. Teachers are highly respected in Taiwanese culture. At Hua Shan this morning, we had an assembly for all the students.

The Director of Counseling was our MC. She was so energetic and fun that the students were all engaged. All the teachers of each grade (1-6) were introduced and handed a special gift.  After the teachers were introduced, she explained that each grade holds a special vote for their favorite teacher. I was surprised to learn that I was chosen as the entire 6th grade's favorite teacher! It was such an honor to be chosen and the children were so sweet. It has only been about three weeks and the entire student body knows who I am! When I got up on stage, there was loud applause and noise. Then, I had to randomly choose five sixth grade students from a box to give them gifts. So, those sixth graders were receiving gifts from their "favorite teacher."

The Stage

Me, selecting five sixth grade students to win prizes

There were supposed to be five sixth graders, but two of them were absent because they were part of the sports class (6th grade, class 5) and the sports class had a game today. Each of the students received a little pencil pack as their gift.

All the teachers received the gift pictured to the right. It's a small handkerchief with a hand-drawn picture on it. In addition to this gift, two fourth grade classes made me special cards. Both cards spelled my name wrong, but both were still very beautiful. Take a look and see if you can decipher the messages.

Front cover of the card. The little door opens up and it says, "I love you ~Jeff [one of my students]"

A snapshot of the inside of the card. Each one of my students wrote me a message. In this class, there are 23 students so I got 23 wonderful messages.

The second card that my other fourth grade class made me.

These kids are truly wonderful. They are so incredibly sweet and I am so privileged to teach them. Every single day when I go to school, I have a smile on my face because these kids bring so much joy to my day. They make teaching so fun. I know some of them are reading my blog so I want them to know that they mean very much to me and I hope they walk away at the end of the year with more confidence when speaking English. I also hope that they can learn more about American culture and go into the world with an open mind and heart.

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