(Speech given at SGT on 2/1/2018, to a great teacher that I always wanted to write about)
What is your memory of age 12? You might have been actively participating in boy scouts, practicing piano for performing in public, or just being a happy child without many thoughts about the future. For me, I was a bit under pressure when I was 12. You might already know that education resource in China is scarce: there are hard qualification exams to get in college, high school, and even for middle school. I was preparing for the exam to get in a good middle school. My parents never went to university and both worked as blue collar workers, however they did value the importance of education, without which I might have headed to a completely different path from where I am now. Today’s topic is not about me, it is about someone I met at age of 12.
When it was my last year in elementary school, my mom found out that every other family made their kids attending after-school classes, so she signed me up for a writing class to improve my Chinese score from 97 out of 100 to 100 out of 100. I went to those classes reluctantly with the expectation of going to a cram school where they teach you to memorize models of questions and solutions. I was wrong. I met a teacher who left impact on me for more than 15 years, probably will have the same impact for the rest of my life. He was Mr. Wu, at about age 60. As much simple as you can imagine a Chinese old literate man. He always seemed to dress the same dark blue Chinese tunic suits from the 60s, wearing thick glasses, having high cheekbones because he was so skinny, and walking around with cloth bag filled with his books and lecture notes.
At the very first class, instead of giving out papers with articles and questions for us to answer. He turned back to the rough blackboard, raised his hand and wrote down: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man”, the quote by philosopher Heraclitus. All the students were confused about this unexpected debut. Slowly he explained to us: all the things that you think are constant are always changing. Mr. Wu then talked about Socrates and Plato and their beliefs. For all us 12-years old kids, we mostly never learned anything about philosophy before that class. Unlike any other teachers whose teaching was oriented on textbooks, Mr. Wu encouraged us to read broadly. History, philosophy, stories, eastern, western literatures, poetries, anything. At that time, there was a book written by a teenager who was forced to quit high-school because of failing all subjects in two connective years. His book was blacklisted in schools because of the bad influence of the author himself and his story. However, Mr. Wu let us read the book and discuss in class about the dark humor and critical thinking behind this talented author.
Mr. Wu took us out of classroom to observe, a cherry tree in the yard, people’s look on a drowsy summer Saturday afternoon, our mom's hands and write about them. He wanted to train us to have sensitive observation and pay attention to details happening everyday. He wrote down every single lecture on blackboards with a simple chalk without referencing his notes. He took every writing paper seriously, full of encouragement on beautiful thoughtful sentences and critical feedbacks on improvement. Unlike most school teachers, he didn’t focus on if students followed a certain formula of writing or the grammar was perfect, he looked into these kids’ thoughts behind words. He once gave me a comment on one of my writings: you are not from a poor family, but you always wrote about poor people, it’s good to have a sympathetic heart. Because of these comments, I took writing as my lifetime interest.
School got busy at my age of 13, so after getting into middle school, my mom stopped letting me to go to his classes. Until 13 years later, I was cleaning up my old stuff and saw my old writing papers and Mr. Wu's comments, suddenly I felt so grateful that I developed hobbies of reading and writing since I was 12, because of Mr. Wu. Two years ago, I was visiting a historical house and looking up at the name of the study room: three-perceptions study. I found myself hearing clearly of Mr. Wu’s interpretation of that three-perception, to enjoy “the warmth of commoner’s cheap cloth, the fragrancy of bitter vegetable roots, and the long-lasting taste of reading”. These three together reflects a simple but meaningful life of a Chinese scholar.
I have no idea where Mr. Wu is, if he is still teaching, or even alive. It still echoes me the knowledge he taught, the characteristics he was presenting as a great teacher. Just like the quote from book Tuesday with Morrie - "Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you will always find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back.” I was fortunate to have a teacher that was showing me the real value of reading and writing.
I was twelve, I hope to make the same impact on whoever is twelve or at any age, and to be a positive impact to other people’s life. Keep the dream on.