11月14日

Dear parents,

Soya bean

The half of this class became a workshop. I brought a box of soya bean so that children can make the soothing bag for their parents in the class. Also we made the soy milk with 豆浆机. Almost every student had a chance to serve his/her parents with hot and fresh soy drink. We showed how to hold the cups with respect and carefulness (执虚器 如执盈).

Also, we took this chance to let student understand that soy bean plays very important role in Chinese food and culture. In 2007,  Montreal botanic garden (梦湖园) held a special exhibition to show that how soy bean influenced Chinese and served the largest population in this world. From environmental point of view, soy bean has much less impact on the environment than the meat while providing nutritious food. Our students listed the food made by this small yellow bean: 豆腐，豆腐乳，豆皮，腐竹，豆腐脑，豆腐泡，素肉，臭豆腐, 豆浆 。。。

经文学习：才大者。望自大。人所服。非言大

We shared the following story:

Twenty five years ago there was a famine in Bangladesh. Yunus was teaching economics in a local university. He felt terrible teaching elegant theories of economics while people were dying on the streets. Yunus then began to understand how people in nearby villages lived and if he could do something to help them. One particular incident took Yunus in a new direction. He met a woman who made bamboo stools for a living.  ... ( http://championsclubcommunity.com/covey/2010/01/10/muhammad-yunus-%E2%80%93-an-example-of-leadership-and-greatness/ )

Muhammad Yunus is an example of greatness and he was the only economist who earned Nobel Peace Prize (2006). In the class, I had more detail of this story than the content in the link above. The story is fully described in the book “The 8th Habit” written by Stephen Covey. It shows that no matter how little things you do at the beginning to help others, if you keep doing it, it can grow to something big.

Another story: 渑池之会

Parent Class:

We had discussion on how to conduct the parent class. We agreed that every week we focus on one topic. This week, 赵斌老师 will lead the class. After watching TV (http://www.dizigui.cn/xijiang35.asp), the discussion will focus on "己有能。勿自私。人所能。勿轻訾。"

Home work:

孝行: 父母呼， 应勿缓

From you feedback, I know this is a challenge for the parent. Some kids seem not follow this well. As Annie Wang said: "如果这是作业，我死定了"。 I will do the follow-up next class on this.

常礼举要: 双手奉接物品

Thanks,

Fan

11月07日

Dear Parents,

According to Chinese lunar calendar, Nov. 07 denotes the official beginning of winter season (立冬). So this week's behavioural homework focuses on "冬则温"：

孝行

-- I demonstrated in the class how to make a small soothing bag with soy bean and encourage your children to make one at home. Every night they can warm it in microwave and give it to parents. I hope you already get this surprise from your kids because they were asked to do it on Sunday night . Please refer to 黄豆灸法 for the benefits of this soybean bag.

常礼举要

--I urged your kids to prepare themselves well and wear warmly before leaving home -- "冠必正 纽必结 袜与履 俱紧切". Put on warm mitten, scarf, etc. and make sure that shoe laces are not losing. Use mirror to check if the wearing are in right position. Try not to be sick in the winter season because: "身有伤 贻亲忧"

-- Gandhi

In this class, we learned "行高者 名自高 人所重 非貌高". I believe that Gandhi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi ) is one of greatest men who demonstrated this principle well. Mahatma Gandhi was short, slim (100 pounds) and not handsome (非貌高), but he possessed a huge mind power which eventually let British men leave his homeland - India. In the town (Brossard) where I am living, in front of municipal library, there is a statue of Gandhi. Two sentences are engraved at the bottom of the statue (my translation in Chinese):

"Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." -- Albert Einstein

我们的后代将难以置信：如此伟大的灵魂曾经以血肉之躯存在过，并在我们的星球上行走过。-- 爱因斯坦

“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” -- Gandhi

你们可以捆绑我，可以折磨我，甚至可以摧毁我的肉体，但是你们将永远无法禁锢我的灵魂。 -- 甘地

I shared with class some practices that Gandhi did to make India become independent country. But most importantly he had very high moral standing (行高者). Several years ago after reading his autobiography -- " The Story of My Experiments with Truth", I totally agree what Einstein said. He maintained very simple life style, believed any kind of violence for any reason is evil; he was the first on who applied non-violence in political area; he was consistently seeking  the truth during his whole life. What about his fame (名自高)? His birthday (Oct 2) become the international day of non-violence. Nobel Prize committee always regrets that Gandhi was not awarded with peace prize even though he was nominated four times. In 1948, when Gandhi was assassinated, the committee chose not to award the peace prize to anyone, stating that "there was no suitable living candidate".

--晏子

Another example of "行高者 名自高 人所重 非貌高" is 晏婴 who is very short but very intelligent. The children loves the story "晏子使楚":

晏子到了楚国，楚国人知道晏子身材矮小，楚国人在大门旁边开了一个小洞来迎接晏子。晏子不进，对接待的人说：“只有访问'狗国'，才从狗洞进去。今天我出使楚国，不应当从这个门进入。”接待的人立刻把晏子的话传给了楚王。楚王大开城门，让晏子进入。          

(晏子使楚。楚人以晏子短，为小门于大门之侧而延晏子。晏子不入，曰：“使狗国者从狗门入。今臣使楚，不当从此门入。”傧者更道，从大门入)

More stories please refer to  http://baike.baidu.com/view/4618.htm.

-- Ending

I would like to close this note with a quotation of Gandhi (my translation in Chinese):

Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.

每当我沮丧之时，我铭记：真理和仁爱总是胜利的。尽管有时，存在过暴政和杀戮，这些邪恶可能看起来不可一世，但终将失败。常思之，勉之。

Thanks,

Fan

10月30日

Dear all parents,

---Homework:

Since we already have dedicated Chinese class,  the homework for DiZiGui class will focus on the behaviours. For example, how to respect the parents (孝) and how to follow some etiquette (礼), etc.

This week's homework is:

-- 晨省昏定。 I asked students to greet their parents (you) after getting up in the morning and before going to bed in at night.

-- 电话礼节。Some of our students starts to answer phone calls for their parents now. In the class, we showed how to politely answer the phone call. Some phrases like "请您稍等一下"，“请问您找谁？”etc. are encouraged to used. If your child has chance to answer the phone, please monitor him or her to see if the politesse is applied.

In the class, we shared the homework feedback from some students. we felt that it is very lucky to be the parent of 栾茗荃. Before sleep, she prepared water of teeth brushing for her dad and mom, served the water of washing feet,  and warmed the bed for her parents. Annie Wang warmed the soothing bag in microwave for her grandma every night. 程迪's mom enjoyed passionate hugs from her daughter before sleep..... Maybe all these are little kindness. But they can contribute to happy families and eventually a beautiful world.

Please fill the feedback form so that we can share more in the class. I understand you are busy. If you write some notes on how your kids behave during the past week, they will be quite happy when I share your positive comments in the class.

-- 在爱中行走:

We continued the uncompleted topic of last week -- Love. Teresa's life demonstrates the unconditional love:

其中有个老人，在搬到「垂死者之 家」的那天傍晚即断了气，临死前，他拉着德兰的手，用孟加拉语低声地说：「我一生活得像条狗，而我现在死得像个人，谢谢了。」

.......

当她获得诺贝尔和平奖之后，一天，黄昏时分，她听到有人敲门，打开门看到一个可怜的麻风病人。他衣不蔽体，饥肠辘辘，在寒风中瑟瑟发抖。她立刻给了他一张毛毯和一些东西吃。

不过，那个可怜的麻风病人却诚恳地说：

「嬷嬷，今天我来这里不是来索取什么的。我听说你获得了大奖。因此，我今天早晨也决定将今天讨来的东西都送给你。我从早晨一直乞讨到现在，所得到的东西都在这个碟子里了。嬷嬷，请一定收下我这个微不足道的礼物。」

.......

德兰修女在出殡的时候，印度总理跪在地下，印度阁员跪在地下，德兰修女的遗体走到印度大街上的时候，两边高楼上的印度人都统统下来跪在地下，没有人敢站的比她高。她的坟墓上写的是「伟大的印度圣母德兰修女」。

Please refer to the following link for more detail: http://www.dfg.cn/gb/cszd/shzr/48-ajx.html

--- Halloween:

Thanks the parents for bringing us candies for Halloween.

If you have any good material, stories, suggestions, comments, please let me know.

Yours respectfully,

Fan