Beautiful

I had a meeting today with Alice's fifth grade teacher. She told me how Alice is starting to open up. Last week (which was a short week for her because of the class trip), Alice was very quiet and reserved. She didn't appear to be "getting" a lot of what was being said. Now the teacher realizes it was Alice's way of adjusting to a new environment. In just the 6 days Alice has been in class, she is smiling more, talking some and yesterday she volunteered to go to the board to work a math problem - which she did correctly and was applauded by the class bringing a smile to her face :)

Her classmates are helping her learn new words, working with her on vocabulary cards and using the classroom computer's translator to talk with her when necessary. Through one such conversation, Alice shared that her classmates in China said she was ugly. While we were in China, our guide/translator during our home stay the first week was able to learn from Alice that her classmates had told her no one would ever want to marry her (because of her disability) and her nickname was something equivalent to "Old Maid" probably because she was 2 years older than her classmates.

Her American classmates, when they learned about the ugly comment wanted to tell her they think she is beautiful. So the entire class did tell her and they applauded her - which brought another smile to her face :)

Alice may not be getting much academic learning right now, but I am feeling very blessed by this school placement. The teacher told me that she encourages the kids from this small school to watch out for each other when they go to the middle school and it looks like she does a good job of helping the kids learn how to care for and support each other during their time in her classroom.