Keystone Magazine Keystone Magazine 5th EN | Page 57

Teacher Profile
them, but also yourself, thinks Ms. Pei:
“Students look at me as quite knowledgeable,
but as a matter of fact, sometimes it is I who
learns from them. No one can be an expert
in everything and there is so much I want to
learn. In many ways, I am just one of them.”
However, this may also mean indulging
students a bit more: “Once, I had a 90-minute
phone conversation with one of my grade 10
students, Alex Li, because we disagreed about
some of the core aspects of The Legend of the
Monkey King. These sorts of arguments are
never personal, they are just business. I will
not force my views on them. What’s the point
of that? Are teachers’ ideas always right, or is
it just because I am their teacher?”
She is also one of them because students can
rely on her to know when they need help ,
and how to lend that helping hand. Ms. Pei
once had a student whose strong character
sometimes unintentionally upset others. To
broach the issue, she gave him a book and said,
“While you are just like the main character
in this book, it might be worth a try to be a
bit more sensitive to other people’s feelings.”
Meanwhile, she has helped several students
with their teenage conundrums by guiding
them to focus on their strengths. “My students
and I have experienced a lot together; some of
these memories were so trivial that I can’t even
remember the exact details. Meanwhile others
were quite memorable. I cherish them all,” Ms.
Pei emotionally recollects.
“Teaching Chinese is made up of two
important parts – firstly to develop and
train, and secondly to develop an aesthetic
appreciation of the language and hone a
critical bent of mind,” explains Pei Lu. This
interesting test was given as part of the unit on
novels in Chinese Language and Literature.
Being confident about her students’ grasp
about these novels, the test was her way of
challenging her students a bit more. “Writing
scripts is a great way to develop language skills
and critical thinking,” she says.
Her students know that Ms. Pei isn’t one
of those teachers who follow a textbook to
the T. “She has her own unique insights on
a novel, which she shares with us. She also
indulges in our opinions, as far as they are
not too outlandish. She supports and guides
us to delve even deeper,” says Sybil Zhao
from grade 10. However, it is not just the
outlandish that captivates Ms. Pei, but also
the original. She appreciates students who
have enjoyed Chinese texts enough to recite
it out of true aesthetic admiration. “I really
enjoy teaching at Keystone, and I realized this
in my very first year here,” she remembers,
“Once when I mentioned a form of Chinese
poetry called ‘ge xing ti’ in passing, some of
my younger students recited verses from A
Flowery Moonlit Night by the Spring River,
without a moment’s hesitation.” It is this
passion and desire for literary exploration
and reexamination that Ms. Pei has been
looking for since she began teaching, first as
a graduate student, then in Hong Kong and
then at various other public and international
schools in Beijing. Keystone’s emphasis on
Chinese teaching together with pedagogical
approaches of the IB makes Pei Lu feel right
at home. For her students, they have found
one of their own.
One of Us
Young and older adolescents are a demanding
group of humans to be, interact, and live
with, let alone teach. But perhaps being one
of them is the key to not only nurturing
Students reciprocate her kindness in
many ways; they have her back too, as she
remembers from one instance: “One time
when they heard that I needed a few movies
for a class, they began sorting out movies for
me – Chinese in one pile, foreign in another,
movies from books in another, and still one
more pile of movies which had good reviews.
I was so touched when the students handed
me their compilation.” The qualities of a
“good teacher” often surpass the common
markers, such as experience, pedagogical
uniqueness, personality, and so on. The most
important quality is much more fundamental
– the ability for two souls to reach out to
each other. Ms. Pei has this most innate of
qualities. It is rooted in this inner virtue that
she has reached out to her students with
her own teaching methods, and provided a
whole new way for the students to approach
and understand their world. As Peter Pan has
said: “I have taught you to fight and to fly.
What more could there be?” Keystone’s very
own Peter Pan may think of some more.
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