During breakfast, I suddenly asked Watermelon Tan, “How many points did you get in the English test this time?” Although I am not confident, I have hope.

When she told me sadly that she only got 83 points in the exam, I was surprised to hear it. I thought that since she began to learn English in the third grade of the school, she started from failing in her grades, slowly experienced her sixties and seventies and now reached more than 80s. It was not easy. What I saw was a rising star of hope. This feeling was much better than experiencing 100 points at the beginning, to more than nineties, then to more than eighties… So I smiled and said to her, “Yes, there is progress, which proves that our method is effective (the so-called method is just to prepare some word cards for her).” She happily told me that English teacher Li praised her for her progress many times this semester. I said, “Of course. When a teacher sees a student’s grades rising little by little, it’s like a farmer’s joy when he sees the crops in the field growing up little by little. The joy is unparalleled.”

So, I immediately sent a message to Mr. Li in English:

“Hi, good morning, Mr. Li. I’m the kid’s father. I learned from her that I got 80 points in this English exam. I’m very happy to hear that. She told me many times that you praised her for her progress. Among the teachers I have met, you are the only one who encourages her. I sincerely thank you for your help. I wish you a happy and healthy life.

I think that a teacher, in the face of a student with poor grades, can stand the test of education if he can not be angry and patiently encourage him and wait for students to slowly improve their learning ability. For such a teacher, I will never hesitate to praise him.

Mr. Li immediately replied:

“Last week, I also talked to my head teacher, Mrs. Qin, about her situation. We all think that she has learning ability and good learning habits and attitude. As long as she maintains this good habit and enthusiasm, we all believe that she can get better and better in learning. Let’s work together.:shake_hands:”

Yes, as Mr. Li said, as long as you maintain good habits and enthusiasm, kids will get better and better in learning. I suddenly understood that this is to have an upward mind, isn’t it? Any person who achieves something depends on self-study, and the source of self-study is his upward mind. In other words, if a person has an upward mind, he will study by himself, so that he will find his interests and strengths, strengthen his ambitions, and be able to continuously absorb energy from self-study, converge in himself, continuously improve, integrate, self-contained, self-use, use freely, and explore the unknown. In this way, he can go from the ordinary road to success. The so-called success is in the process that one found and realized the value and mission in his or her life.

I think it was extremely painful to get started with English at first. This kind of pain came out later when I studied a computer course called Data Structure in college, but it was far less painful than the introduction to English. This kind of pain was only limited to the beginning, and later it was much smoother. Now that I think about it, the root of it is that I always have an upward mind, so that I am not afraid of any difficulties on the road of self-study, like a seed breaking the ground.

Looking at Watermelon Tan’s concentrating on her favorite books, I finally figured out: “There is a long way to go.” Learning is not to teach knowledge for a while, but to keep looking for a long time. As a parent, if you want to educate your kids well, you must first cultivate your kids’ upward mind.