I was in class the other day, getting ready for a quiz…turns out that a great majority of our students are out-of-state kids, most from Asia and still learning their English.  Being, for the most part, a selfish bastard, you can imagine the field-day I was having.  “What happened to my School?”

Somehow or another I ended up surrounded by a collection of young Chinese kids, all wanting to go over the material and make sure they understood it.  We read the the questions, defined terms, and took turns discussing our answers.

The desire to learn, the struggle between fumbling with English and wanting to participate, the concern that they might not fully understand a question, and the politeness and social maturity was overwhelming.  The young Chinese girls, painfully shy, putting their words together, nervously laughing and looking away; the young men, determined to express themselves, very respectful at all times.  I was touched and felt an immediate possessiveness for these young kids, and a respect for what it must take to be here, so far away, at that age, wanting a turn to be somebody in the world.

As class started, they each thanked me, and one girl came back, and offered to me a fan in a little sheath with both hands, and said in her broken English that it was traditional in China to offer a gift of thanks and respect, and that she wanted me to have it.

I wanted to move every one of those kids into my house, make sure they were taken care of, and protected at all costs.  I am touched, and have my little fan on my desk.  Those kids have an ally for life, and I plan to spend my last year on my campus making people feel at home, making sure they have a friend, and going out of my way to demonstrate this unparalleled educational experience.

This I think is the real Berkeley experience, brought all the way from around the world, to open my eyes and touch my heart.

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