Girls Becoming Women by Susan Brooks
There is a precious quality, a fragile vulnerability that gently flows from my students here at Sias International University...a quality that, I confess, I rarely see in our American teenagers. Their freshness, their eagerness to learn, their serving and giving natures and generous spirit awaken a protective feeling in me...my wanting to shield them from the dangers and violations that statistics verify as reality: domestic violence, suicide (China is #1 for women IN THE WORLD), sexual abuse, and on and on. These are young girls that ooze innocence and trust...young girls that come from farms nearby, families that have pooled their every dollar/yuan to send their daughters to school...parents that tell their daughters what to study and what to become as they grow up.
Yet, here I am to guide them, to expose them to perspective, choice, and possibility.These girls were chosen to be in The World Academy for the Future of Women, and they made the choice to be in this program...quite a commitment to their already extensive schedules. Our forums (interactive labs, lectures, coaching sessions) are quite different than what they've known before. The content focuses on leadership, starting with their own world of introspection and exploration: who am I? what are my values and priorities? where will I be in 5 years? how can I serve this world/my world? what is my passion? what are my choices and consequences for these choices? These are not 'fill in the blank' questions for anyone, but for my girls, they receive these questions so seriously and genuiniely as they translate perhaps their first feelings and opinions on these questions, not only into their Chinese words, but into English! I watch them process...I watch them grapple with language and concept...I watch them transform right before my eyes.
They are proud and strong. Yin and yang shine through them. There is a power to their determination, to their persistence in doing good...yet, their confidence is fragile and so new. They respect each other...and me, so completely. This makes me humble and grateful to stand before them, and by their side...leaving many of my fingerprints on their back, holding them, pushing them gently forward as our women leaders for tomorrow.
As young girls, I watch them walk, arm in arm throughout the campus. They talk at once, they laugh and giggle, completely unaware of how beautiful they are. I try to remember when I felt that free, so un-self-conscious...I realize that now these students of mine are my teachers, how I can learn from their celebration of simply being alive...simply BEING.
I want to stop time...freeze frame my days and moments here...memorizing their faces, their serious eyes and glowing smiles...hoping that just a fraction of their essence can spill over to me...girls becoming women...and me remembering to be a girl. Yes.
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