First snow at CIS Shenyang

Another year at CIS Shenyang and winter surprised us yesterday with a beautiful gift, a white and beautiful snowfall.

The first snowfall of the year is always special, even if you have seen the news or someone told you that is was going to happen. When you see the furry of snow falling around you, twisting in the air as the wind blows, you cannot help but feel like in a children’s story.

This year has been no exception. We did have some snow falling in the morning, but when our students were getting ready to get into their busses snow begun to really fall in Qipan Shan. The look in the faces of the students was priceless.

As they were coming out of the building they forgot that they had to go to the bus, that it was cold outside, that they were tired of working hard during the day. We had to hurry them up to get into the busses as they were doing their best to play outside with the now noticeably accumulating snow! Students look pretty fascinated when I told them that “even though they all look the same, snowflakes are all different (due to the interesting properties of water)”, their eyes full of wonder.

Personally, I come from a city where it never snows, as it is always pretty hot compared to Shenyang (my mother will disagree and say that winter is freezing cold at around 0^oC). Snowfall is something that you see in movies with Santa or families getting together to celebrate Christmas and New Year, it is something that you see in postcards. So, for me, it is always worth to stop for a moment in our busy lives and enjoy the magic of snow falling. It reminds me that this world, no matter how busy, negative or complicated, it also offers times to slow down and just enjoy, times to take a deep breath and realize that problems can be solved, times to be share good moments with others.

And this is all that the winter season is about, and so we teach our students. The winter season is a time when we prepare many opportunities for our students to share, be kind, express positive feelings to each other, their families and the teachers, the whole CIS Shenyang community. After all, they are the future, they will lead others, and we need to make of them complete humans that others would want to follow!