Chinese New Year Card Designed by Special Students

This past Christmas some of our staff and students went to the Hong Chi PineHill Special School to help in a Christmas Party. On last Saturday morning, we brought in 12 of the students that we met at the school, ages ranging from 8 to 17. A team of our Computing students taught them how to make electronic cards for Chinese New Year. Here is a sample made by a girl.

It was quite challenging. It takes more time and patience to teach these kids because of their special needs. One of the boys got a bit upset midway through the 2 hour lesson because he wanted to play computer games before finishing the task. So the social worker took him outside to cool down. After a while, he was able to come back to finish. The youngest girl, at one point, grabbed a piece of candy and wanted to eat it without getting permission, stalled for several minutes but eventually was persuaded to wait until the end of the lesson to eat it. Most of the other kids, however, went through the lesson smoothly.

I was surprised, in fact, that there were not more incidents, given their special needs. In the end, it was a lot of fun all around. The kids enjoyed it. Our students enjoyed it. There were a lot of laughter and picture taking. And they had lunch together. Our students put in a lot of effort to make this event happen. And I think it was worth it.