One day, a child came over and pulled me to look at a painting he had just finished. I walked over and saw that he had painted the sky and the grass with watercolours. Underneath, in slightly crooked handwriting, he had written: “天上有大陽，地上有小花。(In the sky there is a big sun, on the ground there are little flowers.)” Except the character for “sun” — 太 — was missing the last dot.

Naturally, I hesitated. Had he simply written the character incorrectly? Or had he intentionally left out the extra dot in 太 to contrast it with the 小 (“little flowers”) in the next line? And then I thought: either way, it was technically wrong, wasn’t it? I was just about to say: “You mean 太, right? Do you remember what we talked about last time — the difference between the characters for 大 (“big”) and 太?” But almost immediately, I realised something else. Viewed from another angle, it was all correct. The sun and the flowers were already there in the painting. Suddenly, it became one of those situations where you could choose to focus on whether the glass was half full or half empty.

So I chose instead to focus on what he was trying to express. And then I remembered. The day before, I had introduced the children to couplets and traditional ink painting. That must have sparked his imagination. This was his creation. And in that moment, I felt genuinely moved. What a creative and eager child. How naturally he was making connections and extending ideas for himself.

There must have been a real smile on my face at that moment, because when I turned towards him, he was looking at me expectantly. The moment he saw me smile, his tense little body suddenly came alive again. “Clouds go with rain, the sky goes with the grassland. This is the sun, these are the flowers…” Leaning closer to me, he pointed excitedly around the painting as he spoke.

Yes — the character 太 was missing a dot. Quietly, I made a mental note to find some storybooks about the sun next time, and read them together with him, so that he could eventually discover the difference between the characters 大 and 太 on his own.

A child who could make connections so naturally, who would actively deepen and apply new knowledge by himself — I believed that as long as he was surrounded by a rich and supportive language environment, a gentle nudge would be enough. He would work it out himself. I remembered how, not long before that, he had once excitedly announced to everyone — as though he had discovered a new continent: “The character for 天 (“sky”) is just the character 大 with one extra stroke on top!” That discovery had belonged entirely to him.

As teachers, it is very easy to become fixated on accuracy — on whether a child has written or recognised something correctly — until one tiny missing dot takes over the entire canvas. And of course, stroke order matters. In Chinese, even a small mistake in a character can completely change the meaning. But during the early stages of reading and writing, surely the most important thing is communication — the ability to express meaning. And that child had already done that.

So my responsibility was to hold onto his enthusiasm and curiosity. To be patient with small mistakes. To trust in his ability. And to give him the space he needed to grow.

Of course, for a teacher not to immediately correct a mistake goes against both instinct and professional training. At the time, it caused me a great deal of inner struggle and unease. But in that moment, I chose to take on a different kind of responsibility. And afterwards, during that period of time, I noticed that the child became increasingly willing to show me his work and eagerly explain each piece to me. Gradually, I learned to slow down.

To look first. To listen first. And not to correct first.

To see the world from a child’s perspective, to teach according to their pace, to be “child-centred” — these phrases do not necessarily ask us to do more. Rather, they remind us not to rush ahead of children, impatient to take that next step for them before they are ready.