Recently the Dragon's Heart Build a School project received a letter from an art teacher in China. She had read about the project and decided to introduce it to her students. Here is a translation of the letter she wrote, along with photos of her students and their projects:

Dear Big Brother Jackie,

Hello. I am an art teacher at the Jie Jian Sun Hua Shi Tien Xi Primary School in China. Your Build a School for a Dollar campaign moved and enlightened me. For you, love and charity are basic instincts. For me, it is a chance for education because sometimes my students are apathetic, selfish, and spoiled. This is a chance to teach them love and charity.

We teach children to love their country and its people. That is the right thing to do. The problem is that they don't even care about the people in their immediate surroundings - our own small town! How can we teach them to care about the poor children of the world? How do you teach children to share and not to be selfish? It's a problem for me as an educator. Therefore, I will take a lesson from you and copy your method. I asked my students to draw a picture for your Build a School project. I am trying to lead them towards love and charity. They must learn to love their fellow man. It is my job as a teacher to raise their awareness and teach them the first steps towards learning to be charitable.

I told them to draw what they thought the perfect school would be like. Some of them came to me in confusion because they didn't understand that there were schools that weren't like ours. So I gave them more information and then they understood. They were shocked and surprised that there were schools that didn't have what we have!

Our student handbook teaches that we should love our country and our countrymen. But it does not instruct us how to teach children to be charitable. Your project has given a way to show children that they need to care and to love everyone around them and then that love will continue to grow bigger and wider. Love, after all, is the basis for all education.

My students were very touched by the story of the Dragon's Heart schools and the needy children. And I want you to know that the money the students contributed came from their own pockets. I did not want them asking their parents for money. In fact, after learning more about the needy children, several of my students brought in their piggy banks from home and asked me if they could contribute more money.

Thank you, Big Brother Jackie!

Fang Li Dan
Art Teacher

Below you can see photos of the children with their donation drawings and some of the materials the teacher prepared to educate her students about the needs of others.

CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE

Here are the students' donation drawings. They have names such as Dream School, Love School, Sun School, and Superman School: