Author Spotlight
Michael Yi
Every day during lunch, Hau-In Lau sits in her room, working on her laptop while snacking on fruits.
For Lau, the 25 minutes of lunch time are both a planning period and a second seminar to help her English Language Learner students. Teaching seven different courses across SM East and Indian Hills Middle School, it’s critical for Lau to be in her classroom during lunch, working while helping students.
Lau’s planning class and eating a banana when ELL 3 student and junior Hanifa Gul Mohammad walks in.
“I have crepes. It’s from France,” Gul Mohammad said.
“From what class?”
“International foods class.”
“See, that’s my lunch, you know, so I don’t worry,” Lau said. “Sometimes I get lunch from my students. So I say, ‘Go sign up for food’s class’ [laughs].”
Lau is the only Chinese and ELL teacher — having founded both programs in her 16 years at East. After two decades of providing critical opportunities to students in SMSD, she’ll retire in the spring.
“I love teaching,” Lau said. “My ELL students and Chinese students have been wonderful, but I’m only one small person. I feel my health is failing, my vision is getting worse… I just feel like maybe I don’t want to wait until I’m blind or get any health problems.”
Lau began teaching high school in 2002, starting the ELL program at SM North to teach introductory English to foreign students from around the world. After seven years at North, she moved to teach at the Center of International Studies at SM South. At the time, Lau was the second educator to teach Chinese in Kansas.
In 2009, Lau mapped out a curriculum framework with the other SMSD critical language teachers in Russian, Arabic and Japanese, using the blueprint to create content for the Chinese 1-7 classes. That same year, she began teaching Chinese part-time at East.
East alum Matthew Trecek took Chinese 1-4 with Lau and was the president of the National Chinese Honor Society before graduating in 2018. Lau encouraged then-sophomore Trecek to apply for a scholarship to study Chinese language and culture in Ximen, China over the summer — an opportunity he readily accepted.
“When I got that scholarship, it made me realize that there are real opportunities for me and that I could use something I learned in school and have it immediately be applicable to my life,” Trecek said.
Trecek is currently applying to law school and aims to specialize in international law to continue studying Chinese politics, a decision he attributes to taking Chinese at East.
“Taking that Chinese class was maybe the best decision of my life,” Trecek said.
In 2016, Lau started the East ELL program and began to work at the school full-time. Her students — native speakers of languages from Spanish to Swahili — learned to adjust to East with Lau teaching them in ELL and study skills classes.
Gul Mohammad has had Lau as her English teacher for over a year and a half, and is currently in her ELL 3 class. Lau cried when she told Gul Mohammad’s class she was retiring.
“We love her a lot,” Gul Mohammad said. “She is working so hard for us, [which] nobody did. She’s so great, and now she is leaving. It’s just so sad.”
As the sole ELL teacher, Lau has been struggling with nested classes in the same class. ELL 1-3 classes are all in the same hour, as well as Chinese 3 and 4. Lau has also begun teaching ELL at IHMS this year, straining her ability to give students individual attention.
“In my position as a teacher, I see every student as an individual,” Lau said. “Every kid is that wonderful child that we need to take care of… I cannot just look at a [roster] number, like, ‘I have a lot of students, [so] I don’t care.’ Everyone is so important.”
Lau hopes that when she retires, SMSD will find two ELL teachers to replace her position so her students get the support they need. Without Lau, the Chinese program at East will dissolve next year.
According to CNHS president and junior James Quance, CNHS students will try to continue the program.
“I think having a Chinese program is a way to set East apart as a school from other schools in our district,” Quance said. “It’s unfair to the freshman class that they won’t be offering Chinese anymore.”
After retiring, Lau will enjoy having no schedule for a few months and getting to sleep late. Come fall, she’ll begin to plan the next chapter of her life — learning Spanish, traveling and learning to dance.
“I’m old enough to retire, but I’m still too young to stop doing things,” Lau said. “I still need to be an active member of the community, to contribute in some way. So I might be volunteering but I will also consider other employment if I think it’s worth my time.”
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