女儿中学要毕业了，老师给她写了一份特殊的评语，在颁奖会上宣读。美国人赞扬人的话有时觉得让人受不了。不过对小孩来讲，因该是：赞扬让人进步，批评让人自卑。我们华人应该多学学怎样赞扬人，尤其是小孩的每一点进步。以下是女儿获得中学“年度艺术家”称号的评语：
“年度最佳艺术家
本校有很多天才的年轻艺术家，能在他们之中脱颖而出成为“年度艺术家”，充分说明这是一位非常杰出的个人。这位艺术家不但在他 ( 她 ) 的作品中表现出优秀的技能和技巧，而且展示出先进和独特的有创造性自我表达方法：这些是一个终身艺术家的标志。
在过去近两年里，我有幸目睹了我们年度艺术家的许多创造性事例，当她作为一个七年级的学生刚刚参加艺术俱乐部时，就设计制作了一幅让人叹为观止的俱乐部海报。从此，她在设计，插图，素描，绘画，和计算机美术上的特殊能力让我们不断称奇。在本地区 Scholastics 美术比赛中，她获得了银钥匙奖；在本县“书页中的艺术”公共艺术雕塑倡议活动中，她被选定设计和装饰一尊书型雕塑；在本校的才艺表演中，她表演了高超的快速绘图技能。但是，最重要的是，她得到了同学和老师们广泛的认同，她是一位让人难以置信和称奇的艺术家。
我很高兴地宣布 ASD 为我校年度艺术家。”
女儿的书型雕塑是图书馆的公共艺术
Artist of the Year
There are so many gifted young artists at our school that selecting an “Artist of the year” truly says something extraordinary about this individual. Such an artist exhibits outstanding skills and craftsmanship in his/her work as well as demonstrates advanced and unique paths of creative self expression: these are the marks of a lifelong artist.
I’ve had a good fortune to have witnessed the creative deeds of our artist-of-the-year for nearly two years since she first can to art club as a seventh grader and produced a knock out design for an art club poster. She has continued to amaze us with her exceptional abilities in design, illustration, drawing, painting, and computer graphics. She earned a silver key award in the regional Scholastics fine arts competition, and she was selected to design and decorate a book sculpture for our county “art in the pages” public art sculpture initiative. She displayed wicked fast skill in her speed drawing event at the school’s talent show. Most of all, though, she is widely recognized by her peers and by staff as an incredible and amazing artist.
It is my pleasure to present ASD as our artist of the year.
