A heartwarming letter of support written by a nine-year-old to her primary school teacher has swept the internet.
一封九歲國小生寫給老師的支持信，感人的內容在網路上廣為流傳！
The
British student wrote the tearjerker note after the teacher told her class that
he was gay.
The man,
who has preferred to stay anonymous, told the website PinkNews that he decided
to come out to his pupils after learning that all of the class had heard the
word 'gay' used as an insult.
老師在課堂上公開承認出櫃後，英國小學生寫了一封溫暖感人的小信條給他。
這個老師匿名的向網站PinkNews述說這件事，
他在課堂上聽到有學生用”GAY”當作侮辱別人的字眼，
因此決定要向他的學生們公開自己的性向。
* tearjerker
(n) 催人淚下（或十分傷感）的書（或電影、戲劇等）
* anonymous
(adj) 匿名的
* pupil (n)
小學生
* insult
(n) 侮辱，辱罵
He was
stunned to receive the letter from the child afterwards, which described him as
'fantastic and awesome.'
It read
in full:
老師收到這個學生的信也覺得很不可思議，學生形容他”非常了不起”
信的內容如下：
'Dear Mr R
'Even
though you're gay, I will always treat you the same way as I do now.
'I still
think about you the same way as I used to.
'You're a
great teacher and these are just some of the words that I would describe you
as: great, amazing, fantastic, brilliant, awesome and brave.
'The
reason why I say brave is because you shared a personal secret which was very brave.
'You
don't have to feel scared because I know that everyone in the class feels the
same way as I do.
'From A x
x
'PS. We
are all proud of you'
親愛的R老師：
雖然你是同性戀，我還是會待你如一
你還是跟我原本認為的一樣
你是一個非常棒的老師，我覺得你是個：偉大、驚人、聰明又勇敢的人
我覺得你很勇敢是因為你和大家分享了很私人的秘密
你不用感到害怕，因為我知道班上的每一個人也跟我一樣這麼想！
備註：我們都以你為傲！
* stunned
(adj) 目瞪口呆
The
teacher then shared the letter on social media.
He told
PinkNews: 'As a primary school teacher, I'd always worried about mentioning my
sexuality, despite the fact that my colleagues talked about their husbands,
wives and significant others all the time.
'Then, as
part of anti-bullying week, I'd asked who'd heard 'gay' being used as an
insult. Almost every one of my class put their hands up. I was stunned.'
He
continued: 'Then I asked who thought that people who were gay or lesbian were
bad or wrong in some way, again almost every hand went up.
'After
speaking to my Head, who was very supportive, we agreed I could tell the class
that I'm gay so they at least knew one gay person and hopefully explain that
when people use that word they're talking about me.'
這個老師在社群媒體上分享了這封信。
他告訴PinkNews：
作為一個國小老師，我總是很擔心提到我的性向，
儘管我的同事們常常會討論他們的妻子、丈夫或一些重要的人等等。
然而在反霸凌宣導週時，我問大家誰有聽過別人用GAY這個字眼來罵人？
幾乎全班都舉手，我覺得很震驚。
接著我問有誰認為那些同性戀者是壞人、是錯誤的？大家幾乎再次舉起手。
我和一個非常支持我的人討論後，決定要告訴班上我是同性戀，
這樣他們就至少認識一個同性戀者，也讓他們了解到，
當人們使用這個字眼時，也同時是在說我。
'The
reaction was fantastic – there were a lot of gasps and shocked looks and some
basic questions – do you have a boyfriend, etc – but after a couple of minutes
they were over it and we moved on to the rest of the lesson.
大家的反應非常神奇，很多人聽到時倒抽口氣，一臉震驚，然後開始問一些基本的問題，例如有沒有男朋友之類的。但過幾分鐘後他們都恢復正常，我們繼續把課上完。
'The
letter came a couple of days later. The little girl who wrote it gave it to me
at the start of the day with all the other slips about dinner money, school
trips and doctors appointments.
幾天後，我收到了這封信，在那天的一開始，就在其他學生還在聊晚餐錢、校外教學或看醫生等等的時候，小女孩把它給了我。
'Reading
it brought tears to my eyes and it took me a little while to compose myself.
When I thanked her she just shrugged and repeated something one of the boys in
the class had said during the lesson, 'It's just your life'. Then she went back
to her maths.
讀這封信時，我不禁流下眼淚，花了好一段時間我才平靜下來。
當我向她道謝時，她只是聳聳肩，然後說了課堂上男生們說的話：這是你的生活。然後她就回去上數學課了。
* compose
(v) compose yourself
= to make
yourself calm again after being angry or upset
使自己鎮定，使自己平靜下來
* shrug (v)
聳肩
'For my
class it was a surprise sure but, to them, it was just something simple and
easy to file away as another piece of information. There was no judgement, no
follow-up, just acceptance.
'Now, I
can mention my fiance as easily as any other teacher and my class know me a
little better. I've had a lot of letters and cards over the years, but this one
I know I'll keep forever.'
對我來說這當然很令人驚喜，但對於他們來說，
這不過只是個簡單的事情且很容易忘記。
他們不會批評，不會有後續作為，就是接受它而已！
現在我可以像其他老師一樣自然地聊到我的未婚夫，
而且我的學生們也多了解我一點了。
過去幾年我收過無數的卡片和信，但這一封，我知道會永遠留在我心裡。
* follow-up
(n) = a further action connected with something that happened before
後續(行動)
