Today was the first day of activities at Boston Teen Enrichment Camp — a joyful, full day that left me with many thoughts I want to write down.

When this camp was founded in 2015, I named it the "Harvard MIT Elite Camp." The students in that first cohort truly were exceptional. Ten years on, I've watched many of them grow up, stayed in touch, and witnessed their journeys — all remarkable young people, continuing to become more of themselves.

Yet as an educator with 25+ years of experience, and as a mother who loves children with her whole heart, the longer I walk alongside them, the more clearly I see: endlessly emphasizing Harvard's prestige, MIT's brilliance, the excellence of "elites" does not necessarily produce real growth. For a child in their early teens, entering a non-selective camp — what kind of experience, what kind of growth, would truly matter?

One thing I'm certain of: I want Boston TEC to make every child feel seen and valued — and from that foundation, we explore, observe, and think together, each one earning a form of growth that is uniquely their own.

This year, campers will once again learn public speaking from Harvard professors and study research with the MIT team. But these "most marketable" parts of the program — I haven't rushed to advertise or serve them first. Because to brew a nourishing soup, you have to let it simmer slowly; things flow naturally when the time is right.

The campers had only arrived the night before and still carried jet lag. The schedule had to account for their bodies. Today's pace was gentle but active: icebreaker games at Boston Common in the morning, running and jumping; a tour of TD Garden in the afternoon, walking and pausing. By 9 PM, nearly every child was fast asleep. Jet lag heals best this way.

After settling the children last night, I had only three hours of sleep — but my love for these kids kept me energized all day. Reading the daily reflections they wrote to me, I found myself bursting with thoughts, unable to resist writing down my own observations.

During the morning icebreakers, as expected, the kids were shy and reserved at first. That is almost inevitable — these are teenagers, raised in a culture where such openness doesn't come easily.

What broke the ice? Counselor Channing's patient demonstrations and warm invitations; the example set by youth counselors Alan, Luca, and Mia, who stepped out of their own comfort zones; and the natural leadership Sharon displayed while organizing activities. Slowly, the children began to run, to laugh, to feel at home with each other.

As adults, if we don't understand the developmental stage of young people, when we see them hanging back, it's hard to resist the urge to prompt, demand, or criticize. But when we know this hesitation is a normal part of their psychological process, we can wait with patience — and with confidence. That confidence invisibly transfers to the children and becomes the energy that propels them to be themselves, and to become better versions of themselves. What child doesn't want to keep growing?

At TEC, a child's growth doesn't only come from classrooms at Harvard or MIT. Growth happens in every moment, in every small detail.

We had lunch at Tia's on the Waterfront, a wonderful spot for authentic Boston lobster. Each child had their own lunch money and had to navigate a fully English menu — no pictures, just text descriptions of ingredients and cooking methods — calculate whether their money would cover a lobster, account for tax, and figure out the 18% tip. This is what everyday life in America actually looks like.

Quite naturally, the children were very reluctant to pay that 18% tip. There's no tipping culture in China; after spending $50, having to pull out another $10 felt impossible to accept. Once everyone had settled their bills, I gathered the group and, together with Channing, talked about American tipping culture — the economic logic behind it, how to see a situation through someone else's eyes. We discussed labor costs in America, what blue-collar and white-collar wages actually look like, and how that shapes the whole society's relationship with education. Reading their journal entries later, I could see that from this small moment, they had thought far beyond "what did I eat, and what did it cost."

I want to use this lunch to say something a little deeper.

One of the most meaningful things I've learned running this camp is the value of putting local Chinese-American children and visiting Chinese students together in the same program.

Many parents assume that sending their child to a "full of English-speaking local kids" American summer camp will rapidly accelerate their English. But from educational psychology and two decades of experience, this simply is not what happens. Teenagers developmentally don't yet have the psychological drive to socialize across ethnic lines — especially when language is still a barrier. This isn't their fault. It's a normal feature of this age. Any parent who has sent a child to a purely foreign camp will recognize the same pattern: the child didn't make non-Chinese friends; they naturally gravitated toward other Asian kids.

But when they meet Chinese-American peers who grew up in the US, everything changes. These peers feel familiar and close. More importantly, the visiting students see in their local Chinese-American counterparts a living image of what it looks like to be Chinese and to thrive in America — almost like a glimpse of a possible future self. Shared cultural roots remove the psychological barriers to connection, while the local kids' settled, rooted, dual-identity way of moving through the world quietly transmits a message to the visiting kids: "So this is possible. One day, I too could cross the ocean, learn here, live here."

In a world saturated with "elite school" branding and "immersion English environment" marketing, I hope parents can look past the surface and ask: where does a child's real growth actually come from?

Which brings me back to the name I gave this camp ten years ago: "Harvard MIT Elite Camp." Maybe back then, I still carried a bit of "prestigious packaging" in my thinking. Ten years later, I prefer to call it Boston Teen Enrichment Camp — because real growth never happens beneath the glow of elite school names. It happens in moments like these: a lunch where you have to calculate your own tip, a human-knot icebreaker game, a goalie mask in a sports museum, a real conversation with a Chinese-American peer. These seemingly ordinary moments, processed and internalized by each child, become irreplaceable events of growth.

Every summer I spend with these kids is one of the most fulfilling, joyful stretches of my life. The children grow, and I grow with them — following their trains of thought, keeping pace with their steps. One of life's great privileges.