You're listening to rough translation from NPR.

Sometimes a teacher can tell you something,

and you don't hear the sting behind their words until much later.

When Aris was growing up in Hubei Province in China,

her teacher would single her out.

My teacher, she would say,

you see, Aris was not smart,

but her grades were so good.

This was because she was hardworking.

This was supposed to be praise.

She didn't mean to hurt me,

but I felt those words really hurt me.

The lesson that Aris drew from that was that failure

was just one misaligned clock away,

and her mom had an expression.

Early birds?

Early birds have something to eat.

The phrase that I know is the early bird catches the worm.

Yeah, yeah, he's similar.

Years later, when Aris would grow up to become a high school teacher herself,

she didn't want to shame her students into working hard,

but she worried. Their students didn't seem to have that work ethic

...