I didn't expect any of my students to care about American politics. When I first moved to China to teach English in August 2008, I figured some of the children would know who George W. Bush is, and that's about it. Why should I have expected more? It's not like an overwhelming amount of American middle school students can pick Hu Jintao out of a lineup. In fact, I'd be willing to bet a large population of students in the United States couldn't locate China on a map.

Imagine my surprise when I realized my middle school students in Shenzhen not only cared about American politics, but also were following the presidential election.

I discovered this on nine-eleven.

It was the second week of school, and I was teaching one of my senior classes for the first time. I asked the students what they wanted to know about America this year. I got the usual responses-movies and basketball. I was writing Kobe Bryant's name on the board, when a boy in the back of the class shouted out, "Nine-eleven."

It caught me off guard. In the middle of writing the "y" in Bryant, I stopped and stood there, staring at the chalkboard a moment. I didn't know what to do or say. I had been told to not get political in class. Finally, I wrote "9/11" on the board, and then turned around and faced the 60 students in the room.

"Today is a sad day for my country," I said.

"A very, very sad day," a girl in the front row said.

"We are sorry for your country," the girl next to her said.

Fighting back tears, I said, "Thank you. It was a sad day for the world, and there have been a lot of sad things that have happened as a result of that day."

I had everyone's attention, which I had already discovered was rare. I rolled with it. I went over to the overhead and showed them a picture of me standing in front of the White House.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The White House," several students shouted.

"Who lives here?"

"Boosh," even more students yelled.

I stuck both thumbs down and said, "Boosh." The students cheered. When it quieted down, a boy in the second row said, "Obama." One by one, students began saying the Democratic candidate's name. I stuck my thumbs down again, but this time I said, "McCain." The class cheered again.

I didn't want to overwhelm the students with American politics, so I waited a month, and then began to sprinkle politics into my lessons. I gave one class five minutes to describe a picture of Barack Obama and his family on a piece of paper. I showed my smartest group a couple of campaign advertisements, and during the week leading up to election day, I taught every class the basic differences between Republicans and Democrats.