I went to Beijing for FOUR DAYS last week and it was absolutely AMAZING! It felt like we were doing stuff all the time and seeing so many places! However, showing you a few pictures would be a lot more exciting than making a list of everything I did. So, here are a few pictures of me on the great wall, on Tianmen Square with a picture of Chairman Mao, and in the Forbidden City.
Sorry I don’t have more details… just know it was really cool! Instead, I want to save this blog to describe my first couple days teaching! They are definitely blog-worthy… at least, my first one definitely is.
I am one of two teachers that have to travel to a different school to teach first graders every Tuesday and Thursday. I teach six different classes of 20-30 children each of those days—four in the morning two in the afternoon. Each class is forty minutes long and I personally find it EXTREMELY exhausting. By the time I get back to my room around 330pm, I’m ready to sleep. But, the children are adorable—the little girls are my favorite because they come up and give me hugs after every class. One little girl even gave me her little thing of Nail Polish…I gave it back, but she slipped it back in my pocket. Along with being sweet, they’re very intelligent children, and I can’t believe eight year olds know more about my language than I do about theirs’.
So, these kids are really intelligent, right? Right. But, I didn’t know that my first day. In fact, I didn’t know much of anything my first day! All I knew was that these children had received English lessons last semester from ILP teachers and that they were probably going to be first graders. I didn’t know what they remembered, or even all of what they were taught last semester and I was given no direction on what to teach. So, what the heck, let’s go over body parts (eyes, ears, legs, etc.) and the alphabet.
They knew EVERYTHING already. Goodbye lesson plans.
The first two classes were fairly calm, though I could tell they were bored with everything they already knew. But, a Chinese teacher was there to keep them in line and translate things I needed her to.
The third class: No Chinese teacher. This is more worrisome than you know.
I couldn’t even get them to sit in their chairs!! One boy ran back and forth from one end of the classroom to the other, just screaming, occasionally tackling another child on his way. Ten of them practically wouldn’t take their arms and hands off of me, making it pretty hard to move around, and another ten kept screaming, “Teacher! Teacher! W.C.! W.C.! [Bathroom! Bathroom!]” The rest of the children were content to color and talk to each other, ignoring the chaos.
The children are NOT allowed to go to the bathroom during class, so I had to constantly say “No W.C., after class! After class!” As well as catch children running out the door. One boy had a water bottle and decided to poor it on his pants then point as if he had wet himself, still screaming, “Teacher! Teacher! W.C.! W.C.!”
Luckily my fourth class was better behaved, though they too were bored and didn’t pay as much attention. After my fourth class I was able to take a break for lunch and prepare for my last two classes. Mostly mentally prepare, but I did try to re-think my next lesson plans. But the classes aren’t the only difficult thing to deal with while I’m at the school—there’s also the fact that all the other teachers on my floor don’t speak one word of English.
My first day I didn’t have a schedule or anything, so I just listened to the music that meant it was time to start or stop class. I also need to switch rooms every class, and seeing as how I didn’t have a schedule my first day, I simply tried to sign to the other teachers to let me know which class I needed to go to next. This worked fine until after lunch when a teacher pointed me to room 2. I walked into the room and was blown away by about forty different students running around. I simply told myself it was going to be alright, I just needed to get through the day and plan better lessons next time. I shut the door and immediately noticed it locked. The doors apparently lock with a key on the INSIDE of the classroom. Somehow this door had been locked, and I didn’t have the key. To make things more embarrassing, room 2 wasn’t even the room I was supposed to be in. Luckily the doors have little windows so I signed to the teacher (who DID belong in that classroom) that the door was locked. Also luckily, it only took less than ten minutes (which seemed a lot longer) for a janitor to finally come and get the door open.
Best teaching day ever? You bet! [note: I’m afraid that WAS sarcasm]
Ok, so actually it was really hilarious. And, I laughed about it a lot, and really wished the teachers could understand me so I could joke around with them about it too. Also, the next day teaching went better and I have hope that I will continue to get better as I learn what works and what doesn’t. I still feel like I have so much to learn, and after my second day of teaching I was stressed about how much I don’t know what I’m doing. But, I’m sure that after five months I’ll at least have a handle on this whole teaching children thing!
And, that’s pretty much the latest and greatest—Living in China is still a blast, and I’m still getting used to things like the food and not having most people understand me—but those are some of the things that make living here so fun most of the time. I guess that’s a lot of what makes life in general so fun—diving into the unknown and living not for success or fame or even for assured safety or pure pleasure, but instead living simply for the experience of it.
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