Back at School

February 6, 2012

The dreaded first day is over, and it wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. Everyone had an “uh oh” look on their faces this morning as we headed over to the school. How wound up will the kids be after 3 weeks off? How rusty did our teaching skills get in the glorious month we didn’t think about them at all? Have we thought enough about our lesson plans to make it new and exciting for them, to get them back into the swing of things? And, my biggest question, what time does class even start!? That’s right, with everything else ready this morning, I took a look for the random daylight savings type schedule in hopes it would remind me of what time school starts. I was pretty sure it was around 9:30, but I left the room at 9 just to be sure. Once I am at school, I respond to the bells like Pavlov’s Dogs. And on the days when the bells don’t ring, my resident teachers are happy to point at their imaginary watches for me. Today however, had bells, so I had one less worry.

Mondays start with class 9, and my lesson is often scattered for these guys. On Monday mornings, they are normally not awake, and a lesson that would work for them later in the week does nothing for them on a Monday, which is part of what leaves me scattered and stressed for the rest of the day! By Tuesday, after 4 lessons, my vocab lesson is down pat for class 10. Today, class 9 surprised me. They were awake and anxious to learn. Wait, did you hear that? They were excited! We do a new warm up to get the children with me, and do some dialogue. As it was the first day back, I tried to stick with things they know, even though we have real dialogue for this semester. We did “how are you feeling” (which is the only way to not get “I’m fine thank you and you” strung together almost as badly as in Ghana) and what do you like to eat. Both went over well with lots of responses. Our actual lesson went well – we will have to work more on the words, but for the first lesson in a month, I accepted it. My biggest problem was that one of my 100% students proudly pointed at “snowman” and yelled “Swim!” Not sure how that happened, but maybe, like Sunshine swimming in the shower, it is a similar logic. 40 minutes later and my first class of the semester is a success. With class 9 awake and ready, I have hopes for class 7. I don’t know why I still have hope for class 7, but I try to believe in them every day! I have decided that class 7 does not care if they learn or not, and therefore, I am going to care a little bit less (or get a little bit less angry at them) in the future. I started my lesson in the same way as class 9. They are just slouched in their chairs and stare at me. Half of them pull out English books from their desk. When I tell them to clear their desks (again) Toby protests that it’s an English book, to which I have no choice but to tell him I don’t really care at all. He sulks. I ask them the questions that I asked class 9. Mike answers while most stare at me, or try to sneak their books out on their laps. I move on quickly into food and get about the same response. As I started to give up, a bunch of them started yelling out food they like (or know in English). Not the way I wanted it to work, but I will take it as a success that they at least answered my question. Moving quickly into vocabulary. I hold up a flashcard to silence. No one guessing; no one shouting in Chinese. I say the word which is again followed by silence. Do I need to retrain these kids completely? After I say the word, you say the word! We practice the silly word! One of our words is “Scarf” and in class 9, they had enjoyed making sure I heard the “f”. I try this to no avail. I go to play the game instead, a game class 7 has enjoyed. At the end of the term, the kids were telling me the rules to my game (well, all the “you cannot do this” rules). Today I ask for rules and no one puts their hand up; no responds at all. Finally, we start the game. Essentially, as much as I try to make other students answer, I have maybe 10 kids participating, if I am lucky. The participation level depends on if they actually listened earlier or not. Forest put his hand up (and he is often not allowed in class because he is too much of a clown) and gets the answer right. The whole class applauds him. Finally, the bells rings and we all sigh with relief.

My last class before lunch is class 6 – my little angels that teach themselves. This is a short class, so I keep the food and feeling short and jump into the vocabulary lesson. Although the kids are all seemingly paying attention to me, I have a small participation level. However, as I pick on people (so as to not pick the same kids all the time), the answers tend to come out correct. I am still blaming the holiday for the sleepiness of my classes.

After one of my first western meals in a month (I did have breakfast this morning, and have been living off oatmeal and peanut butter and honey on bread for a while), I decide that I may as well get back into my routine right away; I curl up for an hours nap. Feeling more tired after but glad I closed my eyes, I head to my last class of the day: class 8. This class has some really smart boys and some really smart girls and a lot of kids who get “D”s on my exams. I start off by stretching and shaking our silly out which I want to be my new routine – something I liked about Kalyn’s classes. Their teacher has to tell them in Chinese to copy me, even though I said it and some kids are doing it. Eventually they all stretch with me. I ask them how they are and get nothing – not even the I’m fine thank you. I ask some of the “A” students and they stare at me. What the heck is going on here? What food do you like? Nothing. The teacher interjects in Chinese and I hear words like Coke a cola and hamburger in her words. I ask the question and answer it myself. What do you like to eat? I like to eat hamburgers. I like to eat chocolate. I like to eat apples. Some kids start yelling out words – and because it had taken forever, I accept milk, coke and tea. I decide that maybe a song is necessary as a warm up. They stare at me blankly. The teacher starts them in on Wake Up Wake Up (because I said you all need to wake up). They all respond but it isn’t pretty: no song competition awards for them! I start the vocab lesson despite the lack of anyone being alive. Seeing the lack of participation the teacher starts drilling them on my words in Chinese. She asks them questions and they responded with my words and she corrected them when they messed it up. Although I would have liked to have had that control, it was fast appearing to me that this was the only way the lesson was going to happen. When she was satisfied with their pronunciation, she handed the class back to me and immediately I lost a bunch of them. What did I do? I jump straight into points and games to try to get them back. I pull out my phone to check the time, praying it is time for the game that gets them out of their seats. 10 minutes left in class, which will work perfectly for the game. We start and participation goes up a little bit. The bell rings signaling my release for the day.

I head to the print room to try to print off their certificates – I will do them at some point this week, maybe on the fourth lesson as there is not a lot of review to be done in week one. The print room is busy, but I am done class, so I wait. When it is my turn, I realize that I didn’t save my work in Word 97-2003 and probably can’t print it. I try anyways. Opening the first document freezes the computer. When I get it closed, I try another (why not right?) and it does the same thing. Damnit. I give up and come back to my room for the night. I might just have to go to town on Wednesday and get it printed, although I will try again tomorrow as I have converted the files again.

In not quite school related news, but still campus news, we had a fireworks show last night on campus. I gather that parents had brought the fireworks to celebrate back to school or the end of the festival or whatever the case may be. Some of us had been out for dinner across the street, and at the first bangs, we quickly paid our bill and headed back. I don’t know much about fireworks at home, but here you buy a box and you light the box. The box then shoots off ten or twenty fireworks. When we slipped through the East gate (which is often locked, and is on the side where there are businesses instead of farms and the river), I see at least 50 of these firework boxes laid on the ground just inside the gate. In the Western world, the gate would have been locked and no one would have been allowed near the lighting area. We strolled through, and when we decided to head to the flagpoles where the children were gathered, we walked maybe ten feet away from some of the boxes. It was like I was in a strobe lit world with the way the lights change up close to them. Paul and I carefully watched the sky as embers flew around us and stepped out of the way if necessary. Within minutes of joining the children at the safe distance of the flagpoles, I had soot or ashes or whatever in my eye. This would happen often in the 20 minute display (a solid 20 minutes…). At one point, I had a part of the firework land on my shoulder and a firework wrapper tried to settle on my head. I don’t think that was a safe distance at all! But fireworks are everyday things in China, and the dogs don’t even jump. You can buy them on the street corner. Kids play with matches and stuff all the time too – they really like those … toys?... that you light and then they explode – like gunpowder? – like of like what goes in a cap gun, but with fire… As awesome as watching firework after firework explode, I still like the planned ones better.