First Week As A Teacher=Too much fun

• So we were told that we were going to teach the best kids that Lincang had to offer and so I thought that these students of mine would end up teaching me English grammar by the end of the day

• • Turns out that educational inequality gap is indeed alive and well in China
  • Most of my class of 42 5th graders didn’t know the alphabet when I tried to sing the ABC song with them and everything after F just gave those kids fits
  • Turns out that some children don't even start taking English in Lincang until the 7th grade and the tragedy is that the entrance exam to high school has a very hard English part on it so if these kids want to go to high school they have two years to learn the English language
  • Seeing that I learned the proper way to write the letter "U" yesterday after living in the United States for 22 years (I was wondering why all my kids thought that the U I was drawing was a V and it was because I forgot to add a tail to the right side of the letter) learning English in 2 years is not an easy task
• None of my kids had English names either
• Most of them had been learning English since 3rd or 4th grade so on the first day I just assumed every kid would have one and so I I had them write “John Doe” or “Jane Doe” on their paper if they didn’t have English names along with their assignment to write out the alphabet
• Out of my 42 students, only 2 had English names so that meant I had 40 papers that I had to give back to them at some point that had “John Doe” or “Jane Doe” written on them
• And I’ve learned that I will never let kids choose their own English names
• They all wanted names that were 3 or 4 letters long and all the girls wanted Lily
• At first I was pretty generous and offered them suggestions and advice but then by girl #23 I said, “You’re name is Shelby” with a tone that said, “and you will like it” but I did say it with a smile and she was still super excited
• So when I get to my placement school in Guangdong, I’m just going to choose names of Greek Gods and Goddesses for them so I can say, “Zeus, can you say the following dialogue”
• The entire process took me an hour and a half before class which yes, that means that some kids arrive to class an hour and a half before class starts
• I’m excited that kids want to learn and luckily these kids are really adamant about studying English because they constantly ask me questions (I just wish I could understand more than 10% of them)
• I’ve developed a system where I have to have kids write out their questions and then translate it using my iPad which I think my kids abuse but at least their placated
• Diagnostic test didn’t go so well
• With 42 students we had a 10% passing rate with a class average of 33% with a goal of 80% class average on the final exam in 2 weeks
• And dag nabbit, we’re going to achieve it
• Plus the answers that these kids give to questions they don't know are so funny

The choices were A, B, C, D, and E but the kid wrote down 5

The answer was board or teacher but if my student wrote "Lakeisha" I would have given the points to them

They were supposed to translate the sentences and apparently  "I have a red skirt" written in Chinese translates to "0" in English

• Classroom Management Issues
• So at TFC we aim for 100% compliance with our classroom rules and on Wednesday I had about 20% compliance
• Luckily there was only one kid who was sitting on a windowsill overlooking our view of Lincang 2 floors above the ground, but I got through to him pretty good when I pulled him off the windowsill, point to the ground outside, and put my hands around my neck sticking out my tongue with my eyes closed to symbolize death

Plus, this is our view outside our window which I'm sure no kid wants to fall into

• • My favorite though was the story of one of the English teachers who had a student come an hour before class was supposed to start and the kid did spider-man out of a window
  • The teacher was just writing a poster and the kid got bored so the kid decided that it would be a great idea to go out the 2nd or 3rd floor window and straddle the ledge on the outside of the building
  • No one got hurt thank goodness but now I'm really considering buying locks for my windows
• My classroom management problem is just background chatter
• I just had kids who would constantly talk as soon as I stopped talking and have a kid answer one of my questions, so Thursday I decided to take the entire class to teach classroom management
• That backfired horribly
• All of the kids were bored out of their minds except for the part where I played the “Track the Speaker” game where I had all my kids look at me as I crawled under tables, stood on desks, etc.
• I think my problem was that I used too much Chinese (which they didn’t understand) and whenever they had a question I couldn’t answer it
• Plus what happened was that I threatened that if the class got 3 x’s then they’d have to copy a dialogue 30 times but it was just the Canadian group (we’re doing an Olympic theme) that got 2 x’s for the class and I realized that was unfair so I erased all the x’s which really didn’t help my credibility at all
• As soon as that was over I actually had more and more chatter and nothing got learned that day
• I felt absolutely horrible so (with the help of a Chinese fellow) I sent a text message to the father of the ringleader of the troublemakers saying “Your son’s behavior was unacceptable today and because of it I wasn’t able to teach class. I really want your child to learn English so I will be at the school an hour early to tutor him. I hope the behavior of your child improves.”
• Just to balance the karma, I sent a text message to the parents of the top student of my class saying how wonderful she was, how she always helps me out, and that they should be very proud of her
• Friday was my best day teaching so far 
• The dad of the ringleader of troublemakers came in with the troublemaker an hour early to class and I couldn’t understand what he said but I know he said something about last night and he made a shaking motion like a whip towards his son and his son was 85% calmer than he was yesterday for the entire class
• Everyone learned that day and I was just happy to teach\
• The kids still made fun of my horrible Chinese calligraphy (because it’s really hard to write Chinese characters with chalk when the chalk breaks in half as soon as it touches the board and you’re not used to it) but it was a good kind of laughing at me.
• I made the right decision coming to Teach for China
• Even on the days that I felt like a horrible teacher I still felt awesome when at least one child got what I was saying and that is by far the best feeling in the world (especially when the kid can barely understand you to begin with)
• I just need to get used to teaching Chinese kids
• I heard a story about a 5th grade teacher who tried to play bingo with her students and the kids, whenever they would hear the letter they were supposed to be listening for, would take out their ruler to draw a perfect x in the box
• I do love the scholar position that kids get in
• It’s customary for Chinese kids to expect that their teacher wants them to have both elbows on the desk with arms folded each other with a straight back at all times which is awesome
• And the way Chinese children ask questions is priceless too
• Whenever you call on a student, they get out of their chair and stand up so everyone can see them answer
• When you go to a new place in China, just drink tea
• We had community engagement training today and they say that the three things you can talk about with people in China to make them your friends are tea, food, and the NBA (to Chinese guys)
• They separated all of the people who weren’t good at Chinese into a separate group for this training and they told it like it was, “Hey guys, we know you’re not going to have an intellectual conversation about Kantian philosophy in some dialect of Chinese when you get to your placement site so if you need something from somebody, drink tea with them for two hours, just nod your head and bring a dictionary and a notebook with you so that if you don’t know what they say you can look it up later, and right when you’re about to leave ask them for what you want.”
• It was actually really valuable to hear that
• Now I know because otherwise I would have just went into a guy’s office with no context and asked for something but now I know that in China, things take time
• Saturday and Sunday were lesson planning days
• Basically I was sick of feeling rushed all of the time with going to teach, going to class to learn how to teach, and not getting back to the dorm room until after dinner at 6:30 pm to spend 3 or more hours making a lesson plan for 3 days in advance and revising the one I’m going to do for the next day, so this weekend I decided to write every single lesson plan left for SI (10 of them) and it felt good
• The lesson plan for the last day was the best part because that’s our final exam/celebration day and so I wrote for knowledge and skills that my 5th graders need to know
• Students will know that if I catch them cheating I will call their parents, rip up their exams in front of them, and they will not get any cake during the celebration
• This party is BYOB in bring your own bottle of water
• Students will know that smoking or getting irresponsibly drunk as 5th graders is looked down upon in society
• No mosh pits allowed
• If I hear anyone suggest I play Insane Clown Posse or Limp Bizkit during the celebration, I will give them a 0 for the course