Month 1 Planning in Shantou

• Month 1 Planning
• So the purpose of these 6 days in Shantou is to get all of our planning done for the first month of school
• We didn’t know what schools we would be placed at until the end of SI (more on that later) or what grades we would teach but we had to plan for it anyways
• One of my mentors there put it the best,
• “You know how there’s some words in one language that just don’t translate into other languages well? Kind of like Schadenfreude or 厉害. Well for some reason, I don’t think the word “to plan” translates well into Chinese because I have yet to see any of that”
• I think my favorite part was just how easy and open the lecturers were to side comments
• I remember one where we were naming why visions are important and we said three good things but our lecturer wanted more and after she said, “Does anyone have any more?” I shouted out, “Isn’t that good enough for you?”
• My classroom rules
• I decided to not try to re-invent the wheel so I just looked at the rules of one of Teach for China's best teachers and copied them because they work
• 1..Be Prepared-Come to class on time, take a seat quietly, take out textbook, notebook, and homework 静坐别迟到，拿出三件宝（课本，笔记本，家庭作业）
• 2.Be respectful-silent when the teacher is speaking, respect yourself, other students,the teacher, and classroom facilities 听课安静，尊重你我他（老师，同学，课堂识施）
• 3.Be attentive- pay close attention, focus, and track the teacher (专心记得牢 ，老师要很好)
• 4.Be active-take initiative and participate, speak with confidence and courage (发言要积极，尝试练勇气)
• 5.Be consistent-do not waste time, treasure every minute/second, stay focused and work from bell to bell (分秒不放松，善始善终，（下课铃响之前都要保持良好学习状态）
• Then I have my consequences with my favorite being the home visit. That’s right, if you misbehave too much I’m coming to your house. And I’m not bringing presents.
• 1．Non-verbal Warning-非口头警告
• 2．Verbal Warning-口头警告
• 3．Write Self-Criticism-书面检讨，检讨自己的错误。次日，你在你的同学们前面必须作报告
• 4．Refer to Banzhuren-去班主任 (who might beat them so kids really don’t like this punishment)
• 5．I will call your parents-我会给你的家长打电话 (who are most likely to beat them)
• 6．I will visit your house-我会家访 (I will not beat them)
• Oh yeah, and if my kids want English names, they will have to earn it
• I’m not going to just give kids English names , they will have to answer two questions right in class and then I will help them choose one
• If kids don’t care, I will call them “Thing 1” up to “Thing 60” if I have to. But probably not really though
• Won’t teach for 2-4 weeks
• So there was a snafu somewhere in the process and I was informed 6 days before school starts in Guangdong that I won’t be teaching for 2-4 weeks
• I was fine with it because the day before they announced our “tentative” placements which meant that they tried to put people in teams and out of the 12 teams I was put in one of the two “TBD schools” which when you plug it into google maps it’s a school in Los Angeles, California, USA
• Then our boss said, “So in regard to your tentative school placements you got yesterday, you can expect…no I guarantee you will see changes”
• So at least when I get to know what school I’m put in it’ll be a welcome relief because then I’ll know I wasn’t laid off from Teach for China
• At least we’ll have more time for planning
• Right now I’m not quite clear on what my vision will be but I’ll try to make it something simple like “Work hard for yourself, work hard for your loved ones, work hard for your country”
• And then at the end of the meeting, they gave us nice t-shirts which were actually made out of really nice fabric and a welcome gift after such heartbreaking news

• Batman
• `That was worth the 50 RMB to watch the movie
• It was explosions and violence, which is exactly what I needed after being informed I won’t be teaching 2-4 weeks after I started
• I really like the mall that we watched the movie in (observations made by a friend so I claim no originality in this whatsoever)
• It’s like a Chinese guy went to America, saw how awesome the malls are, and came back to China and said, “Guys we have to make one of these” but just got a few details wrong
• The grand staircase is on the outside of the mall instead of inside
• Instead of the IMAX movie theater being 6 stories tall they put it on the 6th floor
• All of the nice shops (wine, leather, etc.) are on the outside of the mall in little tent huts
• Can we just obey one traffic law?
• In Shantou there’s apparently been a two week suspension of all traffic rules because I’ve almost been hit a couple of times by cars who go off of the road and start to drive down the sidewalk
• I think police officers here could make 1 million RMB a weekend if they just sat in a lawn chair on the corner of the street and just waited
• After our Batman movie we had to take a taxi back because it was 1 in the morning, and so we just hopped in and didn’t think much of it
• He had to pull out of a parking lot and cross traffic on a busy road (they drive the same direction in China that they do in America) in order to get going in the direction he wanted to go, so instead of just waiting for the traffic to clear to turn left, he decides, “Ah screw it” and drives on the wrong side of the road for 2 blocks 
• And then instead of going to the right side of the road, he decides it’s more convenient to drive on the sidewalk (still on the wrong side of the road) for another two blocks and then he finally crosses back over to the wrong side of the road
• My friend said, “You know what, next time I’m getting in a taxi I’m going to offer him double if he can keep on the sidewalks the entire time”
• Chao’an county visit
• So instead of moving to our placement schools, TFC had done some quick planning and booked us a bus to go on a tour of one of the counties that TFC places teachers in for Guangdong
• We visited a 5-story home of one of the more well-off students where they had a home factory on the top floor where they made the lace for bras 
• One person brought up the fact that it really brings into focus the issue of, “Why would English be relevant to this kid as a third-grader because he sees that he doesn’t need English and he’s 8 years old so telling him how this will help him get into a good school doesn’t work”
• Some ideas were:
• You could now listen to the English commentators of the NBA
• If you’re into computer games you can open up a new world of games to conquer (and program some if you’d like)
• Then we got to visit one of the nicer schools that TFC puts fellows in
• For lunch we were told that teachers eat (for free) family style lunches made by a chef
• The classes are about 60-85 students per class for 45 minutes so a good meal will help out in those really tough days

• • The rooms that teachers live in are on the top floor of the school and they were really good sized rooms (I didn’t take any pictures for privacy reasons which means there were bras hung up to dry)
• New Computer
• So my old computer is not technically dead, but neither is a man with no arms, no legs, one eye, an iron lung, and a cleft palate 
• Basically, both hinges on my computer have failed so I had to tape a broken ipod cable around the back of my computer to keep the screen from falling back because otherwise my computer screen would not stay up

•  Of course, sometimes that wouldn’t work and so in the middle of a meeting my broken ipod cable held to my computer with purple duct tape would slip and it would make this thunderous bang on the desk that would stop the meeting dead in its tracks
• Oh, and the front panel that protects the on button from the environment is completely off so I decided after five days of trying to man up and work on this computer as best I can, I was sick of looking at the double screen and holding on to the computer screen with one hand and typing with the other in order to make sure I wasn’t fired for disrupting a meeting so I finally bought a new laptop
• For 3000 RMB, I got this new ASUS computer
• It’s all in Chinese so I’m re-downloading Windows onto it in English, but it is really nice, the screen is only one screen, and it can support itself so I’m happy

• I know a good way to torture people
• I don't hate anybody, but if I did, this is what I would do to them (or just to family members to make them angry for the fun of it)
• The next time I hear someone gossiping, just say to them, "Oh speaking of gossip, I know some good ones about you but I can't say because then it would make it awkward"
• Someone did this to me and it has been bugging me (in a fun kind of way, like solving a hard riddle), and they said I would know what it is and so I think it's of the type, "this guy is totally dying alone" because I have a little bit of a lazy eye in my pictures sometimes but it would be nice for confirmation
• I had a date
• That's all I'm going to say