I guess I should tell people what's happening with my life and there's no better way than starting with naughty students
I had to kick one kid out of my class because he spit on another kid and when I asked him why he spit on the other kid he said, "because he spit on me" and me, being the great human being that I am, said, "well next time don't spit so loud and you won't get caught" to which when I realized my error further said, "and always remember the second person always gets caught so next time you tell me when the other kid spits on you"
I'm better at saying off-the-cuff remarks (which is a big problem for new teachers) so instead of saying, "I'm going to kill you" in a playful manner when a student bothers me I now say, "I'm going to eat you" when a student bothers me because I feel I should say something they 100% understand as opposed to just 80% (verbs are always important to understand)
I was playing hangman with my first grade kids and they had two choices, guess a letter or guess the word, and no matter how many times I told them it would probably be a better strategy to first guess a letter and then guess the word, they always felt like it was the last play of the Super Bowl and their team would lose if they didn't guess right. So I put in a new rule that the students must first guess two letters then guess the word
Bruce: "Alright, guess a letter"
1st grade Chinese student: "Bear"
Bruce: "...is bear a letter?"
1st grade Chinese student: "No...Circle"
Bruce: "I'm going to eat you"
1st grade Chinese student: "什么意思？ (what does that mean?)"
Bruce: "It means you lose"
But now I know it's not just my problem or a problem with me
I first thought, "oh man, it must be my bad Chinese" or "oh man, it must be I'm a bad teacher", but now I know it's just that kids aren't born brilliant and it's your job to fix it
I was watching kids out on the basketball court do their morning exercises (1st-6th grade students) and a Chinese teacher (who I know speaks pretty good Chinese) was telling students how to perform a complicated exercise which consisted of the following two excruciatingly mind-boggling steps
Reach your hands up in the air
Touch your toes
I think about half the kids got it after 3 tries and about 80% after try #5
That made me feel like maybe I'm not such a bad teacher after all
Shui Wei Arts Festival
Our school puts on an annual arts festival and it was really awesome, also because I got to be a judge
Oh and in case I die in the coming months, I died in one of the following places while on winter vacation (it's for about a month and traveling in Asia while based in southern China is absolutely fantastically cheap-it's less than 100 USD to get to some places)
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