Teaching in China

Trip Start Aug 05, 2009

Trip End Jul 09, 2010

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of China Mudu, Jiangsu, China
Sunday, September 6, 2009

Teaching here is so different than back home. We have a completely different role here than in Canada, and very different relationships with the students. Most of these kids are coming to this school from other cities so they live in dorms. This kind of makes us pseudo-parents for these kids, and they really come to you with any kind of problem or success. Maybe that is just the traditional role of the teacher here, or maybe its the away from home situation. Maybe it's because we are foreigners, I don't really know yet. I do know that the students really look up to us, and think everything we do is " so cool"....and they really analyse every little thing you do, its pretty entertaining sometimes. For example, the other day I was talking to my class, giving them a lesson, and I sat down cross legged on top of my desk. This just blew their minds! I guess they are taught that chairs are for sitting, not desks. They all just stare in shock, and giggle like crazy about things like that. It makes it kind of fun actually.

Back to what I was saying earlier, the kids will come up to you and just straight up tell you about their periods.....or other personal family problems. One kid stayed in after class the other day and cried on my shoulder because he was sad that he got bumped down a class in school and missed being in class with his friends (each grade is divided up into different classes based on english proficiancy). I have been damn near brought to tears a couple times due to situations like this....(blame my father for passing down the emotional gene!). On top of that, it is so humiliating to the parents when kids get moved down a class because they are losing face. In fact, quite often the parents come to Suzhou and lobby for their kids to be moved back up, even if it isn't in their kids best interest....and sometimes they are successful. Just the way things work around here.

It is not uncommon for students or students parents to invite you to spend the weekend with them somewhere as they want to show us things in China. This is a pretty normal thing for teachers to do with their students here and we are actually encouraged to agree to these trips. That could be interesting. Especially because most of these parents speak no english!

I think I mentioned how affectionate the boys are towards each other here. The first few days were hard to get used to...seeing boys holding hands and sitting in each others laps and stuff. I've gotten used to it now though.

All in all the experience will be pretty damn cool I think, but there are some headaches. The photocopiers are slower than a Franny wind-sprint, and we as an entire staff have only 3 printers to use. THe classrooms have no internet, some dont have AC, and we dont have our own gym or science labs. It is gonna take some clever ideas to cover some of the material this year because of all of that.

Anyway, enough of this typing for now. Peace.

P.S. Just to add to this area, the other day one of the teachers had an assignment that involved the students filling out a form that required a signature. They asked her what that was, and she showed them the difference between writing your name, and then signing your name. This tunred out to be one of the most amazing things the students had ever seen apparently, and as soon as class was over, the kids were running around to all the other teachers asking for their autographs. I ended up signing binders, pens, PSP's (portable playstation games), shirts....you name it. Quite interesting.