Practica

So I've been in Beijing for two weeks, and I've left campus a total of three times. Classes are pretty intense: 1) preparing our powerpoint presentations about programs in America that help students succeed (I'm talking about Mentorship Programs like Big Brother Big Sister); 2) preparing teaching classes to 4th - 7th graders (I'm teaching Chinese Geography and Art, both of which we have to use Chinese to teach); 3) Translation Class-- which is a biggg pain-- we translate English to Chinese as a means to improve our Chinese thinking ability and takes a long, long time; 4) DVD/News class-- we watch news reports in Chinese and then report back and discuss-- this is also difficult because any news report in any language is tough to follow sometimes; and finally, 5) our Chinese language class, called Issues in Chinese Rural Education, for which we have a new article from newspapers/blogs each night to prepare.

So balancing all of these things has been very difficult, especially on nights like last night when we had our first teaching practicum at a local (about 40 minutes outside of Beijing) migrant-children's school, in addition to writing an essay for our weekly Friday test and then preparing for the oral portion of the test-- which lasted an hour and a half.

Last Friday, I had my first test run at giving the presentation. The teachers at 月河学校 Yuehe School were forced to go listen to four student presentations. This wasn't very welcoming, becuase it was obvious they didn't want to be there. I was the third in our group to present, and by that point the room had pretty much turned to chaos with teachers openly carrying conversations with one another, playing games/writing notes, or just flat out sleeping.

You can see Winnie the Pooh on the blackboard behind us. This blackboard is talking about how to prevent Foot Mouth & Hand disease by being clean/washing frequently. Don't know why Pooh bear was selected as the visual

So while all this was happening, I clumsily stumbled through my 15 minute presentation about Mentorship programs and tried my best to convince them that it would be useful in China. By the end of my presentation I was speaking a mile a minute and my 4th tone was in "a mess", according to one of my teachers that was there to listen. The teachers asked me two questions: 1) are you a "big brother" here in China/ what are you doing here? and 2) how exactly will this program have a positive impact on the big brothers themselves?

So, I made some changes and tried to clarify/calm down a bit. Yesterday we presented again, this time some teachers in Beijing city came to our school and listened. The two teachers who were in our room were much much interested and attentive this time, and I myself felt more comfortable and confident. One of the teachers told me that it sounded like a very helpful program but I need to spend more explaining how it can apply/work to China.

Our first "real" presentation is July 16 - 19 in Haikou City, the provincial capital of Hainan province/island (south of China and near Hong Kong and Vietnam). They are expecting 400- 500 teachers to attend this, so the pressure is on. We were told something about how every student will be wearing a nametag that has his/her university, and we certainly wouldn't want to 丢面子 ("lose face", which essentially means embarrass yourself). We're departing from Beijing a week from today, so I've really gotta pull it together in a week!!!


The second main component of the program is teaching at small 3-day daycamps in rural Hainan and Hubei provinces. Below are some pictures of the school where we taught today:

Our teachers tell us that the conditions here are actually quite good, and that in fact the schools we visit in Hainan/Hubei will be much worse. The floor is just concrete and everything is very, very worn and not very clean. Each room has an outlet, but there are no computers in the rooms nor is there any higher technology. Teachers write on the blackboard with chalk. Most of the rooms have at least one ceiling fan that works, but on scorching days like today I soaked through my shirt pretty quickly.
Many of the students live in quarters below the classrooms. This is because this school is specifically for the children of migrant parents, and sometimes parents have to go to other places in Hebei or greater Beijing so they can't be with them.


The halls are decorated with various materials/posters like this, venerating great thinkers--like Einstein! Of course, Mao's sign was first and Deng Xiaoping is further down the hall, but there were a couple other faces I recognized. Many classes also have the best student's homework hanging on the walls and a tally of "red flags" for each student-- when an assignment is done particularly well or you receive your teachers approval, she/he gives you a flag. Very similar to in some teaching methods I remember from elementary school, maybe more intense though. However, my teacher was telling me today that teachers will not give a flag and even take away flags if the student has unclean or unclipped fingernails/untucked shirts. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of the "School/classroom rules" we read involve a moral component-- about how to treat others or respecting/loving parents, caring for the environment. Not the specific procedural rules that I remember from elementary/middle school (e.g., you must have an excuse if you are absent, if you miss homework you must turn it in the next day, if you miss a test blah blah blah). Perhaps I just haven't seen them yet, but we read an article comparing "classroom rules" and it mentioned this phenomenon, too

Last week before we lectured, I had an opportunity to hang out with the pre-schoolers. Their energy was AMAZING. At first, they were really afraid of us and kept shouting "老外" "FOREIGNER!!" Then my friend Kailin and I said we wanted to play a game with them-- the game where one person has his hands on bottom and the other on top, and the person with hands on bottom tries to quickly hit the hands of the person on top. This didn't really work-- the result was little kids started running up to me and hitting me. hahah it was pretty funny though

Finally I convinced a few daring one or two to shake my hand. After they realized that I was human, we got them to all get a long line. This was really fun-- a picture is below:

Next I wanted to have a race. They were full of energy, and I thought it'd be a good idea. So I said, "Alright, everyone listen everyone listen! Now, we are going to have a rac---" but before I could even finish, as soon as their heard "run" (in Chinese race is "running competition") they ran as fast as thehy could to the other end of the courtyard. Crazy little kids! Then we tried to play a variation of "red light green light", which was also lots of fun.


This week was particularly interesting, because I taught my first classes. Last night I was freaking out because I hadn't had time to adequately prepare all my materials for geography. Art was down pack pretty well-- I thought. However, come this morning, i was literally working until the last minute before getting on the bus preparing the direction for the kids, and then to my-- and all of our--surprise, the students were much older than expected. Many were 16 and some even 17... and we had been planning to teach 4th - 7th graders. For my 50 minute art class, I had the misfortune of getting 10 guys, three of whom were 16. Not to be stereotypical, but I think girls might get a bit out of creative art class when the activity is "pick a single color and then draw a picture, and then explain to the class how/why your emotions reflect the color you chose."

Well, they weren't really for it, nor were they for the other activity. I had them do that art game where each student only has 1 minute to draw and then you have to give your drawing to the person sitting next to you-- and it goes around the picture until your original picture returns to you. Our theme was "THE OLYMPICS", which perhaps was too flat. Some of the younger kids seemed to like the idea a lot and laughed a lot when we were sharing our pictures at the end, but in general it wasn't as successful or effective as I would've wanted it to be.

The geography class, on the other h and, turned out to be a great success. I broke the kids up into 3 groups and had each group prepare a different type of map of Hubei province (in the future I'll be teaching this class in Hubei, so my preparation was all for Hubei). One group used the materials /directions I gave them to create a map of the surrounding provinces of Hubei, one group placed some tourist and scenic spots , and hte final group talked about population density (kind of much harder than the other two). They really liekd the activity, especially because all 3 maps were the same outline, so by the time we had all finished presenting, they were happy to make the connection that the large, scenic forest is the least densely populated part of the map. In addition, they were able to place Hubei in larger China and understand which rivers go through Hubei and into other provinces.

I still have to fix some things about that class and the other, but all in all I don't feel like a complete failure. And the students forr the most part understood my Chinese, so that's good! And they are brutally honest-- one girl told my friend, "I don't know what you're saying, how am I suppose to follow these rules!!"


The next week is going to be very hectic preparing for our big 3 week trip to Hainan and Hubei, but I hope to make another post soon about the CHANGES in Beijing-- I was only here for 4 days last year, but I there are a few notable things that hopefully I can get some good pictures of!


We're about to go to TGIFRIDAYS to celebrate the 4th!!! Other than that we're stil trying to figure out what to do tonight to celebrate America's Independence. Have a great day and eat a Hot Dog for me!