Cultural inundation

What a thrilling past couple of days! Yesterday started with a phone call from a friend explaining that the head of all the Senior 1 teachers was a bit unhappy that there were students playing basketball during my classes. At first the teachers here thought that I had been asking large numbers of students to leave my classroom; however, this hasn’t been the case. Instead, many of the teens have been skipping my class. Since I don’t have class rosters and no one communicates with me about excused absences, there has been an attendance loophole that many of the children have used to their benefit. However, the practice has now become an issue because people have been visiting the campus and No. 1 Middle School wants to impress everyone. I understand this, but it would have been helpful if the problem had been discussed sooner. We have now worked out a system -- if I need to ask a student to leave the room, I will send him or her to the hall or an empty classroom next door. (Before now, no one had mentioned how I should handle discipline; the school has gate guards, so I assumed that no one would get into that much trouble if I sent the individual out. Plus, I’ve been using this system for about two months now.) Class monitors will begin taking attendance and I should be given class lists; no, I won’t understand the names, but at least I’ll know how many bodies should be sitting in my room during each meeting. Hopefully, this new arrangement will make everyone happy. (Actually, my classroom management issues have drastically reduced now that we’re watching movies for half of the period. I think it helps the students blow off some steam.)


So today was an “open campus” day where teachers from other cities, parents, and the greater Anqing public can attend classes and observe the instructors at No. 1 Middle School. I was vaguely aware that this was happening, but no one explained exactly what it meant. I knew extra people would be wandering around campus, but I didn’t think they’d want to observe me. When I woke up this morning, I was in Friday mode and almost wore jeans -- thankfully, I didn’t. As I arrived at my classroom door to set up for the day, a teeny bit later than usual, I discovered about five people waiting for me. I was slightly surprised, but began the process of readying my teaching materials. The students even arrived earlier than normal and soon there wasn’t enough room for all my guests (which had swarmed to a total of about ten). Not knowing what to do, I apologized to the visitors, but plugged through the lesson. (Some workers at the school eventually located some extra chairs and added them to my room.) Many of the visiting teachers enjoyed it so much that they asked for a copy of the presentation. 


My second class of the day only had three visitors, but I think they (mostly) enjoyed watching me.


After teaching, I had been planning to observe a friend’s history class, but I couldn’t find the room so I visited an English class instead. What a fascinating and insightful experience; it helped explain much about the Chinese education system, culture, and students’ behavior. In many ways, the lesson was well planned out and contained many aspects of the forward-thinking pedagogical practices that we learned about in our MAT program. Remember the similar-in-appearance-only concept that I’ve mentioned before? That rule also applied to the class I watched today. The teacher did a great job of introducing the content, asking questions, and supporting the students, but the essence of discovery that’s common in American-style teaching was missing. The educator introduced the topic by asking students the benefits of bicycles; she then had students read aloud a passage about Amsterdam and explain the main points of each paragraph. The students listened to a British person read the passage and paraphrased the content with specific prompts to assist them (most used exactly the same words that they had read). As I was observing, I wondered if the students truly understood what they were doing, or if they were simply parroting lines they had memorized. Sure, they had a shallow comprehension of the text and were even able to talk about if they thought that more people should ride bicycles in Anqing, but I was left feeling that something was missing. Like some deep connection hadn’t been made.


Seeing the class helped me further realize that my students lead tough lives. They may have a difficult time restraining themselves in my class or get frustrated with me that I ask so many questions. However, in the end, I’m showing them a little slice of a world outside of China and that’s worth it to me. Thanks to my time here, I’ve seen a side of life I didn’t think existed and I would like to share that feeling of discovery with my students here. 


I held another Friday Movie Lunch today. We finished A Bug’s Life and started Mulan. It was fascinating for me to observe the students’ faces as they watched the movie. One girl couldn’t stop giggling and another said, with a confused look on her face,“It’s so strange to hear ancient Chinese talking in English.”


Another girl said, “The people are too white.”


Occasionally, I would stop the film to ask the students if something portrayed in the movie was culturally “accurate”. They had fun explaining things to me and it was interesting for them to see how we view Chinese culture.