Classroom antics

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Schools are popping up here like dotcoms and Starbucks were in the late 90’s in the U.S. As a result we have had the opportunity to work at a few of these new places. It seems that the managers sort-of have an inkling of what’s going on but they’re not exactly sure where they want to take the school. They do know that they want the business to succeed and in doing so it’s important to attract as many customers as possible, obviously. They have put their faith in our ability and have therefore given us more discretion in the classroom. As you might have guessed, I’ve exploited this discretion and have managed to stir up some creativity I was hoping to shine through some day.
I’ve done several fun activities with my kids, some educational, others less educational. One day we were working on intonation in our workbook. I wrote a communal dialogue on the board and paired up the classroom. I gave each pair a different context in which they had to speak the dialogue with the proper intonation. For example, one pair was a divorced couple, another was two boxers about to fight each other in a match, etc. It worked very well, partially because I think that Vietnamese is a tonal language anyway and it’s easy for them to understand the significance of lowering and raising ones voice in different situations. I had another class decorate one of my old undershirts. I made up a story about a group of friends that were trying to raise money for their friend in the hospital. While going through this process the kids had to get corporate sponsership for their outfits so they could find a cure and save their dying friend with acute melanoma. Instead of decorating my shirt with company slogans and such, they just drew pictures of Japanamation and other students in the class, giving them pig faces and mustaches. It was a failed experiment, but I suppose they don’t need to be so capitalistic at such a young age.
It has been surprising me how much the schools want us to teach the kids about our culture. I assumed that the Vietnamese would be more conservative and resist the Americanized lifestyle, like the French. Instead the management at my school has suggested that I teach them about basketball and Michael Jordan, skiing, ice skating and skateboarding. It seems that they have, in a sense, credited recent economic growth to Westerners and in doing so would like to adapt more of our culture. Part of me likes the cultural imitation they prescribe to but another part of me admires their heritage and fears that it may become a little lost. I am a serious proponent of change, but it’s one thing when you create something new for change and another when you duplicate something else for change. I suppose it’s hard to just take the money from a Western lifestyle and leave all the rest behind.

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