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Published: November 25th 2008
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Our three students
These are the students we discussed life in the US and China. The boy on the end wouldn't stop smiling--he was lovingly referred to as "scrumptious." The morning started off with us (Andrea and I) discussing with 3-9th grades students (2 girls, 1 boy; all 16 years old) about their lives. Very fascinating stuff! It could have be a typical middle class student in the US. We asked if they had cell phones—yep, 2/3 did. They have been to Disneyland (in Hong Kong); they had teddy bears; they like to hang out with their friends. Favorite activities included: watching TV (only on the weekends), having soda (every night!), instant messaging (the boy had a “long-distance” girlfriend from another city), and going shopping. Goals and aspirations of the three: to do something meaningful, to play basketball (Yao Ming!), and to figure it out (an undecided major). Outside of the language barrier and issues, at times it’s easy to forget that we’re in another country. When we asked if the students had a boyfriend/girlfriends, one girl stuck out her tongue, blushed and hid her face—typical response—hormones are universal! They too didn’t like homework or studying, and were a little jealous that students only went to school 8-3. They go 7-5, with a 1.5 hr break in the middle (~20 minutes to eat, just like the US students). Everyone does
the siesta thing…when will the US?? The students have 8-45 minute courses, which includes PE every day—running and synchronized calisthenics like the military…pretty interesting. They have some amazing tracks in this country, but no sports teams like the US school teams. They do like to play basketball, badminton, and ping pong in their free time. This school takes about 3 months off during the school year as well (2 in the summer, 1 in the winter), but during the break, they do get holiday homework—yikes! They also have a “spring break” referred to as “Spring Festival;” everyone knows a good vacation is a good thing!
Our interviews were most of the morning, with a short tour to a famous Mathematician's house, who also happened to invent the motorboat (at least he is credited in China for inventing it) before heading to lunch. Every meal we’ve eaten is about a 15 course meal, but I keep on doing it! Tonight’s dinner was amazing, and apparently there was ~28 dishes on the lazy susan at one point, which just keeps going around and around while you fill up your plate. This afternoon I snagged a “scorpion or squid” (I thought), which
turned out to be a duck tongue (I need to stop guessing!). I only ate half of it though, not a lot of meat and I didn’t really want to dig in too much—I was scared—I kept trying to think mind over matter, but my Western mind got the better of me.
The afternoon was spent watching two science classes: 7th grade Biology and 9th grade Physics (my class), which will be just two of the classes we will be teaching (Chemistry and physics (electricity) will be the others). We did find out it will be “inquiry in the lecture hall.” The front part of the classroom will be the students and then all the other visiting teachers will be watching in the back. The students did a great job of not getting distracted by us and all the cameras! We did take pictures from time to time, mostly with the flash off, but not always. The cameraman from the school was in their face a lot. The classes involved a lot of teacher talk, which is something they are trying to move away from doing. In the biology class, not only was the experiment cookbook-like (i.e. step-by-step instruction),
they actually showed the experiment on the powerpoint screen before the experiment—they could both read and see what was supposed to happen, rather than explore what was to happen. To answer questions the teacher asked, the teacher would choose a student and the student would stand and respond. The instructor would keep doing this until the correct answer was given. I felt terrible for the students, not just in a day-to-day setting would this be difficult, but imagine, 100+ people in the room watching and listening to your response as well! The children were very well behaved, and while they were working you could hear the shouts and screams of the other children playing! So tomorrow, this is our job, to introduce a lesson to the students! Each of us will teach one class, mine is physics and I’m teaching levers, which is basically biomechanics—could be interesting…I’ll keep you posted!
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