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Published: October 15th 2009
The lecture hall from the back
I would estimate about 150 teachers were there.Let me start off by apolgizing for not blogging yesterday. To make a long story short..it was out last night in Wuxi and our hosts took it as a personal and cultural insult if you did not get completly hammered with them. I would not call myself hammered, but I did not have to take Advil PM to sleep if you know what I mean. A few of the group members were favorites of Dr. Hua and had to be helped to the bus and to bed 😊. Therefore, I was not up for blogging last night. I know that you were all on pins and needles to hear about my lesson so here is the play by play:
So, the day started like the last couple of days, with me getting up around 6am, Skyping with Josh and going down to the hotel lobby for breakfast where I ate fried eggs and toast, since this is the only “western” style meal of the day. I had been all over the board about this lesson from really excited (thinking it was going to be a raging success) to dread (thinking that it is going to be a raging failure). Helen
My beautifull diagram
I spent a long time animating this slide to make all of the "CO2" bubbles rush to the mentos. and I were up very late working on the materials for our lesson so I was already tired, but surprisingly, I was not too worried or nervous about the lesson. I guess I figured that there was nothing more that we could do.
We were shuttled to the middle school in Wuxi where there were 3 slots for teaching and Helen and I were in the 3rd slot which gave us a little more time to prepare and also more time to get nervous. We were in this giant lecture hall with around 100 visiting teachers present with the students at the bottom of the auditorium. So, the first group went and they went way over on time which put the pressure on us and made me really nervous about the time. The second group went which was Ming (who did this last year) and Martin and their lesson was a giant success! The kids were very receptive and seemed to really enjoy the lesson. Then it was our turn…….When I walked up there the nervous hit and I got really worried. We got started a little rough and then we let them loose for the independent portion of
No more Inquiry
Here is nme showing the kids how to do it :( This was a hard pill to swallow. the activity (inquiry) which is where it all went to hell in a hand basket!! They had no idea what we were asking of them. Helen and I were walking around and all of their papers were blank! We had made up samples of the materials thinking that this would help them visualize but instead they started taking out the materials and trying to use them to make something…it was going down hill fast. So, with no time to come up with an alternative, we just started going to each table and showing the kids what they were suppose to do…for those of you that are new to inquiry teaching…this is breaking the golden rule!!!!! We were brought to this school to demonstrate inquiry teaching and we had just broken the cardinal rule…what is going to happen now??? We are in a communist country after all…this was worse that I had imagined. Of course, after we showed them what to do…they were able to draw their designs (what we showed them basically)…they shared their designs with the audience and then it was time to go outside for the testing of the 2 “winning” designs (chosen by Helen and me based
on what we knew would work). This part went pretty well. One worked great and one did not work very well at all. This was perfect, now it was clear that the one with the smaller opening at the top was the winner. We went back inside and “talked” about why the first design went higher. I categorize it under failure, but the kids had a good time and will have a great memory of when the Americans came to show them how to blow up Coca Cola, which is something. We got some feedback later that day and they overall consensuses was that they loved the experiment part (blow up the soda) and loved having us visit.
After the lessons, we were asked to visit the classroom of the students that participated in our lesson to see if they had any questions for us about the lesson or anything else and the dreaded question finally arose, “will you sing a song for us?” But, it was not any song in any language…they wanted Helen (who was born in Korea which fascinated the kids) to sing this specific song in Korean. She did not know the song so we
One table
There were a total of 46 students and 5 sets of tables like this one. Space was VERY limited..which I identifed as a theme in Chinese schools. asked the girl to come up and sing it for us in Chinese and she did. I have it on video and she was GREAT! So, then Helen had to sing the song in Korean after that beautiful and brave performance by this adorable little girl and I got that on video too, but I am going to refrain to post it due to the following…then after Helen the class in unicin insisted that I sing an American song for them…Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to be specific. Well…at least I know this one. So, I did it. Did I mention that they wanted us to dance while singing as well? Needless to say, no one will ever see this video. But, the best part comes next. After I was finished and there was the sympathy claps the entire class sang Twinkle in Chinese to Helen and I. And of course, I have that on video too. After the bell rang and we started to leave, one student asked for Helens e-mail address and it was like someone yelled BRAD PITT IS HERE…the students rushed us like we were rock stars and wanted our e-mail addresses. I think that they just
A drawing
This was after we had to totally guide them to this, but at least there was something on the paper when I called time. loved watching us write and wanted to have us write on their paper. It was a great moment and I even managed to get my camera to our translator to capture the moment on film. Not much else of note happened until that evening at dinner.
It was our late night in Wuxi and we were given a mini farewell dinner. I say mini because rumor has it that the farewell dinner that we will have on Saturday night will but this night to shame but more about that later. I should have been tipped off that the night would not end well when the first thing that our hosts did was separate the 2 rooms into drinker and non drinkers. Of course all know that I was in the non drinkers room. In Jinagsu Provence they have an alcoholic drink that is 45% alcohol and toxic! It smells and tastes like lacquer thinner, the drinkers room was drinking this all night and toasting none stop. The non drinkers room was drinking red wine all night and toasting non stop. I was able to just sip my red wine for the toasts until the other room got pretty happy
Did someone yell Brad Pitt?
The beginning of a 10 minute signing extraveganza. We felt like rock stars...it was very cool. and started coming into our room wanting to toast “bottoms up”…I am pretty sure that we all know that this means…it is the same in Chinese as in the US. The difference is that in China, the fuller your glass the deeper your friendship with whomever you are toasting bottoms up with. It was explained when I did not want to go bottoms up with my half full glass of red wine, that bottoms up is required for a lasting friendship because the bottom of the glasses create a laser light of friendship when the two empty glasses are pointed toward one another. Not doing bottoms up when asked was like spitting on the other person and their extension of friendship. I came out of this night fairly unscathed. Although I was totally unable to blog last night due to this…but not drunk. Ming, Martin Jon and Leo (the males of our group), did not fair as well. I was a tiny bit concerned that we would be carrying Ming to his bed or to the ER for alcohol poisoning and Martin…well…that poor guy was just a very sad sight. We stayed there for what seemed like 6 hours but
was really only 2.5. The ride back to the hotel was memorable (at least for me and Helen) but t hose details will have to be told at another time. While still at dinner (toward the end of the night) I was hit on by Raymond (one of our translators) which would have been flattering if he was not forcing me to take a shot of the “dragon fire” and would not take no for an answer. I was offended and uncomfortable, but I guess that comes with the territory when you are around a lot of drunk men. We all made it back safely and everyone was functional this morning.
Ps the title of this blog was a quote from one of our translators at the beginning of dinner. He was straight faced and totally serious and that is what made it so endearing and so so funny to me.
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Peggy
non-member comment
Lesson sounds good to me!
Mariah, you always beat yourself up over your teaching...and you really are great at it. Inquiry learning is not for everyone, and you knew that from the moment you realized the kids were SILENT in the classroom. It appears that flexibility is not part of the curriculum...I am betting you were the bomb...pun totally intended! And, I think you are probably cooler than Brad Pitt...he just gets more P.R.