Time For "Music" Class!

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Back in February, Jarek and I decided we would find a way to make it to Hong Kong for the Asia Area Women's Conference. We agreed with the owner of a music studio to trade teaching music lessons for plane tickets to Hong Kong. I am not going to go into all the details leading up to this point - it isn't a very fun story and it would take way too long - but because of cultural differences, miscommunications, and a few other reasons we made the decision to stop teaching the class. Like I said, it is a very long story so I am not going to go into that, but what I do want to talk about is what we did during our little "music" class every Saturday for the last couple months.



It started out as a children's choir, but gradually turned into an English class as the parents were displeased that we weren't using English and that their children were being taught music instead of strictly English. When I say small choir, I am actually talking about five little kids. Peter, 10 years old; Leon, 9 years old; Eric, 8 years old; Rush, 6 years old: Amy, 9 years old. They are all great kids and we will miss them very much! The first month of classes were music classes. We began with "warm-ups" and taught them the fun ones like "Bubble gum bubble gum bubble gum" and "Mommy made me mash my M&M's." By the end of our time together, they almost mastered all the sounds! M&M's was a bit of a struggle for their little mouths to say, but they had fun! We taught them two songs from the primary song book. "Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?" and "Children All Around the World." (I wish I could post a video of them singing Summertime, but I can't access YouTube and if I could, our internet wouldn't be fast enough for an upload. See my instagram for a little snippet!) They LOVED singing loud, it's a cultural thing... so I always challenged them to sing as softly as they could and then it sounded great! Plus, I avoided a 90 minute headache. I love the enthusiasm, though! They were adorable. After about a month of teaching music, we were boldly informed that it was too "boring" and that we should just play games for 90 minutes instead. The following classes were all games. Their most favorite was a patting the beat game, which most of you probably know. After teaching them their new words based on a certain subject, we would sit in a circle. Everyone would pat and clap a beat and then we would go around the circle and each turn they had to say a word. This helped them think fast and remember their words. If one of them didn't say the word on the beat or didn't say a word at all, they were out. The winner got a sticker to put on their forehead. So simple, but it was their favorite! We also played "Mother, May I?" to teach them manners (a very important topic), an animal game, matching games, and "Four Corners."

The class isn't what we wanted it to be at all, but because of various issues, that's what it was. We were very frustrated with some of the things, but it taught us so many valuable lessons that we will use when we come back to China. For example, the power of an upset Chinese parent. The parents love for their kids to have homework and take papers home. If the kids don't, you better give them more work. After all, to a 6 year old, English is much more important than music, right?... I disagree but our hands were tied. We also learned the value of a written contract. In America, if you don't like what is going on or if something isn't as they said it was going to be, you can leave. In China, there are millions of other people to replace you and you are left without a job if you leave so the boss can walk all over you as much as he/she likes. It's a really tough place to work and I don't envy them at all. But on a more positive note, the idea that kids are the same everywhere was proven once again with every class. They love to mess around and be silly. They love to shout and run and hide. They love to feel like they did a good job. That will never change.

While we are more than relieved to be done dealing with that class, we will miss teaching it very much! The kids are so sweet and we will always remember our little "choir" class in Xi'an!

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Photos

That's Rush, the most expressive little boy we know :)

We lost.

Jarek is a great teacher :)