Teaching in China

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What teaching in China is like...

1) Kids name themselves funny names. Since they're all Chinese, they give themselves English names, here are a list of names of students who are either in my class or my friends' classes. (All boys.)
- Kazzer, Near, East, Eleven, Nine, Cloud, Determination, Victory, Glory, Dicky, Wudy, Zero, Sven (Small asian kid), Rainforest, Ever, Neo, Icerain, Milk, Bacon (because his chinese name is Pei Jun, and he thought it sounded close to Bacon.), Vicent (he meant it to be Vincent, but he spelled it wrong, and so kept his wrongly spelt name, thereby confusing all teacers.) Jackwilson, Ringo, Starr (They sit next to each other in class), I have two Leslie's (one spelled Leslie, one Lesley), Lesire, Druid, Alucard (yes, i was quite confused about this one at first also, until my friend explained to me, "Alucard is dracula..backwards.") Jay Z, Kanye, Akon, Lebron (NERDY CHINESE KIDS.).

And last year, my friend taught a student who named himself God. .. .yes. God.
Funny thing was that in his class, he sat next to a student named Lucifer. And they were best buddies. Yes. God and Lucifer were best buddies.

2) Grade 10 students stand up when they answer questions.

3) Sept 10th, is national teacher's day. SO, for teacher's day, we had a ceremony outside, where all the teachers stood in a line, faced the students. And the students told us how much they appreciated teachers, and how much they love us. And then they presented us all with flowers, and then did a group dance for us. Imagine 800 chinese boys doing an interpretive dance to a song sung by the Chinese version of Celine Dion. It took a lot of self-control for me not to burst out laughing.
The speech that was given ended with, "and teachers, we love you."
The representative for teh teacher's also ended his speech with, "and students, we all love you."
We would be imprisoned and slapped with the label of pedo if we said that in Canada.

4) I got the students to write letters about themselves to me, and 85% of the letters ended with, "i hope we can be best friends, teacher!"

5) Awkward moments during my 2 week teaching career:

a) I walk into the classroom on the first day, and all the students go, "waaaaaaaaaaa". I then get leered at by 25 boys. Then when i asked why they took Chem 11, one smartass boy pipes up, "because we knew you were teaching it!"

b) As all the students leave my class after school, one kid stays behind, and comes up to me and says, "Teacher, you look very beautiful today.". I automatically look to the classroom door to ensure that the door is open and that i'm not alone in a closed up classroom with a student. ahh..

c) i'm doing an activity with them where they race to zip up and zip down their jacket zippers without using their thumbs. they get it done really easily, and i sorta complain that it would be a lot harder if they had buttons on their shirts to unbutton. one kid shouts out, "teacher! u have buttons on your shirt!" another kid starts to make his way towards me...hands out. i bat him away, and quickly run back to my podium to re-establish my quickly waning authority.

6) since they're all basically ESL, it gets pretty difficult trying to teach them science. I gave them a test with the sentence, "you need to figure out how the amount of water affects plant growth." After the test is given, all the students raise their hands with the same question: "What does "figure out", "amount" and "affect" mean?" I almost died.

My friend who teaches math asked the question, "What is the slope of the line?" A student raised up his hand, and asked:

"Teacher, what does "of" mean?"

7) Chinese students have to have mandatory exercise break for 25 minutes every. single. day. So after second period, all the kids go outside into the court year, thus leaving all the teachers 25 minutes to rush their lesson plans for the next period. And it's pretty funny, because all i hear coming from outside when i'm cramming my lessons is, (in mandarin), "one! Two! three!, one! two! free! four!...etc.", and i look outside, and there's rows and rows of Chinese boys doing jumping jacks and lunges in sync to the speaker.

8) Awkward moments: a continuation.
So before class starts, i'm sorta just hanging out in my room talking to the kids in the class. And i turn to the door, and i see three or four boys at the doorway poking their heads in. since they're not mine, i shoo them away. one of my students come to me afterwards, and says, "teacher, do you want to know a seceret?", and i was like..err..okay. and he's like, "those are my friends, they look in because they want to watch you and stare at you."
commence awkward laugh.

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Comments

[Stefgie]

Aaaaaahahahahahahaha!!! Poor Leskie. It's okay, just another couple of months.

[Scott]

Good thing this popped up in my old email inbox
I would've pissed myself during the "teacher we love you" ceremony. I better gets me some of that lovin' during my first TA class next week. I also enjoy how you've become the hottie of the faculty. I remember some of the comments made toward the more aesthetically pleasing members of Hansen's faculty and all I have to say is good-luck. At least you're on the ground-floor and won't be affected as much when the Chinese become our supreme masters and overlords. Keep up the postin' wish my life was as interesting right now. -Scott PS Give Ringo and Starr A's for me.

[JF]

China is cooooool
I want to meet Milk.