Teacher Learning

This past week was my most challenging week of teaching thus far. I am no longer too worried about lesson planning, and I have grown accustomed to the scaffolding of my own lesson plans as well as the mystery of whether or not my students will comprehend the topic(s). No--instead the challenges of this past week centered upon my ability to discipline children. Early on in a Monday afternoon class, I was presented with a teacher’s rite of passage: breaking up a fight.

Granted, this duty is a little more stressful and trying with older students who present more of a threat to a fight mediator. I still feel like more of a teacher on this side of that incident.

A particular child in one of my fourth grade classes was not paying attention. Instead of helping to recite the months of the year and instead of demonstrating knowledge of ordinal numbering in dates, he was using a compass and protractor to crush what I think was pencil lead but looked like it could have also been terra cotta—children will always have their mysteries. After the fleeting thought questioning what the hell he was doing passed through my head, I confiscated the protractor and the ground led/terra cotta. As I was returning to the raised podium at the front of the class, another child (sitting directly in front of the one crushing the mysterious substance) said something in Chinese and handed me The Crusher’s compass. I took it and attempted to resume class by throwing a ball to yet another student and by asking, “What day is your birthday?”

Before an answer, The Crusher had gotten out of his seat, assumed a look of ire, and had seized the lapel of the student who had gotten The Crusher’s compass confiscated as well. (The second child’s self-appointed name, by the way, is Bobo: “Like the clown!”) For a few milliseconds, I bemusedly reflected on how traditional of a way this was to start a fight. For a few more milliseconds, I expected to hear The Crusher shout something like: “You swine! I challenge you to a duel, you nefarious fiend.” And for a few more milliseconds, I placed internal bets on how quickly the fight would end given the fact that The Crusher was one of the smaller children in the class (maybe 4’ and 40-ish pounds) and that Bobo was one of the heftier children in the class (maybe 4’ 5” and 80-ish pounds).

Still, not a second passed before I jumped off the raised podium and began pulling The Crusher off of Bobo—who was barely exerting effort to resist The Crusher’s challenge. The tenacious Crusher through a punch that landed right on Bobo’s left ear; still seated, Bobo pushed The Crusher into the desks across the narrow aisle. I stepped up my intervention a notch, seeing that my restraint of force for the sake of not accidentally hurting the students may actually result in them hurting themselves through an escalation of force.

I pried The Crusher’s hands off of Bobo’s lapel and lifted The Crusher by his own lapel with my right arm while holding Bobo back with a stiff-left-arm. As The Crusher thrashed futilely while dangling in the air, the class laughed at his expense. The Crusher punched me in the chest.

Singa[pore]: Simple Song

MacRitchie Reserve

Tuesday, 21/09:

"All day, I grouchily lament having to battle time and the elements as two oncoming events:

1) A typhoon
2) My three day vacation to Singapore.

I desperately pedal through unrelenting rain to get to the bank to withdraw money to exchange for Hong Kong dollars (gangbi). Then, I endure soggy socks and drenched pants to top-up the pay-as-you-go minutes on my phone 'just in case of emergency in Singapore.'

The whole time, I am trying to forget my fifth grade class that knew less than my third graders. And, the whole time I am trying to forget my fourth grade class that tried my patience nearly to its breaking point. The whole time, I wonder if my efforts are in vain as I am not even sure that I will make it to the Hong Kong airport in time to catch my Tiger Airlines flight that may be cancelled due to weather...And so, the whole time I wonder whether I even want to continue this battle with time and the elements.

I decide 'yes,' though my gut tells me I could have just as easily decided otherwise. I need this independent adventure; I need to feel the replenishing spirit of exploration and discovery.

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival Means Vacation!

I start to feel it as I walk to my bus stop--all the while, receiving stares for my hunchbacked poncho covering a backpack stuffed with a weekend's worth of miscellany. I am walking to catch a bus to get to the border crossing so I can walk across the border to catch a bus to catch a subway to catch a train to the airport, where I can catch a flight to Singapore--where I will catch a bus to catch a subway to my hostel. I realize it will take a small miracle to ensure all goes swimmingly despite the torrential downpour and forecasted typhoon.

The Zen Pedagogy [Dammit!]

I have found that being a foreign language instructor who does not speak the native language of his pupils has reduced me to two forms: reflecting shifter and aggravated grump. When I am the former, I picture myself like this; when I am the latter, I picture myself like this. Sometimes I transition between the two within one class period.

The zen side emerges when I encounter some success in teaching my students through a series of steps:
1) Awareness that I must reduce my speech to a basic level;
2) Passively slipping into a comfortable, concise, but very simple form of speech;
3) Seeing a glint in their eyes as they seem to have received a subconscious transmission from my brain to theirs--a transmission that imparts meaning where once there was none for the word "tired."

And it is in these moments of cosmic brilliance that I am optimistic for my current occupation. I become all the more reflective on the process by which I have created meaning in someone else's head. But, this, I believe, is where I fall out of the zen-like line of pedagogical communication.

I become too conscious about the process instead of letting it wash over me; maybe I am too resistant to remaining in an extended negation of my own education just so I can communicate with my students. To appropriately communicate with them (as they are just starting to learn a new language), I must respect them as adults, treat them as children, and teach them words as if they were babies. To do this appropriately, I need to think of what language is useful to a baby (or young child) just learning to speak. To do this appropriately, I need to, sort of, think what is useful to a baby (or young child) linguistically and pedagogically speaking.

Sometimes when I am lesson planning or [trying] to speak with students, I become all-too-aware of how simplified the language I am using is; then, I fear I am belittling the student. But, I see his or her lack of comprehension. So, I smile and continue repeating a phrase or word--all the while trying to encourage them to not worry about the 49 peers staring at him or her and, often, laughing at him or her. As I repeat the phrase or word, I see a look of pained fear and angered irritation cross their eyes (it washes over them just as easily as that aforementioned look of comprehension). Then, I become aware of how terribly annoying and cruel I must sound: I am verbally hammering a word into their face ("Mad. Mad. Mmmmmm-aaaaa-d. Mad. Mad. Mad. MAD. MAAAAAD.") while increasing my volume to compensate for the increasing volume of the classroom behind me. This poor kid must feel like I am yelling at him or her while his or her classmates are pointing and laughing. I sense someone behind me is goofing-off. I have so many reasons I want to escape this spiraling situation; I can only imagine how this kid feels. I start sweating. Or, at least, I become conscious of how much I am sweating. I smile and accept the kid's shaky-voiced attempt: "Blad."

"Blad."

School Lite

A few significant events have happened at my school recently. Each event presented its own unique, laughable discomforts.

Prior to last Monday, Charlie had "asked" me (read: "implored" me) to write a short speech for the "International Flag Raising Ceremony" that would take place on said Monday. Five minutes after Charlie had left the room, he returned and asked: "Elie, have you finished your speech yet?"

So, I whipped out a two-to-three-minute speech that addressed my gratefulness to my headmaster for accepting me in the community, that promoted the necessity of international comaraderie, that expounded upon the importance of cross-cultural exchange, and that encouraged China and the U.S. to responsibly regard their roles as global leaders. Of course, I dumbed the speech down just a bit so that my audience (1st through 6th grade Chinese students with little-to-no ability to comprehend English) would understand the gravity of my motivational words.

Me and Charlie

I arrived to school last Monday just in time to have two sesame balls stuffed with red bean and a bowl of congee before dropping my bag in my office to the loudspeakers blaring the school's anthem. Charlie anxiously put his arm around me, "Elie, International Flag Ceremony is now. Where is your speech?" He picked up the speech print-out from my desk, handed it to me, and offered his translation services.

After five minutes of unfiltered sunshine, a realization about the "International Flag Ceremony" washed over me--the wash being coordinated with the sweat my body was purging in response to the sweltering temperatures. "International Flag Ceremony" was "oooeeeooiii-National Flag Ceremony." Charlie struggled with saying the word "national" without a prefix.

The Inconvenience of Convenience

I mentioned in previous posts that I had bought a bicycle as one of my first orders of business upon setting foot in Shenzhen. When I purchased the bike, I did so with the help of Charlie (my contact teacher at my school) and Anson (the contact teacher at Caitlin's school). Anson had recently purchased at least two bikes from this particular shop. I felt secure in the transaction--having two locals who could also operate as translators, arbiters of quality, and testifiers to the shop's trustworthiness--and have since realized that that may have been a false sense of security.

Within three days of buying my brand new blue bike, I exerted a little too much force when hauling up a hill to make a lunch date. Consequently, the rubber pedals both broke. I MacGyver-ed the pedals to the bike using cardboard and duct tape; I realized, however, that this was only temporary.

My New Digs

I live in the Yantian district of Shenzhen. In my limited experience of the city, my district is by far the most laid back; I particularly enjoy the vibe of my "village." Yantian is composed of four "villages" (certainly nomenclature left-over from before Deng Xiaoping converted the Shenzhen fishing village into the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone metropolis), the first "village" being furthest east from the center of Shenzhen city and the fourth being my home and that of the district's government.

My street leading up to Wutong Mtn.

Here in fourth village, Yantian district, Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, Planet Earth, there is a pleasant blend of congested shopping streets with mainstream restaurants (both Western and Chinese) and alley-way neighborhoods with removed eateries.

Recallibrating My Settings: Nowist waijiao

I have gotten so used to moving and being in limbo this past year that I feel as though I am a robot when it comes to shifting my expectations: Peace Corps conundrums leaving me without plan (and without home), job searching in a relentlously baren job market, moving to Portland, moving back to Ann Arbor, moving to China, and, within the span of four days, moving from Beijing to a hotel in northern Shenzhen (via train) to my new apartment in eastern Shenzhen. Why should I expect anything other than more shifts in expectations?

The real kicker question: If I expect that I will have to shift my expectations, am I really shifting my expectations ever? Then, what am I actually expecting?

After I successfully "defend my honor" in a futbol match with other teachers from my school (Shenzhen Haitao Primary School), C calls me to let me know that the Shenzhen Bureau of Education has scheduled our apartment to be remodeled starting the next evening; we have less than 24 hours to move-out, and we will do so on the day before school begins. C'est la vie. The following conversation occurs between my contact teacher (Charlie) and me.