Nov. 19, 2016
11:30 pm
Beijing, China
Do you know what the best thing to hear after a really long day of work? A “good job” from your boss. I promise this blog is not going to be me saying, “Oh, look, I’m such a great teacher. Every thing is perfect and this is all a breeze.” It is anything but. Yet, it was still amazing to finish my day with Emily telling me I’m doing well.
So let me start at the very beginning, a very good place to start (Sorry, couldn’t resist). I haven’t done a step-by-step blog in a while. I’ll try to make this one interesting.
Like every other Saturday for the next year, I had to be at work by 8:15. I should have known today was going to be crazy by the experience I had trying to get coffee. Let me preface this with stating that Laranda is a bit of an unusual person, but not in a bad way. In fact, it’s a very good way. She’s very happy and loves to say hello to everyone, even though she knows no Chinese. Now, when I came in to work today, none of the coffee places were open. Five minutes later, Cameron came in and mentioned that Laranda was downstairs getting coffee. Apparently some place had just opened as I came upstairs. So I went down to get coffee. The lady there had told Laranda (with Jenny’s help) that it would be 10 minutes before she could get coffee, but we had time, so we got muffins while we waited.
Well, 10 minutes turned into 15 and then 20 and we had to pay so we weren’t late. But the lady would not let us pay. She didn’t have any cash, which she didn’t tell us beforehand. And we couldn’t pay with WeChat because another lady (who wasn’t there) had to accept it. All of this would have been completely understandable except that none of us could speak the same language. I even tried to get her to type what she was saying into Google Translate to try to get some idea, but she wouldn’t. Now, in case you’re wondering, no, Chinese people are not like Americans when it comes to dealing with foreigners. In the US, if you encounter someone who doesn’t speak English, you usually slow down and try to find a way to communicate. If that doesn’t work, you just give up. That doesn’t happen in China. If you don’t speak Chinese, they don’t care. They will keep speaking lots of Chinese extremely quickly and assume that you’ll just pick it up. They usually don’t even add in hand gestures or anything. Sometimes dealing with the language barrier here is pretty tough (aka all the time, lol). Needless to say, I finally did get to pay. The other lady showed up and I paid on WeChat. It all ended up working out, but I did not get coffee 🙁
My first class of the day was a new Small Stars A class at 8:45. It was pretty uneventful and the same as usual. The kids are really cute. Then I had a 2 hour break before lunch. After lunch, though, things got crazy. At 1:30 I had to teach a brand new High Flyer C. Now I didn’t realize until I was planning, but I have never taught a whole High Flyers class. I haven’t even taught an hour (which is half of a class). The most I had taught was 15 minutes and that was a total flop. So, as you can guess, the class did not go extremely well. For the first hour, everyone was super bored, including myself. I tried to interject some games, but with all the bookwork, it’s really hard to find time. Plus I’m still trying to get my timing down. Second hour was much better. My timing was better and we got to do more activities that got us out of our seats. We sang songs and laughed. Second hour was good. The only thing that was not good about that class was Geminy.
Geminy is a boy who is very very intelligent, but he refused to listen to any of my instructions. He would not put his books away. He kept taking out his pencils. He squeaked his chair desk (a big no-no in any High Flyer classroom because if one student does it, then everyone does it). I took away stars and he didn’t care. I took his books until it was time for the activities; he didn’t care. I put him on a team for behavior management; he didn’t care. In fact, when he got points taken away from his team, he went after a girl who called him out on it. I threatened to put him in a Small Star (baby) chair; he wouldn’t stop. I did put him in a Small Star chair; he just scooted around the classroom. I was almost tempted to throw him out of the classroom and have a TA call his parents. I literally had no idea of what to do with him. It was the first time I’d actually had to deal with real behavior problems and I felt a bit overwhelmed. And then, on top of that, I had to explain to a PA why I gave him yellow stickers instead of blue (stickers here are really important). She seemed to understand, though.
While that class was not fun, my last class was a TON of fun. It was a new High Flyers G that I covered for Gretchen. Now I’d met this class before when I first started by co-teaching and I watched their achievement ceremony (when they “graduate” from one book to another), so I knew the kids somewhat. Yoyo, definitely the most advanced student in the class, loves me for some reason. Ever since that first day, any time she sees me she gets so excited and gives me a hug. I love it. Anyway, I went into the room before class to do some necessary things for the first class. We had fun and goofed off a bit before class actually started. Again, my timing wasn’t the best for that class, so we didn’t play all of the games I wanted. But, we got through all of the bookwork and had fun while doing it. And they seemed to grasp the language, so mission accomplished. Not going to lie, I really wish that was my class for good.
So all of this ends with me being exhausted, but still needing to stay a little late to finish planning for tomorrow. Emily, my Center Director, comes in and sees me still working about an hour and a half later. She checks in on me and asks how I’m doing. I tell her I’m doing well. She then tells me that I’m doing a really good job. At first it sounds kind of hollow because Emily has never seen me teach, but I’m grateful nonetheless. But she follows it up by saying that the PAs and TAs all really like me and say that I’m good at teaching. She said even the CCs (basically our sales people) told her that the students like me. She said that Brian and I are fitting in and doing very well. At this point, I’m stunned into silence. I thank her for telling me and say that I hope I can live up to that expectation. We say goodnight, but then she’s back in a few minutes to give me a glass of watermelon juice. I think she’s afraid that I’m not eating 🙂
Anyway, it was a nice way to end my day. Tomorrow, it’s another 3 classes. 6 hours of teaching. Wish me luck! For now, I’m off to bed.
Words to Remember: James 1:19-27
Challenge: Think of a conversation you had today. What percentage did you spend talking? What percentage did you spend listening? Is this a healthy amount? As you go through today (or tomorrow) be mindful of your conversations and try to be a better listener. Ask Abba to help you listen for Him and speak words that are helpful and positive.
Goodnight and Bless,
Kristen
