Adventures in the Dragon Cemetery

So (post-very-tragic-computer-death) I’m FINALLY reviving my book illustration project for English teachers in rural China. The idea is to make a (free! yayy) series of cheaply printable books (aligned with the PEP curriculum) for students to read as extra material. 
Sadly, the computer crash also deleted my scripts and ideas for the rest of the books. If anybody wants to contribute scripts or ideas, please email or message me! 

Answers to FAQ:
- No, I don’t get paid for this. 
- I am doing this because I promised my clever little 7th graders books and comic books as extra reading material. (I will have to make books real fast now to keep that promise! D:) 
- Yes, I would give you credit — you could be famous throughout rural villages everywhere in Yunnan and Guangdong (and also, Suzhou, hehe)! 
- Yes, you can read the ones I’ve already written. Yes, you can use them if you are not a TFC teacher. You can use them if you’re in America, actually. 

What’s the catch?  There basically is none.  All I want is to make as many quality books as quickly as possible for students who otherwise will not encounter English books in their lives to suddenly have a library of fun reading material.  

So I will be in Wudaokou, Beijing, starting sometime early/mid-July!  I’ll be working on:

• developing a training guide for English kouyu teachers (with BEAM Alliance.  We’ll also be compiling data we collect during the semester to help with this.
• an illustration commission — it’s a graphic novel for kids about Ninjas!  This will be exciting because it will also mostly pay for me to live this summer.  Haha…
• finishing up some work from a previous big commission: 1) some art for a scoreboard app and b) removing word bubbles from pages of the book for conversion to an e-book.
• the art in a game called Candlelight, produced by Idle Actions.
• continuing my previous project of PEP-aligned, easily printable books for rural classrooms!

Sounds like…I’ll be very busy this summer, so I’ll try to bang out a couple of these projects this semester (or at least get a good head start.)  I’ll head back to Zhen’an sometimes late August for the new school year.  :D

So I noticed some major differentiation problems in the classroom — the brighter kids like kouyu class but think that our pace is far too slow for their genius brains, and some kids completely don’t know their ABCs.

That is tough.

One of my attempts of differentiation (and better use a specific kouyu method - WAYK) involved splitting my classes up into separate groups based on what I thought their “skill level” to be.  Each ban has a different experimental number.  243 has many small groups of about 6-8 students, 246 has 5 small groups of about 10-12, and so on and so forth.  Some groups had some “sleeper” members; a quick learner in one of my slow groups, or a lazy but smart slacker in a fast group.

Because the classroom is crampy and the desks are not arranged ideally, I also took them (wait for it…wait for it…) OUTSIDE for class!  (AAAAAAAaaaa!)

I had them sit at the cafeteria in little pods, and then I went around, spending about 5 minutes per group, giving each group new information to practice and teach itself.

I appointed a “teaching leader” and a “behavior leader” for each group: the teaching leader was generally the quickest student in the group (or a student I had worked with one on one before) and responsible for helping out slower students in the group, and the behavior leader was responsible for making sure students didn’t run away or goof off like idiots.

Pros:

a) Well, an obvious pro is that it’s FUN to have class outside (plus more teaching attention and learning with friends and not all those other fools in the classroom) and in groups, and

b) students teaching other students is def one of my favorite things.  I had one student from 244, Matt, who isn’t all too well-behaved or particularly quick in class, but who once helped me tutor three problem students (they can barely write Chinese. o_o) 

I told him, hey, I actually think you have pretty great leadership and teaching abilities, and instantly, he became a fantastic teacher, helping to spoon-feed and correct within his group.

Also, c) The “faster” kids didn’t feel as much that the “slower” kids were holding them back (this is a common complaint I receive…), and the slower kids are able to receive more digestible information.

Cons:

a) students may goof off if you don’t hound them constantly like you do in the classroom.  

b) students may run away (if outdoors) …this happened in one of my classes.  I gave three of them detention and stern talking-tos.

c) students may feel sad if they are in the “slow” group (try to make it not so obvious that there’s a “basic” group…)

TIPS:

• Do not do this activity in the cafeteria right before lunch time.  Students will look at you with puppy eyes and drooling mouths and beg for food.  
• Make the group leader(s) feel like they have been entrusted with the world’s most important mission.
• Teach students HOW to help out other students.  I’m going to maybe have a separate meeting with leaders to do this, or perhaps devote some time to this during class.  
• Make sure there are more than two girls per group.  Two boys (well behaved ones) will generally assimilate into a larger group of girls, but two girls will just basically sit in their corner of the group and cry.
• Do not have an all boy group, unless you are SURE they are little angels.  (Like my “basic” group in 243.  They are angels and just occupied themselves, while struggling immensely, with “Do you have a pen?” “No, I do not have a pen.”)  All boy groups, unless little angels, may: 1) start a riot, 2) run away, 3) never practice.
• Remember to say ALL your rules when they are still in their seats in the classroom.  Teaching outside is a totally different animal than teaching inside the classroom.  ACK.

…was not as great as I hoped it would be.  (note: PDC stands for Professional Development Conference, and it’s a mandatory conference that Fellows must attend every few months or so.)   I was glad to see people though!  Some thoughts:

• We had a session on breaking “barriers,” where we were asked to come up with “barriers” to our ideal classrooms.  Then we were given some time to write “solutions” to these barriers and stick them on the poster.  If we could all come up with neat, tidy, five minute solutions to our huge teaching problems (ie. “The school took away six of my English classes because it’s not a priority here!” or “I’m exhausted all the time because this job is crazy demanding.” or “Students’ parents aren’t very supportive of education.”), I think we’d all be perfect teachers now.  Also, - “If you loved your job, you’d never be tired!”  That’s…almost offensive coming from a higher-up staff member.  
• The FAC-led session, where Fellows could discuss problems within TFC, was for the most part good!  Bad part: (Foreign) staff staring at us, watching us talk, and pursing their lips during Fellow discussion time.  I felt judged for pointing out ways that TFC doesn’t function perfectly.  At least the Chinese staff member present just seemed to be attentively listening…
• For our subject-specific training, our moderator (??) showed up seven minutes late, and then informed us that we should just discuss amongst ourselves. Uh…
• “Let the Children Speak” - it sounded like an appealing topic, but in the end, the session was confusingly organized, and it sounded like the moderators didn’t have experience in using the Socratic Method in their own classrooms.  (or just didn’t let on during the presentation?)
• Founder of NGO delivered an excruciatingly long speech, which was translated into Chinese every few minutes, about his white savior complex.  Not the worst speech though which I’ve sat… (but it was really long…)

Generally, I was a bit disappointed, because I learned a lot from the Mid-Year PDC in terms of techniques (study skills, vocab sessions, kouyu techniques, 2nd-year and 2nd-semester fellow advice.)  Oh well!  >_<

Some friends came over on Saturday, and I made for them:

• Korean BBQ Tacos, Salsa

• French Fries (tip: double-deep fry them!) + Wai’s hand.

• Pasta (this time, with ground meat added in :O)

• Pancakes, drizzled with honey and topped with Apple Compote

One friend also made her famous super sugary sangria.  I don’t drink, but I had a sip and it was tasty!

And then we played Super Smash and Mario Kart!  And Munchkin at night (the first time the game has ever resulted in a tie).  

Today was the first day of my third week teaching here at 龙陵二中.

All my mornings classes (242, 243) didn’t go…super well.  I forgot at least one (sometimes small, sometimes major) thing from each lesson. (ie. suddenly forgot the TPR for “eat breakfast” and just resolved to teach that another day.)

Behavior-wise, a lot of 242, which is normally my sweetest and best behaved class, was spaced out and disengaged.  Aaaa!  243 was ill-behaved in their first period with me (I introduced a new “management plan” that tracked their behavior as a class on the board under a happy face and a sad face), but was angelic during their second period.  ”Management plan” is in quotes because generally the class self-polices itself because they tend to just want more points under the happy face. .

Or 243 was angelic during second period because Sebastian ditched class.  (Er…hope not.)

I also had 晚自习 (night time classes) with 246 and 244.  I was really apprehensive about my class with 246 because of the Zhao Tan/Clifford incident from last class, so I wasn’t sure how to approach them.  (More on this in a separate blog post later.)  The class was extremely ill-behaved, and I had them stay after class for 9 minutes (they had 10 marks under the sad face, and 1 mark under the happy face.)  I told them that I wanted kouyu class to be fun for them, and I wanted to be nice to them and give them a break from the rigors of their normal schedule, but they had completely taken advantage and just went wild.  

After class, 246’s best student approached me and asked if I were a little angry with them.  ”No,” I told her.  ”I’m really just disappointed.”

The class was pretty chastened.

My second night class was with 244, which was absolutely angelic, earning 10 points under the happy face, and two points under the sad face.  (like, a record score of goodness.)

The happy point of my day was when my girl students from 242 (most of the ban) came over to my room right before my 晚自习 and asked me to watch their 手语 performance practice.  It was super adorable.  

Also…they didn’t know I was born and educated in America.

…

… 

Uh.  That explains a lot, I guess?

As the four us (our team is two Chinese fellows, one male, one female; two foreign fellows, one white male, and me — the TFC “standard team”) settle into our third week here, I’ve had some time to notice and ponder some uncomfortable things.

1. When we first met our principal, he was mostly really interested in talking to our Chinese male fellow, which makes sense. 
2. Our principal loves to show off our white male fellow.  He likes showing the school that we have two foreign teachers.  When 龙陵5中 came to our school for a “Communications Meeting,” the four of us, despite having nothing to offer to the meeting, were invited to attend.  At the meeting, two of our young female local teacher friends were there….serving tea to everyone.  (ACK, cringe.)
3. Our principal said to me a few times, “You look Chinese like us, so maybe your students won’t be as excited to see you as they are to see Chris.”  (re: I am not as excited to have you as I am to have the white male fellow.)
4. Our school is eager to keep its relationship with TFC good.  As a result, within a week of our arrival, the school built us a shower in our courtyard.  This benefits all the teachers that live in our courtyard, because, now we all can just shower in our courtyard and not have to go across the street and pay 5 rmb, but …I still feel kind of bad.  As a local teacher remarked to me, “We’ve been here for two years and he didn’t build a shower for us, but you guys have been here for two days, and they start construction.” …:|
5. The local teachers teach roughly 30 classes a week on average.  We teach 15 each; one of us teaches 16.  Their workload doubles ours…and there are several teachers our age living with us.  I understand why we have a smaller workload (uh, we’re fledgling teachers joining mid-semester), but somehow I also feel like quite the slacker in comparison.
6. Local teachers came on the first week to observe the white male fellow’s 口语 class, but not mine or the two other Chinese fellows.  He and I teach the exact same curriculum and the exact same lessons.  Is this discrepancy because he’s white and we are not?  (Yes, lol, do I even really have to ask?)  (Also…not to say that he doesn’t do a great job. XD)
7. Everyone in our team is paler than the local community, Chinese or not.