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The life and times of Liltay in China: 2006 - 2007 |
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Entries: 1 - 5 of 152
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Entry for May 30, 2007
TESTING
I *hate* blogging
Actually, I love to write, but using blogs is just not my thing. Especially when they tweak out as much as this Yahoo 360 blog has been tweaking. In honor of my growing annoyance with it, I've moved the blog to another publisher (am I using the terminology correctly?) and this will be the last entry (as far as I know) to this particular site.
Until I can re-work the blog and the website so that accessing the new blog is as seamless as possible, you'll have to get to it by going here:
http://liltayinchina.com/blog
Alrighty. I wash my hands of Yahoo 360!
Show-Lesson Onslaught
I’ve discussed the elusive show-lesson before. Elusive in that we, the foreign teachers, have yet to find real meaning in them. Now, as self-important as that might sound, YOU try sitting in on some of the Chinese co-teacher show lessons and then try telling me that they are important and valuable and can teach a native English speaker how to better teach English. I am fully aware that there are many, many things I do not know about teaching English to little Chinese children. However, listening to a new teacher say the word, “pleese-ooohmahn” for “policewoman” seventeen hundred times is not the best approach for teaching me some of the knowledge I lack. And, being a Westerner, I am fully aware of my superior air here (and do apologize if it offends): the idea that I know better than people who’ve been doing this for years, but even Mr. Ye would suggest that we know some things better than those that have been doing it for years, hence the desire to have Westerners teaching in the first place.
For example, each foreign teacher carries with her the confidence of knowing the language and it’s nuances front and back. Even if we’re not all formally trained as teachers, knowing the language as well as we do automatically puts us in a better position than a young man or woman just graduated from a teaching college, with English as a second language. Now the problem begins when foreigners let this automatic superiority (for lack of a better word) justify laziness in other areas of the job. Now that I think about it, it certainly isn’t superiority and I should try harder for a better word…advantage expresses my meaning more precisely. So, we’ve got this advantage and it allows some of us to become lazy and forget that this job of teaching the little people, like anything else in life, is real and should be done with the utmost care and concentration.
I started out this entry to discuss my own situation at Wuchang Experimental Primary School and how that situation has been turned on its head twice now – which means I’m back on top. Somehow, I’ve gone off into dangerous territory – critiquing my peers, and I’ll stop here because nothing good can come of it. So let me get back on track.
So show-lessons. For a while there, we were watching Chinese co-teacher show-lessons. And then, about three weeks ago, we all attended two classes of Roy and Angela, a married British couple who worked for the school last year. I found that I learned a bit from Angela’s lesson, and a little less from Roy’s lesson, although I found them both to be very good teachers. I think I resolved myself to the show-lessons as being as mandatory and annoying as say, a required review of a co-worker or a required self-review, both of which I’ve had to do in more than one job back home.
And then, this past Wednesday (a week ago tomorrow), we all gathered to watch Matthew and Colin do their show lessons. They both went pretty well. Afterwards, Mr. Ye brought all of the co-teachers and all of the foreign teachers together in the center of the room and asked us to critique what we’d just watched. He is the worst mediator possible, I might add and it was über-unnerving. After a few mediocre comments about lovely teaching aides and lots of energy in front of the class, Mr. Ye informed the group of forty that Lisa and I would be next. At the moment, I was flattered. For some reason, I feel that Mr. Ye is show casing his favorites. I think I have this feeling because of the compliments he gave in a meeting several weeks ago where he called out Roy, Angela, Colin, Lisa and myself as having very good lesson planning books. That’s all I’m going on here, but I needed the imaginary build-up at the time because I was having an all-time teaching low last week. I was confused, bumbling in class, lacking the energy to make teaching aides or really think through the lessons before presenting them and the classes were reflecting my confusion and disorder in their class time chaos.
The only thing I was enjoying about my job last week was Kindergarten. I’d finally cast off the self-imposed shackles of order and decorum and was just having fun and running around playing and speaking English during class. Mostly the children laugh and giggle through tears of joy during Kindergarten these days. It makes for quite an end to each busy day. I put 80% of the blame for my upsetting week last week on two things: another cold and the finishing up of the novel challenge. With the “novel” out of the way, I feel rejuvenated and much more excited about all of the other things going on in my life. I’ve also crossed the hump of my cold and now just have the green phlegm (sorry!) and slightly scratchy throat to contend with.
So I had a restful weekend and came to school ready to give it my all yesterday (Monday) and it was a blissful day. Midterms were last week for all grades and after midterms, there is always a week of visiting parents. The parents decide what two classes they’d like to sit in on and both of my Grade 2 classes chose English while only my Grade 1B class chose English. I had the parent show lesson for Grade 1 on Monday. It went so well! I was able to disentangle from all of my worries and insecurities about being a teacher for just a moment to see that the children were in love with me and that the parents looked satisfied and happy. Christy and I were a well-oiled machine and 1B is such a joy to teach. I’ve chosen them to be the class that I use for my show-lesson next week.
Then, today I had my Grade 2 parent show-lessons. I’d prepared a bit with Julia last week but created the bulk of the lesson this weekend. Season is my co-teacher this week for Grade 2 while Julia attends a conference on teaching in another province. Sandra, Ellie’s mother and the head of all of the Chinese co-teachers didn’t trust Season to help me with the show-lesson, so she placed herself in the position instead. She was very concerned that I didn’t know what I was doing and tried to micro-manage a bit. I was gracious and took a lot of her suggestions but stayed firm and true to my own methods – the ones that have proven to be successful with the Grade 2 classes, and everything went smashingly, to quote the Brits who wrote the Chatterbox material we teach. After lunch, Winnie, a co-teacher I’ve hung out with outside of school and someone I adore, told me that a parent of one of my Grade 2 children had gushed – Winnie used this exact word – about my lesson. The parent loved my “creative, colorful” teaching aides and was “shocked” to hear that I’d made them all myself. The parent also felt that I was calm and “endearing” in class and made the environment “a warm, fun place for learning”. I swear, I didn’t make this stuff up – it all came from Winnie. And, if I seem to be stroking my own ego a little too much right now, let me just say that I was DOWN IN THE DUMPS a mere week ago. I felt lost and wondered how I had possibly been chosen to teach English. It is so satisfying to get this wonderful feedback, but more importantly, I found a place of detachment in terms of the daily ups and downs this weekend that has also helped a great deal.
In the end, I’ve learned (and I’m fully expecting to learn more and more as the weeks go on) that if I throw myself into creating a simple, direct, well-thought out lesson plan and use lots of aides and tools (relevant, of course) to drive home the point of each lesson, teaching will no longer be scary but will be fun and I’ll arrive to each class as excited as I want the children to be. Suddenly, it seems so easy, and to this end, every bit of work I do has become very enjoyable and un-work-like - especially the making of the teaching aides!
I had wanted to write one more entry about something that happened this weekend that places me even further from some of my “house mates” than before, but I’ve got to make the Grade 1, Unit 5 test and teaching aides for Grade 2’s lesson tomorrow on WEATHER. I’ll have to save it, the entry, that is, for another day.
One last thing, if you’ve actually made it to the end of this entry, please try to say “hello” in the comments section. I think I might have fixed the problem…and this time Yahoo did a bit to help out!
I've gone and figured out my future!
Eureka!
I love the way things come together. The fabric of life is so delightfully woven as to give you an answer when you least expect it, especially when you’re not looking for it. I think I’ve figured out what I want my Chinese studies master’s degree to revolve around specifically: Green design. I don’t know where to start, there’s so much to say on this.
During spring quarter of my sophomore year in college, I had to write a mission statement for the admissions committee to the Industrial Design program that I wanted to be admitted to. I wrote about my love of design and well-crafted things and I wrote about my fledgling knowledge of the world’s environmental problems. I’d just finished an Environmental Chemistry course and was passionate about making the environment a better, more sustainable place. I was in that glossy, optimistic phase of life where it doesn’t matter how you do something, just as long as you know you WANT to do it. I was accepted to the program, immediately became disenchanted, overwhelmed, confused, and doubtful of my passions or how to apply them after graduation. When I did graduate from the program, I was grateful to get a job doing anything, and secretly surprised that I managed to get a job in the same field as my degree. The rosy dreams of making the world a cleaner place were long gone.
It is true though, that every time I read an article about green design or sustainable community planning, something would flutter deep in the recesses, calling out that it was still down there, just stuck under a bunch of unused gray matter. And then, I woke up to the disappointment of my job. It was an amazing job, it just wasn’t what I wanted to be doing and I didn’t know what I wanted instead. I grasped at straws; moved around within the company, feeling restless and embarrassed at my disillusionment with “the dream job”. I was sent to Hong Kong and China to work in-person on some projects of mine that were having development issues. I fell head-over-heels in love with the potential I saw in China. I came home, my brain overflowing with the opportunities, at the time not specifically understanding what they were; just knowing they were there.
I thought I could participate, on some level, in the development of China. It seemed that economically, it was well on its way, but socially, there were issues that were being ignored. I thought of the young women, younger than myself, I’d seen in the factories, and it wasn’t that they were leading horrible lives; it just seemed to me that they had little choice for any other kind of life. I attended the Toy Fair in New York in February of 2006 and my ears perked up during a talk on social accountability. At the time, I had already applied to the China studies graduate program at the UW and was waiting to hear their verdict. After the talk on social accountability, I thought maybe I could create a career based on China-US relations and Chinese support of workers. Or something along those lines. I always had bits of doubt, though. I had spent so much time working on my design degree and I really wasn’t ready to throw it all away, but how could I possibly merge a design past and a China studies future?
I just found my answer. A friend recently piqued my interest and reminded me of a story I read about William McDonough, a pioneer in green design and co-author of the green movement’s bible, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. McDonough is a world-renowned architect and designer and one of his many current projects involves designing a green and completely self-sustaining village in a heavy agricultural district of Liaoning Province, here in China. In doing further research on this particular project, I came across the China-US Center for Sustainable Development. And, it seems too good to be true, but, the center’s mission statement is the following:
“Our mission is to accelerate sustainable development in China and the United States through a new form of cooperation among the business community, governments, universities, research institutions and non-governmental organizations - based on nature's design principles and focused on results.” (Found at the following Web site: http://www.chinauscenter.org/default.asp)
And, to add convenience to my excitement, the center posts its physical address as being in Portland, Oregon, a fact which guarantees many a road trip if I’m attending the UW next autumn. I couldn’t be happier: a potentially successful merger of my design background with a China studies graduate degree.
I think this entry is only beginning to scratch the surface of the possibilities, but as mentioned before, it looks like I’m back in the glossy, optimistic phase of life – and let me just say, it feels great! It’s so nice to be back.
And it’s back to the blog…
I finished my goal of writing a novel of 50,000 words before the end of November. And now, I can return to the writing of the blog. I’ve missed the blog and am excited to get back in the saddle. For those of you even remotely curious about the novel, it is terrible and depressed me by the end. But, I finished and feel that the exercise of writing about one thing daily and sticking with it was very, very good for me. So, go me!
Today, Eileen and I managed to fulfill another long-discussed goal: We visited the Hubei Art Institute. We’ve been meaning to get there and ask about taking drawing classes for a couple of months now, really. Today, not only did we find the Institute, but we also signed up for a class and we start next Thursday.
The taxi dropped us off in front of the sign for the Institute and behind this sign was a small supply store. We walked in, immediately drawn to the smell and feel of the place. As we looked at all of the supplies and materials for making art, I blurted out, “Can you smell that? It smells like art in here!” We felt like we were finally home. A squat, older lady with yellow tinged hair and lots of make-up walked up to us from behind the counter in the center of the shop and said, “Ni hao, Ni hao.” Waiting to see if we could process this information, she looked unblinkingly on until we replied, “Ni hao.” Once we said hello, she was off. All I caught was “shen me”, which means what, or maybe which in the right context. I told her we were there to have a little look and she smiled and returned to her post behind the counter.
The shop was an open-air collection of shelves and counters, pushed to the side in a large lobby of the first building on the Institute’s campus. The rest of the lobby was dark and deserted. A wide flight of stairs leading up to who-knows-what mysterious facilities was cordoned off with a red velvet rope. The door to a room on the other side of the lobby was ajar and inside we could see a large wooden-lacquer conference table with various Chinese art artifacts lying about. The rest of the building looked extremely empty and off-limits so we kept our focus on the supply shop, getting our bearings, and enjoying the presence of so many lovely materials.
The owner or manager of the shop kept following us around curiously. A couple of times he asked if there was anything in particular we were looking for. I kept saying we were just having a look until he tried to strike up a conversation. He asked if we were French. We told him we were American and liked art. He asked something undecipherable. I tried replying that we wanted to find the administration office, but not knowing the word for admin, I used the word for company. He scratched his head and joyfully replied, “Ting bu dong” – a phrase I’m usually employing, which means, “I hear you but don’t understand your meaning”. It is usually said to me when I try to speak Chinese. People hear the words coming out of my mouth but don’t understand what I’m TRYING to say. Eileen and I were just about to leave the shop and head off in search of an admin building when a delightful young woman approached us and said with impeccable English, “Can I be of service to you?” We told her that we wanted to take a drawing class once a week at the Institute; that we had some training and therefore mostly wanted to be among other students, practicing our craft. She seemed delighted and said she would help us figure something out. We then made our introductions. The perky lady with the makeup from before called out from behind her post that she wanted to know our names. I did my most cheerful and tone-correct “Wo jiao Li Li” and she giggled with delight at my attempts and earnest attention to the tones. Eileen followed me with, “Wo jiao Ai Lin” and the woman hollered back, “Li Li and Hai Ni”, which I don’t suppose I have to tell you sounds like “heinie”. Eileen tried again with, “Ai Li Yen” and this time the woman got a better approximation of Eileen’s name. The lovely helper we met told us her name is Julia. She’s been a graphic designer for 12 years and is beginning drawing lessons at the Institute next week. She called the teacher, but he didn’t answer so she took us to the drawing building.
It was raining pretty hard today and we sloshed through the puddles and mud, around the building that held the supply shop and along a tree-lined back road to a trash-filled courtyard. Mud was everywhere. I slipped along, trying to keep up with Julia. We made it to the bottom of a seven storey peach-painted concrete building. At the entrance to the building, which I think we entered from the back, there was more trash and mud and dirt. Julia mentioned the dirtiness, and all I could think was that the arts always had a bum wrap when it came to facilities, be it in China or America – for the most part. Julia then told us that the drawing department was on the seventh floor. We started up the flights of stairs, the other stories looking to be empty or abandoned. Up up up, we made it to the seventh floor right during several classes. One thing I love about China is the seemingly informal nature of so many activities, which would be supremely formal in the US.
All three of us were out of breath when Julia introduced us to Teacher Jiang. He had flowy gray-flecked long black hair and was wearing a black leather jacket and moved his lips just enough to catch the glint of a full set of braces along his top and bottom teeth. Julia worked out the details with us – how often we wanted to come to class, what day of the week, for how long, how many classes we were interested in, and then negotiated with Teacher Jiang. At first, he seemed supremely unimpressed with us, as if he wasn’t interested in the trouble we might cause. Julia did a superb job translating for us. We were two English teachers with art backgrounds from the United States. We wanted to come and draw once a week at the Institute. We’d prefer an evening class for about two hours each session and wanted to start out with ten sessions. Then Teacher Jiang said that we’d have to show him our drawing skills. At first, we thought it was some kind of test, but Eileen continues to assure me that it is only to determine what level of class we should be sitting in on. I’m inclined to agree with her but will be sorely disappointed if my drawing skills have fallen so far by the wayside that I’m kicked out of my first Chinese drawing lesson.
After Teacher Jiang grudgingly welcomed us for 300 kuai (this will buy us 10 lessons – which comes to about $3.75 US per lesson), Julia took us to have a look around the studios. There were three large classes going on when we arrived. In one room, students swaddled in floor-length down coats, sat huddled together on small stools with drawing boards in their laps, carefully working out the plans for a still life containing fruit and a Pepsi bottle. In another room, the drawings were focused on the bust of a roman-looking male with gorgeous stylized curls on his head. The smell of the rooms and the earnest diligence of the students made me yearn for art school. I definitely missed out on the kind of experience I was witnessing in these rooms. Industrial Design was always all over the map. Drawing is fluid and direct. You never lose sight of what it is that you’re trying to perfect. I’m so excited about these classes and Eileen and I are terribly pleased with ourselves for having finally gone through the motions. Of course, without Julia, we’d have stayed in that little shop for another twenty minutes, wondering exactly how to go about solving our search for drawing classes.
I’m happy to report, on my first day back to the blog, that I’ve managed to continue crafting a life for myself here in China. The weather’s been getting colder and work has gotten very difficult, but that doesn’t mean that my life outside had to be without its perks. I plan on drawing away any fears or insecurities or disappointments each week. And, now I’m thinking I might need to sign up for classes twice a week!
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