Observation
In case I had forgotten that I don’t know what I’m doing, Mrs. Li, the principal of the English department, sat in during my second 1st grade class today. Maybe you’ll remember that Mr. Ye sat in on my class last Friday. Eek. This can’t be good. What can’t be good is that neither Mr. Ye nor Mrs. Li said anything after their observations. Season, my co-teacher for the 1st grade came in today with crazy crimpy hair and when I asked her about it, she said, “I hate it. It is ugly and I am sad that they did this to me.” In the same breath she said, “It kind of looks like your hair.” She’s wrong though; her hair looks NOTHING like my hair. Okay, with that little tirade off of my chest, I’ll say that today didn’t go well between us. It had nothing to do with her hair either. She told me that we were going to be observed and she told me that she wanted me to do the exact same thing in the observed class as we did in the class beforehand so she wouldn’t be caught off guard. She also asked me to play a game so that the children would behave and so that she wouldn’t have to work so hard to keep them quiet. This annoyed me as I had a lesson plan today to teach “a pencil” and “a cassette” because we have a test this Friday and Season wants to look good and we need to teach our students.
Anyway, the first 1st grade class went horribly today. I don’t know what Season was thinking, but the game didn’t keep the children quiet, on the contrary, it got them extremely worked up and she couldn’t control them. I tired keeping them quiet with hand gestures we’ve learned for “Quiet” and “Stop” but they were too far gone and my voice isn’t in any condition to be hollering over 1st graders. I asked her if she was sure she wanted me to play the game in the second class and she said yes. The bomb dropped two minutes to the end of class when Kyle hit Tianny because she didn’t play the game properly and got them out of the last round. I stopped the game and tried to teach the children to say, “It’s okay” when a child got a question wrong instead of blaming the child for losing the team a point. I asked Season to translate “It’s okay” for the children and she started at me blankly and then said something to the kids like, “It is time to play the next round”. I told her, no, we weren’t playing the next round until the children said “It’s okay” and understood that I wanted them to say that instead of getting upset at teammates. Mrs. Li looked exasperated and wrote something lengthy into her notebook. She then got up and sauntered off into the head teachers’ office. Season shot me a frustrated, “How could you!” glance and then the bell rang. So much for not catching her off guard.
After our horrible 1st grade classes, I felt ill at ease and concerned for both Season and myself. Neither Mr. Ye nor Mrs. Li would talk with me and when I asked the other co-teachers what it might all mean, they told me not to worry but they also told me this was new procedure. Ugh. I’ve also been told not to expect any sort of communication from my bosses. It sounds like they will continue to observe me but might not say anything about displeasure. They’ll hold some sort of grudge until it is time for me to leave before telling me, “You know, we’d prefer if you taught the capital letters before trying to teach the story on page 7”. Knowing this, you’d think I’d just let it go and not worry, but I want my children to learn and I want to be a successful teacher this year and it is hard to think I won’t get any feedback. In fact, this is my greatest fault. I need feedback. At my last job, in the beginning, I was rarely given positive or negative feedback and it made me crazy. I guess this is a lesson in learning to trust myself and to ask for the feedback I need. Or something like that.
During my Kindergarten class today, I said the following five words at least 500 times apiece: happy, sad, scared, tired and angry. Funny how four of the five emotions are “negative” ones. Do we not have more positive emotions out there? Basic ones, that is? I’m too tired to think about it. In fact, now that I think about it, I experienced all five of these emotions today! I was scared when Mrs. Li came to my class and wouldn’t tell me what she thought of my teaching abilities. I was angry (sort of) when Daivi in class 1B talked back to everything Season and I said. I was sad during lunch when I felt that I don’t know what I’m doing and should have prepared more to be a teacher before coming to China. I was tired when I realized I had to teach my Kindergarten class after an exhausting four-period block. And, I was happy when Mr. Ye approached me to attend the Hubei Province Government celebration of National Day this Friday. Two foreign teachers are invited to participate in the celebration from our school and Mr. Ye chose Matthew and me. The governor of Hubei Province will host the celebration.
Also, Julia will accompany me to the hospital tomorrow to get some antibiotic injections. Oooooooo, how exciting! I can’t wait to kick this cold/cough/wheezing/stuffiness/hoarse throat in the kisser!
