I guess it hasn't TECHNICALLY been one week since I left; since I flew out at noon and right now it would only be 9 am there; but give me a break! (I hope the Barenaked Ladies reference was at least caught by a couple of people). My last class of the day was rather uneventful. I tried to rearrange the seats before it started since so many of them have been complaining about not being able to see the board; but I got part way through what I thought was a genius plan (for seeing the board) and a student of mine walked by and pointed out (yes just walked in and scared me to death!) that it would be hard for the one group to see the projector; I hadn't thought of that! So I was part way through another genius plan when the kids came ten minutes early (that would never be a problem in Ontario). So I asked some of them to help me and some to clean and then the desks were in place and my floors were less disgusting. One student offered to mop, but I'm not sure if I've mentioned how mopping works here....they tend to use a never washed mop that never comes in contact with soap and they dip it into the toilet water and use it to mop EVERYTHING; so I quickly said no just to sweep.
The class was cut short because of the dinner with the principal, yet this section is at the same point as one of the other sections; I think keeping track of where each of the three sections are is going to get confusing, but at least I only have one course to prep for (yay upsides)!
On top of being early for class intentionally the students here differ from students in Ontario in a bunch of other ways.
i) They go out of their way to say hi to you outside of class; and I am talking out of their way..like turn around when they are 100 ft in front of you, see you, leave their friends to say hi and then run back. When the teachers walk from the classroom building to our office and sections of our classes are in their study hall it is usually followed by a long series of "Hi Mr...., Hi Miss, Hi Mrs!!!" From my experience in Ontario there will be a handful of students in each class who will do this, most of them just see you in the hall and smile or nod (thinking...oh, my teacher..at school; how not special).
ii) Several of the students here have already asked questions about math that are not necessary to know for the course, but they are just curious; usually the attitude I've seen is "if its not on the test, I don't care (understandably so)."
iii) Similarly to students I've had in Ontario it is hard to get them to stop talking, the difference here is they are usually talking about the work and trying to help each other with it!
Today an announcement came on during my second class and it was of course 100% in Mandarin; so I totally knew what was being said..... Then the voice would stop so I would continue with my lesson and then the second I started talking, she'd start again! This happened about three times until finally my whole class was laughing and trying to explain to me what the person on the announcements was saying (it was about a "basketball match"). When she was finally done talking I was afraid to start again!
The actual school we are at is huge but we do not have that many students who are part of our program, I think around 200 or so total. As a result most of the teachers who have been here before know who they all are (for the most part). I was chatting with the teacher across the hall from me today and he was asking me about my students and asked what I thought they though of the class so far, I said I had no idea (a lot of them are so shy); so he said he'd ask. When we all met up for the meeting with the Chinese principal today he said this was the conversation: "So what do you think of that new math teacher" and the students (yes not just one apparently) said "She's so graceful." Anyone who knows me MUST be laughing right now; I am anything but graceful. One of the other teachers listening to him tell me this said, "They probably just learned that word today" (yes my colleagues already know I'm not graceful). I almost fell off of the mini stage at the front of the classroom not once but TWICE yesterday; so I think it must be the new word option!
The meeting was kind of interesting, it was with the teachers from my school and the english teachers from the Chinese school, so there were two translators (it took a lot of time for not much being said). Afterwards we went for dinner. It was so cool! We sat at this huge table and the entire table is a lazy susan and everyone just picks what they want off of it as it continually goes around and has new things added to it. I ate duck and duck tongue; both were pretty good!! There was a lot of "gambeing...not sure how to spell it" but in China if someone cheers you then you are supposed to chug your whole drink, needless to say whenever a Chinese person was coming our direction I made sure I had only a sip of beer in my cup! I almost forgot to mention! I think I have mentioned how nuts the roads are here; its just a free for all and I have thought several times already how there aren't a ton of accidents all of the time and I shouldn't have thought that because today one of the other teachers (him and his wife have a car here) drove us to dinner and we got rear-ended! It was pretty hard, but they didn't have much damage to their car; so that was good. And they just settled it on the spot, apparently that's a thing they do in China, the people just gave them cash and that was it...kind of weird but kind of neat!
Anywho, its my bed time.
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