My Kids’ Day (Or At Least How I Imagine Their Day Is)
So they get to class in the morning usually by walking with an adult (from what I can tell it’s about 50% grandparents and 50% actual parents), and usually have some sort of calisthenics outside, or just inside.
Next they are herded into the classroom where they are fed. It seems like they eat from the time they get in, around 8 until 8:25 when class actually starts.
My first class seems to have less time to eat because they are usually sitting in a circle of chairs waiting for teacher to come. My first class also has a couple of kids who cry for their parents in the morning so they are left in the back of the room with a blanket while everybody else is forced to watch me and my little flashcard act.
Then from what I can tell from the classrooms they do fun things for the next couple of hours, like play with toys, watch videos, play house etc.
Next, another meal comes. In my class before lunch, which is 90 minutes they have to sit through 45-60 minutes of me trying to teach them some sort of phrase, like I like to eat apples, or there are 6 sheep. Followed by a water break and then we play some games like London Bridge (thank you Anderson for that game).
The kids sit and eat attentively, and if it’s anything like Anderson’s school they eat without speaking, but I’m not sure they herd me into an office where I usually spend the next 3.5 hours trying to learn Chinese either from the teachers or Rosetta Stone.
After lunch seems to be a rather long nap period of probably 2 hours from what I can tell. There are little beds for each child in each of my classrooms that are stacked up against the window. I’m not really sure how much sleep they get but it’s usually quite during lunch so I assume most kids sleep for most of the time.
Next if they are unlucky enough to have English after lunch they get me coming in before they’ve finished their after nap snack (usually a piece of fruit). I hate that I’m interrupting meal times for them, but they expect me to come in and teach so I do it. Most of the time the kids will sit and finish their snack while I’m teaching, which I am completely fine with.
A little more English in their faces, and then I have no idea what the other classes do until 4 when it is once again feeding time. One class I actually saw got to go outside yesterday, which looked like a lot of fun to me, my students, and my teaching assistant, as we all stared out the window looking on enviously.
I think after dinner the kids are usually picked up around 5 and are taken home. My last class ends at 4 so after helping at least one of the teachers bring dinner into one of the classrooms I usually just head out to beat the rush hour traffic.
So the only thing that I know the kids get everyday is me speaking a foreign language to them, and 3 meals. Other than that there appears to be a lot of playtime and some calisthenics but I’m not really sure what else. I suppose it could be worse but I’m also sure that it could be much better.
I do have 2 and 3 year olds who would be served better by learning things that you are supposed to be learning at that age instead of just sitting in a classroom playing, but hey they don’t pay me to ask questions. That’s why we write this blog.
Our Little Dumpling Shop
So Anderson and I have been looking for places to eat near our sweet apartment, and we found a little alleyway when Anderson, had to take a cab to work. There are a bunch of really cheap places to eat including a place that I am dubbing our little dumpling shop.
It’s really good food for a really low price, (13 yuan each or 1.90 USD) and also has cheap beers. Below are some pictures of our dinner tonight.
Here’s the inside of our shop.
Here are the dumplings or Jiaozi in Chinese.
Here are the xiaolongbao (which are nothing like the real things in Shanghai, too doughy).
More Jiaozi next to our 3 yuan (44 cents American) beers.
Jiaozi Soup.
The food being cooked outside.
Why I’m Failing At Participative Rule Setting
Yesterday I tried to have a participative rule setting session with my students. Since I’m obviously not a big fan of imposing rules on children or using a system of rewards and punishments I wanted to attempt a group discussion on what classroom rules we should have. Here’s the basic idea behind participative rule setting:
This process can be initiated by teachers at the beginning of the term to establish rules that the whole classroom finds fair and are willing to follow. Students are more likely to keep to their end of the bargain when using No-Lose Conflict Resolution and participative rule setting because of a simple bit of common sense called The Principle of Participation.
Simply stated, the principle holds that people who are invited to participate in making decisions or setting up rules that affect them somehow are more willing to abide by them or keep to their part of an agreement. We all like feeling that our views are being represented.
Sounds great. But it isn’t easy to do. Yesterday’s class didn’t go well. I’ll explain some of the reasons I think I failed.
I Don’t Speak Chinese
This is a pretty obvious one but I think it’s important to understand how hard it is to communicate with children that don’t speak the same language.
There are some native English speakers and a few kids who are semi-fluent. But for most our interactions involve very basic, merely functional English communication. It is simple stuff like hello, how are you, go outside, go to the bathroom, who wants to play and whatever phrases we’re learning that day.
Oh yeah, there is also upside down. (This is a frequent request from the girls who want me to pick them up and carry them around upside down. It’s like some kind of drug; they get high on having blood rush to their brain. Anyway, I love the game too so I’m not complaining.)
The rest of the communication is nonverbal. This shouldn’t be underestimated. I know 100% that the kids can tell from my body language, the way I smile or laugh, how I pick them up, and everything else that I’m different from the Chinese assistants.
But when it comes to communicating an idea it gets much harder. I said to the whole class “I know this classroom has a lot of rules and I know that you guys don’t like some of them. I was hoping that we could spend ten or fifteen minutes and talk about the rules and see if we can come up with some that everybody agrees on.” The English speaking kids understood this sentence (partially at least, more on that later) but the Chinese kids had no clue. And how could they? I tried to simplify what I wanted but it isn’t easy to do. And it just confused them more. This led to the second problem.
The Chinese Translators
In my classroom there are a couple Chinese teachers who are there to help. One of them is my assistant and part of her job is to translate for me.
Usually, this isn’t a problem. She’s the nicest of the Chinese assistants and treats the kids very well. Unfortunately, this whole Principle of Participation thing wasn’t something she was even remotely familiar with. So when I said “I know you guys hate the no-talking-during-lunch rule” she translated it to “no talking during lunch.”
She wasn’t doing it maliciously or anything. When I told her I wanted to talk about the rules, she probably just assumed that it meant we were going to recite the rules. What else could it mean?
Either way, her translations essentially came out the exact opposite of what I wanted. She turned it from a participative rule setting session into a reminder about all the rules currently imposed. Fail.
This Idea Is More Foreign Than A Second Language
This is the issue that even had the English speakers confused.
Children in schools are not used to getting a say in the rules. Even if they have great parents that practice these techniques (and there is probably a 1-in-2-billion chance of that being the case) there are even fewer schools that do. Kids are used to being ordered, prodded, pushed, commanded, controlled, subjected, restrained, adjusted, confined, directed, punished, silenced, and finally questioned. They’re like terror suspects minus the water-boarding (or not).
I’m some foreigner, that they’ve only known for a week, sitting them down and essentially saying “we’re going to do things the exact opposite of every thing you’ve previously experienced.” They had no idea what I was getting at. It was kind of like when I first told them we weren’t going to do rewards and punishments back on day one and they all just looked at me like confused puppies. Only then it was cute and funny. This time it was sad.
So What Do I Do?
I think I’ve laid out the biggest three issues. I can’t speak Chinese, my translators don’t know what the fuck is going on, and my kids aren’t used to this sort of thing at all.
So how can I make this work? I don’t know actually. I’m going to keep trying. But short of learning Chinese myself or hiring my own excellent translator I’m not sure what to do. I can’t go back in time and make their parents start them on this system. And I can’t change the way the entire school works.
This is why I’m writing this post. I want your ideas. I know there are some extremely intelligent people who visit this blog and I’m sure you are one of them. Help me.
Leave a comment or email me. Or, if you have no ideas, maybe you could pass this post on to a friend. Thank you!
Chinese Furniture Market
Today me and two friends went shopping at a Chinese furniture market. A “market” is a huge building with all kinds of different vendors. It’s kind of like an indoor flea market.
If you want to know why there is a plane parked in the front of the market, I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that. Like most things in China, the why seems more or less irrelevant. There’s a plane in front of the furniture market. Period. You don’t need a back-story.
Inside the furniture market looks like this:
Room after room just packed to the walls with whatever you might need. They even have the kitchen sink (har har okay I’ll stop).
If you’re interested in a shower that can also travel through time, you’ve come to the right place.
If you’re not so into the luxury of using space technology to shower, don’t worry, they have alternatives.
Who is using these things? My theory is that someone used the time travel shower to bring these things back from around 400 A.D. But what do I know? I’m just a guy who takes pictures of bathtubs.
This isn’t really related to furniture but one of the vendors had it on her desk for good luck. It’s pretty ridiculous.
It’s a golden frog surrounded by a bunch of coins. I’m assuming all of this nonsense is used to increase luck. With a high enough luck rating the vendor will receive +3 to their Ripping Off Foreigners skill.
McCoy’s Food Corner: Cafeteria Food
I’ve decided, actually it was probably about a week ago, back when we didn’t have internet, that I wanted to try to do a weekly post about different foods in China, with a Chinese vocabulary section in it. I’m going to start taking pictures and stuff now that I know I’m going to do this, so get excited for that. However for the first week I’m just going to give you a normal post.
Vocabulary words for the week: 啤酒 pi jiu – beer
冷水 bing shui – cold water
(I’ll put the tones in there later when I figure out how but for now I’m not going to)
These words were very dear to Anderson and I upon our arrival, because we wanted cold water and also beers. See the Chinese have a habit of drinking boiling hot water (probably to kill the bacteria), but being from America we expect our water to be cold. Anyway back to actual food post.
So I found out that they are going to feed me at my school, which is pretty nice, because I can save money by not paying for lunch. I also found out that cafeteria food is actually not that bad. Monday was rice, vegetables, and pork; Tuesday was rice, a vegetable, and spare ribs; Wednesday rice, vegetables, and chicken; and Thursday rice, vegetable, fish; and Friday was rice a vegetable and chicken wings.
Are you sensing a pattern? Yup that’s right, rice meat and some sort of random vegetable. It’s actually very good though and they give you a lot of food, so I’m not complaining. The kids are also fed the same thing as the adults for lunch but they also get breakfast and dinner, which I find to be kind of odd.
The other problem is that they are fed the same thing for breakfast and dinner. It’s always a soup that has tofu in it for breakfast and something rather similar with rice for dinner. It seems like it would be pretty boring, and it’s also weird that they are fed all 3 meals, but hey, it’s China and they aren’t starving in the fields like in the past so they deal with it.
Anyway my food corner will be better when I start incorporating pictures and get into more interesting foods. While I’m still trying to get settled and on a real schedule I’ve been eating out of the school and the convenient store downstairs. Hopefully this week I’ll start exploring the food more in depth.
