Boys Don't Cry!

While waiting to talk with a co-teacher yesterday, I was observing her teaching style and the differences in the way she teaches and the way I remember being taught in kindergarten. The one thing that really struck me was the way that children here are singled out in front of the whole class when they do something wrong or something looked down upon.
While I was watching yesterday, for example, one of the little boys was crying. I am going to explain to you what happened to the best of my ability, but I want you to remember that most of it took place in Chinese, so my translation might not be completely correct.
The teacher told the boy to come up to the front of the classroom and asked why he was crying. While he was sobbing, he said something, but I could not understand his answer. At first, the teacher seemed to be very understanding and it seemed to me like she was trying to console him. However, this entire time he was in front of the class crying, which is not the first place I would want to be if I were crying.
The next event that occured completely took me by surprise. She had the children chant, "You don't cry", while pointing to the boy (that part was in English, so I definitely understood it). She then had the boy go back to his seat and explained in Chinese that boys should not cry. So then my question is: if it had been a girl, would the same thing have happened, would they still have chanted "You don't cry", or are girls allowed to cry?
This was surprising to me for many reasons. First of all, I am not used to pointing children out in front of the class like that. It seems very harsh, especially for that grade level. Second, it surrpised me because I had thought that the times in which boys (especially six year old boys) were not allowed to cry and were taught in school to hide their emotions like that were over. I guess that this is still taught, perhaps even in the United States. Maybe I am just naive. What do you think? Do you think that this is still taught in the United States? Do you think it should be taught? To only boys or to both boys and girls? I would love to hear your opinions!

Kindergarten and Preschool Sports Day!

Friday morning I had no classes. Instead, all of my 200 children, their teachers, and their parents all got together on the track outside and we had Sports Day. It was an amazing morning, not just because of the organization that it must have entailed, but because of how much fun we had together and how much better I got to know my students in that one morning.

First of all, the children all lined up according to their classes and marched (with flags) to their places on the field. Then each grade (small: aged 2-4, middle: aged 4-5, and big: aged 5-6) performed a dance that they had been practicing for the past couple of weeks. The proud parents all watched, took pictures, video, etc. Earlier, I was named the photographer of the day, so I took pictures with my digital camera as well.

After the dances, the games begun. Each grade level had different games and some of the games were played individually and some were played together with the children and their parents. The purpose of the day was to bring together parents and students, since this is a boarding school and the children do not see their parents very often (only on weekends and vacations). Therefore, I was able to meet the parents for the first time as well.

This was also one of my few chances to play with my students and not just teach them, so I took the opportunity to play with them, chase them around the field, take pictures with them, and get to know them better (or, at least, as well as my limited Chinese and their very limited English could allow). It was very fun, though. As soon as my students saw me, they would yell, "Miss Abbie, Miss Abbie!" and come running towards me. They took turns pulling me around, showing me to their parents, and talking with me. It was a wonderful way for me to spend time with them, not just right after my classes with them ended and before I left to go to the next class, but for a longer, more open time.

From spending the morning with my students, I realized the importance of not only being with them to teach them English, but also just to play with them and have fun. Therefore, I want to see if there is a way to play with each class outside of the classroom during the week. I think that this will let me get even closer with them and help them to not only learn more English, but develop more of a teacher-student bond.

The Dangers of Crossing the Street

Crossing the street in China is a skill, one that you learn while your heart is thudding in your chest and you are just hoping that you don’t get run over by trucks, cars, motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles while you learn it. Yes, crossing the street in China can often be quite an experience, and until you learn the proper way, it can, at times, be frightening. I have learned, though, that there are two ways to do this. This blog will explain each way to you so that if you ever find yourself in a situation that you need to cross the street here, you will be able to do so without getting run over (I hope).
1) Cross at a cross-walk. This may sound simple and easy, but it is not as straightforward as it seems. Once the walk sign for you goes on – a green man with numbers counting down how much time you have left – many times there are still cars crossing. Although you have the right of way, the cars don’t understand this. Also, some cars have the turn signal, so you cross while the cars are turning. I have learned that if you cross and look at the cars while you are walking, they will avoid you. Besides the cars that you have to brave to get across, you also have to cross in spite of the numerous scooters that zoom in and out of the street. It is not just the scooters that can be dangerous. The bicycles (both electric and not) have almost run me over many times. So, in order to cross at a cross-walk, the easiest thing to do is to wait for other people to cross. The natives (Chinese people) know how to cross safely, so if you walk with them, I am fairly certain that no one will get hurt. If there are other people crossing, I always just kind of join their group and hope that no one notices (because no one would notice a 老外 in the group, right?) I am especially certain that no one will run over the group if there is a family with small children or a baby. Who would dare hit them?
2) Cross in the middle of the street, without a cross walk. Yes, this may sound very, very dangerous, but when the light at the crosswalk is out, or the crosswalk is very, very far away, this method works very well. For example, the light at the crosswalk outside of my school is always out, so I just walk a little bit more towards the bus stop and use this method. In this method, you just cross the street in steps. If there are no cars/trucks/scooters/bicycles coming from the sidewalk where you are to the next yellow or white line, then you can cross to that line. You then cross from that line to the next line when there are no cars, etc. At that one, you can cross to the sidewalk. Sometimes you may have to run to avoid the traffic, but that just makes it more fun, right? Although this method can be frightening, it may take less time than the previous one. Once you have practiced this method, is gets easier and less scary. Practice makes perfect!
So, these are a few of the ways to cross the street here. I hope that you find them helpful. I am still perfecting them, but I am getting better with each day that passes!

Two Chinas seperated by one block

I live in the apartments provided for me by the school in which I teach. These apartments are on the school grounds,so whenever I leave to walk close to the school, most of the people are used to seeing foreigners, or 外国人(waiguo ren), as they call us. They also call us laowai (老外), but in this blog I will us 外国人.
So, as I was saying, whenever I stay on the street that I live on (Xiangcheng Da Dao), there is no more pointing and whispering about 外国人 than I am used to. Of course it still happens, but it happens everywhere I go.
However, yesterday and today I went to a different street, about one block away from Xiangcheng Da Dao, and it was as if I were in a totally different world. First of all, it seemed as if the people there had never seen a 外国人 before. The staring was much more prominent than before. Also, the whispers and comments of 外国人 were a lot more noticeable and came a lot more often. Usually it is more the children who point out that I am a 外国人, but on this street, the adults seemed to need to point out that fact as well. On this street, I heard 外国人 every couple of steps, as well as had people looking and pointing at me the whole way down the street.
The other fact that makes me feel like this street is so different from the street that I live on is the way that it looks. The first time I was on this street, I was with one of my friends, and as she pointed out, it could be the background for a commercial about the starving children in Africa. Although on one side of the street there are apartments that are o.k. looking, the other side of the street has concrete huts with people crowding outside. My friend was correct - it does look like that commercial, except that the children running around outside the huts aren't African children, they are Chinese. It is a very different scene than that of the children in my school, in their uniforms, playing on rollerblades and listening quietly in classrooms. It is amazing to see and experience the two different Chinas just one block apart.

Foreign Teacher 外国老师

Being a 外国老师(foreign teacher) gives you a lot of benefits. You get, as I mentioned in another blog, a nice apartment that comes with the job, free food, as well as insurance. However, there are other benefits as well. The people here tend to treat the 外国老师 extremely well. Sometimes we are treated even better than the other teachers are treated. At the school where I teach, I often feel as though the Chinese teachers, staff, and parents have a lot of respect for me. I don’t know how much I deserve all of that respect, considering most of the teachers have taught for much longer than I have and have actually studied teaching, whereas this is my first year teaching and I studied Spanish and psychology, but in any case, it is nice to feel respected. Besides being respected, we also get special treatment. For example, the apartments that we get are nicer than the apartments most of the Chinese teachers get. We also have to teach and work less than the Chinese teachers, even though we get paid the same or more than them.
But, once again, this is all background information. I wanted to explain that people give 外国老师 more respect and special treatment because then you will understand my story better. And once again, my story has to do with cake. So, it was the child’s birthday in the class I mentioned in the last blog and the teachers had just invited me to stay for a piece of cake. I wanted to, but I had to teach another class in about 10 minutes. So I said I would stay for 10 minutes and then come back after my next class. I stayed and watched the teachers put the 5 candle on the cake, light it, and let the girl blow it out while we all sang “Happy Birthday” first in Chinese and then in English. As the teacher went to cut the cake, though, the mother told her in Chinese to give the first piece to the 外国老师 (me!). She spoke very rapidly and since my Chinese is not very good, I didn’t understand what she was saying. When I asked Villa, the Chinese English teacher, she explained that the mother wanted me to have the first piece of cake. I was very honored, but confused – I’m not the birthday girl. Isn’t the birthday girl supposed to have the first piece of cake? I don’t know, maybe the customs are different here in China, but I do know that it was sweet of the mother to think of me and want me to have the first piece. As I explained before, I think I get special treatment because I am a 外国老师. So I accepted the first piece (kind of feeling like I was stealing from the birthday girl) and once people started eating, I ate as well. Of course, I had to leave most of it to go to my next class, but don’t worry – I got to finish the cake when I came back after class! So yes,in a nutshell, I think that we get treated specially and respected more just because we are 外国老师, because we are from another country. I just hope that this special treatment doesn’t spoil me for when I come back to the United States and I am not so special anymore!

Hello Teacher, Hello Teacher, Hello...Cake?

For the past few weeks I have been teaching my middle class (the children who are about five years old) a song called “Hello Teacher”. It is to the tune of “Goodnight Ladies” but the words are: “Hello teacher, hello teacher, hello teacher, hello and how are you?” In order to practice the children’s English names, we sing the song to the students individually using their English names. So, for example, if I have a student named Lily, then Lily will come up to the front with me and we will all sing: “Hello Lily, hello Lily, hello Lily, hello and how are you?”
But that is just background information. What I want you to get out of the above is to be familiar with the song that I taught one of my classes and also to know that they understand how to substitute different names into the song. Now for my story, which I think is really cute (but then again, I think most of the things that happen in my classes are cute).
Today we had practiced the song I mentioned above and later on during the class, almost near the end, one of the parents came into the classroom with cake because it was one of the children’s birthdays. Of course, as soon as the children saw the cake, they forgot what I was teaching them at the moment (I understand – cake is exciting). However, they started singing, without any prompting, a new version of the English song I had taught them! They started singing “Hello 蛋糕 (dangao)，hello 蛋糕, hello 蛋糕, hello and how are you?” In Chinese, dangao is cake, so in essence, they started singing hello to the cake because they were so excited about it. It was really cute, though, to see them singing to/about the cake, and it was wonderful to hear them singing an English song that I had taught them – to know that I am teaching them something that they are remembering and using. Hearing them sing the new version of my song made me and all of the Chinese teachers in the room laugh.