Orienting to Shanghai Part 3: I Teach English Good

Usually my clothes are nicer than this

Of all the incredulous things in Shanghai, one thing keeps me dumbfounded: I'm a teacher?!? A middle school teacher!?!? A middle school English teacher?!?!? If I could IM randomramsrock (my old AIM sn) about this, Middle School Scuba would certainly have thrown himself out of a window. To be fair, all of my classes were on the first floor at Curtis, so it would have been more strange than suicidal... but that's not the point! English was consistently my least favorite subject then; even though I liked a lot of the books (To Kill A Mockingbird is still one of my favs), I was bloody awful at grammar - I didn't know my predicates from my participles! Somewhere, Mrs. Hoaglin's pencils are rolling in her apron.

Perhaps I changed a little over the past ten years. In high school, Mrs. Frommer, Ms. Stein, and the Plotts were a few of my favorite teachers and I took a couple interesting English courses at Maryland. But I was a business major, in a very math intensive focus... and now I'm in China teaching English to 13 year-olds. You may be wondering: how's that working out?

Surprisingly (or not), it's really fun, challenging, and not at all what I expected. Let me give you a rundown of sorts:

Challenging:
I have 19 classes, 17 Junior II's (13-14) and 2 Senior II's (16-17). There are about 25 kids in each Junior II class and 16 in each Senior II class, which means I have roughly 455 students. I see each class once a week. They've all memorized my name, it's kind of tough (see: impossible) to remember all of theirs.

Not At All What I Expected:
Beforehand, I was told that the students were quiet and you need to force them to volunteer. The latter is definitely true for a few of my classes and at least a handful of kids in each class. But the former, is just straight up false. These kids can get as loud as any classroom I ever sat in. And when it comes to the distribution of good kids, troublemakers, and everything in between, I'd say it's pretty much equal to that of an American high school classroom.

Fun:
This summer, I had no idea of what the kids' English proficiency level would be. They would be 8th graders, so should I teach at a 6th grade level? Or even lower? While it varies from class to class and student to student, they aren't completely fluent, but they're really good on a whole. I would kill to speak Chinese as well as they speak English.

I did Ice Breaker games for the first three weeks to try and get to know them as well as possible. Three common themes popped up: they love basketball, computer games, and... Lady Gaga (in increasing order of lovingness). In fact, while my Sr. II's will say "Oh my God!" when they are surprised - something they picked up from American movies, TV Shows, etc. - my Jr. II's say "Oh my Lady Gaga!" I pretty much lost it after I heard that for the first time.


NAAWIE:
Funny Economics-esque Observation:
After a few days, I realized that some of the best students in the class were the troublemakers. At first, I was confused; they goof off in the back while the other students quietly pay attention. Then it hit me. The students in the front speak well because they volunteer all of the time. The kids in the back speak well because they are forced to speak all the time. I'm guilty of feeding into this as well... when a kid is causing a commotion and becoming a distraction, I would tell him to come up and volunteer for the activity in progress. This is also the reason I know all my troublemakers names already. I'm sure formally trained teachers are saying "No Duh" right now, but for me this was profound stuff. The kids who are least proficient are the quiet ones in the middle - I've got to find a way to get them involved.

Challenging:
I try to mix in those American pop culture references they love so much into my classes and I truly believe that the majority of my students like my teaching. Yet still, a few of my kids have told me straight up "that class was boring." I've heard that I can't make everybody happy, but goshdarn it I'm going to give it my damnedest!

I'm finding it difficult to (a) teach relevant material, (b) hold the students' attention for an entire period, (c) gain their respect (at least not become a total pushover), without (d) having to be an authoritarian.

Is this possible?

This is the golden question. Next week, I'm going to be doing a unit on American culture and if things go well I'll break it down by relevant regions of the United States (sorry Great Plains, you didn't make the cut) with games for each territory. If that doesn't cut it... I guess we'll do interpretations of Gaga lyrics or something.

Fun:
The good students definitely make any hurtles completely worth jumping.

Fred from my 10A Friday class gave me a novel he was writing. The first six chapters were very entertaining (even though I learned they were loosely [exactly] based on a video game he was playing) and I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Anaka from my 2A Monday class wanted to interview me about my thoughts on the Expo, unfortunately I haven't gone yet (SACRILEGE!). Instead, we talked about her aspirations as a journalist and about my experience as one in college and at the Olympics. She's really bright and seems like she's going places.

One of my students (whose secret I promised to keep) is applying to private boarding schools in Massachusetts. She asked me what life was like there and I gave her the whole scoop on that. Speaking of which, does anyone who reads the blog know anybody at the Concord Academy, the Cambridge School in Weston, the Governor's Academy, or Tabor Academy? She's definitely the best speaker in her class and one of my best students, so I'd be willing to write her a recommendation or something to help her out.

Oh and my favorite story so far...
I was playing this game called "Back to the Blackboard", where I split the class in half and have two kids come up to the front of the room with their backs to the blackboard while I write a word behind them. Their teammates had to get them to guess the word using other English words.

At the beginning of class there was a big kid sitting in the back named Tommy, and I asked him to move up to an open seat in the second row. He said, "I can't, I'll break seat." So I let him sit in the back.

When it was his turn to come up and represent his team for three points, the other team cheered when his name was called (thinking he was easy points against one of the smarter kids in the class). I forget the words I wrote on the board, but he raised his hand first and got the correct answer for the first point.

Pandemonium. Both teams gasped then just screamed.

Second point. Opponent gets first chance. Gets it wrong. Tommy guesses. And scores!

Kids are jumping up and down now. In disbelief on one side and jubilation on the other.

Third point. Tommy shoots. Nothin' but the bottom of the net. The class chants "TOMMY! TOMMY! TOMMY!" as he walks to his seat at the back of the class. Freaking epic. I won't forget his name for a good long time.

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So, it's been a crazy five-and-a-half weeks here. I feel like I've lived here a year. There's so much I've left out of these entries, but I'll keep trying to capture the key moments for anyone out there who's interested.

School notes I couldn't fit in relevantly above:
- When they have vacations here, they make them up on weekends... I had a three day holiday for the Mid-Autumn Festival on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and had to work the preceding Saturday and the whole weekend afterwards. I don't know if I'm for or against it, it was just an unusual concept, even for me.
- The kids here come from some prestigious families. When we go out to eat food after work, we pass by a long line of Rolls Royces fully equipped with professional drivers. Just ridiculous. (Matthias, I'll try to get you a photo)
- Oh and not only am I a teacher, but also a student! I take two Mandarin classes a week, plus a computer program I have, plus everything I pick up at work and on the street. I can feel the progression and I love it!

Until next time (hopefully sooner than later),
Zaijian!
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

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UPDATE!
I somehow forgot to mention that I was in a tug-of-war competition for the SFLS Sports Day! We got second place... CLOSE ENOUGH! Here is your reward for reading the blog:

Most people don't get the Eye of the Tiger, I've got two