Miss Wight! Miss Wight!

I have never really been called that before coming to China. I’ve been called Miss Abby many times by kids at Shiloh or by Kevin. However Miss Wight is something new. The few times I was called Miss Wight in the states I midly resented it. I am not old enough to be a Miss (does that make any sense?) But recently my whole perspective has changed. I love being called Miss Wight. Now that does not give you permission to call me Miss Wight so don’t go getting any ideas. The only people who can get away with calling me that are my students. I’ll be walking across the soccer field (or the playground as they often call it here) and students everywhere will be calling out “Hello Teacher!” “Hello Miss Wight!” I love it.
So it’s been forever since I apologize profusely. I got busy with classes then so much has happened that the idea of writing it all down seemed a little overwhelming. So what you’re gonna get here is a brief overview of two and a half months of craziness…
Teaching
Teaching. It’s what I came here to do. I was scared to death on my first day. Knowing I was going to be standing in front of 20 some students and that I was responsible for their Oral English education. But once I got into it I have found I absolutely love it. I teach over 400 students during the week. I teach Junior 1 students (the equivalent of 7th grade) and Senior 1 (10th) Oral English. Then I teach Senior 2 (11th) Drama. I also have a class of Chinese teachers who are learning English as well. (Although they haven’t actually showed up to class for the past month and a half…)
Junior 1 students provide the biggest challenge. They are full of energy and their English level is pretty low. If I got a kuai (Chinese dollar) for every time I told them to write something in their notes I could probably pay for you to come visit me here (maybe I should start collecting money from them…) My third or fourth class I ever taught here was probably the worst. They would not be quiet for anything. At the beginning of class each class get’s 3 check marks and if they talk I take away one. The idea is that at the end of the year if they have ‘enough’ checks they will get to watch a movie. And if in any given day I take away 3 checks I will go talk to their head teacher (a HUGE threat to these students.) So on this particular day Junior 1 Class 8 was being particularly talkative. I took away all three check marks by the middle of the lesson. And still they would not be quiet. Finally with five minutes left in class I got fed up. I told all the students to stand and to be quiet. I told them we would stand for five minutes in silence because they had talked all through class. I must have sounded mean because they all stood silently looking down at the ground. Except for the kid in the front row who dared to raise his hand after two minutes and argue that it had been five. The next week I talked to the kids teacher and the next class period they had been swiftly changed into a room of quiet attentive angels. Over the past few months I’ve honed my discipline techniques and this past week most of my classes have actually been behaving quite well.

Don’t get me wrong, Junior 1 students are the ones who give me the greatest joy too. There are a few kids to note that make me exceedingly happy. Basically any kid from class 4.6 one of my advanced, advanced classes, especially Nick who wrote about Einstein’s theory of relativity and time travel on his homework. Nick also expressed an extreme dislike for Rap and Hip-Hop music during my music lesson. When I asked the class if anyone liked it he loudly proclaimed ‘How could you like it? It’s not even music! It’s TERRIBLE!!’ after trying to collect myself and not laugh out loud in front of the class I asked the question again and as he put his head on his desk in disgust a few other students timidly rose their hands signaling that they enjoyed this ‘TERRIBLE’ music genre.
Here in China the kids all have their classroom and the different teachers travel class to class to teach. The kids basically live in that room for the year. This seems to encourage a variety of objects and things to collect in the room throughout the year. I notice this especially in my Senior 2 drama classes. The students seem to have everything out on their desks or on the floor around them. Books are stacked up high and papers are strewn around. They also seem to have more dishes setting out on their desks than I have in my kitchen sink (quite a feat I assure you) However it was in one of my Junior classes that a student had the weirdest thing I have yet to see. I was teaching when out of the corner of my eye I noticed that this quiet girl in the front row was holding up a water bottle and examining it. Nothing to weird I said to myself, but none the less I walked over toward her while teaching to see what was so enthralling that she wasn’t writing down everything I said about prepositions. That was when I noticed that this wasn’t simply a water bottle. In that bottle swimming around seemingly unaware that he was in a classroom learning the difference between under and above was a goldfish. She even had a small plant for him to enjoy. Of course a goldfish is nothing compared to another teacher’s story of her students keeping two chipmunks in the class room in their pencil cases over the course of several years…

I love the students and I am slowly learning their names. Of course there are some who made themselves very noticeable in the first few days and yet others who have such unique names it is nearly impossible to forget them. I have kids named Teddy Bear, Ice Frog, Potter, several girls named Cherry and a boy named Hope. Oh and there are too many Micheal’s and Jacksons to keep them all straight. One of my favorites and also one of my biggest trouble maker is a kid named Cory. Yes, I named him and I rightly choose the name Cory. He reminds me a lot of a certain Spain in my life when he was that age. He is always shouting out things that may or may not be the answer to the question I answer, but he apparently has no shame to be wrong. He is quite hilarious.
My drama elective has been a lot of fun to teach. I use the term ‘elective’ here loosely because the students I teach do not have a choice of what class to take nor do they have a choice on whether to attend or not. There are 7 different elective topics that the foreign teachers teach and we each randomly got assigned two classes to teach every other week. Fortunately it seems like most of my kids are on board with the drama idea, but it’s a little rough because I have nearly 40 kids in each class. This next week they are performing radio dramas. I’m excited to see what they do with it.
Well… I think that’s all for now. I’ll try and get the next update up before March… I’ll leave you with a few pictures…