China is a country that can be welcoming one minute and elitist the next. I had to deal with people trying to parent me only to try to befriend me when I prove that I won’t be bullied. It’s been an ongoing cycle for a good while now, but I’m not here to talk about that today. But, right now, I want to talk about something that made me smile today.
Life
“I teach students, not subjects.”
-Unknown
I’ve been an educator for, at least, three years, now. Moreover, I’m closing in on my first year as a big boy teacher and I’m beyond proud of myself. I have seen and endured a lot and I still got one more month before the 2021-2022 school year closes out. But, what got me the most is the additional responsibilities of a teacher; it was a welcoming surprise.
Well, I’m back at school. Actually, I was back at school for a moment, then we were forced to go into lockdown, again, and, finally, able to leave my community…again. However, China’s Labour Day holiday is coming up so you can imagine my reservation about things getting back to normal. Nevertheless, I do have something to share…
It is interesting to see how my life has leveled out after two weeks of lockdown. It’s also a blessing and a half to see how quickly I was able to bounce back into the land of vivid living. I mean…it is a task to keep busy when you were forced to be confined to an enclosed space. Anyway, everything is slowly coming back to normal and my students are slowly coming back to school. Speaking of which…
This week and last week have been a trial of patience, devocation, and dedication for everybody at Limai. Teaching online with students who either have the attention span of a hummingbird or who just don’t like the idea of an online class. I mean…I didn’t like the idea of online classes when I was at university so how the hell was I going to convey the importance of it to my students. But I did my best…
I was avoiding the notion of posting until I got more information. Now, I know for sure and, dammit, I’m beyond pissed. Not for me, for my students. They are the ones who are going to hurt the most from this. I mean…this is a boarding school, after all. Oh, right. I need to tell you what’s happening. We’re going through another lockdown.
The students had learned what each genre of literature is and have chosen their first books. We (me, their homeroom teacher, and the Dean aka my boss) had set up a weekly schedule for each of them based on their skill level and their chosen book. Everything had been set up so the program could run smoothly with minimal oversight. It was so that the students can read their book without us breathing down their necks. Well, there was one little detail we failed to take into account…
Finally! Finally, we got the Kindles to work for my students. You have no idea how much time, effort, and energy it took for me and my boss to get these Kindles to the school, attach them to a proper Amazon account, and make sure that we could download the books they wanted onto their Kindle. Let me tell me more about everything…
I’ve been back in Nanchang for a while now. However, I got back to work last Wednesday. Well…technically my first day back was on Monday because I had several meetings to attend along with my colleagues. Then, I had one more meeting where I had to sit down with my boss to do some last-minute preparation for my school’s first-ever “Independent Reading Program”. You have no idea how excited I am about that. That among other things…