lesson learned

I have been teaching a unit on West African folk tales. Generally they follow the same rules as other fairy tales, bad guy does something gets caught moral....
So we read one in class where a trickster cheats his way to marry the kings daughter and is found out because he leaves his water bottle at the place where he cheats. It is of course found out and the marriage is annulled and he is punished. Pretty clear message and moral i think. So I ask my students to tell me what is the story trying to teach, most of them got it, honesty, cheaters never prosper, the truth always comes out, but this one girl in my third period class when I ask raises her hand straight away. I call on her and she says," the story is telling us not to leave any evidence." And people wonder why I love teaching. That kid is going to grow up to be something what a way to see the world. Other than that I got my Praxis scores back. I needed a total of 149 to pass. there were 200 possible points. I finished the Multiple choice section in 27 minutes instead of the recommended 90. I wrote pages of answer to the short answer questions. I had gone out the night before and was really not in the best shape for the test. I barely scored a 196. I even know which question i missed. Ah well next time i will do better.

bali

Went to bali and was a bit disappointed. the waves were nice and all but really it was a bit crowded and there were too many people surfing for me to try to go out and get my groove on. It says something about a place when the entire stretch of beach was lined with the vendors , not fruit or trinkets but surf boards. now do you really expect me and this temple i have to climb into the water with the riff raff that rents surf boards for a weekend visit? All I could imagine was an errant surfer getting on a wave too big for his rookie ass and crashing into me so i left the beach and headed into the mountains much nicer up here less people less to doi and overall less expensive.Think I will enjoy the few days I have here just a lot of walking and looking and figuring out what it is I want to do next. Hopefully there will be time enough to hit a beach and relax but if not thats ok I am trying to learn to take it easy and harbor less expectations. Life I think is about learning, I am not finished yet just have to remember that.

responsible

Perhaps I have said this here before but today I had another stark reminder if exactly how different the education systems in the US and chins actually are. My story for the day is this, I had a student that I teach for oral english say that because the students choose to speak in chinese during the class that somehow the method of teaching isnt suitable for their learning style. I was and am confounded. Exactly how does one propose to learn to speak another language? Do these students think that I can just lecture and they will learn oral english? Do they want me to hold their hand and stand over them to make certain that they only speak in english? What about taking some responsibility for your own education? My teacher never made certain I was doing the assignments, I mean never more than graded assessments. If the students choose not to do the assignments given and practice discussing about the topics that are presented then I cant really help them. I can only help those who help themselves, without motivation and an internal desire to improve what am I to do?

class

I have one group of students that, let me take that back. It is flabbergasting the difference in students and expectations that students in the US and china face. While most students here will tell you that they study very hard and have no free time, I have made an informal questionnaire of students and found that almost none of my students work and go to school at the same time. I am amazed by this. It was so common for students in the US to hold a job at the same time as going to school. And it isnt as if the requirements here in china are so much greater than those of college students in america. If anything I would say the students here are more pampered, walked through and hand held. Let me give you an example. We all remember our college right? Ok I only remember some of it but that is another story. Well in college the students are responsible for making certain that all requirements for matriculation are met. If there are questions then the student must seek the counselors to answer them. Here in china the students are given their schedules complete. Told when and where classes will be, told what electives they will take. Everything is done for them, in no way do they take responsibility for their educational experience. Another example, I didnt fail any of the classes while in my college nor did I pass/fail them. But here there is no pass/fail option for the students. If they fail the entire semester they are given a make-up exam to try again. In the school I worked at before this make-up exam was never graded never looked at by any teacher, never, never, never. I was asked at that school to administer some make-up oral english exams and I was told not to grade lower than a 60 so all students passed. Show up and be told what classes you will take, dont learn, dont work and in four years there it is your college educated. I just dont get how this is good for the country and for the world. I actually expect my students to learn to show me they can think and they freak out. They act like it is the first time in their life they have had to do that, and perhaps it is. I just wonder what it is that the students think they will find once they get out of school. I am not saying that all the classes I took in college were tough and some certainly were shit and could be walked through but even in the easy ones I had to think critically about the topic. I guess it is like they say, different folks college hoax.