Highlights of TEACHING TIME

I always wanted to be an actor, to be infront of an audience, to make them howl with laughter, to cringe with distaste, to gasp with shock or be silent in awe. Unfortunately I didn’t follow that dream, so it had stayed simply in my day-dreams, when sitting on a bus on the way to work, or wandering around the river, I’d enjoy a moment of imaginings of a destiny not quite fulfilled.

What is mad and wonderful now, though, is that my love of an audience, a desire to impact others through performance, has been realised. Certainly not in the way I’d ever have thought, but here… in the role of teacher, you can gasp and flutter and spin and twirl and create worlds for your students to bask in while learning about this or that.

I suspect that this is why, at the end of every class, I feel as though I’ve skipped, not walked, back to my accommodation… my blood buzzing with the bliss of performance… and yes, the fun of knowing that the kids have enjoyed their class and fingers crossed… they’ve learned a thing or two!

The week just passed I discussed HALLOWEEN… and was trying to explain INTERPRETATION… so made use of a couple of my favourite paintings, a DALI that I thought wasn’t going to insult anyone and a BACON, admittedly called “The Screaming Pope”… I didn’t, however, realise I needed to explain what the POPE was… each class was somewhat confused, and even one of the teachers came to ask me if this was the same as a Bishop…

“Ummm well… kind of… above the Bishop”

“Oh yes yes”, she said.

All the classes did, however, feel that Bacon was not a fan of the Pope, and there was split between the students as regard to whether this was a ‘good’ painting or a ‘bad’ painting.

Often in a culture like this individuals are almost given their opinion… critical thinking seems something potentially learned at university… if then… I may or may not be making it my mission to get some critical thinking happening in my classes.

Moving on to the next slide, we looked at different types of COSTUMES (in China a costume is what one wears to traditional festivals or for particular events like Weddings and Funerals, but never associated with religion or ceremony).

I asked the class… “What could you dress up as?”

“A ZOMBIE!”

“Yes! With a broom and some messy hair!”

“A VAMPIRE!”

“Yes! With fake teeth and blood dripping down!”

I turned back to the powerpoint presentation and pointed at a dark female figure riding a broom and wearing a pointy hat;

“What about this?”

“A POPE!”

I couldn’t help but laugh, ummm well… no, not exactly, although some could argue... It became clear that my explanation of the Pope hadn’t really encapsulated the correct meaning…

“Nope, the Pope is not a Witch. He’s the leader of the Catholic Church”…

I tried to explain to the teacher and to the class simultaneously, but in a world without religion, it’s pretty difficult to explain what a leader of a church really is… They seem to concede the necessity of politicians, of chairmen, of dutiful ‘workers’, but a leader of a religious order… not something that comes naturally.

I’d been advised that my purpose in the High School was to provide access to the kids to a “natural Westerner”… So really… “just keep them entertained for forty minutes”…

“Hrmmm”… thought I… “But can we not learn something in those forty minutes? Would it not be better for them to not only have access to a Westerner, but also to learn some bits and bobs and have a bit of fun at the same time?”

I’ve walked in to a class, completely silent, studying away at their recent Math or Chemistry or Biology class.

I am silent.

I wait for the bell – which by the way is some rather long orchestrated song that is thumped out through the speakers littered across the campus… So there is always an awkward five or seven minutes where they sit in anticipation, I pretend to play with my phone and prepare… the song announces… “TIME TO START” and thus…

“Hiya!”

“Hello teacher!”

“How are we all”

“Fine”

“Fine? Just fine? Are you tired?”

“YES!”

“Too much homework”

“YES!”

“Shall we study some maths today?”

“No!!!!!!”

And then the fun of popping on the power-point which announces the subject of the day… so far, that’s been MOVIES, then MUSIC… we’ve looked at FOOD and NARRATIVE but I think the winner was this week… HALLOWEEN.

Often times you don’t know how a class will pan out… I didn’t realise there would be a female uproar when I popped Taylor Swift on as an example of Pop Music… Apparently Taylor is the bomb in China.

At no point would I have ever expected to be reprimanded for stopping a Hilltop Hoods song when I was explaining hip hop! The kids weren’t having a bar of it, they refused to learn until they heard the song the whole way through… and to be honest, I was so proud of my kids in that moment!

We discussed FOOD and they were most shocked to discover that in Australia people ate Wiggedy Grubs… this lead to my needing to explain what an Indigenous Community was… so we discussed Australian Aboriginals and then American Indians… and good gracious, what a mind blowing afternoon that was!

Although I did encourage all the children to go to the Pizza Hut in one of the malls and order LASAGNE – prolly the best homework they’ll ever get!

The next moment, I am discussing PLOT… and not just plot, but character, narrative, conflict and context… Some of the students are all about it, others look blankly at me… kind of stunned rabbits in the headlights.

I want to try and include all of the students, regardless of whether some are more advanced in English than others…

Thus… in one class, I’ve got kids that I can have proper banter with, and others who SO SO SO want to learn, but have little more than the knowledge of “Hi, how are you” in their English vocabulary.

When I was teaching the kids story and narrative, I brought six of my wee finger puppets and half way through the class asked for six volunteers. I snuck the kids out the door, the class were beside themselves, ‘what are they doing? Where are they going?”

I took the students outside the door and each kid got a puppet,

“Right… you need to make a story… remember the… HERO (they repeated)… the VILLIAN! (one of the kids held up the Panda to indicate he ought to be the villain) and don’t forget the VICTIM… ya’ll have TEN MINUTES to come up with a story.

I left the kids outside and carried on with the rest of the class discussing different types of narrative, narrative of different cultures, discussing their favourite stories… and then…

Ten minutes UP!

My volunteers, and this is with each class, skittled back in to the class most excited to tell their story with the puppets.

Sadly… all of the protagonists ended up dying in some rather difficult, violent and unusual way – which made the class laugh hysterically for a good few minutes! I feel there was a bit of “shock the teacher”, but since then… I think they know it takes a wee bit more to shock me.

Another week I decided to focus on Countries and Culture… It didn’t really go as I’d thought…

I had no intention of doing so, but I believe I accidentally provided proof of the English being evil, war-mongering, island hopping, land conquering, wicked daemons…

I didn’t mean for this to happen…

1.       America… American was occupied by different tribes of Indians. They were very happy, They had lots of corn. There were some tribal wars but all was as it was supposed to be

a.       The English came

b.      The English told the Indians they could live here, or here, or here, but not there…

2.       India… India was a land of many different tribes, with intertwining cultures, of respect for one another, a colourful culture with music and dancing

a.       The English came

b.      The English split the country in two based on the mountains and war between India and Pakistan has ensued ever since

Fortunately… I then chose… really? REALLY? Even my housemate is like… Fee… could you not have thought of, I don’t know… Brazil, of Canada?... of bloody ANYWHERE

Nope… I went with Ireland.

3.       Ireland… Ireland was a land united by language and culture and music and…

a.       The English came

b.      The English split the country in two and there are still fights as to who owns what and why….

The result?

One of my students explained it in one word, she seemed shocked and concerned when she said it, her nose screwing up near her eyeballs,

“Oh!” she expressed, “The English! They are WICKED”…

“Quite possibly”, I responded, “But this happens around the world…”

“Mmmm” I heard the class respond, “not China”…

Maybe not China… although I imagine China tried to conquer a country or two in is time, certainly Mao had every intention of Communising the world, but I value my job too much to start discussing the desires of Mao with anyone that speaks Cantonese.

I recently learned that China and Russia have not been friends for quite a long time, since 1600 in fact! But more recently, apparently Mao had a go at Russia for not being ‘truly communist’, so Russia decided to make use of their skills and abilities and initiated the Sino-Soviet War (ie lots of shooting and dying and you-re wrong but I’m right and –how-dare-you).

Because of 1969 the fear of War swept through China and Moa was not immune. It is suggested he sent 60% of the Beijing population the country, and demanded the remaining 40% of occupants to assist in the development of an underground city.

Mao’s rhetoric was:

Build… prepare for famine… prepare for war…

Mao was under the impression that the end of the world was imminent and that nuclear war was something that needed to be immediately prepared for.

It is so difficult to come from a world where ‘the end of the world’, where, ‘nuclear warfare’, where even war… is so far from your experience.

To think, when sitting on a bus to the shops, the elderly lady beside me has experienced so much over her time. Oh I wish I wish I wish I could have a proper chat with her, to hear about her childhood and teenage years, to understand how strange modernity is – given commercialisation arrived and spread in China so quickly. China is still a little ‘locked down’, which explains the constant staring at a Westerner – I think I, or Westerners, represent an outside world that was so long forbidden, ignored, was painted in negative diatribe.

The week just passed has got to have been my favourite so far – HALLOWEEN! I made boxes filled with candy, bought extra texta’s in preparation for a mask making activity. My powerpoint was filled with everything from The Night Before Christmas, to Beetlejuice and Hotel Transylvania.

We discussed the history of the Day of the Dead, Halloween and China’s TOMB SWEEPING DAY… yes… that is actually what it is called. The Chinese will head to the graves of family members and loved ones and clean up the tombs and spend time honouring the dead.

I picked a quiet and shy student at one point and slipped outside with them, the class whispered, gasped… what did the student do? Why are they being taken out of class.

I whispered instructions to the student,

“I’ll close the door, then you need to knock and call TRICK OR TREAT! Very loud… ok?”

The student indicated understanding.

I headed back in to the class and closed the door. I waited… and waited… nothing.

The class started to giggle as I swung the door back open only to see a gob-smacked kid wild eyed in confusion… I tried again.

Next there was a wee knock… knock… at the door

I opened the door, “HELLO!” I said happily, only to see the student whisper… “Tricking treat?”

The class laughed, I thought this is probably as good as we were going to get,

“OH!” I said dramatically, “Trick or treat?! YES!” and I passed the kid some candy…

The class were mortified… “Too easy!”, why was this person getting candy? How could they earn the candy? Man they love their candy!

For the last ten minutes of the class I had the kids get into groups and try and drawer the scariest masks. I held up one of my handmade colourful candy boxes…

“The winning team will win…. ALL THE CANDY!”

Grasps and whispers and nudging. Suddenly their arms were up, waving at me to provide them with pens and paper. They bounced up and down in their chairs, someone grabbed toilet paper and started ripping it up to use as hair, another group broke a red pen and used the ink to represent blood… there were ghouls and devils and some pictures I have no words for.

In the background I popped on the song from GHOST BUSTERS and the already buzzing atmosphere rose up a notch or two with kids bopping along to the tune.

“Times UP!” I announced, to an overall groan from each of the classes,

I dashed about the room between rows of tables and bumping chairs, clipped and grabbed and grasped the masks…

Back at the front of the class I held up each of the masks,

“Is this the winner?”

“NNNNOOOOOO!!!!!” shouted some, “YYYYEEESSSSS” shouted others.

Some I just held up and said… “THIS IS NOT THE WINNER”, to an eruption of laughter.

Based on imagination rather than skills and ability I chose the winner, a representative from the class bounded to the front, I shook their hands and bowed, “Congratulations!”, the kids laughed again.  

The student dashed back to his group, the rest of the class jumped up and encircled the winning team. They hissed and sighed and screeched with delight, candy was distributed and I imagine the teacher coming in after me may have wanted to chop my head off as they were bouncing off the walls!

So that’s teaching time for now