Finding my groove... Then Snow Men & Snow Balls

Its been difficult, after how many years (lets not get into specifics) of working 7.30 – 5/6pm, Monday to Friday, to get used to Friday afternoon being advised you may be doing 8am, or 2pm… or nothing one day, then a plethora of different classes the next day. Saturday is now Friday and Saturday, Sunday – who knows where Wednesday has gone.

China… in my experience… sometimes lacks the level of communication between departments that I’ve become accustomed to, so I have needed to also get used to not knowing which class and what level I’ll be teaching from week to week. Well, I was after a bit of diversity in my career, and I’ve certainly gotten more than I bargained for.

When I first considered doing TEFL I was so excited to teach wee ones, I envisaged myself surrounded by five years olds, creating dramatic stories about unicorns and panda’s and their journey to distant planets… I think its been clearly established that this is not where I landed.

So… you can imagine my delight, and shock / unprepared concern, when my schedule came through showing three lessons with my colleagues 8 year old daughter…

I think we were as nervous as one another when we first sat down in the class room, fortunately I had a few special weapons up my sleeve…

I grinned at Cisi, she moved her head to the side looking at my inquisitively… I grinned a knowing grinned. She coughed a nervous cough.

“Do you want to see what I have?”

She squinted back at me… I could see intelligence and knowledge behind those sharp little eyes.

I pulled out my first finger puppet, a wee dog… her eyes lit up, her fingers twittered and shifted, but remained in her lap. Next I pulled out an owl, then an elephant…

“elephant!” she said proudly, then her hand smacked quickly on her lips, she glanced at me, kicked her legs and went back to forced silence.

“What is this?”

I pulled out a panda… I held it within her grasp. Again she looked at me, there was a twinkle in her eye, her free hand hovered near the panda… behind her tiny fingers, covering her mouth I heard a whisper… “Panda” she said… I passed her the toy.

The next couple of classes we’ve found a bit of a groove. Between drawing and playing with puppets I think we’re getting somewhere and will have her ready for US Summer Camp in no time.

My greatest success? Music… Last lesson I brought along youtube clips of The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid and Hakuna Matata… we decided on Hakuna Matata – to learn to whole song in one lesson so she could show her Dad. She picks up music better than I pick up a fork.

Ten minutes til the end of class, we had practised relentlessly. “CISI!” I said, “We must now do a practise concert!”, “Ok!” she said.

I lined up the finger puppets, our honourary audience, I gave Cisi some instructions:

“Welcome…to our… performance”, said Cisi to the crowd, “It is Hakuna Mattata”…. Pause… “I hope you like it!” We held hands and bowed.

The song began – we sung and danced and made gestures appropriate to the music. I showed Cisi how to do the washing line, click her fingers.

It felt joyous! And had a positive learning outcome…

We headed back for me to drop her at her Dad’s desk. Cisi looked up at me, a giant smile, and we laughed together.

I found me groove! As much as I love teaching the older students... kids just done steal my heart!

Snow balls and snow men

A few days ago I said to my boss, Alan… “Will it get any colder than this?”

“It -2 now, is that not cold enough” please note he’s from Cains, Queensland.

“Well… yes… but I was just expecting a bit more… well Snow…”

“Mmmm never really get much here, maybe just an inch?”

Ah Murphy… he’s always there to prove someone wrong! The following day I awoke in a vanilla ice cream bowl… flakes were flurrying in the air, branches heavy with hours of snow-fall.

Yes, my shoes have holes in them so by the time I got to class my feet were saturated, further, they have no grip so my full tea was half a tea by the time I got to the office what with all the slipping and sliding and gasping and oops! Much to the garden employees delight!

Between early and afternoon class Robyn and I braved the weather, it was a ghost town – this was not the snow day of my imaginings, snow days of Charlie Brown… where were the children? Where were the snowmen?

We worked to rectify this, I primarily focused on bringing in more snow with my feet for Robyn to concentrate on the building aspect with her hands – it was an equal distribution of tasks I think… except I retained feeling in my extremities.

I did, however, have the forethought to bring a carrot for a nose, some nuts for buttons and eyes and pulled a branch from a near-by tree for some traditional arms.

As you can imagine some interest was then generated, a passing colleague came over to give him approval, Rhonda (Alan’s wife… also from Queensland and not a fan of cold / snow) waved from the fifth floor and filmed our hard-work from the comfort and warmth of the office.

The final result…. Definitely the MOST unattractive snow man I’ve ever seen, however, proud to say it is the third snowman I’ve ever built and there was a time when I thought I’d never see snow, let alone build a man out of it!

Robyn and I discussed the possibility of bringing the kids out from class early for some “Cultural Diversity” time… ie GO PLAY AND HAVE SOME FUN IN THE SNOW! They spend their time eating, sleeping and studying – maybe a bit of cheeky computer gaming and shopping to round out the week. From the age of around 10 its out with youth / molly coddling / pandering and pampering and in with – welcome to the real world, get to work!

So… Robyn and I wrapped up class a little early, brought our some-what protesting groups together and set out through the snow with yelps and yips and sliding about. Robyn set to work dictating to her students the intricate process of building the perfect snowman. My students and I spent a few minutes faffing about, exclaiming of the pain in our hands… when I decided to change activities and start throwing snow balls at the kids!

We then thought it best to attack Robyn’s group and much to Robyn’s despair military like determination to have the kids build a snowman, or at the very least a snow turtle… her students joined in the battle to end all snow battles.

Up in the offices and along the walkways heads popped up to watch the bizarre melee that was going on below. We later learned that even the Principal of the school came to see what on earth was going on – highly inappropriate behaviour indeed!

But for a good time, the kids weren’t studying or thinking or stressing… I was having the very first snow ball fight of my life and by goodness I shall ensure its not my last! It is my firm belief that one should always retain atleast 30% of your childhood self for sanity and general life enjoyment.

When class was technically over the kids stayed on to fight some more and help Robyn with her odd shaped turtle.

Oooofff I love the snow! What a lovely lovely day.