So my field director finally made it out to observe both me and my site mate this past week. I've been trying to be tough and enforce my rules strongly so that I wouldn't have too many problems but that was all a crazy dream I guess...long story short, even if I am very good at breaking down difficult things, testing for comprehension, guiding students through practice exercises and finally bringing them to an independent activity where they can be creative, my classroom management is lousy. I need to be consistent with my rules and truly demand respect as I ask for in my class rules. I need to not only say "follow my rules" but provide a means of immediate feedback and show them that I am willing to follow through on what I say. Unfortunately, my red and yellow cards somehow went missing so I was unable to card students who were misbehaving later in the week. I guess that one class must still have them so I need to make new ones or something. It was awful. People are saying I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but I've found I need to stop listening to that. I was right before when I said I did not have the classroom I needed and now I've paid for it both in failing to keep an orderly and safe classroom and in embarrassing myself in front of my field director who proceeded to ask me questions about the noise level of all my classes (they are all noisy, but they are nothing like what I saw when he observed me) and I am all too aware that he could have really dug into me but I think his professionalism restrained him from doing so. Other teachers have assigned me assistants to do the points themselves because I'm terrible at rewarding students properly, being consistent, and working hard to keep students in line. It really really hurts but I got what I deserved for not being that authoritative figure (authoritative is not the same as authoritarian by the way, authoritative figures are demanding, but they give reasons for being demanding and are warm while authoritarian figures demand obedience without warmth). I NEED to be that teacher and right now I am not. This is an urgent thing that I must take care of and it surprises me that so many tell me to relax about it. But my field director was right: I need to be assertive and demand the respect that is mine and my students'. I am a teacher and should be treated as any other teacher here, and my students need to not only learn but have somewhere safe and orderly to learn, not the madness I witnessed on Wednesday and failed to properly address. There are no excuses for this. These are supposed to be the things that I am trained to address and I have not done so as I was trained to do.


While others think this is forgiveable for a new teacher, I do not find this forgiveable. When my students do not respect me and do not respect each other, I am not respecting their potential and their ability to do what they do for every other teacher. In the grand scheme of things, what I ask for is small and I refuse to spend anymore time listening to people who say I am too anxious and I need to just "chill out". If this is about my confidence issues, then starting now I will tell you that I've learned that I have clearer vision than I gave myself credit for and a much better understanding of where I should be than others have given me credit for. Call it intense and crazy, but I read once that lying about your strengths is still lying. I can see what I need to do and who I need to be, it's part of the job and self-awareness has always been one of my strengths. It's what allows me to see and admit that I have work to do here instead of feeling like it's "close enough". My job is to put as many things in place as I can to discourage disrespectful behavior though inevitably students will have bad days for all kinds of reasons. I am angry, but not at them and not at my field director. I am angry with myself but I also know that barb inside of me is what will push me to demand what they are capable of. They know I am kind and willing to share what I know already. Someone talked before about how my students love me, but though love and respect go hand in hand they are not the same thing and I can probably say some students have lost a lot of respect for me because I have not been the person I need to be. No more. I am laying it down clearly next class and asking for the same treatment they give their other teachers.

For at least two Fridays in a row now, I've had this one boy come up to me after class and tell me he hopes to speak better English. I usually respond by saying I hope to be a better English teacher. He grins and tells me, "You will be". These kids have already stolen my heart but it's this one little exchange in particular that I think about after a day of feeling very tired. I'm happy to see my lively students but exhausted from being that articulate, energetic teacher they see once every week. It's this exchange that makes me think about how to be the teacher these kids deserve as I go home for the day, what more I can give them, how to better bridge where they're at with where I want them to be, and just generally warms me to think that I have such awesome students who are growing with me. Do I have to shake them awake sometimes after a hard day? Yeah. Do I have to push a little to get everyone's attention? Yes. Is it tiring to stay up all night making big colorful posters, lesson plans, and monthly and term-long plans so I can be sure my students will have the foundation they need for the next activity I have planned? Yes, but every time I see them light up with something as small as waving Homer Simpson's face around in the front of the classroom or teaching them the English names for the cartoons they recognize I remember how it's so, so worth it.

I asked "Jim" (my motivated student) what he wanted to know about English or learn about English. He seemed unsure about how to say what he wanted or maybe my question was too broad, or maybe the possible answers are too broad and difficult to articulate given that I'm the one teaching him what I know about my native tongue and the place I grew up. I'll give him some time to come back with an answer. I'd love to get more input from my students about the things they want from my class, I can see how hard they work to understand me whenever they pull out their books and turn to the index or the dictionary. At first I forbid myself from using Chinese, but now that I understand the level that they are at, I understand that what few bilingual instructions I can give are actually very much appreciated and I have more students speaking to me now that they've heard my bad Chinese. I still limit my Chinese a lot and I hope to use less in the classroom as time goes on, especially since it's always so thrilling to hear them speak a little more. Here, teachers go up a grade along with the students they teach. I sometimes think that I wouldn't mind staying if it meant I could follow them for another year, continue answering their questions,  andlet them see what their capable of with each activity. I've built my lesson plans this month primarily to ensure my students would be able to understand most of  the song "This is Halloween"  because there are few things I want more than to say "Look, you say you are not very good, but you understood a song in English!"

They are worth every late night, hours of marker fumes and scouring books for grammar and vocabulary that are new and provide new challenges but are not impossible to achieve. I really hope I can get a solid collection of Playaway devices set up in a secure space so that my students always have the option of not only reading, but hearing English spoken by someone other than myself. I'd give them the world if I could, but I am a limited human being and they are middle schoolers with many other things to learn still.

This past week my students got a surprise: their teacher knows a little Chinese and can communicate a little bit with them when they are confused. I've been really reluctant to bring Chinese into the classroom, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it but I want to limit my Chinese as much as possible. 

I finally sat in and observed one of the other English teachers at work. I always hear him in my office I know we share classes so I wanted to see what they knew and how classroom procedures were with Chinese teachers. I was hoping to be able to just turn invisible in the back of the classroom, but he had them all greet me and my site mate before he started class. He was very clear and well-paced. Either today was a review day or I have been moving too fast with my lessons. I tried to get them to talk about phone numbers for my second week of classes but today I heard them go through a listening exercise involving phone numbers. So I guess I have thrown too much at them. Since the National Week holiday is on its way soon, I think this next week will just be a recap of what we have done. I'll teach them about Jeopardy or something so we can play a review game, reinforce what they're learning, and maybe make my students feel less lost or overwhelmed. I could do a better job of teaching. That's why it surprised me so much when my colleague asked me if I had any feedback or comments. He's been teaching for about 4 months, if you count my one week of practicum, I've been doing this for about 5 weeks. He is definitely senior to me, and his lesson was very clear to me as someone who only speaks a little Chinese. Also, I now know where my students learned to say "You are cute". I'm not totally sure, but given that I heard my name in class a few times, I think he told them to say it to their foreign teachers and ask us about our first and last names. I can only guess from their giggling. And the fact that my name came shortly after the words "You are cute".

I felt bad for distracting them too, I had to keep pointing forward so they would pay attention. They're so peaceful in their other English class, but then again, I'm the crazy foreign teacher, the fun teacher, and I teach the one thing that's not on the gaokao. This means that I have both very energetic and enthusiastic students and students who don't care as much because English is already difficult and oral English is not part of the national exam. I have had to tell students repeatedly to put things back in their desks. I could be tougher, but I'd like to emphasize to my students that they decide their grades and choose their own behavior and consequences. That and knowing how much work they have, I'm not sure I am comfortable taking away their textbooks. Simply tapping their desks, looking at them until they focus, or motioning that they should put it back in their desk seems to be sufficient for keeping them alert all period. Especially this week. I had a lot of difficult behavior this week, but also a lot of participation due to my friend, the donut. This is really what drove participation this past week. Part of how I get around oddly pigmented powerpoints or computers that don't work is by drawing, coloring, cutting, and laminating (with tape) different objects. Not only can my students see what I am talking about, but they can hold them and they love that I bring these brightly colored things into their classes.

This has probably been my toughest week so far when it comes to fighting, crying, and getting students to pay attention. I found my wireless mouse so that will have to serve as my powerpoint clicker until I find one here. I need to circulate more so I can better control my classroom. I don't want anymore crying students, no more fights (even before class has started), and no other work in my class. I nearly gave one student a heart attack when I saw she wasn't paying attention so I slapped my paper doughnut on her desk and asked the class if it was "His or hers?" I can't remember what she was doing but she was clutching her chest so I asked if she was OK. I wanted her to pay attention, but not freak out like that. Oops.

I'm sorry for not having photos as I originally intended, but I'm not comfortable bringing my camera into class. I'm sure my students would love photos, but I'm waiting until the end of the year for that. I also haven't traveled much so while I can easily get a few shots of things around my apartment without worrying about privacy or other issues, I really don't have much to show. I can tell you that there's a lot of building going on around me and I wonder if that contributes to the dust I see everywhere. I still haven't gone back behind my building enough to know if the Sheraton is in progress or if the sign near me is to let people know that a Sheraton is coming. But I think it's one of the signs of how much Zhuzhou is growing, changing, and opening up to the rest of the world: not only is this a hotel chain recognized abroad but that there are hotels here means that people not from Zhuzhou are coming to visit and take part in business or tourism.

I think I'm going to end here for today as I'm still fighting off something, need to get dinner going, and have to teach class on Sunday since the National Week break has changed my schedule somewhat. That and I'm going to an event held by the Zhuzhou govt. especially for foreigners and it will be a nicer event. I want to be at my best for that. There's a lot of schedule shuffling going on and it's made harder by the fact that as the foreign teacher who can't speak Chinese, I need to rely on my liaison to give me the information I need. I can't just attend meetings like the other teachers and get information about what's coming up. I wish I could, I'd love to be more involved as a real teacher would be, but that's not how I figure into the system at the moment. If at the very least I can get my students to say more than "Hello my name is", "I'm fine thanks. And you?", and "Good morning/afternoon" then I will be happy. I'll be happiest when I introduce them to a song or something and then I can tell them at the end of class that they now understand a song in English. That will be a source of pride for me if I can show them what they are capable of.