bog

NaNoWriMo is slow trudging. I keep finding that I have more and more ideas for what I want to write, but I feel limited by where I am in the story right now. Actually, I feel constrained by the concept of plot entirely – as if what I want to write isn’t what I’m actually writing right now. Hopefully I bust past this; every day I while away with ambivalence is going to mean a more painful late game at the end of November. I should probably take my laptop with me this time to Hong Kong this weekend; I’m going to see my parents off as they finish up their two-week trip and depart back for the States. They’ve brought my grandma with them to Hong Kong from Fuzhou, and my aunt and uncle are back from their visit to David in the States, so it’ll be a regular family reunion, I’m sure. Maybe I won’t have enough writing time to warrant lugging the extra seven pounds on my back.

(You have no idea how much I am looking forward to upgrading to a new four pound laptop next year. I am thinking feathers and pixie dust weight. Like nothing at all!)

I’m starting to realize how variable teaching can feel like. Last Wednesday I became grumpy after I attempted to get the kids to practice their speaking skills in a game of Telephone (kids line up in rows and I give one end a sentence to say. They report the sentence up along the row like a bucket brigade might, and then the last kid runs up to the board to write down the sentence and I check for consistency). Cheating abounded, which was alright in and of itself (I can play marshal alright) but one of the better students started yelling “this is a dumb game, let’s play hangman.” Annoyed, I singled him out to copy sentences while everyone else played.

At the end of class I went to him and told him I wanted to talk to him. He ducked his head and opened his arms in an invitation that seemed too obsequious to be at all sincere. I asked him what he felt the flaws of the lesson plan had been, and what he thought I could do to better assist his education. He said in near-perfect English, “because everyone cheats at this game it loses its value and becomes meaningless. Vocabulary practice would be helpful.”

I had learned already to not mind the trouble kids who sit in the back and heckle in Chinese; they have decided to be lazy and I do not need to bother with them. But when the intelligent and studious ones develop an attitude, I do become very annoyed. I thought of a time long ago when I interrupted my sixth grade math teacher’s lesson to ask what the homework assignment would be. He stopped the class to reprimand me on my lack of respect and patience. I remember feeling ashamed but also rather unjustifiably upbraided; I had only meant to be more efficient. But I learned about propriety and how to behave under a certain code of conduct that day. On Wednesday I guess I learned the difference between a smart kid and a smart ass.

Yet, when I try to structure classes to challenge them better, I sometimes am met with absolute befuddlement, as I had been right before Smart Ass’s (which I shall now deem him henceforth) class. Then it is like pulling teeth, no matter how engaging I try to be and how many little hooks I lay (a lesson plan can have hooks just like a pop song can, I’m learning). I still need a class to be upbeat and to be paying attention to me. Today, for instance, I did a lesson on slang words and culture. The first class was rioting in choruses of “wanna”s and “gonna”s and fist bumping each other out the door. The second kept scribbling at their geometry homework and looked up to humor me with one-word responses only when it seemed necessary.

Many of my dear friends are engaged in teaching programs right now for their career ambitions of doing a real version of my fake job. (Emmo, your comments on previous teaching posts on this blog have definitely helped me improve my classroom-management schemes.) I Skyped with Preet, currently doing her Master’s at Columbia for bilingual education, the other day and also asked her if she knew what I could do better. “There are going to be days like that all the time,” she told me. Yen related a conversation she had with one of her own professors that seemed to echo my sentiments – “how am I going to teach in a way that will challenge the good students and pull up the slower ones?” “It’s a common feeling, Pouw,” she said.

I suppose what makes it all worth it are the days when an entire class seems electrified, and when quiet students come up later with questions in better English than you thought they had. I also have to place my course and this year in perspective, I’m learning: today I asked another of the brighter students “how can I make this lesson more interesting?” after a particularly distracted session.

“I think there are some students who just do not understand enough English to know what you are saying,” she chirped. “Do not worry about them though.”

“But even you were working on your math homework during class!” I pointed out.

She paused mid-chirp. “Well, we have midterm examinations next week and some feel that this class is not as important.” Smiles.

I really can’t argue with that – these kids are under a lot of pressure, and sometimes when I step into a classroom to take over from the last teacher I can’t understand what’s written on the board myself (does a physics introduction to levers and fulcrums really have to begin with a problem involving 3 fulcrum points at once?). If I were a real teacher, with real grades and real material that might be useful for most of them, I could deserve their respect and attention. But I’m the Conversation teacher. Not the English teacher. I should remember what this year is to me – an out, an escape route, a relaxing year off before medical school starts. The students certainly seem to treat my class as a relaxing 45 minutes off from their normally intense days. I guess I shouldn’t take it too seriously myself.