Back In The School Grind

In the weeks leading up to my departure – in the midst of planning, packing and a panic attack or two – I had a tendency to forget the real reason I was coming to China. It wasn’t to travel or put off real responsibility just a little bit longer. It wasn’t to go on an adventure or learn about a new culture. Sure, those things were a (very) positive bonus to the experience, but the real reason was to teach. Right?

Well, I’ve now finished my first full week of school and I’m feeling pretty teacher-y already. As the week wore on, I began to choose outfits based on comfort (gasp!) rather than style. I used hand sanitizer like it was my personal responsibility to keep Purell in business. In the compartment of my backpack that used to carry the latest issue of US Weekly, I now keep lesson plans. A few times, I even had to put on my best “stare-at-the-class-in-silence-while-tapping-my-foot-impatiently-until-they-shut-up” face, for crying out loud.

And I’ve experienced a kind of exhaustion that my body has never known before. There is “tired” and then there’s “teacher tired.” The latter is a whole new ball game. I always thought that Mariann, my third-grade-teaching sister, was just exaggerating. She is a master in the art of hyperbole, but I won’t roll my eyes anymore when she complains of exhaustion. I get it now. Oh, do I ever get it. I gave in to temptation and made my first trip to Starbucks (yes, Starbucks) just so I could get through Wednesday. It had the same heavenly Starbucks smell that I’ve grown to love, which was pretty comforting.

A major contributing factor to my fatigue is the fact that I have fourteen different classes at five different schools (Hang Hui, Tian Lin, Wu Yuan, Zi Wei and Xian Yang). Over the course of one week, I teach twenty-five classes, which vary in length from 1 ½ hours to just 30 minutes. Complicated, I know. New Beat, the company I work for, hires out its staff to local schools to teach a specific curriculum they have developed, which leads to this ridiculous master schedule. It’s inefficient, obnoxious and, frankly, makes no sense. But, that’s just the way it goes. The government hasn’t set a concrete school calendar yet, so I don’t even know when exactly I’ll be done with the semester. Apparently, they didn’t get around to doing that until December last year. Go figure.

But the thing that has made the heinously mismatched outfits, hellish schedule and sheer exhaustion all worth it, is the kids (as cliché as it may sound). They are so adorable, in fact, that Buffin and I had to expand upon our term for cute kids (“muffins”) to include a word for the teeniest, tiniest, most muffin-y ones of all – “nuggets.” I’ve got quite a few of them in my classes, especially my Book One kids who are just three years old. The only downside to teaching the younger ones is that the odds of having a crier in the room increase exponentially. It’s a real self-esteem booster when a kid bursts into tears at the mere sight of your scary, white-person face. Bonus points if the little boy happens to have a rattail that reaches the middle of his back (yep, believe it).

But the most hilarious part of the teaching experience so far has been the students’ English names, which are chosen by their parents. Here are just a few of my favorites: Apple, Berry, Princess, Fish, Mountain, Alpha, Dora, Boots, Hanson, Calvin, Elf, Cain, Twinkle, Kitty and Candy. Ah, priceless. I love that inspiration seems to come from just about anywhere. A mid-90s boy band phenomenon? Sure. Nickelodeon TV show? Why not. Strip club? You betcha. Almost as good are the ones with names that make them sound like they’re 80 years old (i.e., Cathy, Frank, Nancy).

Aside from two mildly traumatizing incidents of pseudo sexual harassment (my bottom was slapped and my cleavage investigated), the kids are very well behaved. The Chinese teachers are strict and a little scary, so I’m sort of like this smiling novelty that comes twice a week to sing, dance and play with them. They’re enthusiastic about learning English, very clever and almost always willing to participate.

I’ve done a little bit of everything with my students – ABCs, numbers, colors, animal names, phonics. But the one thing I’ve done (over and over and over again) is sing and dance. I’ve always known there was a Broadway star trapped inside me just waiting to get out, but this is not how I imagined fulfilling that dream. Each class begins with a greeting song that corresponds to the book I’m teaching from, and almost every other section of each lesson includes a song or two. When you’re practicing counting, well wouldn’t you know, there’s the “1-20 Apples” song. But what about teaching countries, you say? Not to worry, there’s the “Where Are We?” song.

I think it suffices to say that by the time Thursday rolled around, we were ready to have a little fun. Elliot (our CIEE friend who was placed at a university in nearby Jiaxing) came to visit for the night since he hasn’t started teaching yet. It was nice to see a friendly face again, especially since said face tosses out hilarious comments like, “We’re going to paint the town redder than it already is.” See, communism can be funny! Buff and I cooked our guest dinner (the go-to meal of noodles and sautéed veggies) and then met up with Josh and Becky, the married couple from our program. We grabbed a very watered-down cocktail at Blue Frog before heading to Mural where it was 50 kuai ($8-ish) all-you-can-drink Carlsberg draft. Becky can throw back a beer as fast as a frat boy can shotgun. I was impressed.

As it so often does, all-you-can-drink beer led to making new random friends, which, naturally, ended in an awesome dance party. I believe it was when I saw Buffin being flung around by a random Chinese guy – whose moves could best be described as that of a twitching robot on speed – that I stopped to consider the fact that we should probably be acting a little more grown up now that we’re in charge of molding young minds. Then I laughed, grabbed Elliot’s hand and headed for the dancefloor.