Today was the first day of class, but it held more mysteries than known quantities. How much English would the students know? We were teaching the first period of the day at 8:00, would the rooms even be open? Would the classrooms have the audio / visual components that we were promised? How old would the students be? Would they respond to humor, or did they want something more serious? Were they willing to even try speaking English? My class sizes range between 40 and 60, but how many students would actually show up?
I found out the answer to that last question was 9. Of the five teachers, three of them had full classrooms, I had nine students, and Ash had none. His classroom wasn’t even open. Ash sat down in the teacher’s lounge (1) to bunker down until his 10:30 class, and I set to teaching the students that I had. The lesson plan that I had prepared for fifty-five students went much more quickly with nine. I had hoped to gauge their creativity by having them play a form of “Two Truths and a Lie.” I think the concept was lost on them, and I did not hear a single lie. On top of that, it’s hard to get lost in a crowd of nine, and the students were far too nervous to get any response other than silent, slightly quizzical stares. No voices, no laughter. I was alone with 9 furrowed brows.
At 8:30 there was a commotion in the hall. A river of students seemed to materialize and flow past my door, making it difficult to hear the already soft-spoken students. I stepped outside under the guise of quieting the commotion, but I think what I really wanted was to escape the mind-numbing monotony of my sabotaged lesson plan.
I step outside to see Mr. Wang, my boss, frantically moving through the students. Apparently there was a miscommunication, and Ash’s students finally arrived. I called him, and told him the good(ish) news, but not all of the hundred-or-so students could be his. I asked one student, and it turned out they were mine. I told him where to go, and when I stepped into my classroom for the second time that day, I saw many, many students. Then the bell rang for the mid-class break, and there was nothing I could do but put my head down on the podium. Then the students laughed.
Class was back in. My lesson shot to hell, I had nothing to do but repeat the information that I gave in the first class. This time the class was much more responsive, and it was a lot more fun. It would be futile to try to stick to the original plan, so I improvised with some free-form conversation, and got a few people to talk.
Left with too little time for my plan and too much time to fill by myself, I dismissed the class 10 minutes early. Nobody moved. I repeated myself, and again, barely a ripple. This was the strangest class I had ever been in. I decided I might as well wander around the room and see if I could get some individual conversations going. Apparently they had a class in the same room the next period. Well, at least they weren’t just freakishly studious, because that would be weird.
The next class period (Geology students) went much better. Everyone showed up, and apparently the lesson plan turned out to actually be pretty decent. Two Truths and a Lie was still a bust, though. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.
(1) An empty room with wooden chairs. Still, better than a chairless room full of people, which China seems to be full of.
Showing posts with label Unknown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unknown. Show all posts
Friday, September 12, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Beginnings
I arrived at Southwest University expecting… something. It represents the end of my prolonged unemployment; the beginning of the next phase, whatever that may be. And so, at 8:13 PM, I stepped out of the taxi into the dark and the rain. A solitary light lit the entrance and framed Mrs. Niu, who runs the Foreign Experts housing. Except for her initial mutterings of “ta jong wen hai ke yi,” we walked up the four narrow flights of steps in silence and darkness, the sound-activated lights turning on late and dim, really only highlighting the darkness that they briefly interrupted.
It has been a long time since I have ever walked up a flight of stairs without knowing my destination. Mrs. Niu didn’t offer, and I didn’t ask, choosing to savor yet another small mystery. Without knowledge of my destination, the steps seemed as if they could have stretched onto into the darkness forever, and I was content to blithely chase the dark, one step at a time, forever. The lights faced down the stairs, but were rarely triggered until I was right under them, with the effect that I would walk through the dark, and when the lights did turn on, they would illuminate barely more than my heels and the flight of stairs that I had just finished climbing. It seemed appropriate, strangely analogous to my recent history, walking blindly forward, clarity coming only infrequently and retroactively.
We did not climb forever; we only climbed to the fourth floor, into an amazing apartment, with hardwood floors and high ceilings, a double bed, and a fuzzy Bugs Bunny blanket, though I would not find that until later. Mrs. Niu let me into my new home and then she and her husband, Mr. Liu, set about connecting the appliances and turning on the water heater. I was left in the living room, the sparse furnishings only calling attention to my abundance of luggage in the middle of the room. I brought very little, and yet… I have too much crap. With promises to help me with any problems that I might have, they left me standing in the living room – my living room – feeling that I should be feeling more. Some excitement, maybe some fear, wonder, appreciation; even hunger would have at least been something to latch onto. But I just felt… right, maybe even satisfied. Alone, but satisfied.
This past year I have been forced to wring the meaning from every day, because there has been nothing external to do it for me. As opportunities did nothing but dry up, plans did nothing but die, the fertile landscape of my everyday life also dried up and died. There were no 5-year plans to cultivate, not office projects to nurture, and so I found myself in a wasteland with nothing to do but set fire to my expectations and revel in the unexpected, sometimes treacherous, freedom that twisted and curled out of the destruction. There was no slow-and-steady for me, I was either active or I was a lazy, unemployed bum. I think I came to depend on that fire, that burning resolve to keep myself from fading away into insignificance, and I would do it by pure force of personality if necessary.
So it was unsettling for me, so accustomed to fire and passion, to feel… I don’t know. Was it the grind of machinery? The sense that as I moved, something would move in response, that what I did now made a difference? That my next actions would have lasting consequence, if only for a year? And so I unpacked for the future, folding and stacking my clothes in the way that I would want them for the next year. Should the shirts go in a drawer or a shelf? The shelf was unorthodox, but did I really want to bend down every morning? And that was the thing. In the smallest of ways, I was preparing for the future. I have no doubt that a balance will eventually be struck, that the machinery and the fire will alternate and intermingle, enhancing and interrupting each other; they always do. But for now I am content to stand in the stillness, slowly folding and stacking clothes, sure in the knowledge that things are changing.
It has been a long time since I have ever walked up a flight of stairs without knowing my destination. Mrs. Niu didn’t offer, and I didn’t ask, choosing to savor yet another small mystery. Without knowledge of my destination, the steps seemed as if they could have stretched onto into the darkness forever, and I was content to blithely chase the dark, one step at a time, forever. The lights faced down the stairs, but were rarely triggered until I was right under them, with the effect that I would walk through the dark, and when the lights did turn on, they would illuminate barely more than my heels and the flight of stairs that I had just finished climbing. It seemed appropriate, strangely analogous to my recent history, walking blindly forward, clarity coming only infrequently and retroactively.
We did not climb forever; we only climbed to the fourth floor, into an amazing apartment, with hardwood floors and high ceilings, a double bed, and a fuzzy Bugs Bunny blanket, though I would not find that until later. Mrs. Niu let me into my new home and then she and her husband, Mr. Liu, set about connecting the appliances and turning on the water heater. I was left in the living room, the sparse furnishings only calling attention to my abundance of luggage in the middle of the room. I brought very little, and yet… I have too much crap. With promises to help me with any problems that I might have, they left me standing in the living room – my living room – feeling that I should be feeling more. Some excitement, maybe some fear, wonder, appreciation; even hunger would have at least been something to latch onto. But I just felt… right, maybe even satisfied. Alone, but satisfied.
This past year I have been forced to wring the meaning from every day, because there has been nothing external to do it for me. As opportunities did nothing but dry up, plans did nothing but die, the fertile landscape of my everyday life also dried up and died. There were no 5-year plans to cultivate, not office projects to nurture, and so I found myself in a wasteland with nothing to do but set fire to my expectations and revel in the unexpected, sometimes treacherous, freedom that twisted and curled out of the destruction. There was no slow-and-steady for me, I was either active or I was a lazy, unemployed bum. I think I came to depend on that fire, that burning resolve to keep myself from fading away into insignificance, and I would do it by pure force of personality if necessary.
So it was unsettling for me, so accustomed to fire and passion, to feel… I don’t know. Was it the grind of machinery? The sense that as I moved, something would move in response, that what I did now made a difference? That my next actions would have lasting consequence, if only for a year? And so I unpacked for the future, folding and stacking my clothes in the way that I would want them for the next year. Should the shirts go in a drawer or a shelf? The shelf was unorthodox, but did I really want to bend down every morning? And that was the thing. In the smallest of ways, I was preparing for the future. I have no doubt that a balance will eventually be struck, that the machinery and the fire will alternate and intermingle, enhancing and interrupting each other; they always do. But for now I am content to stand in the stillness, slowly folding and stacking clothes, sure in the knowledge that things are changing.
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