Merry Christmas!

One of my students asked me this week whether I was sad not to be home for Christmas. My answer was a little, but only a little because instead I was celebrating with them. And it really was a nice day. I couldn't really explain Christmas to them, not wanting to do or say anything even slightly religious, but we decorated Christmas tree and snowman posters, ate candy, and said Merry Christmas over and over again and I think they got the right warm-fuzzy feeling.

Many of my students gave me presents--a sweet but odd experience. In addition to the elaborately wrapped apples I was given rolls of decorative cellophane, a fluffy pom-pom, two plastic crystals, many notes, and more.

My table filled with gifts. 

The most elaborate: a snowglobe music box. What does it play? Fur Elise, which is our start-of-class bell and our ringtone
in this region (in other words, a sweet gift, but I never actually want to hear it play).

So much cellophane!

My favorite note. It says "wishing you a merry Christmas, daily smiles, and smooth work' and then "please translate into
English" with the box to the top-left set aside for my translation (also, translate--which includes a pretty complicated
character--is miswritten as "antonymous", also meaning antisense as used in genetics).

Puff ball, crystals, and flowers.

A crying peanut...or carrot? I have no idea...

Sadly, a student spilled water on my keyboard and it is broken...only the middle line types at all and produces: asdfg5h6jkl. I've typed this entirely with the onscreen keyboard. And so, as much as I love you all, I won't be posting again until I'm back in the States. Luckily, this will be very soon! I'm leaving my town next weekend and will be arriving in Maryland a couple of days, three buses, and three airplanes later. Looking forward to being home and seeing some of you soon!

We Wish You A Merry Christmas!

"We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, And a Happy New Year!"

I've been teaching this much of We Wish You A Merry Christmas to my students in music class. It's been a bit of a struggle, but they're starting to get it. So then I had them listen to a couple versions. The first was by my friend Kemi Adegoroye, the second by Tenebrae, and the third by Enya. I chose these three mostly because they are very different. I was surprised to find that the overwhelming majority liked Enya best. They seemed to find it peaceful. I thought it was boring.

The Winter Solstice and Christmas Eve Apples

This week is not only Christmas, but also the winter solstice and Christmas Eve. Of course, you say, if it's Christmas it's Christmas Eve as well. But I mention it because people don't seem to do much here for Christmas itself, but they give elaborately wrapped apples for Christmas Eve. Why? It's a pun on the word for Christmas Eve: 平安夜 Píng ān Yè. This literally means silent or peaceful night, but the word for apple is 苹果 píngguǒ, so they give people apples. A local teacher explained to me that this didn't used to be a tradition here, it's only started in the last two or three years. When I asked how it spread she said via television and the internet. It started in the big cities and now everyone else does it too.

Why are they so elaborately wrapped? My only explanation is that this is China and they like things like that. It's similar for lunar festivals where elaborately wrapped moon cakes are sold for many times the simple (and yummy) ones.

A wrapped apple.

A whole table of wrapped apples on the street in front of a fruit stand.

Apparently apples of all sorts are appropriate gifts: one student gave me this beautiful glass apple!

Earlier this week it was also the winter solstice. Usually it occurs to me sometime that it is the winter solstice and I think oh yay, the days will start getting longer again, and then I move on with my day as if it were any other. But my Chinese cofellows decided to celebrate the solstice, so I happily joined in. Apparently there are different traditions in the north and south of China for the winter solstice. In the north they eat dumplings and in the south they eat tangyuan (boiled balls of sweet gooey rice flour). So, since one of my cofellows is from the north and one is from the south, we ate both!

Sleigh Ride

Choosing what song to play in class is always hard for me. I like to choose songs that are simple enough that my students will understand a few words. But a lot of children's songs are pretty awful and since they don't get the chance to listen to much music, I want what I play them to be good! Since it's December, I've been playing Christmas songs. But this makes choosing even harder since I generally like traditional Christmas music more than kitschy holiday music, but I don't want to play them anything too religious.

Last week I finally chose Sleigh Ride mostly because I've been enjoying the new Pentatonix Christmas album. I played them three versions: Bing Crosby, Pentatonix, and Leroy Anderson (who composed the original orchestral piece). I wasn't quite prepared for how much they'd like it. Many of them were dancing in their seats (or occasionally out of their seats,,.I had to stop the music several times to calm them down!).

The overwhelming majority chose the Pentatonix version as their favorite, but there were several hands for Bing Crosby, and a couple for Leroy Anderson. Here are some of the comments.

"I don't like the first one because it sounds like he was unhappy when he sang it. I like the second one because it is happy and crazy."

"I like the second one because I like female singers. Also it's lively and exciting."

Bing Crosby:
It's pretty, but I don't like it because it sounds strange.
Fun!

Starts well and gets better!

Feels a little cold, but still pretty.

Not pretty because it’s a male singer.

The sound is gruff.

Makes me want to dance.

I like this one because it has small animals in it.

Pentatonix:
Feels like dancing.
Feels like celebrating Christmas with my classmates.
Sounds like singing on a prairie.

Moving/touching.

Makes me want to play on a sleigh.

Sounds happy.

Too quick.

Fun.

Leroy Anderson:

I don’t like this one because it doesn’t have lyrics.

Interesting!

Makes me think of when I was small.

I like this one best because it has lots of small deer.

I think it's fascinating to see what my students think of when they think of Christmas, snow, and sleigh rides. I realized, first looking at their pictures, and then checking the definition, that the translation of sleigh can also mean a simple sled. They have vague ideas about Santa Claus and reindeer and presents and Christmas trees--presumably from TV--but no firm idea of what Christmas is or how it's actually celebrated.

I like the second one because it's "meimiao" (beautiful, splendid, wonderful).

I've gotten several questions about the 
"colored lights" in my windows.

"I like this song because they can play on the snow, this is just too great!"

"I like this song because sitting on sleighs/sleds is happy and a great time."

I particularly liked this reindeer...maybe because it seems so happy.

"In the middle of a big snow and stormy winds, people riding sleighs shows that they really like winter!"

"I've come to bring you presents, ride on the sleigh with me!"

This one looks like a dog sled?

Nutcracker? Or maybe just a random drawing...

There's now snow in this one, but then there's no snow here in winter either.

"Beautiful winter has come! Let's ride a sleigh together! We'll have a great time."
(Also, look at the eyelashes on that snowman!)

The Last Two Days

This teaching competition has been going on for the last two days. All the other first-year TFC fellows taught English lessons on Thursday, while my cofellow, who teaches art, and I taught this morning. During the third period on Thursday I was go over a quiz--which most of my students didn't do to well on...writing letters is harder than you might think--in my worst-behaved class when the principal came by and gestured for me to come out and talk with her.

"You can go listen to the other fellows classes," she told me. 

"Thank you," I responded, "but I'd like to finish this class."

"Oh, okay," she said, "but the banzhurens can cover your classes, don't worry."

"Since I've started, I'd like to finish," I explained.

The next class I went and listened and was urged by my vice-principal to stay in the afternoon and not teach my own classes. In both cases it was a strange combination of them being polite, but also wanting me to be there rather than teach my classes. On the one hand, it was a great opportunity to listen to other fellows' classes and see both their strengths and weaknesses and reflect on my own teaching. On the other hand, I wanted to teach my classes! Every time we don't teach our classes because of some event my local teachers all think it's no big deal. It's only my cofellows and me who get frustrated. In this case, it was a valuable experience, so it would have been fine if we'd known about it last week and could have planned around it, but as it was I really wanted to get through my lessons for the week.

The competition was strangely fake: teaching students you've never taught before, not knowing what they know already. But it was also interesting and reminded me of things that I like about my teaching routines, as well as things I can do better. I was able to convince them that I couldn't teach a Chinese song without more preparation time, so I taught them the first part of We Wish You A Merry Christmas. We also did some body percussion, which they liked...but they had trouble snapping. I'm not sure if snapping is more common in the US or if I've just forgotten how uncoordinated many children are (but these were sixth graders...). And when I tried to get them to sing and do the body percussion together that was really hard. But hey, it was the first time they were doing something like that and I think it went pretty well. The local music teacher even said she particularly liked something that I did: using numbers to practice the scale rather than solfege. I can't take full responsibility for this idea--my music theory class in college encouraged us to use numbers--but it also jives well with the Chinese method of musical notation (no, it's not the same as ours) which uses numbers for scale degrees rather than a staff.

One of the hardest parts of the whole thing was sitting in the back of the classroom in the cold. It's been very cold the last three days. Cold, rainy, and foggy. The sun only broke through the fog this afternoon, but when it did the view was wonderful, with a snow topping several of the peaks on Gaoligongshan to the east of us.

It's more impressive in person...this is with no zoom.

The competition finally concluded this morning and I was looking forward to teaching my best class this afternoon. And then I was told that there was a parent meeting in the afternoon.

"Will we teach the afternoon classes?" I asked.

"Nope!" was the reply.

Sigh. On the bright side, all the students were given $500 each for school supplies etc. (apparently this happens once a semester). And, being exhausted from the past couple of weeks (although profession development conference weekends are fun, they're tiring and take up the whole weekend because of travel), it was great to get a chance to rest up.

The funniest part about this competition was my students' reactions to seeing so many Americans. In the middle of my first class on Thursday morning a few of my students called out to me "Teacher! There are Americans out in the hallway!!!" Right after that class they crowded around the two other fellows who were there. They looked at James and asked me..."Is he your father?" I usually try not to laugh at things my students say, but I couldn't help myself this time. Partly because James is my age (though he does have a beard right now, which probably makes him appear older, especially to them), and partly because of course he looks nothing like my father.

James is the one in the green jacket.

Morgan playing badminton with some of my third graders.

Today some of my other students asked if my family was still here. At first I didn't understand what they were saying. And then I realized. "Oh, they're not my family, they're also Teach for China teachers! They teach English at nearby schools," I explained. It's funny how you can just not understand something when you're not expecting it.

Education in Sight

A program called Education in Sight has been at my school for the last two days. They work with both schools and local glasses providers to give free glasses to all students who need them. Over the past two weeks or so, the banzhurens (homeroom teachers) of each class conducted basic eyesight tests to see who needed glasses. This week these 150 students were sent, one class at a time, for more complete testing in a dark meeting room. The higher grades had many students while the lower grades had only a few in need of glasses.

Waiting excitedly.

First, a quick look into the eyes.

Then a look at the eye chart. I was immediately struck
by the eyechart...they're all E's! Instead of reading, you're
supposed to give the orientation: up, down, left, or right.

What about that huge lens-switching apparatus? Instead, they have this case of lenses...

Which are placed in frames such as these.

The student being tested was often pretty hesitant, but those around them were excited and curious. Until it was their turn.

Because of the way the eye chart uses orientation, the students signaled their answers with a pointing finger.

Fitting for the frames.

Frame selection.

This was all pretty much in order, except that I skipped one step between the eye exam and the frame selection and fitting: stepping outside and looking around.

It's an exciting project because a pair of glasses can make a big difference for these kids. I found it interesting, though, listening to many of the local teachers talking about the students eyesight. They blamed it all on TV. The eyeglass providers blamed it on studying so much. The vice-principal explained to me that she thought doing manual labor when you are young is good for your eyes because you look at the scenery, not just close-up things like the TV or books. It was clearly interpreted as a modern problem. There was a sense among the teachers that since most of them didn't need glasses, it was a difference in the younger generation. But I can't help wondering if it's because those students who did need glasses never made it through the education system. Never became teachers.

I'm sure it's all of these reasons combined--and modern technology may be a contributing factor--but I doubt poor eyesight is a particularly modern problem, and in all the discussion I never heard mention of the effect it can have on students. What if it's easier to give up than to see the board?