Weekend

I had a fun teaching weekend this weekend. I felt it was going to be a bit of a quirky one when I went in to set up my first class and Aiye was cleaning puke that had been drying from one of the previous evening's classes! Then, one of my students kept screaming "Merry Christmas!" into everyone's ear and gleefully giggling after each episode. EF had put up a big "Merry Christmas" cut out that people can stick their head into and take a picture with an EF nutcracker. It's caused quite a commotion!

Later on that day, in an elementary class, I turned my back to help some students and I turned around a few moments later to one of my students asleep on the floor! In China, many of the middle school students take an important test that says where they are able to attend high school. Getting into a prestigious high school is akin to getting into a good university in the U.S. It's actually probably much more important. The high school that the student gets into will determine his or her university placement. There is just so much pressure on many of these students.

Today, my favorite TB class was studying environmentalism which was really fun and easy for me to plan. I had so many ideas! I then had a parent teacher meeting class day for one of my lower level elementary classes. I really enjoy meeting the parents and learning more about their children. It really helps having a bit of background knowledge when we usually teach most classes every other week. Most of the parents request that the students need memorization homework assignments. It's one of my hardest questions to answer because EF does not include memorization into the program to be seen as more of a Western teaching style school. Chinese students learn and study by using memorization techniques. Other than that, I had a few lovely meetings with parents.

Cindy and I went to the Lama Temple Hutong for dinner. It was nice to get out of my neighborhood for a bit. I love how parts of that Hutong are so modern and other parts are old and historical. It's becoming one of my favorite spots in Beijing.