My first day of middle school

Yesterday, Monday, September 1, was my students’ first day of middle school classes. In China, that means that it was their first day of seventh grade. It was a big day for them and also for me, as it was the day I taught my first class at Dazhai Middle School.

The day began with an opening ceremony that took place in the central courtyard of the teaching building. It began at 9am while the most of the courtyard was in the shade, but by the end of it around noon the sun was shining brightly on the assembled students and teachers. Interestingly, as the minutes ticked by and the cool shadows retreated to one corner of the courtyard, so did the majority of the teachers. While the students, the principal, and the vice principals sweated under the strong, hot sunlight, most of the teachers retreated to the cool shade, with many of them talking and holding conversations as if the ceremony weren’t happening.

This part in particular interested me. While I couldn’t blame them for wanting to get out of the sun (beyond the sun being very strong and hot in high-altitude Dazhai, it is necessary to know that in China, being whiter rather than being tanner is generally considered more beautiful, especially among women, so the social pressure to avoid the sun is very strong), it was strange to me how they could hold obvious side conversations and pay so little attention to the speakers. It seemed like a bad example for the students, who were having enough trouble paying attention in the sunlight seated on the concrete without the addition of talking teachers. Paying attention, or even just the pretext of paying attention, could have gone a long way toward walking the walk and not just talking the talk.

That said, it is easy to judge and difficult to understand. As I saw this happening, I was led to wonder what led to this state of affairs. First, there was the sun. Chinese cultural preferences for white skin along with blazing heat led the majority of us teachers to abandon the official central benches for a jumbled set of benches and stools in the shade. Without the pomp and circumstance of the central area, the assumed prohibition against talking seemed that much weaker.

At the same time, with no meeting the day before and with teaching schedules actually being handed out by school leaders during the ceremony, teachers found themselves with the newly discovered fate of their semester in their hands and no previous opportunity to discuss it. Meanwhile, the content of the ceremony was not all that pertinent for the teachers who already knew the information.

Finally, in my small experience, this type of ceremony or meeting is commonplace in China, and they are generally long on time and short on substance. They are often more about giving face to local officials and higher-ups than about relaying information. Thus, I imagine the general attitude toward such ceremonies and events is more relaxed, especially regarding paying attention, even when there is real information being relayed (as was the case today). So perhaps the teachers were not acting as bad examples, but rather displaying to the students exactly how to react to such events if they are to live in a ceremony-filled world. For me, nothing is obvious besides my own lack of cultural understanding.

Another interesting part of the ceremony was that, when prizes were handed out to the top performing students of the previous year, the rewards weren’t books or simple certificates as they would have been in Richmond, Virginia (or, Hanxiong confirmed, Tsingdao, Shandong, aka less rural China), but cold, hard cash. Top scorers and best-behaved students were given either 10 or 20 yuan (1.5 to 3.5 USD), often in addition to a certificate, for their reward, sometimes multiple times if they performed well in multiple areas. Both Hanxiong and I thought it was a curious system of rewards and wondered how effective it was. Personally, I remember well envying friends whose parents gave them money for good grades, but I did not remember how effectually it worked in pushing them to study. Another curious unknown.

As I wrote above, during the ceremony I was given my teaching schedule for the next semester. I was glad to see that I had the classes I had expected, twelve classes a week with six different classes of seventh graders (about 4 to 10 classes fewer than many of the teachers here – Dazhai Middle School is in desperate need of more teachers). I was somewhat surprised to see that half of my classes were during the evening study hall periods that go from 6:40 to 9:20. That seemed like a small price to pay to have only 350 students instead of 650 and to be able to see each of my classes twice a week, so I was quite satisfied with my schedule, if a little guilty for having only 12 classes per week compared to some teachers’ 20 or more. I was also happy to see that on Mondays my first class was at 6:40 and on Fridays my last class ended around noon, meaning that weekend travel would be much more doable.

My first class that I would teach was that night at 6:40, seventh grade class number 185 (each class is given a number, with the newest grade given higher numbers). I arrived in the classroom five minutes early to prepare and to write the class rules on the board. When class began a few minutes later, I turned from writing on the board to find the classroom half-empty (or was it half-full?). The class’ 班主任, or home-room teacher, came in to introduce himself and tell me that the majority of the boys were all in their dorms being taught how to make their beds, so I should wait for them to start class. Expecting the boys to come back at any moment, I told the rest of the class that they could rest for a few minutes until they returned.

After six minutes of sitting awkwardly in the front with no sigh of the boys, I announced that we would play a game while we waited for them, even as I desperately tried to think of a game we could play that would have something, anything to do with English. The only game I could think of was the flyswatter game, so I went with it and began drawing letters of the alphabet on the board. I asked two students to come up at a time and had them race to slap the letter I said, and then had the class tell me if it was capital or lower-case and then repeat the letter name several times.

I also had the class do cheers for their classmates who came to the board, which they found hilarious. I had them say “WOW!” as they spelled it out with their hands forming two W’s and their mouth forming the O. I don’t think they had ever seen a teacher jumping up and saying “WOW!” as a form of encouragement, and they both loved it and found it ridiculous. The few boys that were in the class were particularly reluctant to potentially make fools of themselves, so I had to do it several times until they got into it and enjoyed it. I also had them say “Looking good, looking good” as they brushed off their shoulders for another cheer, which they found even more ridiculous and fun.

After twenty minutes (of a forty-five minute class) of playing games and practicing cheers and still no sign of the boys, I decided to present some of my planned class even though I would have to repeat it the next class. I introduced myself as Mr. K (or 孔老师 outside of English class) and went over the class rules, their implications, and the reason why they are important for our class. Finally, as the end of class neared, I taught the kids our daily sign-out: See (point to your eyes) You (point away from you) Later (point behind you). Finally, the bell rang and, with one last “See you later,” my first class at Dazhai Middle School was finished.

The school prepared a long strong of firecrackers for the opening ceremony, which was very exciting and very loud. Also it ended only about 15 feet from some of the students.

A vice principal handing out money to some of the school's best students as rewards.

The students standing in the hot sun as a vice principal gives a speech.

The day before the opening ceremony, Hanxiong, Shuchen, another fellow at the school, and I went to the nearby larger city of Yunxian to get teaching materials and to get bank cards. We also had a great meal of western(ish) food. And yes, of course pizza is supposed to be eaten with chopsticks. Can you imagine what would have happened if DeBlasio had used chopsticks rather than just the far-too-civilized knife and fork?

I got a steak, which was lit on fire as it was served. Quite delicious, but pretty weird and not actually very western.