I have
arrived in Dazhai (大寨), the small town in Lincang, Yunnan where I will spend
my next two years teaching at Dazhai Middle School. But much has passed between
my arrival here and my last blog post, so I will back up briefly and describe
what I have been up to over the past few weeks.
When I
last wrote, I was in Dayao, Chuxiong, Yunnan, China, where the Teach for China
Summer Institute took place. My time in Dayao was mostly spent preparing to
teach class, teaching, going to class myself, and spending time getting to know
my co-fellows better.
My fourth grade students were a
pleasure to teach. They were, for the most part, smart and eager to learn,
though I certainly had to learn to manage the classroom effectively to keep
them under control in their wilder moments. It was especially challenging (in a
good way, as it is a skill that will undoubtedly be essential here at Dazhai)
to manage a student while still keeping them involved and engaged with the
lesson. In my less successful moments the result was the steely, fiery look of
resolute resistance that I mastered in my own youth. However, my successes
resulted in an orderly, fun classroom with students who were engaged and
excited.
At the end of the teaching
practicum (summer camp for the students), each of the classes put on a brief
performance in front of the teachers and their peers. My class prepared a dance
routine to a wildly popular Chinese song called 小苹果. I
was really impressed by them because somehow they managed to prepare and
organize the entire routine themselves (the girls did, that is – the boys were
supposed to sing and stand behind the girls [separated by sex by choice of
those who wanted to sing and those who wanted to dance – I would have preferred
to force mixture if I had been completely in charge rather than working with my
co-fellows] while they danced, but in the end they essentially just vaguely
sang and awkwardly sat behind the girls as they danced). The best part was the
outfit that three of the girls wore for the performance – red fake leather that
was mildly reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange or some twisted, modern retelling
of the Red Guard in the Cultural Revolution. I believe that one of the girls’
mother is a dance teacher and they were able to get the outfits from her. As
Ida commented when she saw them though, that may have just been my mind looking
for excuses for the ridiculous(ly awesome) outfits.
After Summer Institute officially
ended, we were divided up depending on our region. Most all of us were given
three or four days off before regional orientation, so a large group of us left
Dayao and traveled to Dali for a weekend of rest, relaxation, and, most
importantly, western food. It was a fun, expensive weekend full of good people
and delicious food.
While in Dali, Ida and I stayed at
the same hostel I had stayed at three years before when I first went to Dali,
the Five Elements. It was strange to see how it and other places I remembered
vividly had changed in the past years. The hostel had expanded and was now about
two times the size it had been when I first visited. The bar that I had gone to
with Michael during my first visit to Dali, while unchanged in name and
atmosphere, had moved several blocks over, completely throwing off my sense of
direction.
The changes made me realize how
much I had changed since then. When I first arrived in Dali in the summer of
2011, I had taken only one year of Chinese and could barely communicate. I had
had one scoliosis surgery, was in regular pain, and was preparing for another surgery
once I got back to the US. I was enamored with the idea of meeting people as I
traveled (I had Couchsurfed in most of the cities I had stayed in previously),
but I had little idea of how to actually do it. I was a student researcher
getting my first taste of China.
Now I have taken Chinese for four
years. I have lived in Beijing for a year and traveled around more of China
than the majority of Chinese people I have met. I am able to hold a passable
conversation in Chinese about just about any topic. I have had three surgeries
for scoliosis and am essentially pain-free. I have friends from around the
world who I have met while traveling (though I still don’t really know how that
happened). I am a college graduate preparing for two years of teaching in rural
China. Both Dali and I have changed.
Once we got back to Dayao, we had
just two short days before my region, Lincang, would leave for the region’s
main city, Lincang City, for regional orientation and meeting our principals.
It was strange saying goodbye to the middle school that had become home and the
people that had become family. The hotel staff (and for that matter, the owners
of all the establishments we had supported during our time in Dayao) were sad
to see us go, and we were sad to go.
We took a large bus and a truck packed
with luggage and rode about nine hours to our hotel in Lincang City. Lincang
City is slightly larger than Dayao, but still not a large city by Chinese
standards. Teach for China fellows (and, for that matter, local teachers) will
often spend weekends in the city. While it does not have a Walmart (unlike
Xiaguan in the Dali region) or a KFC (unlike Baoshan City in the Baoshan
region), it does have a Salvador’s, a restaurant especially beloved by American
fellows for its western food and good coffee.
We had time to relax and get to
know Lincang City that evening. The following day was also free apart from a
short presentation on the region (mostly repeated or unnecessary information)
and a scavenger hunt designed to introduce us to important places in the city
(like the supermarket, the best place to get bubble tea, and Salvador’s).
Mostly we just relaxed and enjoyed one of our last days together before
separating further to our individual regions.
The next day (Friday, August 22)
was Principal Day, the day we would all meet our principals to get to know each
other and discuss their expectations, the school, our living situation, and the
classes we would teach over the next year. The day started early with everyone
meeting together in an auditorium in a local middle school across the street
from the hotel, where we were told to sit with the principal and the other
fellows from our schools. My Chinese co-fellow, Hanxiong, and I found our
principal and a local teacher who came with him and began one of the longest,
most tiring days of Teach for China thus far.
The first day and a half of meeting with Principal Li, the principal of Dazhai Middle School, were difficult. It seemed like he was interested in Teach for China solely for the benefits it could provide for him. However, it ended up that he would actually be leaving Dazhai for another middle school within a week or two to be replaced by another principal, so we did not have to deal with him long.
After two days of getting to know
Dazhai with Hanxiong, I finally had the opportunity to meet the new
principal. Feng Xiaozhang (Principal Feng) seems to be, in many ways, the
opposite of Li Xiaozhang. They are both similar ages (40 and around 45-ish respectively),
similar heights, and similarly balding, but the similarity stops there. Feng
Xiaozhang wears glasses over somewhat watery eyes that, along with his voice,
betray his emotion as he discusses students. His face is genuine, and he asks
and answers questions in a straight-forward, sincere manner.
Principal Feng seemed eager not
only to get the most out of having us at the school, but also in ensuring that
we would be content as we did it. In discussing classes, he arranged for
Hanxiong to teach only three rather than six classes on politics and changed it
so I would be teaching Oral English to only the six classes of seventh grade
rather than seventh and eighth grade. He asked if I thought I could teach them
twice a week (a total of only twelve classes a week) without being too tired. I
said yes, and he responded by saying if I did find it to be too much, they
could lessen the load.
He went on to say that Hanxiong and
I could live together if we wanted to, having our own rooms along with a common
area where we could cook. We couldn’t move in yet because it was the old
principal’s room, so we would have to wait for him to move out. We will see whether we actually end up being given those rooms, but the change in tone was substantial and meaningful.
Beyond the very positive developments
in our class schedules and our living arrangements, Feng Xiaozhang was in general
much more receptive of having us there. He was eager for us to start programs
and extracurriculars with the students (we were told by the previous fellow
that under the previous principal, there were generally only extracurriculars
when government officials visited). He wanted us to give suggestions about
management and teaching style. He spoke about trying to help connect our students,
many of whom have never been outside of Dazhai, with the outside world.
An interesting point of the
conversation came up when Feng Xiaozhang began talking about how he wanted us
to make sure we paid attention to the worst students. He said that if we did
not take care of them, they would drop out of school and become burdens to
society. For me, my instinct would be first and foremost to consider the individual
student. I would want to help even the worst students realize their potential.
While that was my first instinct, I imagine Feng Xiaozhang’s focus on the bad
students’ negative impact on society would work well in securing both teacher
and government support for those students (teachers in China often focus on the
best students with the thought that the bottom will fail out anyway, so they
should focus on the students that want to be taught and who can improve their
test scores). Also, I imagine that it would help to remind teachers that every
student matters even when they are teaching more than three hundred students a
week.
All in all, the meeting with the
new principal was an overwhelmingly positive experience. I felt like there was
a lot of room for me to learn and grow as well as a lot of aspects where I
could contribute positively. Here was the sort of relationship I was looking for
with my principal. Whereas Li Xiaozhang made me feel like I had to be careful of what I said in any conversation with him, Feng Xiaozhang made me feel empowered,
like I wanted to do everything I could for the school. Two very different
methods of leadership (one seemingly with an eye up the promotion ladder and
the other with all his attention on the students) and two very different
responses in me. I hope that my future interactions with Feng Xiaozhang will
prove him to be the compassionate, genuine man he appears to be.
For now, I wait, I relax, I walk
around Dazhai, I try to get to know locals and teachers, I prepare, and, very
rarely, I blog.
Note: My internet is too slow at the moment to upload pictures - they will follow when I have better internet.
