What my students taught me

This summer I have had the most blessed opportunity to work with urban youth of a variety of backgrounds, mostly of lower socioeconomic status. 

They have reminded me of how privileged a life I have been given this go around. 

They have reminded me of my youth and how foolish I was growing up.

They have reminded me of how far I have come to be with them right here, right now.

Most importantly they have reminded me of the importance of silence, listening, and understanding.

The City of Holyoke is overwhelmingly mixed in many different terms. The population is almost 50% Hispanic/Latino/a. A saddening number of families and children live below the poverty live. The graduation rate of its schools is pitiful to say the least. There isn't enough money, care, or time to cover all of the needs to see immediate change with our after-school programs but that is not to say there isn't change to be had.

I've seen students who were absolutely rotten in the first few days completely turn around over the precious few weeks I've had with them. 

It helped that we started our Student of the Day prizes and shout outs over the intercom. It also likely helped that we had our first field trip to Brownstone Discovery Park in Conneticut, where students and teachers got a chance to interact with one another with little restraints. This first field trip means so much to me now because the students got to understand me not only as a budding teacher but as a human being who enjoys some of the same things they do. They got to see that I wanted to be with them and to help them so long as they let me and asked me for that help.

I've also learned to appreciate the quick name grasping skills of my teachers in my life. What is a name to a student who often feels they are disrespected, disliked, ignored, unloved, uncared for? God only knows there are so many words to add into that statement. 

To quote Shakespeare:

What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

- Romeo and Juliet

My students have exploded at me, disregarded my questions or lectures, and have recoiled from me physically, mentally, and maybe even emotionally because I could not get their name. 

What's in a name?

Your identity, your culture, in sum... You.

If a person cannot get your name correctly then clearly they do not care a lot about you. While this may seem so ridiculous we must all remember that youth are impressionable, and easily suspicious as they want to learn for themselves. 

Middle school was hell. Like it or not. People fought hard to establish their identities while still connecting with their peers in a non-confrontational way. 

Names can be memorialized for all eternity. George Washington, Fidel Castro, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas. The list goes on and on and on.

We remember their names because they made themselves memorable. We respect them by knowing their names though we may not know their accomplishments specifically. They have honor to some extent. 

We need to listen to our students more. Everyone is guilty of ignoring someone when it didn't suit their needs. There of course needs to be a balance in a classroom but it's still difficult for me to ignore a question because I want their trust, respect, and for them to grow beyond memorization/word regurgitation skills. 

We want to encourage critical thinking but we seem to do quite a poor job of allowing it. 

Even the students who patiently, perhaps excitedly, raise their hands to bring in a relevant point or interesting question get benched for the sake of the teachers' apparent need to get the information out. 

Have we forgotten the importance of the student questioning the teacher?

Not in terms of authority. But certainly on knowledge. A tricky line to master to be sure.

Tutoring some of the high school interns has been enlightening to say the least.

Does a fish breathe water or air?

What is fish food made out of? Why does it smell like fish?

Do they mean the flakes of goldfish or flakes for goldfish?

Can you take a turtle out of its shell?

Something tells me that turtle wouldn't appreciate it that much.

What would you teach your kids?

Do you want to be a teacher?

Yes.

While these questions seem so silly and perhaps innocent, they're still helpful as to understanding what kind of comprehension the students have. If we don't just ask them what they know or want to know then how do we know where to direct them?


I still have a few more weeks to learn.

Catching Up in Xiaoshan- June 4th

Day 7 – June 4^th

Woke up to find an opened umbrella with my name written on a note card on top of it. A Yi’s such a sweetie! Augh how much she tries to take care of me (and clearly succeeds) is awesome.

Although the storm/rain was a drain on the rest of my day. In fact it had interrupted my sleep as I do recall. Fairly unpleasant if I may say so.

Anyway only had one class as students did not sign up for the spa class. This meant I could go to the party at Zhejiang University with the others. I quickly set about this endeavor only to realize I had taken the 301 the completely wrong direction. I ended up at the end point for the buses. I was a bit terrified and sent a panic stricken text to J.C. then proceeded to walk aimlessly towards the buses I saw still in the area. I understood my folly and found a 301 leaving the area. It quickly took me by my place of work and then onwards.

Something weird I’ve noticed about the men… They don’t either seem to care that their flies are open/half done or are aware. Considering they piss and spit wherever they please (yes this included the bus I was in, in fact he spat right next to me) I doubt that it is the latter.

Made it to Zhejiang University, the campus is huge but because of the rain I didn’t want to take a picture. It was ugly and I like my camera. Once I arrived I was told to do some sort of improv because I was late. ><’ There were a lot of Chinese students and they all seemed pretty interested in us. It ended up being Drew, Yasmina, and I as well as Annika. Met Brandon Kung, Jason’s brother, and another foreign teacher? Matthew. They had been playing Waa, never have I ever, and some other games. We did a “boat” race  where we had to gather the items the MCs listed. At one point they called for a boy, Drew was on our team and quite easily the tallest guy in the party, which really helped us in the end. They also asked for shoes, laptops, and a jacket. I ran around without a shoe and tossed out my jacket for the win. It was a lot of fun, definitely something I want to take back to the states as ice breakers. Or even as a language game. 

After playing these games, we performed a bit of an improvised skit singing Mulan’s Let’s get down to Business…. It was… okay…? Um I supposedly played the part of Mulan. It was more of a joint effort with Yasmina but either way we were left to dry as we kind of gestured and ran around the stage in front of university students. We felt very silly singing and motioning things that we associated with the words. Ended up doing a gesture like a Tsunami for Great Typhoon. I’m not sure why but it worked for our purposes. We also gestured to ourselves for “did they send me daughters?” then pointed to the guys who were in the back hiding from the limelight. It was really silly and a lot of fun. I doubt the students really understood what we were going on about, they seemed fairly clueless. Afterwards they even asked some of us what we were singing/dancing/flailing to. It was seriously embarrassing but I guess that doesn’t matter seeing as we all had made fools of ourselves earlier. 

We then ate Zhong zhu… ? A rice triangle ball with either: pork meat, eggs, or red beans that was wrapped in a couple of large leaves similar in appearance to dried corn husks. I first ate a red bean one, which reminded me of the red bean ice cream popsicles Omma used to get for me from the Korean Market, later I grabbed one filled with pork. They were really delicious. The rice they used was insanely sticky.

While we ate we took the time to talk to the various students; I met a girl named Anniey (Annie) spelled her own special way who invited me to a movie later on next week. I don’t know that I’ll be able to easily navigate back from Xiaoshen but we’ll see how that goes. Maybe we can find a halfway point or something.

After eating we listened to Sea Lion (yes that’s her English name apparently – I find this to be super awesome) perform Ambush from Ten Sides – played on the traditional Chinese instrument the Pi Pa (also a fruit). It is considered a masterpiece much like Flight of a Bumblebee according to certain sources – i.e. Drew googling some bits instead of preparing for his class. The song/performance was amazing. I think that girl would be a killer on the banjo/guitar. The Pi pa is a really intense instrument as well. I wish her luck in all of her endeavors. 

When we left the University the others mentioned food… I was very envious. It would appear that staying in Hangzhou would have been much nicer to my stomach (and possibly wallet) as I would have been able to check out the sights and places to eat with them. It would also have just been nice to have a consistent friendly face but such is life. Apparently Yasmina has been hunting down all of the bakeries. Drew tried a century egg and overall found goodness.

I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot for having been gone for a week. I really did miss them after being gone for so little time. I guess I just missed having people who were fresh to the whole China thing around me. J.C. and Zack are great though cynical especially in regards to the job. Drew hasn’t done much with Linkman it would appear. Jim seems to keep better tabs on him than me but I guess that might be linked to the fact that he has Annika to run to and I have A Yi who treats me like kin.