teaching in china

Today was our first day teaching at the Dandelion School in Beijing. It's a school for the children of migrant workers, so they come from all over China and most board at the school. We are all teaching grade 8.

I was really exhausted for the morning ~ I fell asleep before the lights were even out last night~ so I was really worried while we were touring the school. We had some time to prepare and then met the teachers we were working with. Mine spoke no English. Eep. We first met our students at lunch and it was really fun. They asked what kids ate for lunch in America and revealed that they had never had pizza. Can you believe it? I think that should have been our class gift. Wow.

Teaching went so much better than I had expected. The kids were engaged and talkative.

One huge difference between school here and in the US is that school here is a competition. Scores are posted and it is a place of honor to be the best student. Everyone knows how everyone else is doing and it motivates students to work hard. They aren't afraid to tell students that some might have to work harder than others to be successful. Everyone has to keep up to the top of the class.