Over the past week and a half, two weeks or so, I've begun actually teaching classes. They began as co-teaching with the existing teacher, but a few are moving into "my class" territory. I'm also covering several classes for teachers going on leave in December. I have about 13 classes over the course of a week.
That's a lot for a new teacher, at least at this school. A couple of my coworkers have said that they started with just two or three, and gradually added more. I arrived at the perfect time to be really needed, so I've been kinda pushed into the deep end. Which is generally how I like it. The downside is, these are classes that need full planning and I still take a fair amount of time to plan a class. The result is, I'm going to be putting in a lot of time in the office just trying to get my classes planned and ready, likely going in on my days off to be prepared.
It is what it is. I believe the pay structure at the school will actually give me some overtime for all these hours. So that's good.
I've taught about 8 of my own solo classes up to this point. Some have gone really well, some have gone horribly. Interestingly, very few have been anywhere in the middle. I expected the range to be closer to average.
China's "One-child policy" was implemented in 1979, after about ten years of a two-child policy. In essence, many Chinese families were restricted to having only one child, with two allowed in some cases where the first was a girl. Because China is a patrilineal society, families with only a girl meant the end of the family line as culturally recognized. There are several cultural effects from such a policy, and it's a pretty interesting read, but the more important to my situation is that China went from having fairly large families to having extremely small ones, with many/most in cities having only one. The last cohort of children born before the policy went into effect are now approaching middle age, having raised their children as "singletons" (a word I only learned today while researching this post). The typical degree of attention and care provided several children is now focused entirely on one, who bears effectively the entire weight of the family line.
To put it simply, Chinese children are horridly spoiled.
As a teacher, I have to deal with classes of singletons; where most teachers have to deal with a few here and there, that's basically all I have. It makes teaching, especially in the early pre-adolescent years from 6-11 or so, very challenging, as the children are beginning to develop their sense of self and independence, and are used to being the center of attention and getting their way.
For the most part, my classes aren't terrible. They're still children, and most understand the concepts of taking turns, sharing, working together, and so on. Many still have a basic respect for authority, and the school works to develop individual motivations and goals so that they are internally driven to learn, and by extension, to pay attention and behave. I have some tools as a teacher that I can use to reinforce discipline and behavior.
All doesn't mean that the worse kids can't be extremely disruptive, and that there is sometimes nothing you can do to actually control them.
It'll come with time - I'll develop better methods, build rapport with my own classes, and so forth. I'll find what works and what doesn't, through experimentation and experience and advice from other teachers.
But in the meantime, I'm bracing myself for some very frustrating and disheartening experiences.
It's all part of the comfort zone eviction I gave myself several months ago when I started this journey.
Zaijian,
-L
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