I've officially been in Beijing for 6 weeks now! It doesn't seem like I have been here this long. I am always planning my weeks so the time is counted by the weeks and not days when student teaching. Each day I wake up at 6 am and get ready for school and am out the door before 7 am to catch the bus at 7 am. The commute use to last 30 minutes but that is before I found a bus station closer to school. Now it only takes 15 minutes. My staple breakfast is a 'Bing' which is a savory pancake with an fried egg in the middle of it. Then a sauce favored with some spices is brushed on one side and then the pork slices are added on top of that with some lettuce. Heart attack waiting to happen, but they are so delicious and cheap ($0.70USD). Catching the bus is a normal occurrence now and know every bus in my immediate neighborhood. It makes me feel accomplished that I can travel around Beijing easily and cheaply now. The buses that I can catch are the 107, 413, 418, 688, 701.
With Mom and Cindy being here for a week, I really feel like a local. I have been showing them the local hot spots to eat, shop, and sight see. Every night we have had dinner together. The places we have eaten at are The Blue Frog, The Saddle, Luga's, Korean BBQ, and a local Chinese place across from 3.3. Beijing is interesting in the fact that they have a melting pot of delicious cuisine. The statement said is that you can eat your way around the world without leaving Beijing. Mom and Cindy seem to be enjoying there stay. We all went to the Great Wall, Beijing Zoo, and the Zoo Market last weekend. It was an action packed weekend but was happy to be back at school on Monday.
This week was long at school. I am still not completely familiar with their lesson planning format. I feel the plans are very detailed and lengthy. Right now I am in the process of writing a Poetry unit and have found it to be a task. I taught every day this week and have really enjoyed it. Talking to Alex, we have agreed that there is such thing as teacher stamina. After the first 4 weeks I have found my teacher stamina and am able to make it through an entire day without feeling absolutely shattered as Dawn would say (Scottish word). I am teaching the majority of Numeracy and beginning to teach all of Literacy. The students are responding well to me and I feel as they see me as their teacher now. My advisor, David Johnson, is coming to visit and observe me in two weeks. It is going to be here fast and even faster because the week before is Holiday Break. So I only have one more week of school before he arrives.
At BSB, each teacher is assigned a lunch time duty to be on the playground. This Friday a couple teachers got into a little competition on the football pitch. Chris Thomas (Y5 teacher) and Grant Avery (Y6 TA) and I were on duty and Mr. Thomas was giving me grief because I was an American playing 'soccer.' We Americans don't know how to play soccer I guess. So he was smack talking while I let my actions speak for me. Oh and we are playing with at the Key Stage 2 students. I score the first goal of the game and Mr. Thomas was still relentless on the trash talk. Then after the second goal he was embarrassed the American was beating him so he started to 'try.' Unfortunately he was not successful in scoring a goal. Mr. Avery was too good to let anything by him in goal. Mr. Thomas has not heard the end of this one.
The teachers at the school all get along and we all get together outside of school. We some times get carried away with our competitiveness but in the end we are all good friends.
Note: On Thursday night after dinner with Mom and Cindy, Alex and I took the bus home. While on the bus we were in a bus accident. I am surprised it hasn't happened sooner because traffic here is crazy, mad. The story goes; The bus driver narrowly missed 2 on-coming bicyclers in the left turn lane of a busy intersection. He had to slam on his breaks, which sent everyone flying forward. None of the bicyclers were hurt, but there was a lady at the back of the bus that came flying forward from the back of the bus and fell on her back in the middle of the bus. She was unable to get up so an ambulance was called and we were left to find another bus home. Hopefully she was okay and no one will lose their life. The death penalty is stiff in China and the bus driver will have to pay any medical visits the woman may need.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Visitors
Today my mom and Aunt Cindy fly into Beijing! I am very excited to see them and show them around. Mrs. Brock was very kind and set up a driver to bring me to the air port to meet them. After they get settled in to their hotel, we are going to go out to eat with one of Cindy's friends who just happens to be in the city. Then to top it off we are going to be going to see the famous Mike Harmon, my very good friend growing up, play at the National Library in his Jazz Band.
Teaching has been very exciting! Since my last post, almost two weeks ago, I have been teaching the science, numeracy, and topic (geography and health) lessons. I have been using the Promethean interactive white board for many of my lessons so I am becoming familiar with it. Now I am trying to add the bells and whistles to make the lessons that much better. The students are very responsive to questions and I do not have to work hard to get the students to participate. They enjoy completing tasks assigned in class and they really enjoy homework. The boys in the class are very competitive and every little assignment is a game to see who can finish first. The girls are more reserved and calculated. They take their time to answer questions to make sure it is correct. They are opening up as the days go by, which helps to keep the boys on their best behavior. The boys are talkative and sometimes drown out the girls voices. The days are going by very quickly and before I know it, I will be at the end of the term. I apologize for the length of time between blogs. Time has been slipping away from me these days.
One thing I do miss about home around this time is the fall weather AND purchasing Sioux hockey tickets. Hopefully my brother Mike was fortunate and was able to buy a set of season tickets this year. I will miss going to the hockey games this semester with my family (Grandpa Brooks, dad, and Mikey). I am planning to watch them over the internet so I will still get my Sioux hockey fix. *Note: I did see a local Chinese man the other day in his mid 20s walking by my apartment in Kelly green shorts AND the logo on them was a Sioux head! Crazy!*
Teaching has been very exciting! Since my last post, almost two weeks ago, I have been teaching the science, numeracy, and topic (geography and health) lessons. I have been using the Promethean interactive white board for many of my lessons so I am becoming familiar with it. Now I am trying to add the bells and whistles to make the lessons that much better. The students are very responsive to questions and I do not have to work hard to get the students to participate. They enjoy completing tasks assigned in class and they really enjoy homework. The boys in the class are very competitive and every little assignment is a game to see who can finish first. The girls are more reserved and calculated. They take their time to answer questions to make sure it is correct. They are opening up as the days go by, which helps to keep the boys on their best behavior. The boys are talkative and sometimes drown out the girls voices. The days are going by very quickly and before I know it, I will be at the end of the term. I apologize for the length of time between blogs. Time has been slipping away from me these days.
One thing I do miss about home around this time is the fall weather AND purchasing Sioux hockey tickets. Hopefully my brother Mike was fortunate and was able to buy a set of season tickets this year. I will miss going to the hockey games this semester with my family (Grandpa Brooks, dad, and Mikey). I am planning to watch them over the internet so I will still get my Sioux hockey fix. *Note: I did see a local Chinese man the other day in his mid 20s walking by my apartment in Kelly green shorts AND the logo on them was a Sioux head! Crazy!*
Sunday, September 4, 2011
They call me Mr. Brook
Week one is under my belt! I have had to help my class pronounce my name. They seem to forget the 's.' All of my students are very energetic to start the term and I am ready to start teaching them. Miss Burnett (my cooperating teacher) and I spent the week playing 'get to know you' activities. There are fun games I learned like 'Splat,' 'Granny's Pants,' and 'Professor.' I saw a dramatic difference in the classroom dynamics as the week progressed. Originally the boys dominated classroom conversation but by Friday the girls were participating in the conversation. I'm glad that they have opened up because the girls outnumber the boys in the class. Also the boys tend to talk quite a bit so the girls will bring balance to the conversations.
In between the activities the students had assessments to complete. At BSB they use the tracking system. So at the beginning of each year students complete a base line assessment for each subject area. Then throughout the terms they are reassessed and their results are charted on a table. On the cart their baseline results are compared to their age, down to the exact month. Their results are compared to a set standard and from there it is determined if they are behind, on par, or ahead of progress. I find it a lot of work for the teacher to plot each students progress for each subject. So if you have 20 students and 4 subjects to assess the teacher has to complete 80 tables EACH term. It comes out to be a lot of work outside the classroom. Fortunately there are Teach Assistance's (TA's) to help alleviate the stress. Overall I have not determined if I find the tracking system affective. I will have to observe my class more. I do know it will help me differentiate my classroom instruction when planning lessons.
Teaching in a private school in the Embassy district of the largest populated country in the world, there are many cultures. In my class there are 9 different nationalities, to my knowledge. (Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, Australian, English, Spanish, Tanzanian, Central African, American) This is truly a diverse classroom where students know 3 and 4 languages each. I am excited to hear from all my students and their unique backgrounds. There are setbacks, some students are beginning to learn English and have difficulties understanding instruction at times. If you thought you had patience before, well it takes even more with an EAL (English as an Additional Language) student. (ESL doesn't apply because many students know multiple languages) I take to these students though. I know how they feel being the foreigner in China and not being fluent in Mandarin.
After a good week of school, I took a trip to the Great Wall. The portion I went to is called Jinshanling and is pretty touristy. I was not feeling well that morning and attribute it to the rigorous first two weeks of being in Beijing coupled with the poor air quality and new food. Apart from waking up at 2 am drenched in sweat I made it to the 8:30 am bus bound for the wall. I slept a bit on the way there. Once there I bought a chair lift ticket half way up the wall. From there I gutted out 4 hours of walking up the wall and looking at the amazing views from the turrets. With some encouragement from my British friends I made it through the day. To get back down the mountain I took the toboggan down. The wind felt amazing in the hot sun with a fever. On the way down I was yelled at many times to slow down because I was going too fast. I guess I didn't know how to use the break : ).
*Side note: I met a lady who graduated form the University of North Dakota on the Great Wall of China!!!! Small world!
Today I have been laid up and watching episodes of the Big Bang Theory and downloading music. In China, Google has free music download, so I am expanding my iTunes library like mad while I'm over here.
This week I will dive into planning and hopefully teach a bit more than I did last week. I'm ready for another exciting week here in Beijing, at BSB!
In between the activities the students had assessments to complete. At BSB they use the tracking system. So at the beginning of each year students complete a base line assessment for each subject area. Then throughout the terms they are reassessed and their results are charted on a table. On the cart their baseline results are compared to their age, down to the exact month. Their results are compared to a set standard and from there it is determined if they are behind, on par, or ahead of progress. I find it a lot of work for the teacher to plot each students progress for each subject. So if you have 20 students and 4 subjects to assess the teacher has to complete 80 tables EACH term. It comes out to be a lot of work outside the classroom. Fortunately there are Teach Assistance's (TA's) to help alleviate the stress. Overall I have not determined if I find the tracking system affective. I will have to observe my class more. I do know it will help me differentiate my classroom instruction when planning lessons.
Teaching in a private school in the Embassy district of the largest populated country in the world, there are many cultures. In my class there are 9 different nationalities, to my knowledge. (Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, Australian, English, Spanish, Tanzanian, Central African, American) This is truly a diverse classroom where students know 3 and 4 languages each. I am excited to hear from all my students and their unique backgrounds. There are setbacks, some students are beginning to learn English and have difficulties understanding instruction at times. If you thought you had patience before, well it takes even more with an EAL (English as an Additional Language) student. (ESL doesn't apply because many students know multiple languages) I take to these students though. I know how they feel being the foreigner in China and not being fluent in Mandarin.
After a good week of school, I took a trip to the Great Wall. The portion I went to is called Jinshanling and is pretty touristy. I was not feeling well that morning and attribute it to the rigorous first two weeks of being in Beijing coupled with the poor air quality and new food. Apart from waking up at 2 am drenched in sweat I made it to the 8:30 am bus bound for the wall. I slept a bit on the way there. Once there I bought a chair lift ticket half way up the wall. From there I gutted out 4 hours of walking up the wall and looking at the amazing views from the turrets. With some encouragement from my British friends I made it through the day. To get back down the mountain I took the toboggan down. The wind felt amazing in the hot sun with a fever. On the way down I was yelled at many times to slow down because I was going too fast. I guess I didn't know how to use the break : ).
*Side note: I met a lady who graduated form the University of North Dakota on the Great Wall of China!!!! Small world!
Today I have been laid up and watching episodes of the Big Bang Theory and downloading music. In China, Google has free music download, so I am expanding my iTunes library like mad while I'm over here.
This week I will dive into planning and hopefully teach a bit more than I did last week. I'm ready for another exciting week here in Beijing, at BSB!
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