Under the weather

Cough cough, sneeze sneeze. Sniffle.
Repeat.

Today is day number 2 of my annoying cold. I'm snotty, coughing, and sneezing a lot. Which is a pain when I'm trying to teach, because some of my kids think it's funny to copy my coughs, and giggle. Arughhh.

Planning lessons is tougher when you're grumpy like I am today, and I dislike planning lessons as it is. However, planning lessons these days is a lot easier than it was the first few weeks a school. This is a long post about the reasons why.

It all stems from the differences I've experienced between Chinese and Canadian kindergarten teaching styles. Of course, I feel that the Canadian system is better, but for the record (and so the Chinese don't ban me from the internet), I'll say it's just different, not better!

Here's a typical Statement of Purpose from a typical pre-school program in North America. It's actually from this Montessori school in Alberta.

Our program goals are to enrich and enhance the social, physical, intellectual, creative and emotional growth of each child. These goals are achieved by providing a program that etc.

Follow the link if you'd like the read the rest. I feel that this mission statement is pretty typical of most Canadians' views on preschool and early child education. Bolstering a child's self esteem and worth, encouraging his or her physical development, providing a place to grow socially...these are vital things most Canadians recognize as important in the learning process.

Well, since I started teaching in China, I've found that everything I know is wrong. Ok, not everything, but almost everything that relates to education.

I came into this job wanting to plan dynamic activities and lessons. I was given themes to focus on; themes that are much like any theme a pre-schooler in Canada would learn: animals, farms, the zoo, the busy streets, my family. So, in the first week, I did great lesson plans combining songs, games, and crafts that were centred around these themes. For the farm animal theme, we sang Old MacDonald (E-I-E-I-Oooo), leaned names of some animals, and created sheep with cotton. Standard fare as far as kindergarten is concerned I feel.

I struggled to come up with ideas, because I had to scrounge for materials. I found the cotton in the attic, and pillaged the scrap paper bin for enough coloured paper for the sheeps' bodies. It was like this for many crafts. There simply weren't enough materials. I grew frustrated and stressed. How can these children learn anything with only a dry-erase board and scissors that rarely come out of the drawer?

Last week, I had a meeting with Jill, who is Chinese but went to school in Australia where she focused on Early Childhood Education. I don't see much of what she does, but one of her jobs is to have meetings with me and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Well, turns out that all the teachers had complained that I wasn't focusing enough on vocabulary and reading. Yes, I said reading. These children are 2.5-5 years old! It's a week and a half into the school year, and I'm told that I need to focus on reading more?

She explained that it's a lot different here. The parents don't want their kids to develop socially and physically and all that drivel... all they want are academic results. Even though they're 3 years old, the parents want the children to learn English and perform well in school already. Jill explained that jobs are very hard to find here, (good point...there are more than 1 billion Chinese people) so the parents instill a competitive spirit in their children at an early age. Only the best students seem to achieve, and the parents want their children to be the best. If they're doing crafts and learning to manipulate scissors, they're not getting ahead academically.

Promoting self esteem and worth are not high on the docket. I can see this in the way the Chinese teachers run their classrooms - they rule them with an iron fist. Children are chastised for getting answers wrong, for coloring outside the lines, and not lining up fast enough. One day, I encouraged the children to draw their families, or how they got to school. Or something. Anyway, to me it didn't matter what they drew, just that they were drawing things and being creative. Once child (2.5 yrs old I think) began to scribble instead of drawing a bus or something. He was reprimanded. Another child began to draw a face on the back of the paper, once he was finished with the front. This was also met with disapproval.

Today, we made rainbows for art. I made an outline, and the children coloured it in. (Last week, I was told that free-drawing isn't good...it'd be better if I gave the children something to colour). One child was finished, and wanted to help out. He began to take the crayons back to the shelf. He had already spent time fitting them all neatly back into the box, and was walking over to put them away. The teacher yelled some Chinese, grabbed the box out of his hand, and slammed it back on the table with a loud bang. She then man-handled him back into his seat, and told him to put his head down. Which he did. I have also seen teachers punish children by making them stand on one foot for awhile. This is an odd punishment because children aren't that great at it in the first place.

So, back to my meeting with Jill. She said I needed to do more vocab. I realized it wasn't just more vocab I needed to teach, but only vocab. I told her it makes my life a lot easier, since now all I have to do is teach the kids vocab every day. Yep, all I'm here to do is drill vocabulary. Which is fine with me I guess, but really boring for the children. Now I don't have to stress about creating lesson plans that engage the material. I don't have to pilfer the attic for art supplies. I don't have to care if the children are enjoying the learning experience. All I have to do is go over vocab.

So, how does this relate to me having a cold? Well, since I don't have to plan as much anymore, I can almost just roll into the classroom with my vocabulary for the day, and not put too much effort into planning it. Which is nice when I'm feeling sick, because anything is welcome if it means less effort.

However, it's not like I do nothing in the way of lesson plans. I am supposed to do crafts with the children once a week, and teach ABCs and numbers too. This stuff, along with the vocab, is all just memorization at this point. So I have to figure out new and exciting games to play with the vocab. Playing duck-duck-goose with new words gets glares from some teachers, and gets tired if I play it too much. So, I need to diversify and keep it fresh. Which is hard, because I'm not trained as a teacher and am finding it hard to think like one. Selfishly too, it's hard to fill 30 mins with only vocab drills. So the time goes faster if we mix it up a bit. Which is good to do I'm sure.

So, that's the long-winded reason why my lesson plans are easier. Chinese children are all just bricks in the wall. They are not taught to be individuals, but rather to obey. As such, discipline is not a problem in the classroom. Which is interesting.

So...this Chinese system seems to churn out students who are very good at pure academic pursuits. They excel at tough university degrees. They can hunker down and study for hours without complaint, and slog through endless hours of work. It seems they are bred to be hard workers. They listen to instruction, and don't question authority. These all seem like good attributes.

So is there anything wrong with the Chinese education system? Do the children grow up scarred from their kindergarten experience? Are they able to be creative and express individuality later in life? I don't know, and probably won't find out since I'm only here for one year. But it sure is an interesting topic.