Circle Circus

Circle Circus
Originally uploaded by triciawang.

171 High School - Hei Ping Li Jie; Beijing, China
ps - I found a very very part-time job teaching media and technology to various high schools in Beijing.

I started getting smart about how I conduct classes. After taking 1/2 hr for my students in one class to make a circle with chairs, I arrived 1/2 early for today's class and created the circle of chairs ahead of time so that when they come in, they will have no choice but to sit in the damn circle.

During my first class, I asked the students to get up from their chairs at their computers, and to take their chairs into the center of the room to make a circle so we could introduce ourselves to each other. Despite me repeating this in Chinese, the kids looked utterly confused. The ended up creating rows in front of me. I said NO - Create a Circle - I drew it with my hands. So then this took another 10 min - and they created a 1/2 circle - like a 1/2 moon around me. I asked them why they didn't understand my command - and they said that a teacher had never asked them to create a circle. so I was a bit flabbergasted - so I started grabbing chairs and putting them next to me to create this "circle." Then I asked them to sit, and no one would sit next to me - or at my latitude. AFter explaining to them that is was ok to sit next to me - I just started commanding individuals to sit next to me, they were just sooo nervous.

In China - the teacher is always at the head of the room. Their teaching style is a lot like pre-1970's -1800 American teaching style. Group/team work in America's education system was not really fully encouraged till the 80's - and now it is fully being encourage in the 90's and 00's.

I will give more teaching updates later.