Day 4

Hello all,

So much for staying on track. I tried! As you can imagine it is very busy!
The last update I posted talked about the dinner that we were going to with the principal, assistant principal, director, and vice director. That dinner was, as the first, very large but not nearly as chaotic.

Some of the dishes that were served at this dinner included pickled cucumbers, sweet and sour pork, cream of corn and egg soup, fried whole chicken, deep fried prawns, and some sort of a pate. This dinner was very important to get to know the people at the school who will be watching us teach. However, it was difficult since not many of them speak very much English. I did try to speak a few words of Cantonese. I learned how to say full, "boy-o" i think. And I was determined to try to eat with chopsticks. For those of you who know how horribly I am with chopsticks, I was actually able to get the hang of it.. kind of! I only used my fork once! Pretty good if I do say so myself!
Once we got home Dr. Ballou decided he wanted to go see the school so my roommate and I gave him a tour and showed him all the different classrooms. When he saw the school he was very excited for us to be doing our student teaching there. We decided that was a good way to end the evening and headed back to the apartment and said goodnight.


Yesterday (Day 4/Feb 22) was a very good day for getting organized at the school and figuring out what we need as teachers and residents. In the morning we went to the school and greeted the children which is so much fun. Whenever they see a teacher they bow and say "Hello, teacher. Good morning. How are you?" They have been trained to be very polite and respectful.

After morning reading time, all the student teachers went with Dr. Ballou who had just arrived in town to discuss everything about student teaching. Dr. Ballou is our overseeing supervisor from Central Washington University and is guiding us through the student teaching process. During our meeting we slowly went through our basic necessities in order to live comfortably and then discussed the TPA and various student teaching documents. This was so incredibly helpful! Throughout our meeting, we made a list of 52 items that Dr. Ballou was going to talk to the director about.

After we talked about everything we needed to go through, we went back to our teacher offices and started to work on our papers. Later in the day Dr. Ballou went home to take a nap since he was still jet lagged. We had the rest of the day to ourselves so we could unwind or work on student teaching documents. I went back to the apartment for a while and just took a nap. Around 4:30, Dr. Ballou met with the director about the list we had created earlier. This meeting went until 7:45 when he then came to my roomates and my apartment and gathered the other student teachers to share what he found out.

This meeting was amazing! We learned who was our cooperating teacher, we received the currlcula we will be creating lessons from, we received maps of the area, and .... we learned that our saturday class was cancelled!!! This was wonderful!! When we were sorting out logistics for this program back in November, it was understood by all of us that we would be working with the middle schoolers on Saturdays to develop the coversational English skills. Once the director learned that on top of teaching and creating lessons we have a huge TPA and a student teaching handbook to complete. Finding out that Saturday class was canceled and receiving the curriculum was like Christmas! We were thrilled!

After our debrief concluded, we were all ready to pass out so we called it a night and headed to bed.

Each day I am here I am finding out that there are so many luxuries back home that I have gotten used to that I will have to live without for the next 4 months. For example, there is way to watch some of my favorite TV shows here- the government blocks us from watching any TV online. I'm sure these differences will enhance my experience over here and make me realize how unique any country can be.