BOOT CAMP!

I’ve spoken about this week with many referring to it as “ Teacher Boot Camp”. Essentially what the week consisted of was a run down on company policies, payments and of course how to run and manage a class. It was a week that I was particularly looking forward to but at the same time extremely nervous for.

 As I made my way to the JH office I couldn’t shake the memory of  my 13 year old self venturing off to camp for the first time.  I was about to meet the 24 new SHANE teachers and of course those pre-adolescent thoughts of “what if no body likes me!?” started to creep in.  Well, I arrived at the office and every thing was fine. The teachers were all very friendly as most were in the same position as me. Once every one arrived we were split up into 2 mini busses and began our journey north of the city to the Island of Chongming.

I guess things were going a little too smoothly and because TIC (this is China), chaos just HAD to make an appearance. After making a wrong turn off the highway and driving for about 20 min we managed to get back on track. But wait, the Gods couldn’t have just left it at getting a bit lost..noooo no, they just had to make things more interesting…

 So get this, we are driving in the far right lane when our tier blows up causing and almost immediate collision with the car directly behind us. Luckily our driver had some sort of road 6hth sense and she swerves to the left lane where we nearly smash into the car in front of  us! Being the NAS car driver she is she swerves once again landing us on the far left shoulder, white as ghosts, slightly confused and almost ready to blow chunks.

Now not only were we an hour late we were now stranded on the side of the road watching out driver change the tier while 3 police cars drive by with out a glance in our direction. Actually I think I saw one police officer in a Hawaiian shirt while talking on their cell phone, I just hope they weren’t on duty.

We arrived at the hotel where we spent the first two days going over logistics, aka all the really boring but mega important business type stuff… you can bet your ass I paid as much attention as I could, you know, in between doodles and snoozes. On the third night we moved to a hotel in the centre of the island. There we came across a peoples square where every one was waltzing. Now, I can’t dance very well but obviously that wasn’t about to stop me from joining in on the fun! Will (another teacher) and I tore up the dance floor and generated a bit of a buzz amongst the crowed. I can only imagine what was going through some people’s head’s as they witnessed the clumsy and foolish banter of our feet twirling about in the most awesomest of ways; perhaps it may have been something like this: “Hey look at the goofy white couple trying to dance! Let’s crowd around and laugh at their lunacy!”

After our little dancecapades we went back to the hotel for a night cap and some good old KTV (that’s Chinese for karaoke.! [its actually not but that’s what they call karaoke here]) .  Nothing like a beer and a little Thriller to send you off to slumber ville!

The next few days went a little something like this:

• Wake up at 8 for breakfast
• Learn games and teaching tools
• Eat Lunch
• Practice making lesson plans and controlling classes
• Eat Dinner
• Practice lesson plans on fellow teachers
• Get Drunk stay out till 1
• Wake up and do it again

This is how responsible teachers learn how to run a class room:

    For one of the drinking nights we actually used the children’s games to get us smashed. Drink of choice for these educational moments: Bijio * Just a little side note about Baijiou; it tastes like durian mixed with dirty diaper, feet and vodka, oh and you keep getting tastes of it all night because it really hates to stay down (if you know what I mean … ) yumm!

Actually if you think about it, most of the drinking games you play in Uni can be swaped over to be played as educational learning games with children… obviously minus the alcohol.

So friends, in a nut shell this is how I learned to be a teacher. I have now been working for the past week, loving every minute of it and I have to say that the training has really helped me! I even use some of the drinking games as real class games and the kids love them… little do they know how much they will still love them once they reach adulthood! :p