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Intro
Art,
play, talk, write, sing, non-sense. These were the fundamentals of my classroom in Lianyungang's Jiguan Government Kindergarten.
Class C, composed of thirty 4 and 5 year olds, entered a chaotic experiment in late August of 2005, and left for their summer
vacation, a well-oiled machine. I came to Lianyungang after signing a teaching contract barely a month before my departure.
I came to pursue what I believed was a teaching assistant's position, and discovered upon arrival that I would be the main
classroom teacher responsible for lesson plans and a majority of the curriculum. I have to say, upon this shock, I definitely
shed a few tears of fear. After some coaching from my father and help from my new ex-pat comrades, I decided I could do this.
And, I did it.
My children grew from thirty shy individuals, to a cohesive group. They were creative, excited, and
hilarious. Everyday was a new adventure that we explored together in English, and even though it was their second language,
they excelled above and beyond our goals as a class. Their faces truly capture the excitement and energy of our time together.
It is in their faces that I can trace my past in Lianyungang, and it is in those same faces that I will be able to trace the
future of Middle China.
Playing
My
class lived it up on the rough and slippery tiled playground at least once a day poking worms and running until could run
no more. Sometimes I could feel the stares on my class and I as we ran across the playground, twenty odd little bodies chasing
me with all of their might.
During the cold winter months and hard rains when we were forced indoors, our class experienced
cabin fever. Sandwiched on top of one another, one day I decided that we should play barefoot hide and seek in the nap room,
to my co-worker's dismay. It soon became a favorite, and a bargaining incentive for overall good class behavior. Eventually,
I had to be professional and cut down the frequency of the games, but I always managed to sneak a few in. I couldn't ignore
the rush the kids got out of hiding, their little feet and hands poking out from under blankets and behind curtains.
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On Being Mixed
Ling, my only student of mixed heritage faced
an interesting adjustment in moving from France to Lianyungang. I'm sure she wouldn't have faced nearly as many stares living
in Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai, but, this was Lianyungang. It took me a while to get the one of my teachers to stop giving
her obvious preferential treatment.
I knew I couldn't create absolute equality in the classroom, but I would try my
best. Coming from mixed heritage myself, I couldn't bear the thought of the little girl and the other students learning that
because someone looked more caucasian, that they were somehow better. I saw enough of the bleached skin products and substantial
white model advertising on the streets. The last place I wanted these racial politics to enter into was my classroom.
Names
I
remember the first day of school I was told that I would have to pick English names for the five new students. I asked why
I wouldn't use their Chinese names, and the teachers told me that that is what the parents in the program expected, "Western
Culture" through and through. I always wanted to learn all of their Chinese names, I felt like I was some how never going
to really know them if I neglected their real names. That this was some alternate reality world that would allow these children
to have a distilled subjective sort of Western experience for three years of their life, retain an English pseudonym, and
then be placed back into regular Chinese schooling for grammar school.
I picked those five names, Louey, Joe, Danny, Moon, Lorey, and although I can't help but feel there was some truth in my initial
reservations, I can say that the connection I had with each student ran deeper than pageants, abc's, and English names. All
thirty of my students and I experienced a real cross-cultural immersion. Michael's perfect English to Chinese translations,
"Family on the Bus," building car cities, afternoon yoga, futuristic runway shows, drawing time, were all bridges we crossed
together.
There is this dynamic that happens when you put cultures, languages, education, and art together, and the result, is magic.
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