Things About School

School has officially started here in Shekou!

When I pictured the beginning of the year and setting up my classroom, I figured it would be a pretty busy time, and I was not wrong! After a few days of new teacher orientation, I was shown to my classroom, which I was very excited to see. I figured it would be all set up from the teacher last year and I would just have to add my own touches to it... but when I got there it so small and there was just a huge pile of furniture stacked in the middle of the room (they'd just painted the walls). I knew I had my work cut out for me! Some guys came in and I was able to just point to the different pieces of furniture and say "put this here, put this there" but it was hard to see what I had and to guess the sizings, so I had to ask them to move things around a few times. Sorry, guys!

Over the next few days, my computer got hooked up, supplies started trickling in, I had to go to about a million more meetings, and I met my 6-year old teaching teammates. There's 5 of us and everyone is awesome! They have seriously been so helpful and friendly. I couldn't ask for a nicer bunch.

So here's how my room looked when I was finished (I've fine tuned it a bit since these pictures were taken, but you'll get the idea):

This is outside my classroom door. Kids aren't supposed to know their teacher's first name are they? And it totally blows my "my first name is Mister" joke when my students ask me my name.

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I have 16 kids divided into 5 table groups. Calendar time and morning meeting is done on the carpet there in front of the white board.

There's the word wall in the back, my favorite item- the air conditioner- is in the left corner, and that's my desk next to the Canadian flag there. Represent!

I was lucky to inherit tonnes of books, so we won't be hurting for things to read this year. The cabinet there is full of science/cultural studies resources, and I have a math cabinet on the other side, too.

The best thing is that there is a paraprofessional assigned to my classroom. Her name is Yolanda, and she is sort of like having a personal assistant! She makes copies, cuts stuff out (first grade teachers do a lot of cutting!), makes bulletin boards, supervises the kids- everything. And her English is excellent, so we've become fast friends. It's great to have her in the classroom! She's worked there for 4 years so she knows a lot about how things work and routines at the school... she's keeping me in the loop right now.

The downside of spending so much time setting up my room is that I hardly had any time to plan! Thankfully, I spent a lot of time planning this summer. If I hadn't, I would be so screwed right now! I had to spend all weekend at school trying to catch up, but I'm finally not only caught up but ahead (!), so I feel like I can finally breathe and have some time that doesn't revolve around school again.

Then last Thursday was the first day of school. We took first day photos, and I made them into a collage to send home to the parents. The kids are from all over the world, which is a new experience for me. I've got 2 Japanese students, 3 from Hong Kong, a Korean, an Australian, a German, a boy from Finland, an Israeli, a Swede, a Turkish girl, and an American. And let me tell you, they are not shy! On the first day, usually everyone is kind of quiet, but this group was anything but! But the next day they were better, and today they were even better than that. They're getting to know my routines and what I expect of them, so it's a work in progress. They're smart and happy kids, so I believe it will be a great year. Their English level is much higher than I would have guessed; I can talk to almost all of them fluently. I already like them a lot. And after the first day I could hear them telling their parents as they left how much they loved our class, which always makes you feel good.

Mel isn't teaching yet, she's still doing testing for the Intensive English program she's working in. She's not 100% sure what her year is going to look like yet, but luckily she's got some time to figure it out. I'm a little bit jelly of that.

Want to know something awesome about this job? In 3.5 weeks we have a 9 day vacation! Already! My brother is coming to visit and we're going to visit Hong Kong and Macau, and do some proper exploring in Shenzhen. It's a rough life, I tell you!