From Brooklyn to Beijing

What a whirlwind weekend in Xi'an. Where to begin? Let’s start with my train ride to Xi’an. I was invited by another fellow to do a teacher training at Xi'an International University for about 110 teachers from primary, secondary and universities in the area. This meant that not only do I get more practice giving teaching workshops but I get to visit a super cool city. I’ve been dreaming of the Terra Cotta Warriors since I was 3 years old watching Big Bird Goes to China, and now was my chance! Being an ELF is pretty cool sometimes. Xi'an! So I’m working on my ppt on the train and the man next to me starts to read my slides. In broken English he asks, are you a teacher? I say yes and it turns out he is a professor of education at Tsinghua University (super prestigious if you don’t know!). We then go on to discuss the problems with education in China, spend some time talking about scaffolding and differentiation, and finally he tells me about the work he is doing...

How are things at school you may ask? Getting better every day. Literally. Every day something new happens; I meet a colleague, my students amaze me with something; I get invited to judge fun contests. My students hard at work… and play.   Or like last week. When I was asked by my lovely colleague Chao to come to the rehearsal for the singing competition I stopped in my tracks. “There’s a singing competition??” “yes, between departments. The foreign language department is asking you to join us. You’ll be our lucky break.” “How so…” “It’s a competition of Chinese communist songs and you’ll be the only foreigner in it! We will be so special!”. And so I attempted to learn a Chinese communist song by heart, failing of course, but I did learn the melody and hummed along during the contest. Sadly, even with my voice and face to the mix, we didn’t win. But it did invoke a whole lot of collectivism. Now the staff knows who I am and want me to be more involved. I e...

And you are terrified. and then they walk in. and they are the cutest things you've ever seen. and their English is phenomenal even though they are 8 years old! And they love to participate! and they learn about turkeys. and they can say the word omnivore! And they make their own hand turkeys while their parents watch! And then they line up and give you gifts one by one and their parents take photos of you with their children. And then they take more photos. and give you more gifts. and your heart melts. This is what Thanksgiving is all about right?