Jing-Xi's Adventure of a Life Time.: First Two Weeks... (7)

The first two weeks of school are always the hardest; at least they are in Taiwan. Teaching has never been that hard for me before I tried my hand, badly mind you, at first grade. I went home every night wondering what the hell I was doing and why was I putting myself through this torture. I am ashamed to say that I had no idea what I was doing. I had never taught a day of first grade and the students knew it. I swear they smell fear. I kept telling myself, it's going to be ok, just act like you know what you're doing and have it all together. I couldn't keep the act up for long.

My lessons were too hard and the kids need to play more games. This is what I was told every day for the first two weeks by my co-teacher. My day began the same every day. 60 communication books to sign, put in performance comments, and paste today's lesson in the book. Communication books are actually an awesome idea. They are a book the students take home every day, parents read, hopefully, and sign. The students bring them back and the teacher reviews and fills out the current day's school activities. This book eliminates the excuse of not knowing. They work great when used correctly. At this school every student returns these books every day faithfully. Education is taken very seriously and a score of 90 is considered a low score.

So I tried to play more games... They went over like a lead balloon. I felt like I was failing miserably and my co-teacher seemed like she was never happy with my performance. However, she would smile sweetly at me and say you're doing great. I could see the truth and it was written in huge writing all over her face every day. The students in this class were at varying levels of English speaking skills. There were some super smart students who were done with everything very quickly. Then there were slower students who didn't understand any English at all. A huge mix of skills and a clock that seemed to move slower when it was my turn to teach is what awaited me in English class. Having 35 sets of little eyes watching you and waiting is like the sound of a dentist drill when you don't know what you're doing. Finally, the head of the foreign teachers realized how miserable I was, or my co-teacher finally complained about me enough and it was decided I was going to be moved. I would now be teaching my 5th grade class, a 4th grade health, and a 6th grade lecture class. Maybe there was salvation in Taiwan after all.

Jing-Xi's Lesson of the Day: Discipline and hard work are truly their own reward. Without discipline children learn that whatever behavior or effort they choose to put into something is adequate. Without discipline one never truly works hard at anything in life. Without hard work one becomes lazy and complacent. The lazy and complacent animal in the wild is the first one to be someone else’s dinner. Whose dinner do you want to be?