Laziness

Hello everyone,

So I guess i should tell everyone about me trip to Cambodia and Thailand but after three weeks of putting off this update I really have nothing to say about it. The food was amazing, the weather warm, and it was nice to finally meet my relative over there. I think i'm getting either too lazy to update or too busy. I haven't quite figured it out. . .

Cambodia pictures are up. . . story soon to follow maybe

I'll tell everyone about my trip when i get some time. . . . maybe

http://picasaweb.google.com/dankhuon/Cambodia

Teaching Philosophy

After five months of teaching it’s hard to say what my opinion is of the Chinese school system or education system in general. The Chinese seem to stress test taking, and by stress I mean 70% of all students’ grades are taken from the midterm and the final. I always find it interesting to hear how the American education system is failing it students, some of it true, but I’d actually like to see the students that these figures are taken from.

The topic of teaching philosophy and theory is a constant topic amongst the expat teachers here. Eastern teaching philosophy tends to emphasis memorization and sticking to what the experts says. Most of my students who grew up in the East have very good memorization skills and are generally the better behaved students. Where most of these students fall short is critical thinking and creativity. I had my 9^th grade students write me an essay on the Opium War and half the student copied from the textbook and the other half of the class barely wrote a page. What all of the papers had in common was that none of them had any idea on how to structure an essay. I had kids restating the question as their thesis statement, using only one paragraph for their body and introducing completely off-topic ideas in their conclusion. When I asked the students why they had no idea how to properly structure an essay most of them said they were taught that the purpose of an essay was to show how much you knew about a given topic and that most of the ideas about essay writing I was introducing to them were foreign to them. I don’t think one has to focus all their time learning how to write an argumentative essay but to be absolutely deficient in that area is inexcusable. I don’t blame the students because they can’t learn what you don’t teach them and I really blame their previous teacher because most of them have to teach to the test. What it really comes down to is that my school has done a poor job of implementing a good system for learning. The administration is so concerned with getting more money and the image of the school that they don’t realize how far behind most of these students are compared to students in the West. Another thing that the administration is very flippant about is cheating. I haven’t had any cases but one of the expat teachers caught his student with the answers to a test on his hand but since some of the answers were wrong it was not considered cheating in the eyes of the administration and nothing happened to the kid. It was later learned that the kid had very influential parents and to cause their child to lose ‘face’ would have meant a lot of problems for the school. So now I’m kind of in limbo about my long-term stay at this school. I really can’t support an administration that is willing to forgo a students education in order have a bigger bank account.

Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QotZ7TIaztw

Listen to this song

Broken computer

My new years started off with my laptop breaking on me. At first I thought I’d have to get a new computer but a friend of mind suggested that I go down to Xujiahui to get it fixed. Xujiahui is a huge street that reminds me of Time square. There you can find clothing shops and restaurants but Xujiahui to most know for electronics. The street is just one big Best Buy and the nice thing about it is that usually you can find really cool things that you would never see in the states. But the bad part is that all the legitimate products cost more than they would in the States.

Most of the computer stores are either in a small closet size room, in a lobby, or outside on the streets. Thankfully my friend took me to a small closet because if it was outside I would have ran. The computer guy speaks very little English so the meeting was conducted with my broken Mandarin. He opens the computer up, tells me the mother board needs repairing, and says he can fix it for 500 kuai. I was blown away because in the State you could never get someone to look at you computer and fix it for such a cheap price. As annoy and frustrating Shanghai can be that are times when you are completely amazed by it. He ended up putting a new motherboard in for me so now I might be able to get another year out of this computer.

Chengdu

Happy Holiday and New Years. I just got back from Chengdu, China which is why I have been out of contact with most people. Chengdu is in central China and is the last city before Tibet, often times people stop off in Chengdu before they enter Tibet. Because the city is in such close proximity to Tibet and Xinjiang (a Muslim state controlled by China) Chengdu's make-up and vibe is much different from the Coast. Chengdu itself is a very cool town. The people are relaxed and laid-back, the weather is mild (no snow), but most importantly the food is wicked-awesome. Smack dab in the middle of Sichuan province (Szechuan) most of the food was mind-numbingly hot, but extremely good. Sichuanese food is know for hotpot and barbecue, both are both to eat in a group. In both cases you order a whole bunch of different meats and veggies on a stick, you cook the food yourself, and once the food is done you go to town. Hot pot houses and barbecues vendor, or as I like to call them 'street meat', can be found everywhere. I was walk back to my hotel on night and found an ally of just 'street meat'. I end up spending only $1 US for a tray full of grilled meats and veggies.

Hotpot of Death


















Lamb 'street meat'


















Tibetan food


















Beyond the food Chengdu is know for its temples and pandas. There are a few temples in town that have been converted to national sites and the surrounding streets have been made to look they way they would have had hundreds of years ago. A few milds up north is the Panda research facilities. There the Chinese are working hard to keep alive one of their national treasures. On the outside it looks like nothing more than a glorified zoo for pandas but the Chinese Government has successfully been able to breed captured pandas. If you go south there is a small town call Leshan which houses the largest statue of Buddha. There you can scale the cliffs and take pictures next to a giant Buddha.


















Overall Chengdu has been one of the best cities I've visited in China. I can't over state how nice the people are and how awesome the food was. When I was there it seemed like there was a lot of fog but most of the Chinese say its fog from the mountains. I dont know its hard to really tell the difference in China.

Here are some more http://picasaweb.google.com/dankhuon/Chengdu

Grading test

Here is one of my 7th grade students answer to a short answer question.

"What set Mohenjo-Daro apart was that there was a lot more technology. Its' like shanghai suddenly being cyber-technized on a major. Like suddenly having 20 robot slaves for every citizen"

Yeah he's getting full points