Some updates

The weekend is almost over and though there were moments of relaxation, there were also moments of aggravation.

We finished our first week of teaching at Weifang Foreign Language School and the kids were sad to see us go. We each received little trinkets/tokens of appreciation from some of our students as a thanks. In my last class, I showed them some photos of my life back in Canada (scenery, a family photo, some pet photos, etc.) and they were mesmerized. They thought Canada looked SO beautiful, and I couldn’t argue that! I gave my assistant, Loulou, a small bottle of maple syrup I brought over and she was so appreciative. The end of the day was where things started to change. We were asked to do “photos”, and this apparently is normal according to Anne, who has been a leader many times. We were happy to take photos with our assistants, who had helped us so much, but a group of kids were then escorted into the room (kids whom none of us had taught) and we were asked to stand behind them for a picture. It was then we realized we were being used as “propaganda” to attract students to their school (a school with White teachers is worth sending my kids to). We were also told at this point that at our next school, we would each be teaching 4 classes with a minimum of 30 students. When we asked a coordinator why we couldn’t each have one class, they told us they wanted to expose the kids to as many foreign teachers as possible. To us, we were thinking that this is NOT quality education and there is no way we as individuals could get to know our students and apply the kind of assessment and teaching strategies we learned in our previous year of teachers college. How could we learn the names, strengths, weaknesses, and habits of all these students in one week? Not only this, but I definitely did not bring enough resources (i.e. prizes, purchased activities) to use with that many students. At this point, we were just ready to leave the school and hoped we would have assistants in the classroom again (which we later found out we would, so that was good news!)

As a group we decided we wanted to treat our assistants to dinner for all the help they provided us. Not only did they help in the classroom, but they were helping us navigate the city and choose the sights we should see while we are here. They chose a restaurant close to our hotel and it was wonderful. The meal was delicious and we got to try some traditional Weifang dishes.

Unfortunately, we were told on Friday that we would have to switch hotels on Saturday morning. We were very happy at our hotel, but we were told that our next hotel would be just as nice. We had planned on visiting Mount Tai Saturday, a large mountain that has steps you can climb with ancient writings to see along the way. Instead, Saturday we spent 8 am-11:30 moving all our luggage to the new hotel. Upon arriving, our rooms had not yet been cleaned and some smelled strongly of smoke. On the plus, the rooms are nicely decorated and there is an air conditioner (woohoo!) The hotel is a huge downgrade from our previous one, but we are managing. That afternoon we found an amusement park a 5-minute drive away (too hot to be there during the day, so we will go one evening this week), and went to the Weifang cultural and science museum, which were both interesting!

Today (Sunday) we were able to see a few beautiful sights in the city. We traveled to the Weifang Kite Museum, which was pretty interesting. There were kites of all sizes, shapes, and colours along with some descriptions (in poorly translated English– this is common in Weifang) to help us understand the ancient tradition of kite-flying. After this tour, the coordinator from the school who was taking us around the city told us we were going to a Park/Garden similar to a popular tourist area called The Water City. Fifteen minutes later we arrived at the Weifang Foreign Language Kindergarten School that was recently built. Parents were there with their children and all the teachers seemed to be expecting us, having cameras in hand. There was even a man with a high-tech video camera taping us as we came through the classrooms. In one classroom we were asked to take a picture with a group of kindergarten kids. This, again, made us feel like pawns or puppets being used to attract more children to the school, considering these photos and videos of us would obviously be uploaded onto a website or printed in a pamphlet of some sort. We were all pretty upset for a number of reasons 1) The coordinator did not tell us we were going there 2) This was supposed to be our organized tour day and 3) Our photos and videos of us were being taken left and right without our knowledge. Really, it made me feel sad for the children because whatever would be said of the school and foreign teachers would not be an accurate representation of the kind of education kids would receive.

Once they’d had their pictures and video footage of us, we went to a BEAUTIFUL area in the city that is entirely ancient housing. The architecture, greenery, water, pathways, and roofs were gorgeous and made me think “Why did they ever modernize their buildings? This is beautiful!” Here is a photo for an idea of what we saw.

After lunch, we went to an outdoor village/museum where paper carving was highlighted as a Weifang tradition. We climbed a giant pagoda and got a great view from the top (as well as enjoying a nice breeze on an especially humid day— 39 feels like 48 according to the weather network). It was no wonder that 45 minutes into our exploration we began to hear thunder in the distance and saw some grey clouds coming our way. This cut our tour short and didn’t permit us to attend the other two tours we had planned in the afternoon (a botanical garden and wetland park). The rain and winds were torrential for about half an hour and as we drove back, we saw many people struggling to drive their bikes and scooters on the flooded roads.

The pagoda we climbed

The view from the top

We are curious about our next school that we start at tomorrow, and how it will compare to last week. But what we are even more worried about is where our third week will be considering this school’s summer camp only runs until the end of this coming week (July 25). We were told we would be flying back to Shanghai after the summer camp is over, but Anne says there is no way they will pay for our accommodations for the third week without us teaching, so where will we end up? Still looking for some answers…