Sixth grade is pretty similar to fifth grade, quite different from fourth grade, and third grade is completely and totally a different world altogether. I would never have known that the grades are so different, I remember it all as a haze, every year of school essentially the same as the last. And yet, teaching each grade, I see what is similar and different about them. This is what is different about third grade. It is a hell on this earth. It is a plague unto man. When I taught third grade a few days ago, it was a madhouse. The students wouldn't stay in their seats, they were up running around, they didn't listen to a word I said the entire class, they screamed and yelled in Chinese utterly incoherent to me. One of them even kept running behind my back to make faces at the other students. I was certain that day, what I will refer to as The Day of The Third Grade Terrorism, that I had lost all of my skills as a teacher. I came home defeated and down-trodden. But not hopeless. I decided that I just needed to think this through, figure out what went wrong. I obviously couldn't handle the younger classes the way I had handled the older ones. This would call for a complete reworking of my entire lesson plan. No lengthy individual introductions, no lecture at all. I came home, lit a cigarette, and considered my dilemma. The third graders didn't listen to me. That must mean I didn't get their attention. They didn't behave, that must mean they weren't interested. So how do you get 50 third graders to listen? I considered when I was in third grade. What if my regular teacher, the disciplinarian, the one I had come to respect, had said, "Students, here is a Chinese lady to teach you Chinese. Give her your full attention." And then walked out of the room, leaving me with this stranger who spoke no English. I was a thoughtful student, so I would have tried to pay attention, assuming I would get brownie points for this. But after she spoke for several minutes, saying things I couldn't comprehend well, if at all, I would surely lose interest. I came to understand why my students did not pay attention to me, because I was doing nothing to grab their attention. So I thought about what a Chinese lady in my third grade class would have to do to get my attention, and then keep it. First of all, just seeing a Chinese lady would hold my attention for a few minutes. The element of surprise was on my side. Then she would have to do something physical, something entertaining. I decided to play a new game, where my body is home base. Once all of the students were touching some part of my body (and yes, if you are wondering, my butt got groped a bit) I would yell out a color, and all of the students would have to rush about the room to find something that color and bring it back to show me, and then back to their desks. Then I would yell, "Touch base!" and they would all run up and grab hold of me again, and it would start over. This game really got their attention. It had everything a third grader wants: running, yelling, touching people, a race, a bit of competition, a show of knowledge. The students all raced to the front of the class to be the ones who got to me first, because the first to get to me got to hug me full around the waist, or hold my hands, while the others had to settle for a bit of clothing or an arm or leg. This game went over so incredibly well, I couldn't believe it was this simple. I had worked out the dilemma completely. Just make them run about a bit, and they settle down immediately! So then I showed them the parts of the face. I used a student for this, and this amused them very much as well. I chose a student and pointed out their ears by pulling on them, pointed out their nose by squeezing it, pointed out their cheeks by pinching them. Using their face like a doll, it couldn't have amused the students more to see their fellow student poked and prodded. And the demo student was also very happy to be the center of attention. It was great fun for us all, and to review I would ask them to come up to the board and draw a part of the face I named, to see if they recognized the word. A lot of funny faces came up, because each student drew a different part of the face, so it ended up looking like a clown. So my first day of teaching third grade I thought they had beat me, but my second day of teaching third grade, I came out victorious. I imagine this is what it felt like to win WWII.
With the confidence boost of prevailing over the Third Grade Terrorists, I decided to be a little more adventurous with my older classes as well. In two of them I played the game I had been wanting to play all month, where I make up a bag full of my clothes, and they come up and pull out an article, and talk about what that piece of clothing's name is, the colors, and what kind of weather in which it would be worn. There was a lot of giggling and joking around during this game, which was quite a bit of fun. And as I suspected, when one student pulled out my bra, the entire class was total chaos for a few moments, while everyone took in the very idea, which went something like: "That huge bra, it's true the teacher's breasts are quite large, but look at that, it's ridiculous!" I think this is a game that can be modified for every single class I have, for the younger and older students, and for the smaller to the extremely large classes. Then everyone wanted to take pictures, and since it was the last day of classes before vacation, I decided to let class out early so everyone could get pictures of me and their friends wearing my clothes. Speaking of which, that was earlier in the week, and now I have been on autumn break for three days. I don't have classes, so I have little entertainment. I have been considering what to do with my time here. Last night I couldn't sleep, it was one in the morning here, and I was bored, restless. I decided to go for a walk to tire me out. I walked out of my apartment building, and was struck by a big, bright moon and a sprinkling of stars. People who live in cities must be used to not seeing the stars for weeks at a time, but I am not, and I had not seen the stars for a month. Every night the moon hangs like a glowing orange pumpkin in the sky, amidst clouds of grey pollution that block out the stars. I had not seen an evening for a month that wasn't gray and orange. Probably it was because there was a strong wind blowing from the east, sweeping away the clouds and pollution for a few hours, carrying with it the scent of the ocean. It was such a beautiful night last night, and the whole campus was deserted for break. I felt completely alone. I love feeling very, very alone in very large places, because it makes me feel like the last human being left alive. I remember when I was young I saw this zombie movie with my sister, "28 Days Later". The beginning of this movie shows a man waking up in a hospital bed, presumably from a coma, to find everyone in London is gone. He wanders the big, empty city in his hospital gown, looking around. I will never forget my feeling, watching that, as though I were there. It was like swallowing a deep breath in my chest. That, too, made me feel crowded and restless. I sometimes get this feeling at home when I am driving very early in the mornings. I think 4:00 a.m. is the time when the most people are asleep at any given moment. I pretend there are zombies, no humans left, and I feel safe because I have a car, a protective shield. Once I was with a friend during this time, and tried to describe the feeling, but it didn't translate, because you can't be the last person left alive if there's someone riding shotgun.
In any case, I have taken a strange tangent in my thoughts. I am thinking about very complicated feelings, and I suppose this is because I am feeling very complicated feelings. Who would have thought? Who would have thought that this is the way things would go? Not me, never. I suspected I would come here to mourn lost things. China, I mean. I would mourn lost things that would never return, or distract myself with seeing something new. I do know one thing: China is not the place I have been looking for. That place that is so totally different from the places I know that it is utterly unrecognizable. China is too civilized, it is not strange enough. You have to squat over a hole to piss, but then you use toilet paper just like anywhere else, and wash your hands with a bar of soap. I had thought it would be different, probably I had thought it would be a struggle. Everything I have ever thought has been wrong. In my first blog I talked about how you never know what you will feel on your journeys. You never know what something will mean until it happens. I know this is true, but what are you supposed to do, really, with that kind of information?
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