The School in Hangzhou

Greetings from Hangzhou China!!!

I arrived in Hangzhou September 6th in the evening. As usual I arrived a little late (one week to be exact) and the person in charge of the foreign teachers was not too happy. He let me know it and was nice enough, but kept bringing it up whenever he was blasting me for the job I was doing at the school. 

The class sizes are larger than I am used to which I knew about before I came. There are around 30 students in each class.  It is apparent that there is a lack of discipline in the classrooms. None of the foreign teachers took the time to get the classes under control and now they are all a mess. This is a school going through growing pains which they are not prepared for at all. We are just now starting to get books for the classes as they decided to print the books themselves.... Which meant that to teach the classes we had to print out the pages as needed. Talk about a paper waste and a waste of precious time teachers could spend on creating better lesson plans!!! 

 Most of my classes are a little more manageable now as I am working hard to get them under control.  My worse class is one that they gave me with a guy who is mentally challenged. Before I got there, he had control of the class and today he still is under the impression that he is the 2nd coming of something or other. They promised me a teaching assistant to help, but so far, the head of the foreign teachers is the one that attends the class. 

The foreign teachers in the department are not allowed to have contact with the Chinese teachers which really bothers me. I didn't come to China to hang out with foreigners.... I came for the rich lifelong relationships that I have previously had the privilege of developing with my Chinese friends. I love to hang out with the Chinese teachers and work with them. The school policy will not stop me. 

It’s a boarding school and kids go home on the weekend. It looks like an old castle with a court yard and lots of rooms for teaching. The rooms are small which makes it hard to do anything fun with the students. The buildings are old and run down, but there is a certain charm to it.

The kids sleep in small rooms with bunk beds stacked against the walls. They take showers every day, have clean clothes (uniforms washed) and 3 meals a day.  It is a music and arts school which makes it fun because sometimes I can hear students playing the piano or guitar. 

It has its difficulties and the principal of the school is nice, but she knows I am not happy. I'm working on a better attitude and trying to improve every day, but it is hard. I'm not sure if I will stay there - only time will tell.