Pressure's on!

Teaching Class 26 during my open lesson

I have about a month left for this school year. It's still surreal that another year is ending, and I'll be saying goodbye to hundreds of students that I've taught, most of them for two years. Fortunately, they'll still be around for their senior year getting ready for the Gao Kao exam (think ACT/SAT with a LOT more pressure) even though I won't be teaching them. I think it's kind of cool that I'll be able to watch this group throughout their whole high school career.

Last week, I had an open lesson. Basically, this is when a bunch of the school's Chinese English teachers come to my lesson to take notes and pick up ideas for their classes. We've built good relationships with many of the teachers. Because of that, I wasn't extremely nervous. However, this is pretty much the only class where Chinese teachers will sit in on any of our classes the whole year. Plus, there are only two teachers who do them (Rebecca also did one). With that in mind, I felt a little bit of pressure to have a great class. If either of our classes didn't go well, it would reflect on our whole group. Another thing that adds pressure with open lessons, is that to the Chinese teachers, this lesson isn't a real lesson. It's more of a performance. Many Chinese teachers even practice their open lessons with their class beforehand! It's a pet peeve of mine. How are teachers supposed to learn how to teach a normal class when they're not watching one!!?? With our schedules, we can't "practice," so I had no idea how Class 26 would handle the pressure.

However, the lesson went really well! The textbook's unit was on cloning, so we talked about debating, then ended class with a short debate. I think students usually know that performing well makes their teacher look good. I purposely picked one of my better classes. They have good English, and I knew they would want me to look good (gain face), and they helped me out a lot! I have a few pictures from that lesson above.

This past weekend, the entire Zhong Relations team (about 17 people) went to some hot springs (a Chinese spa/swimming pool area) for our end of the year get together. We had a great time swimming, relaxing, and worshiping. It's always nice to hear about everyone's year and say goodbye to many of those who are going back to America for good. Hopefully I'll get a picture of everybody up on here soon. I forgot my camera, so I have to get it from someone else.

Now that the weather's been warming up, our group has been more motivated to get in shape. We've been doing a P90X (a famous DVD program) workout together once or twice a week, and those of us who are returning joined a gym nearby. Maybe I'll be add some muscle over time and weigh more than 130 pounds for once in my life!

Other than that, not a lot else is going on here that I can talk about. There are definitely some other things that I would like to share, but they'll have to wait until I get back to America. As I've said many times, it's been great to have quite a few opportunities to share my faith this year.

You can also be "thinking" of our end of the year craziness that we have to get figured out (visas, contracts for next year, etc). Last year, we almost didn't get our visas renewed in time thanks to an obscure rule about the type of pen you fill out forms with! I think we're more prepared this year, but you never know in China.

That's all for now! I'll be back in a month!