baby shark.

My kids love the song “Baby Shark”. For you non-girls campers out there, it’s a children’s song about a baby shark, momma shark, daddy shark, and a grandpa shark. Complete with hand motions. We sing it for opening at least once a day. The tune gets stuck in their heads and I love catching them hum it throughout the day.

Well, they changed our teaching arrangements here. Surprise, surprise. China just loves changing things on you at the last minute. This experience has taught me a lot about patience and learning to roll with the punches. I am not very good when it comes to change. Actually, I am horrible at change. So this is definitely a trial for me, but I am getting used to it and learning to make the best out of different situations.

We originally had 16 teachers for 38 kids. ILP and our school here in China thought this was a waste of resources. So they came up with a different plan. 5 teachers were chosen to stay at the school during the day and teach all 38 kids. The rest of the teachers were chosen for the next 8 weeks to travel to a different school each week to teach different students. These schools are in the area so they aren’t that far and they would only be gone during teaching hours. We were all really sad to hear this new plan. We didn’t want to leave our precious little students. We had to keep in mind that we are here to serve. That’s the bottom line. We came here to help anyway we could through teaching, and if that means to be advertisers for ILP and our school, then so be it.

Me and four other girls were picked to stay here at the school and teach the 38 students. I was really glad that I got to stay here and teach my kids, but sad because most of my friends were picked to travel to the other schools. I was so sad that I wouldn’t be able to teach with them and talk about all of our students. I was also nervous to be teaching alone, with 8 kids in each rotation. We teach five, 25 minute rotations. It’s definitely harder than before, and it will take some getting used to but I know I can do it. It’s fun to have some new kids to teach and to still have my old kids.

A ridiculous story from my first day with the new kids:

There is a boy named Matt in one of my rotations. He kept getting up out of his seat and saying “Teacha! Teachaaaa!” and pointing to his rear end. This usually means that they have to go to the bathroom. Not knowing what to do, I took my whole class to the bathroom because I didn’t want to leave them all unattended in the room. We walked down the hall to the bathroom and Matt kept pointing to his bum. I kept telling him that we were almost to the bathroom. When we got there he refused to go in. I said, “Matt, go to the bathroom” and led him in there. I walked away and he just followed me and kept pointing to his bottom. At this point my whole class was running around. I was trying to get Matt to go into the bathroom and get my class to line up, but both were unsuccessful. I continued to try and get Matt in the bathroom, pushing him at one point. Along with pointing to his butt he started to shake it and open and close the back of his pants like something was in there. Then, it clicked. Matt had pooped in his pants. Poor kid didn’t have to go to the bathroom, because he already went! He couldn’t communicate to me and I felt so bad that I didn’t realize it sooner. I didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t just leave my kids and I didn’t want to deal with poopy pants. So I took him outside, pointed to the building across the way and said, “Matt, I’m so sorry. Go find your teacher.” Matt just nodded and waddled off.

The next day he ran up to me with a huge smile on his face, pointed to his bum, and said, “No teacha, no.” Just to inform me that he was all clean. What a great experience.