The Truth about Homeschool

I have a picture in my head of what homeschool should look like.  You know, that picture on the front of textbooks or homeschool websites.  I sit on the couch with my children crowded peacefully yet eagerly around me.  We all look in rapt attention at a book.  Later the girls sit at different tables, diligently working on math or writing, while Nadia plays contentedly with puzzles on the floor.

I know this will come as a shock, but homeschooling doesn’t actually look like that.  Not around here, anyway. Several years ago I wrote a post about what school looks like for us, but I didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of every day. This post is a peek at a “typical” homeschool morning in our house.

8:50am – Things are looking good for our 9am start goal.  The girls are dressed and breakfasted – oh wait, Juliana still has on her pjs.   I remember to give the girls their allergy medicine, and take my own medicine.  I remind Adalyn and Nadia to clear off their breakfast dishes.

8:59am – I throw in a load of laundry while calling, “We are going to start school in one minute!”  Juliana complains, “What?  We have to do school AGAIN today?”  It is a daily shock and disappointment.  After remembering to make the girls brush their teeth and finding a book I left in the other room, I call again, “Come into the living room!  We are about to start school!”

9:04am -  The girls do all their last minute, “But I just need to organize my toys so they can start school too.  I just need to put my doll to bed.  I can’t find my waterbottle!  Can I please pack my books in a backpack?  Where is the other chair?  I’m hungry!”

Nadia boycotts Adalyn's morning show and does her own show in her tent

9:09am - The morning show is something we added after the girls’ stint in public school this year.  They take turns standing at the front of the living room to lead the pledge.  Today it is Adalyn’s turn.
“Stand up Juliana.  Look Mama, Juliana’s not standing up all the way!  ‘I pledge allegiance’ – Juliana, look at the flag!! (Juliana: I AM!!) - ‘to the flag’...”

“We will now reserve a moment of silence.”  I honestly have no idea what this is about, something they picked up at school.  It sounds like a good idea to me, but sadly that it is 10 seconds, and it is not silent.

Next Adalyn looks outside to determine the weather.  “It is partly sunny, partly cloudy,” she pronounces, finding the appropriate picture.  (“There are no clouds - it’s sunny!” Juliana protests.)  I help Adalyn through today’s month, day, and year.  Nadia points to the spring picture on the “seasons” paper.  “It is flower.  Are there flowers blooming, mama?”
“Okay,” I prod, “let’s move on.  You choose a song Adalyn.”  Everyone gives their input on what Adalyn should choose.  She settles on O Holy Night, a year-round classic.

The girls stand together to practice reciting part of Psalm 139 for a homeschool performance. Juliana adds enthusiastic motions, which I taper down from a full-on dance performance.
In unison: “O Lord you have searched me and know me -”  
Juliana: “Mooo-mmm!  Adalyn isn’t doing the motion right.  It is supposed to be like this.” 
Me: “It doesn’t matter, it’s close enough.  Just keep going!”
In unison: “You know when I sit and when I rise”
Nadia: “I don’t want to do it anymore!” (“...you perceive my thoughts from afar”)
Me: “Okay, that’s fine.” (“you know my going out...”)
We finally make it through.
Juliana: What if we forget the end?
Adalyn, self righteously: “I will remember it.  I will remind you.”

9:22am – The morning show is finally over.  I get ready to read from the Bible while the girls color.  Juliana listens and intersperses comments when she feels appropriate.  She feels the appropriate time is every other minute.  Nadia and Adalyn abandon their coloring books to run back and forth on the couch.

9:30am – I look at the clock and consider what we should do next.  Since everyone is gathered, I decide to start on history.  We read a chapter in A Child’s History of the World about the explorers, and then look at some illustrated information from the Usborne Book of History.  Adalyn runs over to look at the pictures, and everyone fights about who can see the best.  Juliana takes after me educationally.  She is interested in history, loves to read, and finds math and spelling unreasonably boring.

The girls paint watercolors on the tile bathroom wall while I read aloud.  It has no real educational purpose except to keep Nadia entertained.  Warning: it is harder to clean off than you would think.

9:45am – We move on to our latest read-aloud, Strawberry Girl by Lois Lensky.  I am enjoying it as well as the girls, which is always nice.  Adalyn especially likes the periodic illustrations.  She actually settles down to draw, and Nadia has wandered away for some authentic imaginative play (aka playing dollies).  Juliana curls up on the couch, and I enjoy the moment of reading aloud in relative quiet.
Nadia reappears with her dollies in a squeaky stroller:  “I don’t want to do school!  I don’t like school.”
Me: “You aren’t doing school.  You are playing.”
Nadia starts to wail, “I’m bored!  I’m hungry!  I didn’t have juice!” 
Adalyn pipes up, “I’m hungry too!  Can I have a snack??” 
Juliana yells, “I can’t hear!!  They keep talking!!”

10:05am - After some more shushing and reading over everyone, we reach the end of the chapter. 
Juliana: Read some more!
Adalyn: But I’m so huuuuuungry!
Me: It’s not snack time yet. Why don’t you play?
Nadia: I don’t want to play!!  I want to do something else!
Me: You could do puzzles! (NO!) You could play with your dollies? (NO!)  Why don’t you do playdough? (Nooooo!)  Okay those are all my ideas.  You can choose between one of them. (Nooooooo!!).

10:10am - We have snack time.  “But we haven’t HAD a candy snack today!”  “You don’t need a candy snack every day!  You could have...an apple, peanut butter cracker?”  “But I WANT a candy snack!”
I cut up an apple for Adalyn, spread peanut butter for Nadia while Juliana looks disconsolately at the pantry, hoping something more interesting will appear.  I reheat my coffee and look disconsolately at the pantry, hoping an inspiration for dinner will appear.  We are both disappointed.

10:15am – I set my coffee down somewhere to be rediscovered 3 hours later.  It’s like a fun game.  While the girls snack, I hang up a load of laundry to dry and am rewarded by a bed heaped with dried clothes to be sorted and put away.  Laundry is a vicious cycle.  I contemplate whether I should make the girls put their clothes away now or later/tomorrow.

10:20am – I go back to the living room to make them put away clothes and see that Juliana is reading a book to her sisters on the couch.  This is a wonderful stage of development.  She has the ability to entertain and educate her sisters without any help from me!  Everyone is sitting together quietly.  Nobody is fighting.  Quick, take a picture!

A moment of peace and harmony - I didn't even stage this picture.  I'm saving it as proof that this is possible.

10:35am – Much as I enjoy the spontaneous reading time, I know Juliana could read all morning if it means avoiding math. I send an unwilling Juliana to the other room with her math book.  Adalyn sits down to work on her computer math games.  She has just finished the kindergarten level and is starting the first grade level!  She certainly does not get her math skills from me.  Juliana pauses to “help” Adalyn every other minute, so 35 minutes later she finally finishes her one section of math problems.

11:10am – Juliana works on writing about a trip she has taken.  She talks about it for 5 minutes, then writes down one sentence. 
Me: “See all these lines on the page?  They are there because you are supposed to write on them.”

11:25am – While Juliana works on writing and spelling words, Adalyn climbs on my bed to read aloud to me.  She is so proud of being able to read her own little books. I haven’t actually taught her to read.  Somehow she has just picked it up. 
Nadia climbs up beside us and peers at the page.  “Those two words are the same,” she says, pointing at two words that are in fact the same.  I am super surprised and impressed.  “They are!  Which word is the same as this one?  What about this one?”  She easily identifies them.  It’s possible she is a child genius.
Adalyn gets annoyed at Nadia interrupting her.  Juliana comes in to remind me how boring spelling is and does she really have to do it?

We have since bought a portable desk for Juliana, and the little girls use a small table.  Or the floor, the couch, my bed, the kitchen table...We don't really have a designated homeschool space.

11:45am – Nadia has started her pre-lunch meltdown but I am determined to squeeze in science.  Today we are learning about hearing.  The girls are all interested in science because the book has lots of colorful pictures.   I didn’t feel like doing the proposed experiment using a balloon, so I quickly throw together my own activity.  For some reason I don’t understand, that seems easier than getting out a balloon.
I give the girls each a little “hearing test” by tapping a xylophone. Despite their claims about not hearing whenever I call them for clean-up or bedtime, they all appear to have good hearing.  The girls close their eyes and guess the noises I am making with different objects.  They all think this is a fun game.

12:10pm – Nadia starts crying again, and the girls decide on which version of bread and peanut butter to eat for lunch.   I look over my plan for the day to check how far we have gotten.  Never quite as much as I hoped but not too bad either.

I think the girls actually learned something this morning.  I definitely wonder at times.  My brain feels fried after all the chaos and divided attention. But then Juliana spends an hour reading on the couch, or Adalyn starts solving multiplication problems (who is this child??), or Nadia does an uncanny imitation of my teacher voice.

Being solely responsible for my children’s education can be daunting at times, but apparently my efforts plus their brains equals learning.  Some days, we all even enjoy it.

Foreign Experts Once Again

It's only been 1.5 years since we were "foreign teachers" (although 2.5 years since I was actually in the classroom), but sometimes I forget how different our life is as foreign students.  Not just our daily activity, but also our status in China.  We certainly still get lots of attention as foreigners, but we live on a campus with close to 100 foreign students, half of whom look noticeably foreign.  People almost get used to us.  As foreign students, we have no prestige.  But as teachers, we actually carry a "Foreign Expert Card," which we sometimes literally use to "pull the foreigner card."

Yesterday we helped with a Christmas program for another university in Yinchuan, and we got a reminder of what it was like to be Foreign Experts again.  We don't know any foreign teachers at that university - there may not be any - but we had a few connections so our team decided to go help out.  This campus was only about a 25 minute bike ride away, but it was pretty far out on the edge of town.  Past long rows of greenhouses and mud sheds.  Past large fields of newly sprouting trees.  Past the fancy new buildings of other college campuses also sprouting up on the edge of town.  No neighborhoods, no shops, no restaurants - just one bus stop down the road and a few fruit sellers by the campus gate.  A group of mini-vans for hire waited on across the road since no taxis come out this way.  Their drivers were gathered around a bonfire, waiting for someone to come along and request their services.

This is not a top-level or even mid-level school.  The students are almost all from small Ningxia towns.  Many of them have probably never seen a foreigner before and most have never talked to one.  The word about the Christmas program spread and the original 70 students mushroomed into a couple hundred.  The teachers scrambled to move us into a new classroom - a large auditorium with stadium seating and giant screens connected to a computer in the front.  This campus was only a year or two old, and it was still looking quite new and fancy.  The teachers ushered us in, eager to show how much they were honored by our presence and wondrously amazed to find we could speak Chinese.  See what I mean?  Prestige.  Nobody treats students this way.

Our friends who were heading up the program talked about some different Christmas traditions and beliefs, interspersed with the whole group coming up to sing several Christmas carols.  When the students spotted our teammate's daughters (Juliana had stayed at home), a couple hundred cell phones whipped out and started snapping pictures.  Each time we came up to sing a Christmas song, the students clapped enthusiastically and took more pictures. 

After the formal presentation was over we moved to different corners of the room for question and answer.  The students shyly gathered around and awkwardly looking at each other hoping someone would talk.  A couple of brave boys came in a little closer and several girls linked arms for moral support. 

One of the brave boys shook my hand and said, "Nice to meet you!  You are very beautiful."  I had to laugh.  I almost forgot how people used to say that all the time.  I'm not being vain, they really did.  Guy and girl students, random grandmas and shopkeepers.  Usually at inappropriate times like when you are trying to have a serious conversation with them or trying to buy milk at the supermarket.  I would be more flattered but mostly they think I am beautiful because I look so foreign and because I have such white skin, which is enviable in China.  And because I have yellow hair and blue eyes.  I don't have either, by the way, but reality does little to sway preconceived notions.

In between awkward pauses the brave boys yell out mildly coherent questions.  They are supposed to be related to Christmas, but we give that up after a few minutes because really any question will be an accomplishment.  The usual questions proceed, in somewhat more garbled English than normal.  They also repeat their questions in Chinese, which is helpful when the English doesn't make a lot of sense.  When in doubt I just make up my own question to answer and they are happy since they don't understand most of what I respond anyway.

When the awkward silences start to build up, I try asking them questions instead.  Where are they from - that's usually easy enough to understand, what year are they -  freshmen, what do they do when they have free time - sleep, shop, one girl said "farm work.

Over in Kevin's group, the students are even more intimidated by the thought of trying to talk to two guys.  Kevin looms about two heads above the group.  The students are all too shy to ask questions, so their teacher starts ask questions for them.  "These students are not very good," she says, "Their English scores on the GaoKao (the huge standardized test to get into university) were around 30 out of 150pts."  Not exactly a motivating speech, but if the students even understood, they are probably used to hearing that type of thing.  The main education philosophy seems to include "learn through shame and scolding."  The students know this is not such a great school, but probably some of them are just happy to be going to any college.

I've missed students.  I miss their awkward shyness as they stand around forgetting every word of English they've ever learned but still desperately hoping you'll talk to them.  I miss how intimidated they are just by the foreign face.  They are so cute and so young at 20 going on 15.  I want to get to know them better, especially these students who have likely never been to a city bigger than Yinchuan.  I even miss their dumb questions like, "Can you use chopsticks?" (after I just told them this is my seventh year in China), their ever-repeated questions, "Do you like China?  Do you like Chinese food?", and of course the one that never will die, "How do I improve my oral English?"  I miss even that.

As the time ends and the students file out, they stop to mob us for photos.  Once the photo ops start it's hard to end them, with a dozen more students crowding around waiting to grab your arm and turn you toward the appropriate camera-phone wielding student.  I forgot what it was like to be all famous.  Tonight my picture will go up on twenty more qq or renren pages (kind of like Facebook), probably with some caption like, "My foreign friend!!  Did I mention we are very close?  Like best friends!  p.s. She knows Obama."`

Fun with names

by Kevin

Sometimes you just wonder what these students are thinking. I've been back in Weinan for about three days now and have already taught three slightly jetlagged classes and managed to have both computers here breakdown.

But one thing that always brightens my day at the beginning of a new semester is seeing and hearing the English names my students have chosen. Usually, I pass around a list on the first day of class and encourage them to take their pick. But since I wasn't here for their first lesson this year, the students had already made their choices. In addition to normal everyday names like Mike and Sam and Victor and Amy and Sally and Lisa, I always wind up with a handful of oddball names.

For example, I asked if my class yesterday had selected a monitor yet. The girl shyly stood up. "Do you have an English name yet?"

"Yes," she said, sheepishly. "Leaves-a."

"Lisa?" I asked, not sure if I heard her right?

"No, Leaves-a," she said. It hit me that she was adding an extra syllable onto the end of her name, as Chinese students often do.

"I've never heard someone use that as a name," I told her.

Usually I encourage them to change them because no native speaker would take you seriously if you introduced yourself as "Leaves." Probably not even if you were wearing tie-dye.

But hers was only one of many strange names that showed up when I asked students to list their English names.

Some, I can't help but wonder if they are misspellings. There's YaLianna, but maybe she just has a hard time saying Lilian or Lianna. There's Buluce (Bruce?), Mria or Mvia (I couldn't quite read her handwriting, but perhaps she meant Mia or Maria? Lijaky (Leejay?), Selar (Stella/Star?), Shasha ("Sasha?) Aileen (Eileen?), Kaia (Kayla/Kay?), Kathyria (Kathryn?), Felice (Felicia?), Sunna (Sunny?).

In one class, I was scanning the list and found a Shannor. I figured that surely she meant Shannon, until I went further down the list and found another girl named Shannon (we try to encourage students to not choose the same name as a classmate).

Others like Still , Lemon, Tiramisu, Fantasy, Lucky, Delta, Cherry and Willow are at least words, even if their usefulness as names is a bit questionable. If only a few had chosen pronouns, prepositions or conjunctions as names, you could make sentences just from their names they choose.

Lenka Hopes that Milo Still likes Tiramisu, Coco and Candy, but Cher's Fantasy is to eat Lemons and Cherries with Bella under the Willows on the Delta in the Summer under the Starrs.

The upside of these names is they're a lot easier to remember than Vivian, Ann, Sarah and Amy (Almost every class tends to have at least one of these). So now the decision, should

"Trouble is a Friend"

We've had some issues with updating our blogs thanks to a certain anniversary that just took place in China. However, several people have asked about how the "cheating episode" turned out. I didn't want to bore you with all the details, but given your interest, here goes:

I considered several options, weighing the balance between justice and mercy, punishment and forgiveness. I thought about sticking to my guns and forgiving the students morally while still punishing them for their actions. I considered simply allowing the students to keep the grades they'd earned through cheating (about half the cheaters still managed to fail even with the help). Finally, I thought about simply giving them a new, more difficult, exam and only counting that for their score.

After having my meeting with the students, I decided on the last option. I created a new exam for them and told students to meet me in the lobby of the building, so I could bring them to a new classroom. I questioned the fact that "every" student really cheated on the initial exam (China is a collective society, so I figured it wasn't outside of the range of possibility that some students may have admitted to cheating when in fact they hadn't), but since everyone signed the paper and asked if I would give them a new test, I gave the exam to each of them.

However, for the first question, I asked the following: "How and why did you cheat on your exam (if you did not cheat and just signed the letter because you wanted to support your classmates, now would be a good time to tell me. I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice for your friends, but I don't want to punish you unjustly by making you retake your exam)?"

Naturally, my plan was thwarted again: for the last couple months the school has relentlessly been scheduling away all of the student's spare time with time-intensive out-of-class activities. This week it came in the form of a dance competition. Naturally, the "cheating" class had made it to the finals, which were scheduled for -- you guessed it -- my class time. So, about one-third of the class couldn't be there for the beginning of our two-hour lesson. They said they were scheduled to perform seventh, so they should be able to return for the second half of our class time. I scrambled to make the best of a bad situation that had just turned worse.

"Ok," I told them, "Come back as soon as you are finished. I will begin my lecture, then I will give the exam as soon as you return."

They didn't come until there was only 15 minutes left. Not nearly enough time to complete the exam. My next class would begin 30 minutes after this one.

I scrambled to figure out a new approach. I shared a parable about a king committed to carrying out the law, stepping in to take the punishment of a law-breaking son. Then I explained why I was willing to forgive them. I understood their reasons for cheating, but I could not condone it. I told them that I was willing to forgive them because I have been forgiven for so much more. I thanked the students for their confessions, then I forgave them and told them that I hoped that they could see this as a learning experience. Some seemed moved by the story, but others seemed disinterested.

I handed out their updated exams and, knowing they wouldn't have time to finish it, instructed them to label the map first (since this was the most common way they'd cheated on the initial exam), then answer the other questions.

In grading, I took a hybrid approach. Instead of counting the original map, I replaced that part of their score with the new map. On top of that, for those who confessed to cheating (about half the class), I deducted 10% from their final scores. For those who just signed the paper to support their classmates, I didn't reduce their scores.

I still am unsure whether I handled the situation the best way. The last couple weeks, I've been grappling with the issue anew as I prepare for a class this summer on "Cross-Cultural Conflict." While this isn't the same issue as the Rwandan genocide or South African apartheid, the issue resonates for me. How should we forgive? Is it possible to have true reconciliation in absence of confession on the part of both sides for their role in the conflict? Thankfully my students confessed. If this happens again in the future and students DON'T confess, what approach should I take? Some of the students said their desks had numerous answers written on them BEFORE they arrived to take the exam. That means students in another class cheated, but I don't know who it was. Can there be reconciliation with those who didn't confess? True, I don't know who they are, but now I'm suspicious of all. I've had to take the step of forgiving all of them. But that doesn't make me any less suspicious. Next exam, I think we'll be finding a new classroom at the last minute.

As I write this conclusion, a strangely-appropriate song, "Trouble is a Friend," by Australian singer Lenka plays over the loudspeakers that blare over campus each day at noontime:

"Trouble will find you
No matter where you go
Oh, oh
No matter if you're fast
No matter if you're slow
Oh, oh
The eye of the storm
wanna cry in the morn
Oh, oh
You're fine for a while
But you start
To lose control

He's there in the dark
He's there in my heart
He waits in the wings
he's gotta play a part
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
Ahh

Trouble is a friend
But trouble is a foe
Oh, oh
And no matter
What I feed him
He always seems to grow
Oh, oh
He sees what I see
And he knows
What I know
Oh, oh
So don't forget
As you ease
On down my road

He's there in the dark
He's there in my heart
He waits in the wings
He's gotta play a part
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
So don't be alarmed
If he takes you
By the arm
I won't let him win
But I'm a sucker for his charm
For his charm
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
Ahh

How I hate the way
He makes me feel
And how I try
To make him leave
I try
Oh, oh, I try

But he's there in the dark
He's there in my heart
He waits in the wings
He's gotta play a part
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
So don't be alarmed
If he takes you
By the arm
I won't let him win
But I'm a sucker for his charm
For his charm
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
Ahh

Ooh
Ahh
Ooh"

Once a cheater, always a cheater?

by Kevin

Today my frustrations with my culture classes boiled over into full-on anger. Anger mixed with sorrow about my student's souls.

Today I caught almost an entire class -- 34 of 44 -- cheating on an exam.

But before I get into that, let me back up a day. During the exam I gave yesterday, I spotted one girl who was mysteriously looking back and forth between her paper and her desk.

"What could she be looking at?" I wondered as I walked towards her. She slyly shifted her paper to the side, covering the area her eyes had been examining. I made a mental note of her name and where she was sitting, so I could get a closer look at her desk after almost everyone had left the room. After all, maybe something else was going on.

Sure enough, maps of Australia and New Zealand, which is one part of what they were being tested on, had been faitlfully drawn onto the desk. Now, most of the time these sort of things go unnoticed, because Chinese students are notorious for writing all over their desks. There isn't a single desk in the class that doesn't have writing scrawled all over it.

"What are you looking at?" asked the one student who was left in class, after handing me her exam. "She wrote the answers on her desk," I said, shaking my head.

She pulled out the blasphemous phrase every Chinese student seems to know to use when something shocking has happened:

"Oh my God," she exclaimed in mock horror. "How terrible. What will you do?"

"I am still deciding."

"I think when someone cheats, they must be punished, yes?"

"Yes."

I continued looking at other desks and soon discovered that others had used the same tactics. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure who had been sitting in those desks, since many change seats each week.

Fast forward one day. Now, my cheat-dar is on high alert as I give the an exam to another class. I spot a handful of eyes that are following the same track as the girl did yesterday, dancing back and forth between papers and their desks. Briefly, I consider nailing them now, but suddenly I had a thought: "I'll make note of where everyone is seated and then come check their desks after the exam. I begin writing out a seating chart, noting each student's name as I walk by."

After they leave, I began making the rounds.

By now I'm fuming. I pull out a blue permanent marker and begin drawing lines through their answers on the desks, to shame them.

By the time I finished, only a handful of desks were left without blue marks.

And there was another class about to come into the same room to take the same exam. I hurried up to the department office and found another a room we could move to for the exam. "Is there a department policy on cheating?" I asked Mr. Wang, explaining what had happened. "No, there isn't."

As I waited in the original classroom, counting down the minutes to when the next exam would begin, I watched the students cramming for their exam, curious if they would realize that the teacher was onto them. Several hurried students came into class, sat in their seat and noticed that answers had been scratched out. As they pointed it out to their neighbors, I gave them a knowing nod. But not everyone caught on. One girl, oblivious, frantically scribbled out a few answers onto her desk.

"I discovered that most of the students in the last class had written answers for the test on their desks," I announced. "If it was you who did it, you should be ashamed because you may have just made another student fail." Several students ashamedly looked down, avoiding eye contact. A few nervously giggled. I continued: "So the first thing we are going to do today is move to another classroom. Please stand and follow me."

I followed the same tactic in the new room. But now most students were rightfully fearful of being caught. I drew a seating chart with each student's name and watched them like a cat waiting to pounce on a mouse leaving its hole. Again, after they left I checked their desks. This time I only found two cheaters: apparently, in the minute or so that I wrote instructions on the board, these brazen cheaters managed to scribble down a quick map. Unbelievable.

As Wes put it, "They don't see cheating as wrong, unless they get caught."

Again, I left the room angry. I saw a couple girls in the hallway. They smiled, nervously.

But now I have a dilemma: first of all, what should I do? Should I give them all the zero they've been promised for cheating on an exam or should I give them another chance? A big part of me says fail them. Unfortunately, it's not clear-cut exactly WHO cheated. Was it the first student sitting at the desk or had the student who would be in the room to take the exam second come in early and scribbled down the answers? There were a couple of desks with TWO maps of Australia drawn on them.

The justice-seeker says, "Just give them a zero." The merciful part says, "Make them take a new exam." Yet another part says, "Maybe they can just go to another classroom and fill out this small part of the exam again?" Wes had an interesting idea, considering that China is a shame-based culture: "Call each student who cheated to the front of the room and give them a choice: I draw a line on your forehead or I give you a zero." That sounds extreme, but I'm at a loss right now.

I know many of you who read this are teachers. What would you do if you potentially cheating?

I ache for their souls. Integrity and honesty have such a small part in their studies. If they're willing to cheat on something as small as this (really, in the grand scheme of things, my class matters very little to them), how can they be trusted in bigger things? I wonder how many of them already cheated on college entrance exams? How many will do it again with their TEM-4? How many will bribe someone to find a job? When they become teachers, will they go on to enable their students to simply follow in their footsteps?

So, yes, all that to say, right now I'm at a loss. Bad China day? Yes.

Schedule tinkering?

By Kevin

Sometime earlier this week, rumors began swirling that the school might try to end the semester a little early. “I think the school wants to save money,” said one student. “They won't have to pay for heat if there are no classes.”

But naturally, that doesn't mean fewer classes, it just means they'll be clumped closer together for awhile. Word is, they want to make up a week of classes on the weekends so that students and teachers can go home early and have a long Spring Festival holiday.

“We will finish classes before Christmas,” another student said, excitedly.

So it might be an adaptation of what they'll do sometimes before a holiday, when we make up Thursday's classes on Saturday and Friday's classes on Sunday, resulting in the famed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Thursday, Friday schedule.

Another student asked Christina: “Will we have class this Saturday? Our instructor said we would.”

Naturally we don't know. We are generally the last to know anything like this. But seeing as how it is now Thursday night, I'm hoping they don't wait much longer to make a decision.

Not sure just yet if this means they'll want us to have classes basically every day for three weeks straight, without a break or if they plan to shift things around so we just make up one day of classes each Saturday for several weeks in a row.

But, all said, it probably all amounts to nothing for us: our contract says we get two day weekends, so probably our organization will insist on the school holding us to that. I have a feeling everybody else is gonna be staggering by Christmastime.