May Day

May Day apparently is the equivalent of Chinese Labor Day, coinciding with "International Workers Day," I think. Ironically, people have to make up those work days the weekend prior to the mid-week holiday. So most everyone worked or had school/classes on Saturday and Sunday, in order to get Monday-Wednesday off. Cool. I'm befuddled as to why they replace weekends with work, in order to be able to later take a holiday to celebrate "labour"...?

But our school doesn't do that. As an international school on American curriculum and a more "westernized" scheduled school year, we don't get the whole observance off. Just Wednesday, the actual Chinese holiday. Because otherwise, heaven forbid, they'd have to pay teachers double (or triple) the normal salary rate, for working on a national holiday. I'd be down. Then we wouldn't have this awkward mid-week day off, totally obstructing the A-B-A-B-C day schedule that's in place at our school. It really is so inconvenient for lesson planning! (but then again, we've had a number of weeks in the last quarter when we ended the week on an A day, so the B day students missed class. Maybe it all evens out in the end?!). 

Blue dot: where we ended up,
out in the glorious farmland boonies
Beilun: where we live
(I live about where the
boxed-X looking character is)

Whatevs. I went for a bike ride at 8am this morning, enjoying the breeze and some sunshine, in the cool morning rays. I've included in this blog post, for your viewing pleasure, some photos that I snapped on my iPhone along the ride. 

Julie on her bike out in the irrigated/swampy farmlands
There were a lot of flower starts being cultivated in this area

Julie pedals behind me along a vineyard road;
we had just passed through one of the many
archways/gates that are so common in China

Scenery along the way

Bu hao tourist "reception" center.
No reception whatsoever. Just old men smoking inside at
a table, walls barren and stained with mold and mildew.

Drying what appeared to be either fertilizer
or feed for livestock...
but maybe it was people food.
I didn't know who to ask at the time.
...Anyone know?

Girls on holiday from school, walking the streets we biked

Fireworks continue, around these May Day celebrations. More frequently, in grander effect. This holiday week, for which most Chinese have had the first few days of the week off, has been filled with the familiar, booming sounds of fireworks, in exchange for the usual construction sounds. Well, to be perfectly honest, some of the construction sounds still persist, but the drilling overhead in our apartment has been put on pause, thankfully! (I thought Kari banging on the door on Tuesday morning at 6am was just construction, as opposed to signaling me that she'd left her keys inside!)

When I got back from my bike ride with Robbie and Julie, sweaty yet refreshed from the morning outing, I made brunch and Skyped with the sisters, which is something that can't usually happen at this time on a weekday due to the 13-(Chicago) or 15-(OR/WA) hour time-difference (it was earlierin the night for them, so not as inconvenient!).

View from the balcony, on this beautiful (holi)day. As you can see, indicated by the line of parked cars along the road, the Chinese who have the day off have come to recreate in the park across the street from our apartment,
flying kites, setting off fireworks, catching tadpoles and polliwogs, and eating strange meats from vendors,
probably contracting the bird flu (just kidding).

Restraining Jett from devouring FuFu (yes, he's a boy)

Now, I'm over at Kate's house, sunbathing with her on her little balcony-patio. She's been puppy sitting a friend's poor-excuse-for-a-dog (I'm sorry if I offend those of you who have burrito-sized animals as pets that some of us see as rats-even smaller than cats- instead of true DOGS.) Kari brought Jett over, the dogs socialized (which consisted of Jett trying to eat Fufu, and us playing interference between Jett's massive paws and Fufu's tiny... well, tiny everything. Kate left on a bike ride now, so I'm finally just about to sit down to do some grading of projects (that would otherwise not get graded at school; too many interruptions). In the sun. On Kate's balcony-patio-porch-deck thingie. Lovely way to get some grading done!

Jett observes the world below us, entertained by passersby and holiday activity.
I need to get back to grading now.

P.S. Sorry I lost myself in those tangental parenthetical ramblings... I have now, much later, realized my poor grammatical structure!

Technological Overload

Shekou International School's elementary school campus,
where the ACAMIS EAL conference was hosted this weekend.

I've gone on sensory overload... I overdosed on technology this weekend!

Where it's totally appropriate

to be on your devices and electronics

while the keynote speaker presents:

at a weekend-long technological

professional development conference

At first, during the opening with the keynote speaker, Jill Bromenshenkel, I was just overwhelmed by the intensity and sheer quantity of technology and apps for everything; and my school doesn’t even have functional computer hardware, software, or current technological equipment, let alone functional internet on a day-to-day basis that would enable us to access these resources! 

I felt defeated and overwhelmed. I didn’t know how to Tweet (and the effectiveness of Twitter as an educational resource and professional networking was an essential component that was pushed at this conference). I couldn’t keep up with multitasking with “backchatting” on the live feed that was up on the screen behind the keynote speaker, nor did I understand half of the buzzwords that were flying around the room, amongst fellow ELL and international school teaching colleagues. Then they started talking about the Aurasma app and its image-related video "auras" (Harry Potter-esque graphics that magically come alive, with the implementation of visual triggers, programmed technologically and viewed with the assistance of an iPad or iPhone). These things do exist in 21st century real life!

But alas, by that afternoon I had discovered that I wasn’t alone in my oblivion. Many of my fellow conference attendees were just as lost and overwhelmed as I! While curious about figuring out many of the new apps and trying to keep up with the rapidly-developing technology of this age, I preferred to go to workshops that pertained to strategies for differentiated teaching to ELLs: reading/writing techniques and various productive, efficient, and effective teaching processes (now called "Protocols," apparently, according to the School Reform Initiative (SRI) lexicon). I came away with several ideas, inspired, and optimistic about room for growth in my classroom, as well as with practical tools and links to further resources. I may not have iPads and such for my class, but I have my iPhone and MacBook Pro to investigate and prep awesome lessons!

Wish I could transfer knowledge to my "elves" this way in ELL class...

Some images were shared over the weekend included the following 1899 predictions of the year 2000 (by Jean-Marc Côté and other French artists). I think it's an interesting depiction of 'constrained realities,' but also proof that if something can be imagined, it is likely inventible these days. Check out more at these links, if you're interested: 

1. What people in 1899 thought the world would look like in 2000.

2. France in the year 2000.

Funny that they thought postal mail would be delivered via air...
but couldn't imagine anything like EMAIL or all the virtual comm we have today!

Don't we have something like this... I think it's called cloning and GMOs?

I was hesitant to get super involved and networked into the international teaching/ELL community, just because I don't see myself doing this sort of work long-term. I don't have ambitions to become/stay a teacher by profession (within international or US-domestic contexts). I am not a certificated teacher. I just have my Teaching ELL/ESL degree from undergrad studies. I concede that, yes, I am an educator. I do love to teach, but with more exposure to the international teaching circuit, I'm made more and more aware of the politics implicated in the system. I'm not sure I would want to involve myself in international teaching for the rest of my life. But of course, I need not make such decisions now. And I feel more aware of the way other schools operate, and that reassures me that our school is not the only one with issues. 

In the eSpace room: walls are painted with whiteboard paint;
and wifi connects devices to project images from any device
Bean bag chairs are the comfy way to work.
Shekou International School's facilities were wonderful!

All said and done, in addition to dozens of new apps that clutter my iPhone screen, I did also jump on the Twitter bandwagon... tentatively and hesitantly, but for professional reasons. (I still don't want to be glued to the screen every time somebody updates, and I'd rather get my news from the bbc.com every morning still, not from Tweets.) Check me out: @laralichten. 

And, just as a reminder, since many of you are already aware, I'm also on Instagram (username: lara_lichten / screen name: laramarielichten), photographing my life away (search: #TIC_LarasLens). So many ways to get information these days. 

Of course the good ole' Facebook is still rolling, with photos and timeline status updates from time to time as well. 

Sichuan earthquake

For those of you who have heard and been concerned, asking me about the magnitude 4.6 Earthquake, 59km WSW of Linqiong, China... it was not even anywhere close to where I am, even despite the fact  that I am further south in China, traveling in Shenzhen right now for a Professional Development (PD) conference (more detail to come on that).

The epicenter was in the Sichuan province, which in southern, mainland China, far from where I'm at (China is huge, so a shake registering around 5.0 isn't so much as a shudder over here along the coast). However, the news is saying that the death toll is up nearly around 200... a testament to the crummy quality of Chinese construction skills. It's really quite tragic, especially since a large earthquake hit the same region in 2008. I wish the Chinese government would put more building codes in place to construct safer, more sustainable edifices.

Point A: Shenzhen, Guangdong province, just north of Hong Kong, where I'm at a PD conference.
Point B: earthquake epicenter, Leshan/Sichuan Province.
Point C: Where I live in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

And just when I was starting to feel comfortable...

It is a cyclical thing; just when I am feeling comfortable, I really should anticipate impending change.

I thought I had it good, getting into some semblance of a "normal" routine in the second week back at school after having a week and a half off for spring break. Despite typical patterns of students forgetting hw, performing poorly on assessments, and lack of interaction in class, I was feeling pretty good at least about how manageable my weekly schedule was, teaching grades 6-9 (even though some of those grades overlap awkwardly in shared classes). At least we were all getting into the swing of things, with an established routine, during the second full week back at school after spring break. Third quarter grades had been submitted, the housing stresses of teachers moving was mostly behind us (finally, after having to sub for many teachers during the first week back after spring break, causing many of us teachers to have no planning time, since there is no sub system in place at our school), and a new quarter of ASA (after-school activities) was up and running (I’m still leading an SAT-prep class with higher-functioning, more motivated HS students).

However, on Friday I was notified that I'd be adding grade three ELL to my preps. (Long story short, this is due to changes in staffing, and needing to redistribute teachers to cover other preps/courses.) I'm the third ELL teacher these kiddos will have had this year. Don't even try to make sense of my current schedule, or find solution to the scheduling issues this late in the school year. It's whacky. It's really a long, interconnected web of cause/effects, so I'll spare my readership the intricacies that will inevitably turn into far more of a back story necessary (Mom/Dad, if you want to hear it, I'll email or Skype you. hah). 

I feel bad that these students have been jerked around from one ELL teacher to the next. I don't feel that the change in teachers provides a stable atmosphere to facilitate optimal learning; they are already fragile in a new school environment (three Korean, one Chinese). The last thing they need is a new teacher, with new teaching styles, standards, and expectations (try though I might to maintain consistency and regularity in the routine that the previous ELL teacher had established). Nothing about the situation is best for the students (which is what the administration keeps encouraging and prompting through all the chaos with the ridiculous politics and irrationality of the school board this year; just keep the students' best interest and learning a priority through it all). By the end of the year, judging from where they’re at right now, I'm guessing these students still won't be at grade-level or ready to actively engage in grade-level content within the context of the homeroom class. 

As for me, I'm frustrated particularly with the third grade situation because I don't feel I'm the best-qualified teacher to be put in the position of teaching these students. I have been teaching secondary students all school year. Am I capable of teaching primary? Yes. I took ELL theory classes to prepare me to teach to learners of this stage, and have innate knowledge of how to connect with this age group. Do I love primary school kids more than secondary? Yes. I'm totally jazzed about teaching kiddos of this age. It's just that I haven't had the familiarity and experience of three quarters of the school year to get to know the resources available to me to plan lessons that meet the needs of these students. Getting to know their needs, and then actually making progress during a critical period of the year--the very last quarter—is a tall order!

So this is what my weekly schedule now looks like:

	Monday DAY A	Tuesday DAY B	Wednesday DAY A	Thursday DAY B	Friday DAY C
Period 1 8:30-9:15	Grade 3	Grade 6	Grade 3	Grade 6	Grade 3
Period 2 9:15 – 10:00	Planning Time	Grades 6 & 9	Planning Time	Grades 6 & 9	Grade 6
Recess 10:00 – 10:15	Recess	Recess	Recess	Recess	Recess
Period 3 10:15 – 11:00	Grade 7	Grades 9 & 8	Grade 7	Grades 9 & 8	Grades 7 & 9
Period 4 11:00– 11:45	Grade 7	Grade 8	Grade 7	Grade 8	Grade 8
Lunch 11:45-12:30	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch Supervision	Lunch
Period 5 12:30 – 1:15	Grade 3	Grade 3	Grade 3	Grade 3	Grade 3
Period 6 1:15 – 2:00	Planning Time	ELL Meeting With Line	Planning Time	Planning Time	Planning Time
Recess 2:00 – 2:15	Planning Time	Planning Time	Planning Time	Recess Supervision	Planning Time
Period 7 2:00 – 3:00	Planning Time	Planning Time	Planning Time	Planning Time	Planning Time
Period 8 3:00 – 3:30	Planning Time	ELL 1-on-1 with Sunwoo (Gr. 6)	Planning Time	ELL 1-on-1 with Sunwoo (Gr. 6)	Planning Time
3:30-4:30	ATLAS/Meetings	After School Activity SAT Prep Course	Weekly Meetings: Dept/Com/All-Fac	ASA: SAT Prep Course

This doesn't indicate the inconsistencies that will crop up from week to week, due to having some random Wednesdays off in observance of Chinese holidays, a few early release short-schedule days, some MS and HS overnight field trips, and other upcoming day-long events that will skew the regularity of our A-B-A-B-C patterned schedule.

True, I will be spread thinner than before, searching for new resources and ways to meet the needs of these new students, all the while still planning for my MS and HS preps. I now have five different grade levels to prep for--still only 18 students in total--but all at varying stages of language development, performance, and none nearing proficiency to be sent into mainstream Language Arts classes. That's a lot of differentiation to take into consideration when lesson planning. I want what's best for each individual student; I am not mass-producing stock lessons for all students to complete at the same rate. I hand-select, and oftentimes self-create my worksheets, activities, and pick and choose from scanty resources to develop lessons that are tailored to meet each student's needs.

I am happy to be learning about ELL resources that are out there for primary grades; it breaks up the monotony and frustrations of teaching adolescents, having to assess longer writing assignments, grade more complex projects, and put together other work that I assign my secondary students. I do like the variety in the day, though the last week has been especially hard to change modes.

That’s all just to say that unpredictable change can be rough, and almost never ideal, but I now have the opportunity to further expand my repertoire of teaching experience, and relish the seeing the silver lining around the edges of a dark, storm-cloud of a situation.

Sleepy taxi

I'm in a taxi on my way from a little airport, headed to the Shekou district of Shenzhen, China, which is just a ferry ride away from Hong Kong, geographically speaking, for those of you who are concerned.

The air is sticky and heavy. Apparently sleep-inducing. For a while, the taxi driver was struggling to keep his eyelids from dropping. So I offered him a Lara Bar, simultaneously tracking our route on my gps. Thank God for smart phones and data plans.

More to report later... If I survive this jaunt in the taxi of impending sleep...

Upcoming PD

Just an FYI, for my faithful followers, I'll be taking the opportunity for a long weekend during this upcoming week... to go to a Professional Development conference (yay, PD funds built into my contract will reimburse me for costs of this trip!)

I'm excited to network, hear a bit from keynote speakers, participate in group sessions, and interact with fellow international school teachers! It's primarily a conference for ELL/ESL/EAL/TESOL (you fill in the blank with any other combination of acronyms that describe English-language teaching). I'll be traveling there on Friday, unfortunately missing out on AIAN's "e-ART-h Day" activities that have been planned as a fusion event, combining Art Day and Earth Day (science, nature care). And I'll be taking Monday off to travel back. It's just a two-hour flight south (a ferry ride away from Hong Kong, and in a region of China where I vacationed last December over my winter break holiday. I also visited nearby Guangzhou, so I'm looking forward to entering warmer, more humid weather in the coming weekend. I'll update more along the way. I'm sure the conference will be interesting; it has a lot to do with technology as valuable resources in the ELL classroom, but also other teaching resources and strategies within the ELL context.

Throwback Thursday

(composed on Flashback Friday...)

Yesterday I had a few experiences that jogged some memories of the good ole days...

1. As I was subbing for elementary grades this week, I remembered all those things about elementary school, and how much I miss teaching the younger ones... or rather, how much I really dislike teaching adolescents, by comparison. I led one class in playing the game "Heads Up, Seven Up," which is an absolute throwback to my own elementary school years. They loved it.
• Side note #1: I was subbing for 3rd and 4th grades at various times Tuesday-Thursday this week, during all my planning periods; because we have no substitute system in place, teachers within the school have to compromise their planning time to cover for other teachers. It's ridiculous, I'm well aware.
• Side note #1: the teachers were absent because their families to move during the middle of the week, in all the commotion of that ridiculous housing situation that our school board absolutely cannot get their act together for! That's a whole other issue I don't want to delve into right now though.
2. Tetherball: Also a throwback to elementary school. While supervising recesses this week, duty around the foursquare and tetherball courts brought some awesome memories. We learned the rules to tetherball inside and out, and had playground tourneys for years. At home at the old Riverview Drive house, Dad even cemented in a pole and tethered up a ball for us. Our "new puppy dog" at the time, Midas, even learned how to "play," nipping at the ball when we served it into that side of the round court.
3. Thursday evening's dance aerobics class brought the sounds of my elementary years in the late 1990s flooding back to me. As fifth graders, my friends as I would sing the lyrics to "Wannabe" countless times, not even thoroughly understanding the depth of their meaning at that point in our lives, of course. I still know all those words by heart. I even sang along as we did some awesome cardio moves.

Tomb-Sweeping Festival

Early on (in January) when Kari and I were beginning to plan what to do over the 11-day break, we were conferring with a Chinese friend about some plausible travel options to do all together. In working on the scheduling of travel, our friend said she had to be back to her hometown before April 4, reasoning, "I need to get home to sweep!" At first we thought she had typoed in her email message, mis-communicating. I thought maybe she meant "sleep"? Then we questioned why cleaning was so important that it called for the urgency of being home before April 4, which would cut possible travels short. Couldn't she wait to sweep until later? It turns out she really meant TOMB SWEEPING, which is a very traditional and important Chinese cultural custom. 

The Qingming Festival (清明节), also translated as the "Pure Brightness Festival" or "Clear Bright Festival" is popularly celebrated in China as Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day. It is celebrated on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox, or the first day of the fifth solar term...). Anyway, it's usually around April 5 on the Gregorian calendar. Citing Wikipedia, "its name denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime." People tend to the graves of departed ones, sweeping, painting, and planting new shrubbery and decorations around family plots.

So, most Chinese businesses honored the holiday on Thursday, April 4, and some on Friday the 5th as well. This is mostly the reason why our Spring Break is set to be during this week. Our school, AIAN, additionally tacked on the Thursday and Friday of last week (March 28-29), making for a short school week and a long first weekend of the break (which was nice, because it afforded many teachers the long weekend to attend a Professional Development conference in Shanghai). 

Kari went to Xi'an with our Chinese friend, Fan, and I settled in to nap and play with Jett, workout, explore more of Beilun via bike (with the pupperz trotting along side), file paperwork and get some medical issues sorted out, as well as get some planning done for the end of June when Dad is coming to visit!!! Yes, I spent much time searching for good flight itineraries and booking tours and working on the details of planning Dad's visit, slated for June 21-July 2. We'll be visiting some Chinese historic and must-see sights, and then he'll be assisting in my 8th international move. I'm super stoked not to have to do the international travels alone, again, and to be able to share this culture with him, as China is very different from any other country I have lived/traveled in.

Well, that's the news for now. One day left of break after today. Out into the wind and firecracker smoke (no, strong winds are not a deterrent for Chinese celebrations).