School Has Started!

We began our training for Cannan Kindergarten on Monday 9/5/12. The training was....interesting. We learned about the History of our schools. The trainer also told us the mission/vision of the school. She told us we should memorize this in case anybody asks (I later learned from people who have worked here awhile that this was the first they had heard about this). The training ended with a delightful clip from Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, I Believe. Very interesting choice...

Myself along with the other three teachers at my school went back to our location. We had the task of making an English Board. How four adults took 4+ hours to complete a hap hazzard board I'll never know. These Chinese teachers have the most amazing boards I've ever seen! They spend many, many hours on this.

The second day at School I noticed a very large group of elderly Chinese people doing some Tai Chi in the court yard in front of my school. These people are legit. They have swords and everything. We sat around, again, perfecting our English Board. The two returning teachers helped us two newbies with some ideas. I was grateful to Tracy as she taught the Pn Class (pre-nursery) the year before and this is the group I will be working with. Pre-nursery means that they are between the ages of 18 months through 2 years. Once they turn three they are in the N Class (Nursery).

Wednesday the "bigger" kids came to school. Our duties include meeting them at the door, spraying their hands with alcohol, making sure their temperature was taken at home (if not they need to have it taken at school). The English teachers are asked to be standing in front saying Hello, Good Morning/Afternoon. While the children are walking in there is music being played....very weird music for children....it starts out fine with Puff the Magic Dragon but then includes songs like How Many Roads, Country Road, etc.

My little babys didn't show up until Thursday. There was a group of kids that came to summer school. Those children came to class without their parents. A larger group came with their parents Thursday, Friday and Monday so they could get acclamated to preschool. There is a LOT of crying going on. On Thursday I held a crying child for an hour straight. This little bou would only stop to say "go home go home go home". You could get him to stop crying if you said, "one two three SMILE!" He would stop to smile and then start crying again.