This week for class I’ve been teaching about the American holiday and culture of Thanksgiving as well as other things they need to learn. We just gave them an opportunity to practice and to incorporate our culture too. I’ve been using an American football in my class to choose students. (I’ll pass it to one student and they answer then they can pass it to someone else and they have to answer. This way everyone has to pay attention and they get to be more involved and active. Plus, they love the football.) It’s funny because it doesn’t really matter how many times I tell them “make sure you say the person’s name before you throw it to them” that doesn’t always register and they just throw it anyways. Good news though, no bloody noses! No one got hurt this week. Whew. Last year as I went home for Thanksgiving break I never expected to be carrying an American football across a Chinese college campus one year later, but here I am. I felt kind of weird but kind of cool getting to pass a football in class. I kept looking around to see if I was gonna get in trouble, then I realized that I was the teacher. Nice.
So as I walked up to my first class, I met 5 of my students standing at the doorway waiting on me. “Hmm… Odd” I thought. “Good morning!” I said to them as I waited for them to make the next move. They smiled at each other and then back at me… (often typical behavior when they don’t know what to say or what I just said.) Then one looked up in the awkward kind of “something’s going on” way and said, “So… how are you?” I started to laugh and about lost it. It was the most natural English move they have made all year. After a few minutes, they said, “please come in.” and as I walked in I see Christmas lights and plastic ivy strung across the decorated board that says Happy Thanksgiving! on it. Man, I was so tickled. I was so excited. They made me so happy. They all cheered “Happy Thanksgiving!” to me at once. I was so tickled I got distracted and couldn’t think of what I was supposed to be teaching them. I texted Dave and asked him to bring a camera over so I could get a picture and at the break they parted the Red Sea of chairs so I could get a picture. So when I motioned for them to get into the picture too they all giggled with excitement and rushed in. They’re so cute.
Then at lunchtime they had a special dinner fixed for us and they had turkey! Haha. Nah, just kidding. I ate rice. But it was good rice. At lunch, I did get a text from one of my students that I was so touched about. I wanted to put it in my next newsletter. “I open my wallet, find no money. I open my pocket, find no coin. I open my life, find you, then I know how rich I am! Forever my Friend and my teacher happy! Thanks-Giving Day!” I thought awwwwwww. This so sweet. We were talking about being rich and love and what’s more important over the past few weeks and I thought, man, He’s really doing work and they’re seeing Him working in their lives.
Then, I was almost late for my second class and again someone was waiting for me at the door. As I walked in they all cheered “Happy Thanksgiving” then followed it up with a very rhythmic clapping chant (I wish I got it on tape, but no dice.) They had hung lights up on the board and covered the entire board with pictures and writing that they did. “Happy Thanks Giving Day” The same girl who had sent me that beautiful text had also drawn an awesome picture of a turkey on the side of the board. For someone who has never seen a turkey or anything like that, it wasn’t too bad. It was definitely my favorite. I said, “I feel bad about erasing all of this to write the stuff down for today.” Then they pointed out one of the personal chalkboards that was on the side… so I agreed. I figured if they went to all that work then I could manage for one day to write on the little board.
One of the joyous little ideas that my students and I get to partake in is the famous Hand Turkey. That’s right, bringing back the Hand Turkey from elementary school. So I made a turkey on the board to show them how it’s done and fill out the fingers. The first one is always their class number. The second one is J-man. I get to tell them “My relationship with G is the most important part of my life and pretty much why I live so I am very thankful for J.” Then one student said, “hu?!” so I repeated myself, then said his name in Chinese (they love it if you can say anything in Chinese…or try to say it in Chinese). Then someone else said, hu? So I tried to repeat it with a question attached so that they could help correct me and then the whole class kicked in to help my pronunciation like they normally do, but this time, they got the picture. In fact, as I was walking around checking on them, I’ve noticed a few students write G on their fingers and it makes me smile. I try to make a note of who it is so that I can follow it up later. But today one student just stopped me and said, “How do you spell G-sus?” So I gladly knelt down and helped her spell it. As I got up, I noticed the girl sitting next to her also had G on one of her fingers and it just made my day even better.
At the end of the class, I showed them a short youtube video of Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and they were astonished. They were amazed and huddled around it. It was pretty awesome. Today was a day that I really enjoyed getting to be a teacher. After this second class, I switched buildings and had my English Corner. The plan was to talk about the differences in East/West, but as I walked in carrying an American football their attention was distracted so I scraped that whole lesson plan and just made it about Thanksgiving. The best part was the activity where they must pretend they are a turkey and they have to convince me that I want to eat their partner and not them. (I made the rule that you can’t call anyone fat, but be creative.) They were pretty good. “well she is much more beautiful than I am and she has very white skin. It is very soft and you want soft skin on your turkey.” Another student commented, “You should eat him, because he is healthier than I am. He exercises so he is healthy and … and I will eat less food than he does, so if you eat him, then you’ll save money.” One girl accidentally sacrificed herself saying that if we at her, then our English would improve. Hahaha. Awesome.
To end this beautiful day, all of our team got together and had turkey and mashed potatoes and rolls and corn and a typical thanksgiving dinner. Just kidding. We had rice. We did go out to a nice restaurant and it was mmmmmmm. It was good. I am very very thankful for my team and getting to spend time with them and that each of them are here helping and fighting, and just getting to talk about stupid things we’ve done and funny things students have said…. Such as that beautiful text that I received earlier in the day. Yeah, well, when I got out of my English Corner I had that same text from 5 other students. I told the team and they all got it too. Sweet, but not too original...or grammatically correct, but it’s all good. I guess it’s a popular one at Thanksgiving and Christmas time. So we finished up our night by playing some cards in Dave’s room and just getting to spend time with each other. Tomorrow we’re meeting up with all of the other foreign teachers with our organization and going to actually have turkey and having a legit potluck.
So now it’s time for bed so I can get up and cook. (No classes tomorrow! They gave us the day off for Thanksgiving.) But for now here are some of the pictures of my wonderful students and the wonderful day. Thanks for reading all of this. Happy Thanksgiving. I love you all very much and am more thankful for you than you can imagine.
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| My first surprise of the day is the decoration and lights that my 8am class provided. Fruit is an important part of Thanksgiving I guess. :) |
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| My 8am class - they are such a group of sweet hearts. I love them. |
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| My second class surprise of the day. I love the "Thanks --> Giving Day" You can see how there wasn't a lot of room for me to write. |
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| This is the awesome turkey I was talking about. I know teacher's can't have favorite students, but it was drawn by one of my most memorable students. I love that they labeled it, just in case I couldn't figure it out. |
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| My afternoon class and their creative background. I may also love them a little bit too. |
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| They loved the football. During the break, they would pass it around just to touch it and check it out, then get their picture taken with it on their cell phones. It was pretty cool. |
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