thegarrettblog

College Entrance Examination

 

Here is a very good article about what all of our Chinese students have had to go through in order to get into college.  I look back to my senior year in high school and am very grateful for my English class, US History Class, Government class, Philharmonic Choir, Madrigal Choir, and study hall.  I(Josh) left school at 2:30 every day and did no homework all year long.

All-Nighter? For This Test, Some Chinese Cram All Year

Enjoy and let us know what you think of this.  Good, bad, better, worse?

A picture paints a thousand words

I recently gave my "Modern American Short Stories" students a test. This class is an elective and is open to all students at the University, not just English majors. The last bonus questions was:

Why did the South have "Jim Crow Laws"? Give one example of a Jim Crow Law. 

This is what one of my students answered:

The Essentials

The idea for this post was taken from my-good-friend-living-in-the-Philippine's blog. 

Absolute Essentials for an American woman's purse:

• Car Keys
• Large Wallet
• Brush
• Compact Mirror
• Lip Gloss
• Cell Phone
•   
• Absolute Essentials for a Chinese woman's purse: 
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  • Keys to her bicycle or moped
  • Tissue for the squatty potties
  • Plastic bottle for drinking green/herbal tea
  • Umbrella - for the sunshine
  • Whitening cream
  • Cell Phone
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Some interesting things about our University...

I've been thinking recently how different the university that we work for here in China is so different from American Universities. This is the short list of things I've found.... interesting.

1. There are uniformed "class monitors" that check every classroom at the start of every class to make sure that the teacher is there and is holding class. (I was late due to bad weather in one of my classes and the monitor 'told on me.' It was no big deal since I had already told my boss AND my class to wait for me... but still... doesn't that seem strange?)

2. There is one restaurant on campus called the "Western Cafe." I guess it has this name because alongside the fried rice and Chinese pork dishes they serve "Pizza" and "Macaroni Noodles Covered in Ketchup." Hmmmmmmm....

3. There is NO student parking (for cars.) And as I reflected on that today I realized that I have never met a student at the University that owns a car! 

4. As a teacher, we are given NO SYLLABUS,  NO CLASS OBJECTIVES, and NO TEXTBOOK. Basically we are told "You are teaching writing" or "You are teaching Public Speaking" and we have to create what that means ourselves.

5. There are signs posted all over campus that say, in Chinese of course, "Beware of Poisonous Snakes."

6. Students actually attend classes - most of the time! It is not unusual for me to have a class of 30 kids show up every week on time. When they do miss class, it is usually for some kind of competition - academic or athletic. They are BIG on competitions here!

7. Whole classes stay together. What I mean is - as a Freshman, their schedule is determined by the University. They are in a class with 30 others. And, as a class, they all take writing together, all take public speaking together, all take Listening together.... etc. They are always with the rest of their class. Not until they become a Junior or Senior do they realize they can change their assigned schedule.

And... last but not least...

8. EVERYONE in all my classes have black hair and black eyes. I guess that doesn't really count for "strange" in China... but certainly different than in the USA!

Tomb Sweeping

China just celebrated a National Holiday - Tomb Sweeping Day. Millions of Chinese pay their respect to the dead on this day (traditionally they burn paper money but this year it seems government officials were trying to get the Chinese to display more "civilized" acts of respect such as presenting fresh flowers or planting trees. 

For the Garretts, it meant a day off of work - and a day that we do not have to make up later. Often when we are given a holiday from work, the official school/government policy is that we have to make up our classes on either a Saturday or a Sunday. It kinda takes the fun out of a holiday if you have to spend your weekend teaching! 

But today was different. And today we were able to spend some nice quality time with some old friends from ORU and their three boys. TJ and Michelle have just moved to China. They are a little nervous, but they are going to do great. I can already tell that Michelle is going to adapt really well to life here - after being here only 2 days she was willing to hop on the back of my scooter (we just got a new scooter- I'll post pictures soon).... and face oncoming traffic to zip around town! Don't worry - we were perfectly safe! But it's funny how accustomed I've grown to China and traffic and crazy things that happen here... but how truly strange it all is. It's fun to see it all new again through someone else's eyes.

So that was our Tomb Sweeping Day - while most of China spent it mourning over their dead, we spent it celebrating a new beginning with friends! Yay!

Favorite names

Ahhh... the start of a new semester.... brand new boxes of chalk, new notebooks, fresh smiling faces staring blankly back at you....

and a whole new list of crazy names to learn!

I guess this problem must be the same in classrooms all over the world. I suppose there are some strange names scattered among the Jacobs, Abigails, Mackenzies and Avas in America.... but here in China the strange-to-normal name ratio seems way out of proportion! 

Here is a list of my favorite strange names from this semester:

Human

Any

Monkey

Icy

Vanilla

Coldplay

Fantasy

Paradise

Little V

Biscuit

Alanta

Money

Palin

Shin.ko

Ref

Cherry

Cola

Echo

Apple

Ailsa

Flank

That's all that I can think of off the top of my head.... sheesh! Maybe next semester I should offer a course titled "How to give yourself a good English name 101"

:)

Chana