DJ Chris Jesus in the house!!!

I had my grade 6 students do the following homework over the 4 day Christmas long weekend:

-- Tell me what a holiday is and what it means to you. Tell me about your favourite holiday.

The students wrote mostly about Chinese New Year and the Moon festival, but a couple of them wrote about Christmas and let me tell you, some of the things they wrote were magical.

So it's hard not to love my students when they do things like bring Jimby (the class mascot; also known as Paul's monkey that he gave me to bring overseas and is now one of the most popular monkeys among my 6s) a Canadian sweater from Vancouver airport because they don't want him to get cold in my office when I go home on weekends. Omg...

So my students are the most creative kids on the planet, but their ESL-ness just adds to how awesome and creative the homework I receive is. Here are some golden moments from the holiday homework assignment:

“My favorite holiday is Christmas because in the Christmas you will get the gifts from the Santa Claus (our parents). Our parents sneak into our room and put the things in Christmas sock not Santa. Our parents do this because Santa Claus is not.”

Santa Claus is not. He just isn’t, okay?!?!?! This is the greatest thing I’ve ever read. So real… So logical. This kid knows the truth. Santa Claus (our parents) is the true meaning of Christmas.

This response was about holiday traditions:

“I think traditions is something the old people in your family are telling you to do some little stupid things. For example my grandma always tells me to eat some Double Ninth cake. Although they are sticky and yummy, I still don’t understand why I have to eat some weird cake in this festival. Well the answer it ‘no argue just do what old people says’ because I have to obey.”

HAHAHA! Some little stupid things. Hey you, eat this stupid little weird cake! Just do it. That is essentially what traditions are all about. Nailed it.

The next one is about Thanksgiving, and can I just say that this kid is a hero and a scholar? Here you go:

“At the Thanks Give, Americans eat the turkey and other foods and take land away from the Injuns. The Injuns eat the food too but not with the Americans. The Injuns Thanks Give in other way.”

Guys, guys! When was the last time you heard the word injuns!? I believe I heard it when I was watching Peter Pan  17 years ago! Oh man is this great. This kid warms my heart. He also wrote this gem:

“I prayed to Santa for some wonderful gifts and I got some wonderful gifts. Oh Christmas is so magical I want to wish you and yours the Merriest Christmas and the happiest New Years. I pray for no homework this holiday but you gave us some.”

So now I’m Satan… I gave this kid homework on CHRISTMAS?! Such a dick.

Among all 17 responses, this next masterpiece tops EVERYthing I read about “Western” holidays. This incredible response to the meaning of Christmas made me laugh out loud, almost to the point of peeing myself, and I couldn't help but read it over again to make sure it was actually what I read. 

Brace yourself for the greatest moment of 2014:

“Today I’m going to tell about Christmas. Christmas is one of my favorite festivals. Let me have a little bit of Christmas’s introduction and talk about my own experience of Christmas.
Christmas is a festival that celebrates Chris Jesus as he was born at this day.”

CHRIS JESUS?!?!?! YES! Immediately I thought, ‘this is the greatest DJ name I’ve ever heard’. Ladies and gentlemen, how are you all doing this evening?! Are you ready to party like we’re in the North Pole, where all the straight up gangsters live? Let me hear some noise for DJ Chris Jesus!!! DJ Chris Jesus in the house right nowwwww!

(Don't believe me and think I'm making this shit up?! BOOM! I took a picture of this response for posterity:)

I read this response to my coworker and, I shit you not, he said VERBATIM, “Chris Jesus would be a sweet DJ name.” So there you have it. I now have to become a DJ and adopt the name Chris Jesus. Hey Sean! Can you change your DJ name to Chris Jesus? I’d be so happy if you did!!! (Shout out to my friend Sean who’s a DJ and will, from this day forward, be referred to by me as DJ Chris Jesus).

So my Christmas gift from my class was clearly some huge smiles and even bigger laughs. They actually did give me a Christmas gift: a jar of warm wishes all personalized for me. I almost cried when I read them. These kids are seriously just a bundle of cotton candy in the form of Chinese children. What did I do to deserve all this glory every day of the week! 

These kids warm my heart. From the stupid little weird cakes to Parent Claus to Chris Jesus – the true meaning of Christmas, didn’t you know?! – what a day.

What I didn’t capture, but what very much happened, was in the same responses about the Injuns and Chris Jesus were claims that Santa Claus was not real, but these kids had faith!

“I always believe in Santa Claus even though he is my mom.”

“My brother and classmates tells me Santa Clause is not real but at Christmas I sprint to the sofa and stay there for many times and then it is 3 a.m. in morning and I don’t see Santa Claus because my parents tells me Santa Clause is not real. But I still want to wait for Santa Clause and believe in Santa Clause.”

The dedication!! I BELIEVE!! The passion in these kids… They believe in Santa and want to eat turkey with the Injuns and not have to eat stupid cakes if they don’t want to. The world is a beautiful place.

In conclusion, I firmly believe at least 50% of my grade 6 class is made up of Care Bears dressed as Chinese kids. If you saw my favourite little guy (let’s call him G) skipping around at 7am on the deserted playground waiting for me and Bernard to walk up to breakfast just so he could say HELLO MRS. SARAH AND MR. BERNARD. HAVE A GREAT DAY!!! and then skip away leaving a trail of happiness and sunshine behind him, omg, you would never have a bad day ever again. Everyone, rightly so, is jealous because he is my student and not theirs.

Also, it’s relevant to know that school begins at 8am… he just comes early to hopefully catch a glimpse of his favourite teachers and wave at them emphatically like we are One Direction and he’s a screaming fan girl.

My life is the best… holy shit.

Happy 2015! I promise to blog more hilarious stories this year even though I work 56 hours a day. Blame my father! He instilled the hardworking gene in me! And by hardworking, I mean hardestworking. J

Yours truly,

Sarah teaching hilarious Wuns

Christmas in the 'hai

Another Christmas in Shanghai

Spending the holiday season away from family doesn’t get easier. I’ve spent the past three years in a different country than my family, and every year around the beginning of December, I get a little blue. Yes, I’m with my husband who is now my family, and thank goodness for that. I am also surrounded by people in my same situation: people who have spent many years away from their home and continue to find warmth and holiday happiness in their home away from home.

Christmas overseas is weird but awesome. You find yourself creating a “friend family” quite quickly when living overseas, not just around the holidays.

A few weeks ago, we went skating with friends. Just last year, we spent our first Christmas in China skating with our new friends and colleagues and it was absolutely splendid. This year was no different! We laughed and skated and just enjoyed our company and the holiday season.

Some of the warmest, friendliest dudes in the 'hai!

Christmas Eve was spent at a hotel banquet hall watching our students perform at a Christmas concert. We were also lucky to participate in the show, which was a spectacle to say the least! We then were invited to a Christmas lunch where we were showered with chocolates and praise from students and parents. It was great!

That evening, we cooked up some vegetables and headed over to a Christmas Eve potluck. We all enjoyed some holiday-mulled wine and China-ed up the event with a duck and some other Chinese goodies. Despite being so far away, I felt right at home.

Christmas Day was low key. We lazed around opening gifts, eating for 4783, and Skyping with Mom and Dad in the morning. I got a billion fuzzy socks (necessary for the bitter Shanghai cold and even more necessary for the bitter cold of our uninsulated apartment). Christmas is awesome. I love it every year!!! We’re really lucky to get Christmas as a holiday (we got Thursday, Friday off and then the weekend). In only one month, we get Chinese New Year festival off (almost 4 weeks!). We’ve already booked a trip to Thailand, and to say I’m excited is the biggest understatement ever! It’ll be a grand trip and I cannot wait!!! Not that I’m not looking forward to the next few weeks teaching a few new units to my students and enjoying the ride that is IB teaching. J 

Life is good. Merry Christmas!

With holiday love,

Sarah have a holly jolly Wun

The life of a sixth grader can change in a FLASH

That time I was needed…

So I love my job. I feel valued and happy and loved and all that good stuff; but on Friday, I went from loving my job to hopelessly devoted and obsessive teenage loving my job.

My Fridays are pretty hardcore. I teach all morning with no break. I love it, but it’s intense and I have little time to jet from one class to another. After teaching all morning, I packed up my stuff, cleaned up the classroom, and NASCAR marched back to my office (I always speed walk with a purpose. People at work say I always look like I’m on my way somewhere important. Yes, yes I am! Aka, I don’t walk slow. Ever. I’m always on a mission.)

Anyway, I was on my way to my office when I heard my name being called by a student. I turned around and was met with a very anxious sixth grader who grabbed my hand and said, “Mrs. Sarah! I need you! I’m on my period and I’m not prepared and I don’t know what to do! Help me.” I metaphorically tightened my SuperTeacher cape and told the student (let’s call her S) to come with me to my office. At this point, the second bell rang and S looked like she was about to cry. She said she had to go to class because her teacher would be angry she was late, but she couldn’t because she felt uncomfortable and she didn’t know what to do.

I told S to calm down and that I would talk to her teacher. I asked if she had a pad and she looked confused. Then I asked her in Chinese, and she got even more anxious and shook her head, saying she was unprepared. I told her no problem and to come with me. Thank goodness I had supplies! As a woman, I am always prepared for a situation like this, especially working in a middle school with girls who will inevitably need supplies that they don’t have because they cannot anticipate puberty…

Anyway, she came and lingered outside my office while I grabbed a pad from my desk. I then walked her to the bathroom and came in with her. I showed her the pad and started to explain what she could do. She was really nervous and said “but what if…” to which I answered her questions (no need to go into detail. The main point is, I helped her and calmed her down before leaving).

“So take this and please come to me if you need anything else. You’ll be fine! Remember what I said in FLASH? This happens to every girl, so you are not alone. Get cleaned up and I’ll wait for you outside.”

“Mrs. Sarah?”

“Yes, S?”

“I’m scared…”

My Mother Hen began clucking like crazy at this point and I was like, holy shit, this is such a beautiful feeling, I want a child right now, and then approximately 46 seconds later, I snapped out of it…

“I know you are.” I smiled and gently touched her shoulder in a proud mama kind of way, “You’ll be okay. Do you want me to wait here for you?” Cue LifeTime movie music

She shook her head, so I took my cue and left. I walked briskly to her classroom where the geography teacher was setting up her lesson. Luckily, I know the geography teacher, so she wasn’t super pissed when I interrupted the class. I walked up to her and whispered, “Hey! Sorry to interrupt, but S is in the bathroom. She’s on her period and she needed my help. She will be late and I told her I would tell you. Please don’t be angry with her.” The teacher smiled and nodded. We then shared a brief moment of ‘I’m a woman who has had approximately 600 periods and I totally remember the first one and I get you girl. Pussies unite!’

I went back to my office, put my hand over my heart, and felt like I was a 34 year old mama. It was a cool feeling. I felt so needed! “My FLASH class worked,” I said out loud in my office. A few of my coworkers smiled at me and said it was an important class. I felt really, really good.

For the rest of the day, I thought about S. I didn’t want to like, ask her “Are you okay?” in the middle of the hall or anything. I didn’t want to draw attention because omg, grade 6 kids spread information like roaches spread their offspring. It’s crazy how anything said or thought in the hallway is spread like wildfire. Something can happen in my class and before it ends, Bernard will know about it because a grade 6 kid will run to his office and be like, “Mr. Bernard! Mrs. Sarah danced to Taylor Swift today!! Do you like Taylor Swift? We’re reading a book in class…” and then Bernard will smile and nod and be extremely sweet and listen to the life of any grade 6 student who comes to him desperately wanting someone to listen to his or her redundant, yet adorable, stories.

So I’m in my office marking papers when there’s a knock at the door. I don’t look up because there are like 8 people in my office and students come in for different teachers all the time. And then there’s a little sound, “Uh, Mrs. Sarah?” I look up and it’s S. She looks a little pale but is definitely calmer than before.

“I feel really uncomfortable.”

“That’s normal. Drink lots of water. How’s your head? Does it hurt?”

I continue to tell her that the first period is uncomfortable because her body hasn’t felt it before and I gave her some tips and made sure she didn’t have PE class that day so she could lay low. I then told her to come to me whenever she wanted and ask me anything. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised that she was so open with me in my office with 7 other people around to hear her. She was pretty explicit about her period… but that’s good!!! She was scared and she wanted answers. Luckily, she came to SuperSexEdTeacherSarah. This was my time to shine!!! (My grammar has been rusty lately and I’ve been a little self-conscious about my level of English writing skills because I’ve been living in an ESL environment for so long and I watch a lot of crap reality TV, so I feel like I’m losing my jam…. However, when it comes to first period knowledge, I feel pretty damn confident, so I was rocking this…).

I was feeling super momish at this point; but then I realized, wait! I’m NOT her mom! I then quickly marched over to her homeroom teacher’s office and asked if I could have a word with her in private. I explained that S got her first period today and she might be a little distracted in homeroom. I then asked if she could call S’s mom and let her know so that she could be prepared to talk to S and maybe get necessary supplies so S could be comfortable.

The homeroom teacher had a huge smile on her face the whole time. She shook my hand and nodded, telling me I was a great teacher and I had “so much care for the students.” I felt like, at this point, my FLASH job for the day was done. I had helped the student directly and talked to the necessary teachers to make sure S was taken care of. In terms of cultural sensitivity, I made sure her mom was called, and I didn’t give S any specific advice because it is not my place. I gave her very general, medical advice and let her know that I was there. And always would be. J

Right before I left for a Friday meeting, I saw S in the hallway and nodded her way. She gave me a ‘thumbs up’ and I winked at her. Mission accomplished. If I helped her even marginally with one of the scariest things a prepubescent girl has to go through, well then I feel like I succeeded in my job that day.

I didn’t finish marking that day nor did I do everything on my “To Do” list; but when life happens, I can’t help but put aside everything that can wait and attend to the here and now. This is what makes life interesting at the end of the day.

So like I said, I love my job… but on Friday specifically, I felt needed. I can’t help but have a warm and fuzzy feeling when a student comes to me for advice on something that isn’t academic. I love being the FLASH teacher!!! Who’s next? If on Monday a boy comes to me telling me about his wet dream, as much as that would be TMI to the max, I think it’s safe to say that my FLASH class was ultimately hardcore successful!!!

….I do hope I don’t hear about any tween boy’s dream though. Because creepy.

Until next time,

Sarah the maternal Wun

It all happened in a FLASH! (Family Life and Sexual Health in China)

So I've been absolutely awful at updating this blog for a couple of reasons. #1 Bernard and I got a new job and it's literally wolfing down all our time, #2 I'm extremely active in and outside of work so I'm always out and about or DAMN exhausted and therefore watching a show/reading and on my way to bed.

Also, everything that happens is blog worthy, but this is the most blog worthy thing ever, so I figured what better to update the ol' blog than my launching a sex ed workshop for grade 6 at my new school!

It all started at the beginning of October just after the Moon festival holiday. I overheard a grade 10 girl in the bathroom talking about a pregnancy test and I immediately wondered what kind of sex ed students get in Shanghai...

I took it upon myself to email the principal with my requirements (Master of Sexual Health and the future Sex with Sue) and inquired about sex ed on campus and if I could have the chance to work with whoever was in charge. And if no one was in charge, could I take this on? She emailed me back a few hours later and said she would speak with the Dean of students and get back to me.

I immediately thought, okay now I'll probably have to wait for like 6 months and/or this won't happen, but at least I put it out there. Nope.

The next day a woman came into my office and introduced herself as the Dean of students. She said she would LOVE for me to teach adolescence and puberty to the grade 6 classes. I was stunned. I couldn't believe it was that easy! Did I just get exactly what I asked for????!?!?!!

She told me I would meet with the psychology teacher that day and brainstorm ideas for an adolescence workshop that apparently the Chinese teachers do every year. I was excited to see what they had in place.

The next day, I met up with my what would be co-teacher and she showed me what she had in place. A "get to know you" activity, a Q&A about adolescence that she kept calling a competition because that's how China does things, and a body jigsaw.

I scraped the body jigsaw because the kids learned about body parts in science class. I scraped the getting to know you activity because it had been a month and a half; these kids knew each other. I kept the Q&A but inserted an alternative activity. Instead of a body jigsaw, I suggested we do a matching game. I would hand out words and definitions and the students must match them up and sit with that person. This gives the kids and opportunity to move around and take a guess at some hard definitions. I assured my co-teacher that it didn't matter if the kids didn't know the words... I just wanted them to become familiar with them and that I would explain each definition.

I created a new and improved adolescence class. I called it FLASH (Family Life and Sexual Health).

In an ideal world, I would have had plenty of time to draft up the most gorgeous and culturally appropriate sex ed class, but in reality I had like two days on top of my original classes and I had to come up with something that was less than 40 minutes and touched on EVERYthing puberty related. Oh boy...

I think I did an okay job. I had to convince my co-teacher to get rid of some of the questions that were essentially scare tactics. Very "don't have sex or you'll get pregnant and die" type things. There were lots of questions about periods and how "delicate" periods were.... which I believe is a cultural thing. I once again assured her that teaching girls that periods are natural and normal will help them prepare for something that can be really scary when you're a preteen. I told her that we had to inform these kids that all this stuff was normal and not uncomfortable.

I decided that I wanted to end the class with an anonymous question box. I would pass out paper and get students to write down ANY question about sexual health. This was their ticket to leave the class. They HAD to write a question. That was the point of the class... to answer questions. We ended up getting some candy and handing that out to students after they put the question in the box. Bribery like a boss, my friend.

THE CLASS:

Before I even taught the class, I had students coming up to me asking me about it. Their homeroom teachers informed them that I would be hosting a "teenager workshop" (?) because I had lots of education about it. Okay... Haha. I drafted up a parent letter that I wanted signed in order to alleviate shock, anger, discomfort, and any of that negative stuff around sex ed. I wanted parents to know exactly what I planned to teach. It was only fair. The students would have the option to leave class and do an independent study if their parents did not approve of the content.

25 kids. 25 signatures. *struts* THIS was the start of my giddiness and nervous excitement about the class. ALL the parents were thrilled that a foreigner wanted to teach their kids about the uncomfortable realities of growing up. AWESOME! The homeroom teachers were also really excited that I was offering to do this so they wouldn't have to!! Hahaha.

THE ACTUAL CLASS:

The day of the class was an extremely busy day for me. I was really nervous (for some reason) and I was running around like a damn chicken because I wanted it to be perfect. It wasn't perfect. First of all, we planned 4 segments in the class (1. word match; 2. Q&A quiz; 3. video; 4. question box). We scraped the video for time's sake. Correction: I scraped the video which was cheesy and arguably non-informative about realistic things.  We had to cut the Q&A quiz short because of time as well. Everything just took so much longer.

As a teacher, time management is my weakness. It's my Everest. One day, I will conquer it.

Anyway, the class was great. The kids watched me like I was an intriguing piece of art, a dinosaur, and Taylor Swift all in one. They were in awe, engaged, fascinated, and horrified at the same time! The girls cringed when I talked about periods and the boys' eyes widened when I said the word erection. It was really cute and definitely unexpected for them to understand so much of what I said. They were SO inquisitive but apprehensive.

I constantly reminded them that they could ask me anything and to not be uncomfortable. They only giggled twice when I said penis, but hey! I'm sure YOU just giggled while reading penis... no? Dick. There. I bet you did then. I certainly did. HAH! Dick.

I think the most uncomfortable part of the class was when I explained pubic hair. For some reason, THIS was horrifying. The kids didn't understand WHY pubic hair had to exist. I longed to explain it all to them in tremendous detail with my dedicated passion to the art of sex ed, but TIME! There was just no time. Instead, I made a joke about the hair on my head and monkeys... I don't even remember it, but no one laughed... except me. It was awkward, and yet awesome.

The class was still VERY Chinese in delivery (kids at their desks listening to the teacher. Nothing extreme). In an ideal situation, I'd have everyone holding modelling clay sculpting labias and penises and all that jazz, but this is probably why I'm not a sex educator full time!!! I'll stick to the English lit... I know it best. Haha.

I can't even explain the feeling I got when reading the students' questions at the end of class. It was amazing. I could practically feel them inquiring as they wrote down the questions.

50% of the questions were essentially HOW DO I DELAY THIS?!?!?! in respect to puberty. They're all really scared about it. I kept repeating this is normal. I also explained that me and the teachers went through puberty before and that calmed the kids down a lot. They love relating to me... it's cute.

There were more girl questions than boy questions but more boys than girls in the class. This was really interesting! I think it's safe to deduce that boys too want to know about periods and menstruation. And so they should!!! I was a little surprised the class wasn't split into boys / girls. I think I'd like to split the class next semester to get into more detail and possibly make the class more student-centred. I'd also like to remove the desks and maybe rock a circle of chairs next time. I am a discussion heavy teacher. For the first class though, I think our set up was nice, and necessary!

 One of the main messages in the class was about cleanliness. I tried NOT to talk too much about sexual health and more just about health health, but kids NEED to hear penis and vagina in a sex ed class, I'm just saying.

I called the class FLASH (Family Life and Sexual Health) to keep it general. Also, they could say FLASH in the hallway and others wouldn't know it's about "sex". Sex is scary for 11 year old Chinese kids... trust me.

So back to the cleanliness. I talked about pimples, which originally were called whelks in the powerpoint. I was like "the fuck is a whelk?! Is this a typo?" and my co-teacher didn't know how to explain it to me. After much googling, I discovered a whelk is essentially a pimple. OOOHHHH!!!! MAKES SENSE NOW! I changed the terminology from old English/Noah's ark ancient vocab to make it current. That was the biggest issue in the original plan.... it was ANCIENT and NOT RELATABLE AT ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

That's where I come in. I think I did a great job keeping it current. I drew a picture of pimples on the board (pictured above. Such an artist) to help clarify the language barrier. The kids had a lot of lightbulb moments. It was extremely refreshing and awesome to see that.

At the end of the day, what I expected was to say things and have kids listen and semi-retain. What I experienced was motivation, engagement, and 27 questions out of 21 kids! Amazing!!! I couldn't be happier with the results. At the end of class, and spilling over to the next day, I heard kids talking about FLASH. This is what I wanted. Hopefully, the conversations will continue and soon my sexpertise will flood through the ENTIRE school. One can dream, right?

It's a lot of work taking on another class with my current course load, but it's SO worth it to build these relationships. All I need is for a student to trust me and then BOOM, relevant questions and life-changing badassery will ensue.

Gotta love this life!

Alright, and now to feed my never-ending hunger.

Yours truly,
Sarah the educational Wun

Bathroom Reflections

So I’m sitting in a mall bathroom in Shanghai, sweating and shaking and not having a good time; and yet, despite how intestinally awful I feel, I can’t help but feel grateful for the fact that I’m sitting on a western style toilet and there are many stalls to choose from so I don’t need to worry about someone needing my stall. I can take my time and be in as much pain as I need to be in at the moment. There’s also a toilet paper dispenser in this bathroom, and it’s full! You don’t see that often in China! I constantly have tissues in my purse for these occasions because more than half of the time, I know the bathrooms won’t be sufficiently stocked with necessities such as toilet paper or soap or toilet seats.

I hear a little girl singing as her grandma takes her to the toilet and it makes me smile. As I sit in pain and breathe through it all, I gaze around at the wooden walls that are keeping me and my suffering private, and I’m thankful. I look up and read the back of the door, “avoid the jams, please put the papers in the cask.” I wonder where the origin of the word cask comes from and who uses that term. I wonder if it's even a word or just another fabulous translation errors that I see so much here. To the right, the toilet paper holder boasts being full of quality eco-friendly tissue and there’s a picture of a kuala bear hugging a roll of toilet paper.

As I sit here I am proud of my body for being able to handle what it has been put through these past few years overseas, and I wonder if this isn’t all just something I should do without. I wonder if my IBS can’t handle being overseas and if I should just go back home where all the toilets are western and the stalls always have toilet paper and locks on the doors. Where the majority of the food is poison-free and high quality. Where I can trust meal preparation and fresh vegetables. Where I can easily access probiotics and stomach medicine.

Then I think about Monday. On Monday, I start orientation for my dream job. I will finally get to teach IB English to middle school students in China. I will have the amazing opportunity to design my own curriculum and my own assessments and have my very own students who will undoubtedly love me. I think about that and I know this is all worth it.

And then the pain subsides, even for a minute or so, and I can go distract myself with the hustle and bustle of the mall on a weekend, and a peach flavoured water that Bernard is currently seeking out for me to help ease the weakness in my tummy.

Wow, this actually worked. I was so caught up in writing down what was happening during my flare that my mind wandered away from the pain in my side and I managed to breathe through it and calm down!!! 

Yeah, I can do this. With a little patience and a little love, my body and I will be just fine.