Bowen Winter Camp is the worst teaching experience Peter has had.
That's right. Out of all the teaching he has done in China. He regards this as the worst. Everything is just so disorganized and stupid. This is a typical day:
700AM: Wake up.
830AM: Catch the BOND van to head down to Shiqi.
920AM: Pick up Amanda, then Henry at their residences and head to Bowen International School.
950AM: Arrive at Bowen International School
1000AM: Teach a 40 min class
1040AM: Take a 10 min break
1050AM: Teach another 40 min class
1130AM: Take a 3 hour lunch break
230PM: Teach a 40 min class
310PM: Take a 10 min break
320PM: Teach another 40 min class
400PM: Take a 30 min break
430PM: Supervise a chant activity/lesson activity for 1 hour
530PM: Eat dinner
600PM: Get in the Bond Van and head back to ShiQi/Xiaolan
730PM: Arrive back in Xiaolan
~11 hours of our day is being sucked up by Bond here and we are only being paid for the time spent TEACHING IN CLASS. All the rest of the day is thrown into limbo. I have spent most of the lunch breaks playing Diablo II on my computer. Its pathetic. In addition to the crappy schedual. The classes are horrible.
I have about 16 kids in my classroom. Not bad. Not at all. Its a nice change from having 50 kids in class. The problems, though, are as follows:
1. The kids do not want to be there at all. They are all smart. I mean, very smart. These kids are between 6-8 years old and they know more english than most of the kids I have taught, including the Guzhen kids.
2. On top of not wanting to be there, they are naughty rich kids. I mentioned that this was a rich school earlier. Its disgusting what parents are doing to their kids.
3. There is no Chinese english teacher present in class to control the children. For some stupid stupid reason, Amanda told the chinese teachers that they don't need to be present in our classes. This has by far caused the most problems. Every hour we tell Amanda to get us those teachers, she makes some calls, but nothing ever happens.
If there are no chinese teachers in class, they can't explain the exercises to the children, they can't keep them disciplined, and they can't tell them the meanings of things. Sure, people say, "Well, that's your job." Amanda said, once when I stopped babysitting those rascals because there were no teachers in class and the kids wouldn't respond to the simplest exercises and I returned to the office, "If you can't teach just this many kids, you can't teach at all in China?"
I had to explain it to her again. The truth is, the best times I have had teaching at this camp has been when there was a Chinese Teacher in class.
We try to turn the tables, think about this: take a chinese teacher who has very little or no english training and stick them in front of a bunch of kids and say, "go teach". With nothing. She kind of understands that, but not really.
If there is no teacher there, the kids just space out immediately and make paper airplanes, write in their chinese books, read comics, or play Paper, Rock, Scissors. Its absolutely terrible.
That is how the teaching is going. And, to make matters worse is the fact that when we aren't teaching we are stuck there for most of the day just wasting our time and not getting paid for it.
The drives home are a pain in the ass as well. Each night we get in the van and head back. After dropping off Amanda and Henry, we always end up heading back to the ShiQi Office for some dumb reason. These drivers are wasting our time doing their own errands. We are really livid.
For example, today was irritatingly perfect. I got pissed for a couple reasons.
First off, I had been working on my computer alot and I had created a file that was very important with lots of time spent on it. I left my computer to do the activity class. I came back after dinner, packed it up and we headed to the van. On the way home, I tried to load up my file. That file along with another was deleted and another was in its place. WTF! What happened. Peter then mentioned he briefly saw Sparky (the driver) on my computer when he was heading to dinner. What was he doing on my computer. So i asked Amanda if she could ask Sparky if he was on my computer, he responded Yes. So i yelled at him. I am totally gonna email Big Boss John...the dick.
1. He deleted an impotant file because he can't read english very well
2. He was on my computer without my permission. If he had asked, I would have let him on and set him up, but no. He had to go on and reallly piss me off.
Since then, I have been able to recover some of the original file.
On top of that was the van ride home. Sparky ran his own errands. After we went to the ShiQi office to waste time. (Peter needed to be in Xiaolan at 7PM, it was already 630) We started driving. Next thing we know, Sparky is picking up his girlfriend and her friend and dropping her off in another place near the Bond office again, then picking up some Bond flyers. Wait a second. This couldn't be done before or after we were taken care of. So, Peter and I were given Sparky crap. We are both totally gonna contact John about the incompetence in this company.
We got back to ShiQi around 730pm.
I have been so tired that I have missed Lion Dancing on Monday and Tuesday. Ugh.