It's so cute, I couldn't not post it!

So this is a holler back to my days in Taiwan. I've already done a post of the Christmas dances that we had, but here's a video of the practices. My students are just too cute!

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What I've been up to...

So, you may have noticed that my blogging has increasingly decreased this past month. The last month of teaching was packed full of all sorts of things but mainly just dancing. Let me explain...

Every other year at Berhan, Halloween and Christmas trade off as the big holiday of Fall semester. Last year it was Christmas. As a result, my boss was trying to come up with something fun and different we could do this year, but have it not take a lot of effort. Hmm...what could we possibly do?

Perhaps, a school wide dance? Perfect!

You may be thinking, so what? Every school has dances, right?

Nope. Not even close. At least here in Taiwan. Due to academics being the main focus at school, kids have little time for social interactions. They start school around 7:30 am and some don't even return home until 10 pm. Yeah. Pretty crazy, huh?

As a result, most Taiwanese enter adulthood totally awkward with the opposite sex. Even more awkward than your typical American. My boss, in his quest (and a mighty good one) to expose our students to all kinds of good, positive experiences decided that we have a Christmas dance, and teach all of our students the waltz. I thought it was fabulous.

Each day for about 10 minutes, we would practice in our classrooms. Then every Thursday or Friday we would go upstairs to "the big room" and show our boss our progress. At first my students moaned and groaned--especially my fifth graders. But as the weeks went by and the dance grew closer, I could tell that they were secretly excited.

The nights of the big dances (we had two because not all students have classes on the same day) were the Thursday and Friday before the last week of class.

My boss really wanted to teach the students manners, and especially treat boys to treat girls with respect. Their way of getting around girls feeling left out is by putting all the girls' names in a basket and having the boys draw. It ended up being pretty funny. I danced with my student Simon (the girls were lacking), and we decided to make a game of it. We tried to see how many people we could poke from our class (a class joke of sorts). I think it made it less tedious for poor Simon. 

Overall, I think it was a success, and I hope it's a tradition they will continue each year.

A Non-birthday Celebration!

In a normal world, pinatas are normally reserved for fiestas, birthday parties, large celebrations if you will. But in my world as an English teacher, pinatas are made and hit just for the fun of it.

Well, maybe that's not entirely true. For my fifth graders, the pinata making began at the beginning of October in anticipation of Halloween. But due to unforeseen events, namely the papier mache not drying in this humid clime,  we didn't end up busting them open until the middle of November. And here is the documentation of this fun-filled, celebration of sorts.

As you can see, Luke is overjoyed with excitement!

We had to improvise and hang the pinata from the basketball hoop. Doesn't it look like a rainbow colored beehive?

















We began with a blind-fold,  and with spinning them around--you know, the usual. But then, that proved to be too difficult. Apparently the glue/paste we used was too hard for the plastic bat we were using. So we were forced to remove the bandanna and use a broomstick.

 Overall, it was a fabulous day.

Here's to pinatas, and uncelebrations!

Miss Shannon's First Graders

I've decided that it's about time for "meet my students." I teach four incredibly cool classes (how could they not be? I mean, I am their teacher), and this will be the first of a four part blog series. :)

These kids a hilarious! The boys are a bunch of rascals and the girls are angels. It sure does make for some amazing classroom antics.

Meet Derek. Derek is a pint size bundle of energy. Rarely can he sit in his seat, and often I find him not standing, but skipping next to his desk while writing his work. He always has mischievous twinkle in his eye and is always up to something. He's always coming up with ways to scare me or to sneak in a tickling session. He probably has the cutest laugh I've ever heard. Unfortunately, all of his cuteness can't keep him from getting in trouble.

This is Miss Stephani (without an 'e'). This quirky gal is hilarious. Whenever I ask her what she did yesterday, or over the weekend, the answer is the same: "I ate Miss Shannon!" For some strange reason she has an obsession with eating me. And she really can't sit. I've tried. At any given moment I'll glance at her and she'll be lying on the ground. But she is one smart cookie. Really smart. And has the most beautiful handwriting.

This is Koala. I frickin' love this kid. At the beginning of the semester he was my most challenging student. He was openly defiant, and I hated teaching him. Sending him to the secretaries just didn't work. At a loss, I asked my boss, Gerald, what I could do. He suggested doing a different sort of discipline, one that was a bit more creative. I thought over it and remembered that a friend once had his students dance in front of the class if they got in trouble along with a hug from the teacher. I decided to try this out.

The first day when Koala got his name on the board, I told him he had to get a hug. He freaked out! Like I've never seen a kid so shook up just from getting a hug. But I had to do it. He cried and cried and cried, and I had to send him to the secretaries anyways. I have to say that I was pretty shook up too. It's all ended up well though. I since had the class come up with their own punishments for not following the rules and they now have the option of picking between a hug or doing 10 push-ups when their name goes on the board. And they can do a wall sit or dance in front of the class when they get an X by their name. I mainly added the other option for Koala, but wouldn't you know it that he always picks the hug over the push-ups. And he's been so much better behaved since then too. I think he was testing me, and somehow I broke him. He is seriously a joy to have in class, and is sooooo funny. He is quite the ham--I guess your typical class clown. His great big toothy smile just melts my heart!

 This is cute Miss Kelly. I love her face! She's the younger sister of one of my favorite students, Cheryl, who was in my 3rd grade class last year. She is so sweet, and sooooo easy going. She's petite and quiet, but don't let that fool you. She's pretty fiesty, and doesn't let the boys take advantage of her. Quite the tom boy she runs faster than the boys, loves basketball, and is our classroom champion of the wall sit. Her record is 5 minutes. No joke. I'm lucky if I can even make it for 2 minutes.

Meet Mr. Eric. He is the biggest cuddler and finds any excuse to tickle or hug me. At the beginning of the school year he used to slide down my legs because he thought it was fun. Eric is an observer, and a very good one at that. He has the biggest brown eyes and nothing seems to escape him. Lately he has noticed that Derek and Koala get attention for their bad behavior, so he's decided to be crazy to get attention too. Still trying to figure out how to counteract that. Any ideas? Eric is also a smarty pants. He works a bit slower, but his perfection pays off. And seriously, who could not love that smile?

This is Miss Kristine, the Hermione of our class. This girl is a whiz! She's new to this class, but English is not new to her. Like Hermione, Kristine knows pretty much everything. In addition to English class she also goes to math class, swim class,  piano and recorder class, and some other class thrown in there too. She has a dream of traveling to Paris and writes about it in weekly journals. She is a perfectionist and incredibly hard on herself. She's come a long way though. At the beginning of the year it was hard to get her to even participate, but it's surprising to think that she was so quiet before. EArlier in the year she wrote me the cutest note with a book mark. Lovely girl.

I teach these kiddos four days a week for two and half hours each time. My heart is going to ache when I leave this cute kids!!!