Reflections of a Daytime Tiger

After failing majorly as a blogger, I am finally posting again! (Hooray?) Maple Leaf classes are officially over as of Tuesday! Now the students are taking exams while the teachers busily mark and input grades. Thank goodness one of the two tigers has finished all of her marking and is now spending her time cleaning her office, helping out at the library, generally relaxing and posting blogs! My other half unfortunately still has exams to ‘invigilate’ (a word that I think only BC people use - basically means to ‘administer’ or ‘proctor’) and grading to finish.

My grade 9 students took their exams and left a week early as they need to take the middle school Zhong Kao exam. This is a standardized exam that all grade 9 students in China have to take. Living in a country will a population exceeding 1.3 billion, you can imagine the amount of pressure put on these poor students. I wish them the best of luck.


Anyway, because my students are gone, I’ve had a chance to reflect on both my growth as an individual and as a teacher these past few months.  Although it has been crazy challenging, I am so grateful I was given the opportunity to teach. Not only has it been rewarding beyond expectations, I can now personally empathize with my husband and understand his chosen career path. I’ve always had a respect for teachers - my mother is a teacher – and I’ve had some idea about the kinds of things they deal with. However, walking in the shoes of a teacher these past few months has greatly increased that respect and admiration. The levels of time, energy and love that go into teaching are truly tremendous!

When we originally planned to come to Maple Leaf, I was hired to be the librarian. When that opportunity fell through, I was pretty worried about what I would be doing. As many of you know, China kept feeling *just" out of our reach since every time we thought we were all set to go, something came up to post-pone our plans. By the time we actually made it here, I did not even care what I would be doing – I just wanted to get to China! Because of all this, the worry and concern I would normally have had before doing something totally out of my comfort zone wasn’t even there. I seriously did not even have time to get over jet lag before I was thrown into the classroom.

Looking back, I can see everything that led us here was a blessing. Being somewhat of a perfectionist, I usually psyche myself out and fail to even start certain things if I don’t think I can do them well. China has changed that about me.  I was thrown into a new country and a new job and I just had put my head down and pull through. Of course I had my moments when I broke down, doubted myself and hated everything around me. But those moments passed and I was rewarded with a stronger sense of who I am and what I can accomplish. I have grown so much from this experience and am so amazed I could do something totally new and end up enjoying it!

In the end, nothing is quite as awesome as having students ask you for advice or say “We’ll miss you, Ms. M!” I taught some great kids this semester and learned so much from them in return.

I am pleased to tell you that I’ve been hired as the librarian for next year. Although I’ll miss the students, I will not miss a teacher’s lesson planning and marking. ;-) I’m looking forward to this chance to develop skills in my field.  I am also positive that the lessons I’ve learned as a teacher will assist me in this new position.  We are ALL teachers of some sort, right?

To close I’d like to share a few pictures of my students doing skits where they had to sell a made-up product. They got really into them! Enjoy!

Class 1on the boys campus. Mark and Yasuo made me be the 'supermodel' in this skit.

Shrek, Edward and Peter from Class 1. 

Class 2, boys. 

Class 3 girls! The sweetest, smartest, most creative girls EVER!

Until the next post! Zai jian! 

The Two Tigers