Last Thursday I flew to Shanghai. I landed at Pudong and took a really long cab drive to Songjiang. I made a big mistake.
There are two airports in Shanghai. I picked the one that is about an hour drive from the area where the school is. Next time I fly there, I will be sure to choose the right airport.
The morning of the interview I woke up at my budget priced business hotel and had a mediocre chinese style buffet breakfast.
I had prepared slides for my lecture by finding PPT presentation from the internet. I had been asked to prepare a lecture about cellular respiration, photosynthesis, and fermentation. This is a subject that I have not thought about in about twenty years. I have never taught this, much less taught it to middle schoolers.
I had been told that the class was full of very good students. Some of them were. A few minutes before the lecture, the teacher who I had spoken with started to explain that some of the students have good english skills, but some of them don't. I was also shown the three pages of the paperback biology text that they were using. I also learned that the students had not read anything about the subject.
I did my best, and was doing well for about the first half of the lecture. However, my slides were much more detailed and scientific than the material in their text. It was too advanced. I didn't really know what to do, so I started to just read from the slides. I got pretty nervous.
So it didn't go great. The students were pretty polite and clapped at the end.
I found the teacher, who is an american, to be extremely conceited and pretty much an asshole. He was very smug. I didn't feel particularly welcomed from the moment I met him.
Anyway, after the lecture he actually asked me if I was heading out after the lecture. I told him my flight was at 9 pm, which seemed to kind of throw him. So he suggested I meet with the head of the foreign teachers.
Over lunch in the cafeteria, he told me that the lecture was not good, that it was too advanced. He made remarks about my delivery and other things. I smiled and thought to myself "what an asshole."
So anyway, after lunch, I went over and spoke to the head of the foreign teachers, who was a nice chinese woman who speaks flawless english.
We spoke for around 40 minutes, at which time I sat down with her and the other teacher. He started to explain why he didn't think I would be good at teacher middle schoolers.
I interjected that it was kind of a ridiculous task to give me a demonstration lecture in a subject that is outside my field of study with very little in the way of supervision. Basically, the issue was that my lecture was too advanced.
So anyway, the head of teachers was impressed by my background and seemed to like me. She took me on a short tour of the high school. I met the head humanities high school teacher. She said that she will be in touch with me to arrange for me to COME BACK TO THE SCHOOL AGAIN TO GIVE ANOTHER LECTURE IN MY AREA OF EXPERTISE!!!!!
I hope that you, my gentle readers, are sympathetic to me about this situation.
In an odd footnote, the morning of the interview I ended up getting dropped of by my taxi at Shanghai University, which is next door. Shanghai University has a lovely and stately campus. It is like a large european feudal estate with gigantic neo-classical buildings.
So I get to go back to Shanghai again.
There are two airports in Shanghai. I picked the one that is about an hour drive from the area where the school is. Next time I fly there, I will be sure to choose the right airport.
The morning of the interview I woke up at my budget priced business hotel and had a mediocre chinese style buffet breakfast.
I had prepared slides for my lecture by finding PPT presentation from the internet. I had been asked to prepare a lecture about cellular respiration, photosynthesis, and fermentation. This is a subject that I have not thought about in about twenty years. I have never taught this, much less taught it to middle schoolers.
I had been told that the class was full of very good students. Some of them were. A few minutes before the lecture, the teacher who I had spoken with started to explain that some of the students have good english skills, but some of them don't. I was also shown the three pages of the paperback biology text that they were using. I also learned that the students had not read anything about the subject.
I did my best, and was doing well for about the first half of the lecture. However, my slides were much more detailed and scientific than the material in their text. It was too advanced. I didn't really know what to do, so I started to just read from the slides. I got pretty nervous.
So it didn't go great. The students were pretty polite and clapped at the end.
I found the teacher, who is an american, to be extremely conceited and pretty much an asshole. He was very smug. I didn't feel particularly welcomed from the moment I met him.
Anyway, after the lecture he actually asked me if I was heading out after the lecture. I told him my flight was at 9 pm, which seemed to kind of throw him. So he suggested I meet with the head of the foreign teachers.
Over lunch in the cafeteria, he told me that the lecture was not good, that it was too advanced. He made remarks about my delivery and other things. I smiled and thought to myself "what an asshole."
So anyway, after lunch, I went over and spoke to the head of the foreign teachers, who was a nice chinese woman who speaks flawless english.
We spoke for around 40 minutes, at which time I sat down with her and the other teacher. He started to explain why he didn't think I would be good at teacher middle schoolers.
I interjected that it was kind of a ridiculous task to give me a demonstration lecture in a subject that is outside my field of study with very little in the way of supervision. Basically, the issue was that my lecture was too advanced.
So anyway, the head of teachers was impressed by my background and seemed to like me. She took me on a short tour of the high school. I met the head humanities high school teacher. She said that she will be in touch with me to arrange for me to COME BACK TO THE SCHOOL AGAIN TO GIVE ANOTHER LECTURE IN MY AREA OF EXPERTISE!!!!!
I hope that you, my gentle readers, are sympathetic to me about this situation.
In an odd footnote, the morning of the interview I ended up getting dropped of by my taxi at Shanghai University, which is next door. Shanghai University has a lovely and stately campus. It is like a large european feudal estate with gigantic neo-classical buildings.
So I get to go back to Shanghai again.
No comments:
Post a Comment