First Week of Teaching

Last week was my first full week of teaching. My schedule is kindergarten in the morning and cram school in the afternoon.

Monday to Friday, I teach kindergarten with a Taiwanese co-teacher 9-11:30am. Here, kindergarten is three years long. The youngest kids are three. I sort of feel bad for them - I was at home cutting patches out of my hair until age five.

My first two classes every day are with the youngest kids. It is a class of nine students. Small classes are easier to control. The lessons are simple: numbers, phonics, running around and pointing to colors and stuff. These kids are really really young and also really restless. If they get squirmy, then I'll have them run around. That's the gist of classroom management. These two periods are a cakewalk.

My third class is with middle age kids. This class is also easy, but I have to teach them things beyond a few words and running around. In fact, I have to discourage running around because the class is larger; misbehavior quickly crescendos.

My morning classes end at 11:30 when lunch starts. Lunch is free and usually pretty good. Today was calamari, veggies, chicken, and thick lo mein noodles. I have a two hour lunch break every day. I have been running errands during that time, but ultimately hope to fill this time with a cool activity which is TBD.

My afternoons in the cram school start at 2pm. The cram school is more difficult. More to come regarding the cram school...