INTERNATIONAL DAY

One of the things I love about teaching at international schools is the diverse community. Now that we have Tae and Elea it is so fun to expose them to other cultures right here in our own backyard.  This weekend was our international festival.  We dressed the kiddos in red, white, and blue and headed to school to enjoy the festivities and food.  It was right during naptime, so we were only able to stay for about an hour.  Tae managed to chow down 3 crepes from the French station, while I dined on some amazing Malaysian cuisine.  Elea drank fresh coconut water and wasn't concerned with much else.  

The week before the festival parents came in and taught the class about parts of their culture.  My class learned about Chinese tea culture, a minority group in China, and how to do Chinese caligraphy. It was fun to learn along with the kiddos.  On a separate note, Jess and I taught Tae's class about Brazil.  Let's just say it's a good thing we teach older kids, they ate us alive.  I thought it would be fun to teach them soccer.  Nope, I didn't think about how all 12 kids would want the ball and as soon as they got the chance they would pick it up with their hands and run the other way while the other 11 kids cried because they didn't get it.  Did I mention we are so thankful for Tae's loving and patient teachers?

Jin Shi Tan

On Tuesday we went on a study trip to see the different landforms in our area. We went on a hike, to a rock park, ate lunch at a park, and walked along the coast. It was a great day and made me reflect on how happy I am to be here and how much I love my students, school, and job. My students are amazing, we had so much fun together. The hike was pretty hard and it was a very hot day. The kids had fun and didn't complain at all. I had flashbacks of my Great Wall marathon training...ugh.


If you look closely you can see our school, track, and to the right our apartments.



They call this "Dinosaur Drinking Water"...pretty cool


Being silly...we climbed like 40 feet up
I also realized that I don't get out around our bubble enough. I bought a bike last weekend and my goal is to get out and explore more. This morning Kara and I rode to the market on our bikes. It was fun, even though it was raining. We ate breakfast at this little place, Susan's, and then headed to the market. At the market I decided to buy a watermelon to make watermelon in my awesome new juicer. On the way back I was wondering why I did because it weighed me down in my backpack. I also rode the whole way with the seat down to low. I made it back and Paulita and Adam were like why didn't you just move it up...like this? Duh Megan...oh well now it is better for the next time we go riding.


And for your viewing pleasure...more Chinglish

Earth Day

I'm going to be honest with you, I don't think I have ever celebrated Earth Day before. Maybe when I was little we planted a tree or colored some pictures (just adding to the amount of trash) but I honestly can't remember. After Thursday I am asking myself why? Thursday was a really cool day. All week my class had been having discussion about our Earth and how to take care of it. On Thursday we watched a pretty enlightening video about how we are completely using our planet to its limits. Unless we start to change we won't have God's creation much longer. We watched a video about how much stuff we use and what happens to it. While I don't agree with all the political stuff she says, the facts are pretty scary and it really made me think.



Thursday afternoon our whole school participated in a clean up. Students walked around the school and picked up litter. We compiled it together and at the end they saw the difference they made. It was powerful. The students were proud of themselves and have promised to live a green life.


The pile of garbage we picked up in an hour

What are you doing to make our world better? It's as easy as taking shorter showers? Reusing plastic bags. Buying a water bottle instead of using plastic throw away bottles. Being aware of how much stuff we buy. We only have one world, don't trash it.

Village School

Today was a day I was proud and blessed to be teaching in China. We took the students to a village school about 2 hours north of DAIS. The school was in "real" China, something our students don't see much of. They are very privileged and don't really understand that everyone isn't as fortunate as they are. This was the culminating trip for our Backpack Project. We started in October with the Move-a-thon and then the students went to the local Jin Shi Tan market and purchased new backpacks, coats, scarves, gloves, hats, school supplies, and toys for the students at the Village School. (I just remembered I forgot to upload pics of that...later). We loaded the buses at 9:00 and were on our way. It was a two hour bus ride through the country side of China. Unfortunately it was very foggy out so I didn't get any good pictures of the scenery.

The plan was to arrive and play games with the students. Since our students only speak a little Mandarin and their students only speak minimal English we came up with games that didn't need much communication. The kids had a blast playing games with one another. Kids are so amazing, they don't look at their differences with one another, just their similarities. After playing we ate lunch with our new friends and talked (as much as we could). At the end of our visit our students quietly went and got their Chinese New Year backpacks for the village students. They went up to them and gave them their gifts and said Happy New Year in Mandarin. The village kids were so shocked and grateful. It was one of those moments in teaching that just gives you chills. Our students were so happy to be able to help others and felt good about themselves. You can't teach that in the classroom...one more reason I love DAIS.

As you can see from the pictures below the conditions of the school were less than ideal. The students eyes were opened when they saw the classroom that had no heat, hole in the ground for the bathroom with no doors or heat. The classrooms were tiny and the desks were uncomfortable. All the students spend all day in their coats because it doesn't really warm up in the classroom. It was actually warmer today than it has been, but it was still cold none the less. Our students got to see how blessed we are and how other children around the world learn. Here are some pictures from the day.

We arrived to these smiling faces...

The "heater"

The bathroom

The view from the back of the classroom

The school...this is from K-6

The girls after playing a game

Some of the boys playing

Team building games

Eating lunch with our new friends

Hanging out

They were so surprised and happy to get new backpacks for Chinese New Year

Checking out their new backpacks...I love the boy on the left facial expression :)

Waving goodbye to us

Poetry Slam

Students' hard work +


one mic +


lots of hot coco and treats +


sharing with parents and classmates =


an AMAZING "Poetry Slam"

Move-A-Thon

Last Friday our school had its first annual Move-A-Thon. DAIS is made up of some pretty fortunate students, so we decided to give back to the community. We also did it to break in the new track that was just finished. Let's just say the weather on Friday was frigid. We set up an indoor track inside for students to run/walk/move on when they were too cold. I was expecting my students to make it for about 10 minutes outside...boy was I wrong. They made it the whole hour in the morning and then also again for the hour in the afternoon. We actually had to make them come inside in the afternoon and finish up inside.


Ji Won and Chan Min getting credit for a hard earned lap!

The atmosphere and determination was contagious. The students and all of our staff were so pumped and excited. Earlier in the week we found out that Volkswagen donated 20,000RMB (about $3,000 USD) to our cause. We raised money for two community projects, one being a backpack project for kids that don't have school supplies for the Chinese New Year. The other project is microloans to local families that the high school students are going to manage. All the kids did a phenomenal job of moving. My class ran a total of 376 laps, between 10 kids. Ji Won and Zach were amazing running 51 laps each.


My students coloring a Thank You banner for Volkswagen


The finished product

It was so cool to see the kids excited and feeling like they are making a difference. I'm not too sure the parents were too excited having to fork overall that money, but it's for a great cause! I feel so blessed to be a part of this school. The environment is amazing, the kids are so motivated and want to learn, my coworkers are all so dedicated and in it for the students, and the parents are all so willing to help. What more could a teacher ask for?


Ethan making his way around for another lap


This week I have report cards due. Report cards are different than in the States, much more information goes into them. They are annotated explanations on the progress the student is making. I wrote an average of 1,000 words for each student explaining how he/she are doing, what he/she can improve in, etc. Needless to say I am busy this week.

Skype + Founder of Wikipedia = Hen Hao

Two Fridays ago my class (and the upper school) had the privilege of webcasting with the founder of Wikipedia, Mr. Jimmy Wales. Mr. Wales was in Dalian for some big global business conference and found the time to talk with us via Skype. It was an incredible experience for my students, as well as for me. It was very interesting to listen to him talk and share how he came up with the idea of creating a constantly changing encyclopedia.


Some of my students watching Mr. Wales

Before we went to the webcast we brainstormed questions we could ask Mr. Wales. My students thought of some pretty thought provoking questions ranging anywhere from how did you come up with the idea to start Wikipedia to what are your other interests? During the video session three of my students got to speak with him live! They were so excited to ask their questions and did a great job.


Mr. Wales throwing up deuces

Some of the cool facts I learned about Wikipedia are:
~It's the research website with the highest hits, about 5 million per week.
~It is in over 100 languages
~There are over 3 million articles on the site, an average encyclopedia only has around 64,000!
~There are only 25 employees that work for Wikipedia.


The students were loving it!

Overall it was very enlightening to hear Mr. Wales goals for the future. He has a passion to get educational resources to all parts of the world. For example, he wants remote villages in Africa and women in the Middle East to be able to have access to educational resources. As you can imagine it is not an easy job, but that is what makes Wikipedia so cool. People that know the language can update it and pass the learning on. It is also a very difficult job since some regions don't have a written language. I was just amazed at how much this man knew and how humble he was. One important fact he said and that answered a question I had was that Wikipedia is not completely a valid source for a research paper. He said it is a good place to find background information, but not your in depth research. Just what a teacher wants to hear! I am loving my job and all the opportunities it provides.