Krstovic's Thoughts on Education

This summer I am in Bosnia and Hercegovina visiting my family. I have been talking to a lot of people about their lifestyle in Bosnia, and it seems that many people are struggling to make ends meet. The average salary is around 350 dollars, however the standard of living is comparable to all other European countries that are part of the EU. People are devastated and disappointed by the high prices of food, clothes and other common goods and services. Education is no exception to these high prices.

In Bosnia, all elementary school children have to buy their own books and workbooks. Today I went with my cousin, his wife and their nine-year old son to buy all the books for their boy who is entering the third grade in September. I was disappointed that the parents have to buy all the textbooks and workbooks for all subjects for their kids. The price of all these materials exceeds 100 dollars, which when compared to the average income of 350 dollars, comprises almost a third of this average. If only one parent works, which is the case for my cousin and his wife and many other families that I came across, the cost of educational materials is simply too much to handle.

I am unhappy about this system of education in Bosnia, which has not changed since I went to elementary school here. I am tired of this entrepreneurial attitude in education – from year to year books change and parents are forced to buy new set of textbooks and workbooks for their kids despite the astonishingly low average household income.  The price of textbooks increases even more in high school! Why can’t the government of this country provide better funding to various districts so that their schools can buy the textbooks and workbooks? How can this country avoid economization of education so that poor families can afford to provide education to their kids (amongst other of Maslow’s basic needs like food and shelter)?

And one last thing: as an educator, I am totally surprised by the quality of textbooks and workbooks that parents are forced to buy. To be totally honest and blunt – it’s cheap quality paper, poor organization of text  and low quality graphics,  sometimes lacking in visuals where they should be, workbooks do not leave enough space for kids to answer questions- I was not impressed. Most textbooks and workbooks can be made available on a CD, or posted somewhere on-line for free. There seems to be very little effort to integrate instructional technology. After talking to a few kids about how their use computers in class and various on-line tools, they had very little to say. It appears that a lot of work is still needed in this domain of instructional learning and leadership.

Life goes on here…kids learn in a largely didactic, teacher-centered system that is in dire need of reform! I can now appreciate even more just how forward thinking we are in Ontario!

In my last Curriculum Foundations class we were discussing the issues of globalization and education. We watched an interesting video that sparked a lot of discussion and some controversy regarding certain ideologies such as , racism and nationalism. The video featured the top university in India, called the Indian Institute of Technology, or IIT. IIT is the hardest university in the world to get into due to its strict admission criteria and strenuous testing and prescreening of potential students, who for the most part come from middle class families. Its technocratic system produces some of the best male engineers in the world who end up coming to the US in search of their American Dream.

It came as a surprise (to those who founded the university) that the university which was designed to educate the best engineers in India is facing such braindrain to the US.  Indian engineers from IIT have played major roles in almost all major technology firms, including Microsoft, Intel, PC, Sun Microsystems and others. The famous American TV show 60 Minutes did a documentary on IIT, interviewing some of IIT’s best students, and successful alumni. My first reaction to the video was one of admiration for the rigorous program at IIT. At first glance I was unmindful to any potential problems (besides the obvious – 90% of the students are male).  Take a look at this 14 minute video. What are your reactions?

IIT  does seem like an impressive school, doesn’t it? Its rigorous factory model of education, which lacks well-roundedness, seems to prepare good workers that are highly employable by the West, or so we have been made to think by 60 Minutes. The documentary may be problematic in several ways. First, there is subtle tone of racism by 60 Minutes that one can quickly pick up. When the interviewer is talking to the young men she looks at them with wonder and awe which makes the viewers think just how wonderfully committee these students are, and just how ‘bad’ the Western students are when compared to these IIT prodigies. Secondly, I believe that there is perpetuation of stereotypes about male Indians, and indirectly the show perpetuates certain stereotypes about the Indian girls. Thirdly, the documentary makes it seem as though all IIT students get super elite positions in high profile firms – somehow I highly doubt it. Fourth, I feel that the documentary is elevating the status of ‘India’s most valuable export’ – brainpower from IIT, when it really should be concerned with helping a country that still has the cast system in its society.

I can’t think of a good conclusion for you, so I will let you come to it yourself….

Teaching ESL has been nothing less than exciting for me in China. Every day I am putting my creative thinking skills to use. I do not have a detailed plan for each day. Now that I think back it was silly of me to even try to come up with a detailed day-by-day plan before I came here. I knew that I would have to plan each day as it comes and to rely on my creativity, students’ energy and my passion for teaching.

In a nutshell: my students have been reading the Robin Hood novel; they have been blogging about various topics using my on-line social network (www.mrkrstovic.ning.com); they have been listening to English conversations and doing practice on-line listening tests from www.myesl.net; they have been writing their own dialogues and presenting them in class; they developed a PowerPoint presentation on a major city and presented it to their peers and students from another ESL class;  they have been listening to lyrics of various English songs, and filling in the missing words from the lyrics; they sang and rehearsed the song “We are the champions” for the school’s English song competition and they won in three categories: best creativity, best costume and best whole-class performance! The students have been doing many cross words to build their vocabulary and they have been engaging in one-on-one conversation with me to practice their speaking skills.

In addition, we have been playing many team tournament games to keep the students motivated and interested in learning. Some of the games include: Simon Says, Murder Wink, This is not a…, this is a …, Seven Up, Competitive Tongue Twisters, Broken sentences, Vocabulary Memory Games and Charades. Games have been an extremely memorable part of my experience as an ESL teacher. Students love learning through play! I have tried to incorporate games every day into my lessons. Some of my favorites have been the vocabulary memory games and the competitive tongue twisters. The competitive tongue twisters force the students to pronounce correctly certain phonetic sounds, such as think and sink, vest and west, thick and sick, write and right, soap and soup, cheek and chick and many others.

What has been especially rewarding for me is the growth that I have seen in many of my students over such a short period of time. There are certain students that have come out of their shells more than others. They started to speak more and use the vocabulary that we have been practicing. The rehearsal of the song “We are the champions” brought an amazing feeling of camaraderie and safety to our classroom community. This was the climax of my teaching here at Huamei-Bond International College. Students learned an important message: “And even though we make mistakes, we are all still champions in our own ways!” “We are the champions” has become our theme song!

With one more week to go, I am already saddened by the thought that I will leave an incredibly talented and even more incredibly united group of students. They are my champions! With them I have experienced a side of teaching that I only thought existed in movies. Teaching is indeed a true act of love!

I have been teaching intermediate level ESL to a group of nineteen ESL students who come from affluent families in south-east China. This is my third week of the four week intense summer ESL program. It has been a great experience and a real eye opener in terms of what it truly means to have a genuine classroom community and a group of kids who stand united. The students live on the campus and all of their day is devoted to school activities. Each passing day they grow closer and closer with each other and with their teachers. They form lasting friendships. For me personally, they put UNITY back into COMMUNITY! They have forever touched my heart and the thought of me leaving behind this group of kids brings tears to my eyes. These kids have reaffirmed my belief that teaching is indeed an act of love!

In the morning the students wake up at 7:00AM. They eat breakfast in the school’s cafeteria at around 7:30AM. By 7:45AM they are in their classes. Their schedule looks  like this:

8:10 – 9:25 Period 1

9:25 – 9:40 Snack Break (one student in the class leaves to get the snacks)

9:40 – 10:55 Period 2

10:55- 11:05 Snack Break

11:05 – 12:00 Period 3

12:00 – 2:30 Lunch and nap in the dormitories (most, if not all students nap)

2:30 – 3:30 Period 4 (I booked this period in the computer room for them to blog; you can read some of their blogs www.mrkrstovic.ning.com Huamei ESL group)

3:30 – 3:40 Break

3:40  4:20 Period 5

This is the academic portion of their schedule. I teach each of the five periods. The first week of school was the longest week ever for me ever. I had to get used to the long working hours. I started taking naps as well in the afternoon. It re-energizes me for the fourth and fifth periods.

In the evening, the students’ schedule is as follows:

4:30PM – 7:00PM Dinner and Basketball (Every Wednesday the kids have special English activities such as the English singing competition, which is coming up for us this Wednesday, July 28. My students have been preparing the song “We are the champions!” This song has been our THEME song! It is the unifying fabric of my class – a hymn that students have learned to sing by heart)

7:00PM – 9:00 PM Students Individual Study Time (The students go back to the classroom with the teaching assistant who supervises them while they do their homework which I assigned to them in the day)

9:00PM – 9:20PM  Classroom cleaning

10:00PM Back to their dormitories to sleep

As you walk through the main security gates and head towards the pink-white building you pass by about two dozen tall palm trees perfectly lined in two rows. You arrive on the spacious campus square on which stands a large water fountain.  The school’s motto: Practicing Honesty Exercising Fraternity Pursuing Virtue Seeking Truth is displayed in large blue letters and gold Chinese characters on top of the six storeys  building of Huamei-Bond International College.  Eight statues of some of the world’s most famous scientists and sixteen flags from different countries around the world are positioned in front of the clock-tower building, as it is sometimes referred to. The clock tower houses the school’s bell which rings every morning at 7:00 to wake up the students and every evening at 6:00 to call the students for dinner. The Huamei community also hears the bell from the clock-tower building. The bell wakes me up every morning as well, although sometimes I wake up before the 7AM bell.

My first day at work was exciting and intensely hot and humid. I woke up at 6:00 AM and arrived to school around 7:00 AM. The flag raising ceremony started at 7:30AM. Just before 7:30AM all of the boys lined up military style and listened to the lecture from the summer school disciplinarian Mr. Dai, who spoke loudly and authoritatively about the schools’ rules. Interestingly enough Mr. Dai only spoke to the boys. The girls were sitting around waiting for the official flag raising ceremony to begin.  After Mr. Dai’s “military-like” speech, we all lined up and listened to Mr. Zhou, the principal of Huamei-Bond. His speech in Chinese was long, but I am sure it was important. After Mr. Zhou’s speech, five Haumei-Bond students walked up to the flag pole. One of them held the Chinese flag, while the other pulled the rope to raise the flag. The Chinese national anthem was playing during the raising of the flag. The other three students stood like soldiers waiting for the flag to be raised. Following the flag raising ceremony all the local Chinese teaching assistants were introduced. Then, it was our turn to introduce ourselves. All of the seven foreign ESL teachers stood in front of the students and we said a few words about ourselves. We kept it rather short as it was insanely hot and humid. A 8:00AM we proceeded to our classes to meet our students. I was excited to meet my bunch.

It has been a week since I have been living and teaching in Guangzhong, China. Guangzhou is the capital city of the south-east province of Guangdong. It is located about 150 km north-west of Hong Kong. I arrived here with two other teachers from Ontario to teach an intense, month-long ESL course. The three of us met at the Hong Kong airport and from there we clicked immediately. When we arrived to Guangzhou airport we were greeted by a very pretty young lady called Lacy, who is our international liaison and the school’s secretary in charge of the foreign teachers. As we stepped outside of the airport doors we felt the intense heat and humidity of the subtropical climate. I was tired from the fourteen hour flight, but at the same time I felt very excited to be in China for the first time.

The school’s driver drove us to Huamei Road in Tianhe district, where Huamei-Bond International College is located.  Tianhe is one of ten districts in Guangzhou.  Huamei Road is a village-like community about twenty kilometers outside of the Guangzhou city. Its people live a semi-rural lifestyle. Most of them own some kind of a small grocery or a variety store, a local restaurant/canteen or an auto-parts and repair shop. Some sell chickens on the road while others stitch clothes on the sowing machines at the side of the road.

The sub-tropical climate of this region makes it possible to grow banana trees, papayas, cassava plants, lots of bamboo trees and many other sub-tropical plants. My favorite are the very tall, slim palm trees that grow around the area and on the main campus of Huamei-Bond International School. While the flora seems very attractive, the hot and humid climate creates much less favorable conditions to live in. The restaurants and local businesses appear very unclean at first sight. Some local canteens dump food outside of their place, which creates an unpleasant odor . When a garbage truck drives down Huamei Road the rotting smell of garbage is unbearable, but one quickly learns to get accustomed to it, or not .  Many local women walk with umbrellas to protect their heads from the sun.  Some men and women wear the big straw hats, especially those who work  outdoors all day. I even bought a large straw hat, and every time I wear it outside I get a lot of attention from the locals. I stopped wearing it!

The apartments in which we settled are somewhat below the standards of the western world. The humidity sets conditions for mildew growth which gives it a musty smell. Luckily, I don’t have that problem in my apartment, but one of the teachers has been living in a mildew infested place for a whole week.  Cockroaches, bugs and rats are no strangers to apartment buildings. Some cockroaches are the size of my pinky! Although this is not exactly what I expected in terms of the living conditions, it is proving to be an experience beyond my imagination.

I have learned in this short little while that the ability to adapt to one’s environment is one of the most important survival skills. Most Westerners are spoiled by their comfortable, hedonistic lifestyles, myself included. Being able to see the positive in all situations is also crucial for ones survival in a new, faraway place.

As for Huamei-Bond International College  and the actual experience of teaching ESL, that’s a totally different story.  I will write in more detail about my teaching experiences in my next blog!  For now I can say that the school campus is spacious and beautiful;  the students are well-behaved, respectful, and for the most part hard working. However, their English  is in need of major improvement, at least for the intermediate level students. Feel free to leave your comment if you wish!

It’s Saturday evening. I am relaxing after a nice visit with my family and a few drinks over a nice meal.   I decided to start preparing lessons, or at least looking over the curriculum documents, for Level C ESL class, which I will be teaching in Guangzhou, China this summer.  This wonderful opportunity has given me the chance to immerse myself in thoughts about how am I going to teach 25 Chinese students from an upper-middle class city division.  I am looking over the curriculum from the Ontario Ministry of Education, and the first thing that strikes me is how general the expectations are. As a Science/Chemistry teacher over the last five years I have grown accustomed to detailed and specific expectations to cover, and  this is why my science colleagues and I always say that we have a crammed curriculum.  The ESL curriculum may be specific enough to ESL teachers, however, I find it general in the sense that there are no specific content expectations.  Therefore, I feel a sense of pedagogical freedom when it comes to helping my students become more successful with speaking, listening, reading and writing.

As a former ESL student myself I feel that my second language and life experiences will augment the learning experiences that I hope to create for my Chinese students.  As I beging to plan my lessons for 5-hour long classes per day for the next four weeks in July, I reflect on the following questions:

• What do I want these students to know and be able to do at the end of the four weeks?
• What impressions do I want to leave on my students and staff at Huamei International School?
• How will I transfer my professional knowledge and skills so that it will help my ESL students become better at speaking, listening, reading and writing?
• What have  I learned about English literacy so far in my five years as a Science teacher, and how can I make use of this knowledge to help me teach my students more effectively in China?
• How will I make use of the 21^st century technology to help my students learn more English?
• How will my teaching style differ from a “regular” ESL teacher and will I do the job as well? Can I do it better?

I am looking forward to learning from this new experience. I will continue to blog about what I am learning about teaching (and learning) as an ESL teacher in China for the Summer 2010.

I may even go to the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai…Hong Kong will only be about 2 hours away so I will make sure I visit it at least once.