Shanghai - SATP

Lyrics: Whisper words of wisdom, let it be - The Beatles

The first part of my time in Shanghai consisted of two weeks of teaching a group of 80 high school students how to properly take the SAT Verbal section. I had three classes, each lasting an hour and a half, followed by hours of one-on-one counseling. Though I thought that I would be too shy or selfish to be a good teacher, I found myself excited, talkative, and completely devoted to my students before the first class was over. The freedom we had to design our own curriculums provided a welcome outlet for all of my energy, and I spent hours after my counseling was over searching for things to photocopy, writing up questions and examples. In class, my main goal was to keep the students interested enough to actually take in the information, so no single day was a repetition of the previous lesson. We usually started off with a quiz of the previous vocabulary, followed by an introduction of the vocabulary, an overview of the SAT questions I had assigned the day before, an assignment involving a passage reading, and then, a completely different activity. Sometimes we had games of charades against other classes, or debates, or literary analysis. I gave them short stories, news articles, scientific readings, seeking desperately to prepare them for different kinds of writing styles. All the while, I tried to make jokes, act out my vocabulary explanations, and call on the students often so as to keep them involved. I tried to be creative in my assignments, and as glad as the students seemed to be, I think I was even happier to be making the experience good for them. My favorite moment came after having a debate on bilingual education in the United States. We were heading upstairs to use the computers for the next class’s assignment (to write out SAT style questions about an brief article of their choice to quiz each other)….I found myself in a crowded elevator, surrounded by students who were still ardently debating, in English, their positions on bilingual education. I was so incredibly touched. I think I must have breathed a loud sigh of relief at that point because, even if their SAT scores didn’t improve, I had taught them something, I had helped them think in a bit of a different way.

The greatest aspect of this program was that we got to know the students very well over the two weeks. I was a harsh critic of their college essays, I met with them after class, I sat with them at lunch, I saw them in the office. All of us lived on the same campus and walked around the same premises. There were also only 8 teachers for all three sections, so we also became close as we worked together. The students became permanent fixtures by the copy machine while the teachers waited to photocopy their materials, they asked about our lives and we asked about theirs. I grew to know who liked basketball, who played badminton, who loved Plato, and who had invented their own Sudoku notebook. I can only hope that those two weeks were as great for my students as getting to know and help them was for me. I should mention that they did take pictures of us in the middle of class, and say funny things that were translated literally from Chinese, and stalk us in our rooms to go over their essays for the 15th time, but overall, they were great. I had expected a group of shy, well-behaved Chinese high school students, and to a certain extent, that is what I got. But I also got a group of colorful individuals who had varied opinions on topics from the westernization of their cities, to the Chinese educational system, to Taiwan and Tibet. The students were incredibly self-aware and, although stuck in a society that looks at success as a formula, were open to my ideas about creativity, the pursuit of individuality, and the blessings hidden in surprises. Interestingly enough, listening to myself speak to my students, I heard what I needed to hear myself.

Note: I also referred to my students as "babies," which they all found hilarious as soon as they heard me saying things like, "My babies were so good today" or "I have my babies reading Virginia Woolf for tomorrow" or the occasional "My babies SO beat your babies at charades today!!!!"