Shanghai- HSYLC

Lyrics: This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, fifteen percent concentrated power of will, five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain" - Fort Minor

After SATP, we had a week off to travel before HSYLC began. This program is much larger than SATP, including many Chinese college students as volunteers, a larger staff, and 40 Harvard Seminar Leaders. The concept of HSYLC is quite an exciting one: get a bunch of qualified Harvard students to teach small seminars on topics that Chinese students are not typically exposed to. The students have to apply to the program and, since the selection process includes an essay, their English proficiency is typically higher than that of the SATP kids [not baby goats, I mean students]. My seminar was titled “The Human Experience Through Literature: How Soviet Russia was Constructed,” and focused on the strong links between literature from that time period and the cultural, political, and economic reality of the time. The main works were several poems and a short novel, “Heart of a Dog” by Mikhail Bulgakov, and the central portion of the class hinged on discussions among the students on different themes and questions. On the last day, we also had two debates on moral issues touched on in the novel. All in all, I found the experience to be very rewarding, but exhausting. I probably should have chosen a topic that required less background knowledge or that relied less on discussion skills that were unfamiliar to students whose only academic exposure has been to the Chinese educational system. I think the students enjoyed the different pace and focus of my seminar, or at least I hope they did. Each teacher also had a Course Assistant, which I found somewhat overwhelming, but very useful…Sophie was incredible and translated some of the more difficult concepts that I was introducing.

Other than this, each Seminar Leader was also in charge of a writing workshop, an extracurricular activity, and a proctor group. In short, we were working all day, every day. The writing workshop focused on persuasive and personal essays, and I really enjoyed structuring and leading those lessons; unlike my literature class, I didn’t feel pressed for time and was relaxed enough to make jokes, act things out, and write on the board. My extracurricular activity was salsa dancing, which I think we all had a lot of fun with, despite the obvious lack of rhythm of some of my students. I tried to focus on enjoyment, not skill, so I think that if nothing else, they had some time to laugh and learn to swivel their hips! My favorite part of the day was my proctor group, where I could just let loose and be more of a companion than a teacher. Proctor group attendance was completely voluntary, but I put my students though so many games, charades, dancing, and spontaneous activities, that they all came every single time. We even had some migration from other groups! My favorite activity was the one time we played truth or dare. Seated in a circle on the floor, I warned then that the questions and dares had to be decent. In the first two questions, we discovered that one of the students had a crush on a Course Assistant! The next girl chose a dare and immediately the class went wild. Soon, we were invading a nearby classroom in a fury of clapping and screaming and, huddled by the door, watching her walk up to another student and ask him for a hug. At this point, the students in the other class, jumped up and clapped with us! After the hug, we all ran back to our own classroom, laughing and tripping over each other. We also found out that this was her first hug with a boy, and I wondered, briefly, if I was corrupting my children! The next dare was by far the highlight of the day and became the talk of the staff for at least two days. The boy was dared to propose to a random girl so, again, we invaded another classroom, much to the chagrin of their proctor. My students were shaking and shrieking by the door. I was shamelessly taking paparazzi style pictures in the front. The poor boy knelt and, with one of my rings, asked the girl for her hand in marriage. She calmly took the ring and accepted, at which point both classes erupted into a frenzy of screams, laughter, hugging, and running. It was clear that it was a joke, but I think in that one moment they all released much of the stress they’d been accumulating over the previous week. I was more than happy to help, even if a little corruption was involved!

Aside from all of their other programs, the students were also involved in something called ATVenture, which stands for Action for Tomorrow Venture. The students formed teams and worked to develop and implement a plan to produce an effective and feasible solution to a pressing societal problem. Under our guidance, they attended workshops and worked on their critical thinking, problem-solving, and presentation skills. In the end, each team had to have a comprehensive solution to present in a symposium. The winning proposal received 10,000 Yuan to make their idea a reality. My favorite idea was one that collected the remains of harvests and found different ways to recycle them. These projects pushed the students to think of local activism, to stay up until 3am coming up with innovative ideas, and to really believe that even at their age they came. It was great to watch them go through this!

At the end of the weeklong HSYLC program, we had two events for students: a talent show and an ice cream bash. For the talent show, the students came prepared with their instruments, from modern violins to the traditional guzhengs. They sang traditional Beijing opera, performed magic tricks with fire, staged a modern Romeo and Juliet, and performed modern songs along with dance numbers, guitar accompaniment, etc. The showcase took five hours! Tracy and I performed a dance with three students, in which Tracy taught us a hip-hip routine to Fort Minor’s “Remember the Name” and I taught a step routine that I half borrowed from my freshman year and half, surprisingly, made up. This was so much fun, but the highlight of the night was the choreography we did for the a Teacher/CA rendition of the Backstreet Boys’ “I want it that way.” Chen, Alex, Dan, David, Eddie, Viola, Lisa, Ami, and I danced our little hearts out on stage and then had students come up to dance on the next song. The crowd was on their feet clapping and it all went over as a huge success! Our boy-band tribute was hilarious, and, complete with running-fingers-through-hair, cheesy choreography, sunglasses, I am posting it as a video below.

The ice cream bash as, again, an insane event. The students, shy as always, refused to dance and needed a LOT of prodding to get their bodies moving. In short, Hannah, Chine, and I ended up being hoisted up on the cafeteria’s tables. Eventually, after the students stopped cheering and frantically taking pictures, they began dancing themselves. In a bit, after some dance-offs and other activities, the students could be left to dance alone. We had succeeded, though again, some corruption may have been involved!

HSYLC was a great experience, though time was limited and we didn’t have the opportunity to
get to know the students as well as during SATP.