David's Class 12 singing at the school singing competition
Every day after lunch, from 12:45-2:00pm, our students take a nap in their dorms. At 2pm, a pre-recorded bugle call sounds over the loud speakers. At this sound, the students rustle out of bed and head back to their classrooms for afternoon classes. However, before afternoon classes begin comes one of the highlights of the students' day; singing period! Singing period is only 5 minutes long, and it's often cut short by announcements or the head teacher disciplining the "naughty" students. Still, when it happens the students love singing period. During the week I teach several classes immediately following singing period, and I try to get to those classes a little earlier to watch the students belt out their favorite Chinese Pop songs. Up until recently, I'd thought that singing period had little significance other than to give the students a short break from the stress of their studies. However, over the past month or so, I noticed that singing period had taken on more of a serious tone. Each class' head teacher had begun presiding over the singing period and would often call for the class to sing the same song several times before leaving. Singing period also began to last a little longer than its allotted 5 minutes, and would often cut into the first 5-10 minutes of my class. While this annoyed me a little, I enjoyed watching the students sing, and they seemed to be having a good time, so I didn't care too much.
Anyway - "flash forward" to yesterday, May 7th, 2009. It started as a typical day. I taught my morning class, ate lunch with some students in the cafeteria, and came home to our apartment for the "nap period" to do some chores and study Chinese (I still am not able to actually "take a nap" during the nap period). Throughout the morning, nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. When the school bell rang at 2pm for the students to head back to class, I slowly began getting my things ready for my next class at 2:25. I arrived at class just a few minutes early. The class' head teacher was standing at the front of the classroom speaking to the students, and when he saw that I'd arrived, he left and yielded the classroom to me. As I walked in, a couple of students quietly said to me, "Mr. Joe, you're late." I didn't believe them. The bell schedule was still normal. I'd seen many students and teachers walking into classrooms at 2:25 as if it were a normal day. Plus, this was a class that likes to joke around. I went about my business and began teaching. Twenty minutes before class was supposed to end, a man walked by our door blowing a whistle. A couple of students quietly said "Class is over," but they were quickly and loudly overruled by the other 95% of the class who said "No, class is not over!" I quickly looked outside. I saw a small number of students leaving their classrooms as if to go on break, but the majority of the classes still sat in their classrooms listening to their teachers. I decided that class was not over and continued to teach. The students continued to listen (which is somewhat rare for this particular class). Ten minutes passed, and I noticed the class' head teacher had returned and was now standing outside the classroom. I didn't think too much of him; sometimes head teachers will come observe other teachers teach their classes to make sure there are no discipline problems, and he didn't seem to want to come in. Ten more minutes passed, and it was time for class to end. I ended the class, and their head teacher immediately rushed in and told the class to take 5 minutes to get a drink or go to the bathroom and be back in their seats quickly.
It was at this point I realized that the schedule had likely changed and I had (a) in fact been late to class and (b) held my class over into the next period when the students were supposed to have math class with their head teacher. I still didn't know for sure, so I asked a student what time my class was supposed to start that day. He sheepishly grinned and told me "2:05" (20 minutes earlier than normal). Still, I was curious as to 1) why the bells at school were still going off at their normal time and 2) why the students had not told me to end class any earlier. I found out later that the answer to Question 1 was that the classes in Junior 1 (my grade) were having a singing competition after the last period and classes were pushed forward a bit to allow sufficient time for all classes to perform before dinner. Only the students in my grade were to perform, so the rest of the school was still on a normal schedule (which is why I saw the majority of the school still sitting in their classrooms when the man had blown the whistle outside my classroom 20 minutes earlier). So, this is why singing period had become such a big deal in recent weeks! I'm still a bit confused about the answer to Question 2, but the only logical answer I can think of is that the students were simply trying to avoid having math class with their head teacher in the period following mine (I don't claim to be the best or most interesting teacher in the world, but I guess whatever I was doing was more interesting than Algebra!). Anyway, I was not too distraught over the mix-up. In a way, I figured I was just taking back the class time that I'd lost over the previous weeks due to the "singing practice" cutting in my class.There was one problem, however: I was supposed to teach another class the following period, and I was now 10 minutes late! I quickly rushed downstairs to my next class, half-expecting it to be mass chaos. However, as I approached the classroom, I noticed that all the students were sitting quietly and properly at their desks, clearly focusing on someone or something. Had another teacher noticed the class was unattended and decided to teach in my place?
No!
The students had simply loaded Disney's High School Musical onto their class' computer and were now completely absorbed in it. They were so glued to the movie that I don't even think half of the class noticed me walk in the door (I'd played a short clip of this movie in class last week. The students loved it, copied it to their computer, and have been obsessed with it ever since). Anyway, much to the students' dismay, I turned off the movie and started class. Everything was back to normal!
After class, I went to find out what this "singing competition" was all about. I walked upstairs to the classroom where the competition was being held. From what I witnessed, it was a pretty formal competition. The room was set up with a stage and a chalkboard which served as a "scoreboard" to show how the 6 or 7 judges (all teachers at our school) had ranked each class' performance. I watched nearly all of the classes sing, and the performances were all good (though some were clearly better than others). Some classes wore uniforms and had choreographed dances. Others had students in the class playing instruments as accompaniment to the singing. In nearly every class, one or two students from the class served as the conductors. These conductors took their jobs so seriously: They all looked completely exhausted after the song was over (I thought one even looked as though she might pass out). The show was nice, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. I was a little disappointed that the school had to turn this, like everything, into a competition. That seems to be the primary means of motivating students here, and I think it wears them out. Class 13, one of my best behaved and highest-level English speaking classes ended up winning the contest. This earned them another certificate to hang in their classroom as well as the chance to perform their song again on Friday afternoon in the center of Zhuzhou City. (Of course, I teach Class 13 on Friday afternoon so my class was cancelled so the students could perform, which is fine except for the fact that no one bothered to tell me about this cancellation until I showed up to an empty classroom!).
Class 11, under the direction of one of their classmates
Class 10 had violin accompaniment
The all-important scoreboard
Also, I found it strange that there were no parents in attendance. I think they probably would have liked to have seen the show, and I bet the kids would have liked to have shown off the results of their weeks of singing practice. But only teachers and classmates were in attendance. The students eat, sleep, and breathe this school for 6 days per week and rarely see their parents. Why couldn't they have invited them? We've learned a lot about this place, but some things I'll still never understand.
I've posted a clip of some of the classes' performances (as well as me scaring some of the students with the camera) below. I hope you enjoy it!
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