20 November 2006

talkin' 'bout a revolution. . . .

It's nice to finally have weekends. I still teach the SAT prep class on Saturday mornings, but I hardly think about gradingcurriculumactivitieshomeroomtheschoolnewspaperspeechcontest and, of course, thefiveparagraphessay on weekends anymore.

Instead, we order courderoy pants (in PINK, dark green, and this thickly ribbed silver that changes color when you move) and knit shirts from the fabric market, where Dirk's mad Mandarin skills earn us lower prices. We drink margaritas and get cheap massages at the local place and he makes pancakes with maple syrup (which I eat) and we walk around in the French Concession and complain about how it's raining but at least it doesn't smell like nail polish remover from the pollution.

I went for a run tonight and my unit plan on tolerance and prejudice is going extremely well. Each class started off saying that there are no groups in school, that they're all friends. But a short story, writing prompt, worksheet, and class discussion later, they were able to identify eleven distinct social boundaries in school. They have some reading tonight and their big essay this week is about those social boundaries, how they've been affected by them, and how they're going to overcome them.

And the best part is, they're getting it and they understand how it relates to the books they've read and how it relates to the Cultural Revolution, which they're about to learn about.

Speaking of, the Chinese department of education will be in. my. school. next. week.

Cripes!

We've got to take down their own personal pledges of allegiance and stay away from talks about things like tolerance and prejudice. Maybe I'll have them do vocabulary groupwork or something safe like that. Oh, and maybe I should take "nonconformity" off the Word Wall.

Good times with the Party, good times.

betholindo at 18:51

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