Kindergarten Revisited

Sometimes, I hate my job! I was heading up the stairs to my last kindergarten class, and as I rounded the corner I saw, on the emerging landing, a small boy gleefully weeing on his friend’s shoes rather than the bucket so placed for the purpose. OH MY LADY GAGA. I’m developing strategic tunnel vision and deafness and can ignore the stares and phlegm hacking of adults and kids using the toilet pots in the corner of the classrooms pretty successfully … but there was just no escaping this!

There are some things you just don’t get used to – hence the tunnel vision – and fair enough, I’m the stranger here. It is wearying though. It’s a hard sensation to describe, on one hand I never want to leave – on the other hand, I can’t wait to be finished. I’m still here making the best of things, but in my heart of hearts I just know I’m not cut out to be a kindergarten teacher. Actually, scratch that. I’ve always known I’m not cut out to be a kindergarten teacher. TTC and I-to-I have just given me four and a half months of confirming that... thanks… Having said that I wouldn’t want to forget any of this experience, however harrowing it sometimes is, so here is what happens in my Kindergartens.

Housing in Handan is divided into what you might describe as gated neighbourhoods which all are semi autonomous. They mostly have a kindergarten, exercise equipment and an open space for the old people to loiter, a shop (or at least street food sellers pitched at the gates) and X number of blocks of flats. The Lilac Education Group, who I work for, is owned by a big housing company (which, incidentally, we appeared in a commercial/promotional film for a few weeks ago) and they have four kindergartens as well as a primary school and the Foreign Language School where I do my evening classes. I work in Number 1 and Number 2, Laura has Numbers 3 and 4. Kindergarten One is around the corner from Zheng Tong Xiao Qu – the neighbourhood where I live - about a ten minute walk away. From the outside, it looks like a duplo castle blown up to gigantic proportions; there’s even a turret. Kindergarten Two is a half hour taxi ride away and is like a primary coloured fortress.

I don’t think I’ve said much about taxis so far have I? They are an integral part of our life here, so I’d better remedy that. There are two kinds – the modern blue coloured ones whose starting charge is y6 and the red ones at y5 where you take your life in your hands and hope the car isn’t going to fall apart! As we’ve one working bike between three of us and buses are incomprehensible (though much cheaper – anywhere for y1) anywhere we want to go beyond walking distance or as a group, we go by taxi. I have found that much as there are two distinct colours of taxi, there are two distinct breeds of driver. Firstly, the ones who are dour, silent, refuse to understand where we’re asking to go and drive you the longest way possible kind; secondly the ones who are chatty, laugh good-naturedly at our fumbling Mandarin and drive you the longest way possible! It’s everyone for themselves on the roads, with lots of horn honking to let people know where you are since lane discipline, traffic lights, queues and donkey carts, push bikes, electric cycles, mopeds, pedestrians, potholes, U-turns and staying on one particular side of the road are all negotiable factors. In one of the most delightful bits of physical irony I’ve encountered, at the bottom of ‘Model Civilisation Road’ (on my way to Kindergarten 2) is an eight lane crossroads with no lights, or lanes. Chaos!

I arrive, in an I-hate-the-morning rush, and go straight to my first class at K1 or fish out my assistant at K2. On Mondays (at K1) I have three classes of the eldest tots, using ‘Hello Melody!’ book 5 and one class who use book 3. With Hello Melody 5 I have taught such gems as: “On the road, I see a car./I see a car go Ba! Ba! Ba!/On the road, I see a lady./I see a lady in a taxi.” …and… “It’s so hot. It’s so hot./In the desert, it’s so hot./Lots of eagles, lots of rocks. Camels going for a walk.” Riveting stuff. It’s pretty much the same in each class – I walk in, get handed some flashcards then the teachers, if they’re good (and at kindergarten 1 they mostly are) help keep order and translate when my mimes and didactic instructions fail. If they’re not massively interested (Kindergarten 2, take a bow) they chat in the corner, play on their phones and laugh in my face when I ask for help in getting through to fifty uncomprehending (and therefore bored) five year olds.

There’s lots of drilling, saying words at different volumes and in different groupings (half the class, one table, individuals, girls only). Unfortunately, the kids are too young to understand most of the games which spring immediately to my mind, so I’ve got a few which work and we stick with them. I play one where I put the flashcards up, have a student come to the front and cover their eyes and listen to the rest of the class shout out a word. They have to pick the right card from the line up and say the word for a high five or a point, depending on how competitive we’re being. There’s a fair bit of singing too, but again, only songs with the simplest words get through – Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes is WAY too complicated!

Although after all these weeks some kids still cry as I walk into the room, mostly the kids are adorably glad to see me, which is always nice. It’s really satisfying to make kiddies laugh; who knew that peek-a-boo, a rogue wiggly arm and pretending to stomp on a flashcard of a cockroach would set me up as a comedian in my own estimation?!! I’ve had some absolute comic howlers from these babies in return which makes the mornings pass quicker too – one lesson I had to teach “give me a kiss!” to a class of four year olds. They get excited when they get the hang of new stuff, and the boys especially shout new words at the top of their voices so I had thirty kids absolutely bellowing at me to kiss them. What it is to be popular eh?! Another one went along the lines of me: “talk show! TALK show! T – alk sh-ow!” kids: “torture! TORTURE! TORTURE!!” … close enough kids, close enough I thought. Oh that memory makes me smile! I’ll leave it on a high there and revel in the fact I don’t have to go back until Monday!!