Off to School

     I woke up to a duo of "firsts" today:  open windows in our apartment, and a job.  Early this morning Terry had shut off the air conditioning for the first time this fall, taking advantage of a brisk, fresh breeze courtesy of Typhoon Megi.  The coolish air didn't last for more than a few hours, but it certainly put a little more wind in my sails as I got ready for my first day of substitute teaching here in Shenzhen.  This morning I was remembering that I had said about the time the weather cooled down a bit here, I'd be ready to start subbing.  How coincidental that the day it was finally cool enough to open the windows was also my first day off to school.
     Another delay to getting started subbing was transportation.  Specifically, I had to get over not having a car.  I have three choices for getting to a school in my area of the city:  taking a taxi, walking, or biking.  Taxis can be next to impossible to find during the morning and evening rush hours.  Walking to the school where I worked today takes about 35-40 minutes, which gets to be a long trek while carrying a school bag, especially at the end of the day, even when it's not hot.  That leaves biking.
     Last week I had a Chinese friend take me to a bike shop and help me buy a traditional Chinese bike.  By traditional Chinese I mean spending the least amount of money to get the job done.  For 260 RMB, just under $40, I came home with a lightweight cruiser and two locks.  I sprung for a few luxuries:  front and rear fenders, a basket for the front and a rack for the back, AND a kick stand.  So far, my bike is sufficient for my needs.  After walking most everywhere in my neighborhood for nine weeks, it's been a treat to finally get wheels.  It took me a little over 15 minutes to bike to school this morning.  This was with my extra measure of caution, given all the potential problems presenting themselves to a new bicyclist in China, even in this relatively calm and westernized part of the city we live in.  That's a topic for a separate blog.
     Today I was working on the middle school campus of the American international school that Leah attends.  The school is participating in a regional athletic event, and today my job was to fill in for an 8th-grade teacher who's a volleyball coach.  I had an English class, a writing class and two different math classes.  This was a different world altogether from subbing back at home.  A mild-mannered administrator who could take time to give me a 10-minute tour first thing. 18-20 kids in a classroom.  No bells, no passes, no need to take attendance after first period because apparently kids don't skip.  Students listened when I spoke.  They got right down to work and stayed on task until the very end of class.  No dreamers, no laggards, no complainers, no one was sneaking texts under the desk.  The teacher had left very detailed notes, including names of a few potential troublemakers.  "Chatting" seemed to be the potential trouble, but pretty much the only chatting was about the assignments.  Either I'm a real Viola Swamp (the formidable sub from the Miss Nelson picture books that we read to Em and Leah when they were little), or life in a private international school in China really is different.
     I think back to the worst things that have happened in classrooms on my watch:  hate-filled, hair-pulling fights that have ignited in a flash, chairs getting tossed out the art room window, a snake getting let loose.  Fortunately these sorts of events were rare, and they did not happen in classes of academically ambitious kids like those in today's classrooms.  But even in the classrooms with similarly able and ambitious students at home, there always seemed to be some kids testing the limits somehow--there wasn't this predictable, calm atmosphere of obedience.  There's something about the deviant and the edgy in a challenging classroom that seems more real to me.  To use a neighborhood analogy, it's kind of like the difference between the wide, quiet, sanitized expat stroll down Wanghai Road that has lots of comfortable shops and businesses, versus a watch-your-feet walk down winding, narrow, disheveled Old Street, a three-block stretch that's left over from this place's fishing village days, where people are busy making a living at all kinds of things, and where you never quite know what you'll run into.
     So that's what I'm thinking about after one day in one classroom at one school.  Tomorrow I'll go back to this same school for a different teacher, who has math and art classes.