what we've being doing

In two days we finally go to Hong Kong! I can't wait to test my horrible-but-infinitely-better-than-my-Mandarin Cantonese.

The last two days have not been the most eventful. One consisted of checking the English comments of the Chinese teachers (the teachers have to write a comment for every student they have, that's 109 comments for me, er...not fun). For a good summary, check out conk's blog.

I had two parents come today. One was the mother for my two best history students, these two Japanese boys Satoru and Ryo. Since they are essentially perfect kids, I didn't have much to say and the mom and I politely stared at each other.

The other was Helen Cho's dad. Before the final, Helen told me that her parents were going to pull her out of the school if her scores were too low. I had high hopes though, since her grades have steadily risen from 78 to 80 to 87 on her tests.

The first two months of school, Helen hung out in the back corner of the room, and would stare at her dictionary all class. She didn't talk, had no idea what was going on, and her scores reflected that. Eventually, I figured out that she was texting from her dictionary.

When I did my big seat switch in my English B class (some of the other kids were talking too much), I decided to move Helen to the front and center. She protested, but slowly she started to participate in class. As each week passed, she talked more and more. The dictionary disappeared, and she listened to the lessons. These days, I can barely keep her from calling out the answers.

But, it turned out that Helen's failing just about all of her other classes, and mine was the only one she was doing alright in. I was secretly hoping that she would improve on her 87 and ace the final; it didn't work out that way though. Nope, it was a 73.

So, as I sat there with Helen's father in front of me, I didn't know quite how to begin. Mr. Cho was a sturdy, middled aged man. Serious, careful with his expressions. I waited twenty seconds, and neither one of us spoke.

I could feel sweat beginning to form, and I cracked first. I started off by telling him how much Helen had improved, and how much she contributed to class. I rattled off every positive I could think off. Eventually though, I had to get to the scores, and they weren't good, and we both knew it.

What made it harder was that Mr. Cho didn't speak English, and even though I could understand about 1/4 of his Mandarin, I was missing the most important words. Finally, I had to call over Holly (a returning teacher that speaks a fair amount of Mandarin) and she translated for me.

In the end, all he wanted was to know how Helen could be a better student. I gave him all the usual answers: study, practice, pay attention in class, etc...but really, what I wanted to tell him was that Helen just had to grow up a little. Schoolwork isn't that important to her, just like it isn't for many fourteen year old girls out there. I couldn't say it though, because we were told not to outright critisize the kids. The indirect method is the China way.

Cole had it much tougher; her day was basically a nonstop parade of parents, and they all spoke English, and they had questions. Many questions.

Anyway, parent meetings are over, and after tomorrow's all day end of semester teacher meeting, we'll be done!