National Teachers’ Day

Tuesday 10^th September

Today was National Teachers’ Day in China, there’s nothing quite like this in the UK.  It has to be said that despite some of the absurdities I’ve seen, there is a clear respect shown for teachers and the teaching profession which is rather lacking in the UK.  We don’t want to be seen as martyrs, but in the UK there seems to be a constant stream of criticism from politicians, the media, parents, that all adds to the pressure of the profession, all while having ‘long holidays’ thrown in your face,and I don’t find that evident here.

First thing some pupils came around our department giving out some flowers, which everyone appreciated. At break time we did the flag raising, postponed from Monday, and had the ceremony.  I admit feeling a bit frustrated that I was teaching every lesson today and lost my break for this, but it was nice seeing one of our Dept get an award, for something as it was not clear the basis they are awarded, and the flowers, pupils enjoyed taking part.  The flag raising was followed by a speech given by a Chinese member of staff and one of our dept, making it bilingual, and poems where read by pupils. Awards were given to numerous staff, and then a swarm of younger girls from the school ran out with bunches of flowers for us all, and an awkward hug!  Then we had to recite a pledge of alliegance to education/teaching, but it was led in Chinese and all the western staff quickly got lost despite having a translation given to us!

Lunchtime I popped home and got the flowers into water, hopefully they will last a few days.

After school I felt battered by teaching five 70 minute lessons.  I walked out to some new shops and bought a percolator, but cannot find any ground coffee, possibly Walmart have some.  Colleague going to another store offered to buy me a toaster that he had seen.  I’ve not seen a toaster anywhere since arriving, and while there is plenty of bread here there’s not much to do with it.  It’s a small, pretty cheap looking toaster, about what you’d get for £5 in Argos but it cost me nearly £15, and first use initially had a strong smell of burning plastic coming from it.  But at least I can have a round of toast in the morning...