I am a teacher. Yikes.

I cut myself out because I am definitely not as cute as these kids.

Here is half of the classroom. pretty fancy.


Here is one of our two bulletin boards. Haha. I wanted the class to pick a 'team name' and they all decided on Pokemon. perfect. I knew my love for that card game, show, etc. would be able to manifest itself here.

Here is the other half of the classroom.

Isn't she adorable? I mean the one on the left. Please don't look at my face. I've been tired for 3 weeks now.

Larson = crazy.
She is much, much cuter than she looks. haha.



My first grade class is so cute. Of course, they are first graders so they have some first grade issues- like freaking out and going crazy for no reason. I really have 7 students, but there are only four in the picture. I was helping them understand commas, periods, italicized words, and how to read them. Now, you can definitely hear that pause I told them to take when they come to a comma. It is so cute. They get these tokens if they catch another student using 'chinglish,' which is basically speaking english with the grammar rules of chinese. Now, everyone reads much more carefully because they don't want to be corrected by another student. I think my favorite thing that has happened though, took place today. I have been trying to get the kids to pronounce 'appropriately,' as well as some other words. As I was spelling it out on the board, I turned around and saw that Becca was writing something on her hand. I walked over to her and realized that she had written words all over her hand and one on her arm. It was all of the words that the students had trouble with...she was so cute. She just wanted to remember them and practice later.

I do feel bad for these kids. It is summertime for them, but they are still at school ALL day (as in 8am-7 pm). It seems like many of them to not get much discipline at home because they are really never at home. The discipling is expected to happen at schools, which leaves us with some CRAZY students. Basically, we are allowed to discipline the kids however we want, minus hitting (which, they aren't too strict on). The secretaries at the school do that on occasion. It is definitely a different lifestyle here. There are entrance exams into the better junior highs so kids are competing their whole lives. They are sure smart, but they miss out on so many things.

I was showing my first graders a song clip from High School Musical so they could do a writing assignment on it. The subtitles were on and after a minute or so, they tried to sing along with the song. They couldn't quite do it, but they sure looked cute trying. One of my students also pointed out that a girl on the movie was fat. I told her that was not a nice thing to say and to not say things like that about people because it hurts their feelings. Another little girl pointed out that, yes, she was fat, but she was also probably nice. haha...she also wrote that in her writing assignment. At least she realizes fat people can be nice. geez. I realized that me telling the girl to not say things like that would not be very affective. I need to figure out a different approach. Almost everyone in Taiwan is thin. They don't experience other cultures like we get to in America. I was in the computer lounge and some students were in there with a teacher watching a Michael Jackson video. The boy asked why he was black. They also think people who are tan are ugly. What a change from America... Homeless people are tan and therefore, if you are tan, you must be homeless. There are MILLIONS of scooters everywhere and all of the people riding on them cover their entire body. Being white is beautiful to them. I have decided to take my kids on a trip around the world (figuratively, of course). They think this way because they don't know any other way...so we will see what our ''trip'' does.