A Portrait of the Teacher by a Young Student
14 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Teaching Tags: Classes, Obama, Students
A student from my underground literature class wrote an article about her experience with my teaching method. I had been helping the student develop her writing skills so that she could perform well on the GREs as her dream is to go to graduate school on edge of the prairie in Garrison Keillor Country — a place I had fond memories of from a journey I took in a former life. What follows is an article she wrote about my class for a Minneapolis/St. Paul based e-zine called China Insight.
In the article, she recalls the first day I introduced myself to the class. Her perspective can be compared with mine as I had written about it too in the post “Back to School.”
What follows is an excerpt from her article:
A Journey to Hengshan Mountain
13 Nov 2009 1 Comment
in Traveling Tags: Buddhism, dreams, fox women, guanxi, Hengshan, nature, Students, Taoism
We took the midnight express back to Chenzhou from Hengshan late Saturday night. This meant getting dirty. I once spent four years as a grunt. Digging foxholes and wading through marshes was dirty work too. I look back at this previous incarnation with nostalgia as I board a crowded train in which tickets were sold beyond seating capacity for people to stand or sit in the aisles. The windows were sealed shut. There was the sound of people hawking up snotty yellow mucous. Chewed up sunflower seeds and cigarette butts scattered upon the floor. Old men with rotten, nicotine stained teeth smoked in the thresholds between cars. They came back to their seats smelling like death and brimstone. One such man hovered above me in the seat behind me. He was listening to the banter of my seat mates: five college age boys with long finger nails and high hair were engaged in a riveting discussion with my two guides and a lady returning home from a Shanghai shopping trip.
Lit Week 1: Intro to Thoreau
08 Sep 2009 Leave a Comment
in Podcasts Tags: China, Classes, Literature, Students, Teaching
I gave students an assignment: read Thoreau’s essay “Reading” and make notations about passages that have special meaning. For instance, why does Thoreau refer to some readers as cormorants and ostriches?
Lit Week 1: Why Read?
07 Sep 2009 Leave a Comment
in Podcasts Tags: China, Literature, Students, Teaching
Through various readings, I find out how familiar students are with Western literature. One poem about the Congo River by Vachel Lindsay, an American, intrigues them. They ask if it is really a “rap” song…
A Dream Come True
01 Sep 2009 Leave a Comment
in Podcasts Tags: Classes, Drama, Literature, Students
After being informed by Xiangnan University that I will be teaching Literature to juniors and Drama to seniors, I head off to dinner along noisy streets to ponder the situation…
