My Frame of Reference Means Squat

When I heard we were having Sports Day at THIS (my school, Tsinghua International School), I was thrilled. I thought of Field Day at my last school, a day where students gather together on a big field outside, run around, and get to have fun all day. When one parent told me she would be keeping her son at home because no academics were taught, I assured her that Sports Day was a valuable way for the students to collaborate and enjoy school in a non-academically focused experience.
Right from the beginning, I should have known that I was wrong. By now, I should realize that my frame of reference means nothing over here, where second graders are first graders, traffic lights are mere suggestions, and almost anything put on a stick is considered food.

My school is a small Primary school in its second year that is on the campus of one of the largest and well-renowned school, Tsinghua University. We were honored to be invited by the Chinese Tsinghua School to join their Sports Day.

The whole day was unorganized, and in fact, unplanned even by the time we showed up at the field. We were told that my students were competing with the fourth graders from the other school. I am getting used to the feelings of frustration that I feel when I’m trying to negotiate anything in my outide life. In school, however, it was a new and even more frustrating feeling to be so unable to communicate. All of the other teachers spoke Chinese, and I was told second or third hand by my assistant. My kids actually overheard this frightening news before me, and then they were scolded by the Chinese teacher for making noise during the uber-serious “Opening Ceremony.” (I told her not to talk about it in front of them as if they can’t hear, which I’m sure she didn’t understand.)

Eventually after my insistent protests we were allowed to compete with the second graders at the Chinese school. First we had to wait for the entire opening ceremony, which consisted of serious marching and many long, serious speeches. What I saw at the second grade relays was unlike anything I have ever seen in an educational setting in my life. My students were indiscriminately broken up by the Chinese teachers into the 6 lines of second graders, each of which had about 40 students.

The “relay” consisted of the first student putting a hoop over each of the kid’s heads, which they stepped out of, until he or she made it to the end of the line. The rest of the students are supposed to stand in line and just wait for the hoop to pass through 40 second graders, until each has had a turn. Instead of waiting, however, the students from the other school were running around and physically fighting, punching and kicking each other. None of their teachers seemed to care: every once and a while, telling them to get back in line, and then letting them karate-kick each other in the chest while they were there. I’ve never been more appreciative of my wiggly kids and their apparently incredible self-control.

After that relay they chose 6 kids from each line to do the following relays, while the rest of the 200 kids who weren’t included ran around like maniacs.

The day culminated in a Closing Ceremony, filled with more boring speeches and an award ceremony where they gave every class a certificate for participating. They asked me to choose someone from our class to receive our award, which I did. Then they never called our class in the ceremony, which left my little ones literally kicking the air in frustration and disappointment. The icing on the cake was that on the way to the bus, some older kids handed out balloons to 5 of my 13 children, causing those left out to actually start crying.

What could I do? I took away all of the balloons and said we were going to have something for our whole class to share. (That made for an excellent atmosphere on the bus ride back.) Once in our classroom, I quickly printed out our own award,( thanks to Microsoft Publisher), and told them how proud I was of them for not following those other kids and for letting that school make a mistake like forgetting to give us our award. I told them that I thought Sports Day would be more fun, and then gave them playground until their parents picked them up.


Scariest Part of the Day: Physically restraining a 7 year-old, who had no idea what I was saying, so that he would stop punching and spin-kicking his classmate. This isn’t the picture of an obedient Chinese student that I’d been expecting from America.