It’s been 2 weeks since I’ve came to the American International School of Hong Kong – and I haven’t died from heat stroke yet! Yay! While it has been hard trying to adjust to the hot and humid weather of Hong Kong, I was glad to find that it wasn’t as hard to adjust to teaching at AIS.

This week, I have started to teach! I focused on teaching Science-2 (Heat, temperature and thermal energy) and Chemistry Honours (Organic Chemistry), while helping out with the Science-1 class. My S.A. here was nice enough to give me multiple blocks of the same course so that I could practice and improve my lessons with each block. On Monday, I was very nervous about starting to teach, since I didn’t know a single student’s name, and I wasn’t familiar with the classroom style or the amount of technology that was available to me. However, I found that once I got up to stand at the front of the room, I forgot about all my insecurities and nervousness and just began to teach. I have to thank my F.A. during my long practicum for helping with that, as he would come in unannounced during my practicum to observe my lessons – it was nerve wracking, but it helped me learn how to deal with my “stage fright”. After this week of teaching at AIS, I am now certain that I can stand in front of a class and deliver a lesson, no matter how insecure I feel.

The technology available at AIS is different from the technology that was available to me at my long practicum at Magee Secondary. At Magee, I had access to a computer, a projector, a document reader, as well as the standard whiteboard. At AIS, however, I don’t have a log-on for the computer, nor a document reader. At Magee, I relied heavily on the document reader to write notes with my students, as that way, I can pace how quickly I go through information, as I would be writing down notes along with my students. Here at AIS, though, I found myself struggling to remember to slow down so that my students have sufficient time to write down notes. I also found myself struggling to adjust to the smaller classroom environment, which of course meant that the whiteboard space was also very limited. Despite it leading to my nervousness when I started to teach, I am grateful for this opportunity to work in a different environment, as it allowed me to think about how I can adjust my teaching. I shouldn’t be tied down to a certain classroom arrangement and technology, so I am glad that I can work on my flexibility as an educator so that I can succeed in different environments.

Despite differences in the physical classrooms, I find that students are the same no matter where I am. Students still like to chat in class, they like to goof around, and unfortunately, they want to learn… but only what is going to be on the test. The dreaded “Is that going to be on the test?” question was raised in class, but it didn’t matter how much I emphasized that learning should be about the learning and not about the test – the students were adamant that I answer their question. I start wondering about when did school become a letter-grade game as opposed to learning… In Canada, this probably starts in high school, when students start thinking about post-secondary education. However, in Hong Kong, students are ranked since elementary school. They are interviewed and selected after applying for elementary school, for high school. I always wondered at what kind of questions can they ask a 3 year old child to determine who is more “capable” to succeed in preschool. I suppose that when I was in high school myself, grades were important to me, as my parents put a heavy emphasis on the importance of education. In fact, ever since I was 10 or so, my mom has told me to do well in school, because if I didn’t get that acceptance into university and that scholarship, I would be, and I quote her, “flipping burgers for the rest of my life”. 10-year-old me knew that wasn’t what I wanted… so I made sure I got the grades to attend university. But even now, thinking back at my own education, I don’t think I ever thought that learning was only for the test, for the exam. Now, I just have to figure out a way to tell my students that…