Huang Gang Middle School

My School!

The Guangzhou branch of the school where we are working was built just last year. The final project is still not completed: the teachers’ dormitories still need to be built and the sports facilities need to be completed. I can only imagine what this place will look like once everything is done. Here are some photos of the campus as it looks now.

Basketball courts and race track. 

Cafeteria 

Front entrance - complete with 24 hour security

Emily on the soccer field

The school at night

School model - along with the teachers' dorms, tennis courts, a swimming pool, and an indoor athletic facility will be built. 

The amount of time students spend in class here boggles my mind. It is an extremely regimented boarding school. There is music played over loud speakers at 6:20am to wake everyone up. Morning exercises and breakfast are done by 7:40, and then the first class begins at 8:00am. There is a 2 hour break at lunch time when students and teachers nap. Class resumes at 2:15 until dinner at 5:25. After dinner, there is a short period of free time and then students return to class at 6:30-9:30 pm. 13.5 hours (minus breaks) from start to finish! 

I’m still not sure how many students attend the school. Together, Emily and I see more than 800 students per week but we have both seen students around campus that we know are not in any of our classes. We teach 21 lessons a week (each is 40 minutes long) and in each class there are between 20 and 22 students. We are very lucky with our class sizes. Normally, classes in China can have up to 70 students!

Because the official teacher dormitories aren’t built yet, all of the teachers live in a building that will eventually be used for students. Emily and I both have two rooms to ourselves. Each room is meant to house 6 students! Our rooms are very comfortable, despite looking and feeling very institutional upon arrival.

Matt, the other foreign teacher, lives just down the hall from us with his wife and their 3-year-old son, Jay. Jay speaks English with his father and Chinese with his mother and is absolutely adorable.  A few times a week, we hang out with him after we’re done teaching for the day. He brings his scooter or tricycle out on the track and we’ll race him or watch him hang upside down on the play equipment. He’s a funny little guy, but is clearly experiencing only-child syndrome. I think it’s even worse because he is showered with attention everywhere he goes on campus. Groups of girls fawn over him (we call them his fans).  Emily referred to him as a jealous boyfriend the other day. She was watching him hit tennis balls with his ‘papa’ and started chatting to one of her students who was passing by. Jay was trying to get her attention, but once he realized that she was talking to another boy he hit her with his tennis racquet! Despite behavior like this, he is still so endearing.