Hooray for the Holidays!

Hooray for China's National Holiday! This past week was rough. This week was monthly exam week, which means that all of the students (grade 4 - 12) took exams in every single subject. That means every single teacher, including yours truly, had to write and grade every exam for every class.

In China, the exams are taken much more seriously than in the US. Classroom participation and homework only account for 10% of the grade, and 90% is based on the students' performance on two monthly exams, a midterm and final. A student can receive a zero on his/her homework grade, but ace the class by performing well on the exams. As a result, you can only imagine the stress level at the school this week. Even the fourth graders have to take exams.

On top of the exams, the government made all teachers and students attend school this weekend to make up for our holiday next week. In China, it's common for many businesses to work overtime during the weekends before a major holiday. This means that I have been working all 7 days since last Sunday, and boy has it been brutal. The last two days have been pretty draining, and my brain is now as good as mush.

On the bright side, we took the 4th and 5th graders out yesterday and had a tug of war competition. Here are some pictures.

Here's Dione, Nancy and Sophie. They are my 5th grade geography students.

Here's Jonathon, another one of my 5th graders.

I don't know who the kid in the middle is, but to the left is Vincent and to the right is Chris. They are also 5th graders.

Let the tug of war begin! Pull!

Little Dione pulling with her mighty strength

Next came the 4th graders. Here's Jerry, one of my students in 4th grade Science.

Erica and Ellen smiling for the camera. Hi! My name is Michael Tiger, and I like Science!

Michael trying to act cool...haha
Pull Michael pull (poor kid)!

Come on Ellen! PULL!!!
Jerry and Powell hanging on for dear life.

Ariel watching from the sidelines.

Yay! We won!

Somehow the boys got themselves tangled up in the rope.

And then they fell down and started to cry.

All in all, it was a great day for the 4th and 5th graders at SHSID.