Chapter 13 - Tough to be a kid in China

Hello mother and everyone else,
So yesterday i had my eyes opened up. I went to my scheduled morning class and when i got there the class was so happy to have me teaching. (i always get there early so i have some time to play and interact with the kids). Well i was doing so and the kids were laughing and then it went all quiet. Their chinese english teacher had walked in. she pulled me outside and said that it was her time to teach and so i was like okay i will leave no problem. Well i went back in the classroom to get my backpack and the kids were like "aw dont leave". "you teach" they started getting louder, then the chinese teacher stomped her foot on the floor really hard & started yelling at them in chinese. Instantly their heads dropped. Here i am towering over this lady but yet i felt smaller than the kids in the desk. The fun laughing environment that was once there was a frozen wasteland where not even a stick breaking could be heard. I said "this is little awkward im just going to leave" i really said that but no one understood me of course. I turned around and gave a slight wave of happiness to the kids and only a few dared to wave back with their chinese teacher still there standing over the class. As i left she slammed her hand on the desk and then continued to yell at the kids in chinese. Horrible horrible i felt so mad but even worse i felt the pain for those kids ;-(
Later that day i had that class again and it was my class so i made it my job to make everyone smile because i know that they had a very hard day. so i taught a lesson on friends. my purpose was to show the kids that im their friend! All of them got it and it was a super fun class! and yes i did get everyone to smile!
Also after that class i was walking back to my flat and i saw one of my other classes so i stuck my head in to say hi and to see that there was no teacher. So they were like come in teach!!! so eager to learn! I was a little confused about where their teacher was but i guess they have a period in the day where they just study & read books when no teacher is in the classroom. So the class insisted that i stay and teach. well i have no lesson planned so i just started asking them questions in english. They have school from 8 in the morning to 9pm. Way too much school! They have 21 books that they have to have for class. They absolutely hate the books! they say they are boring! i looked through it and it was super boring. Stuff way too easy for them just work sort of stuff. And i asked if they liked their teachers. The only other teacher than myself that they like is their art teacher because he is funny. All the other teachers are mean, strict, give lots of homework and yell at them. here im about to break out in tears because you can hear it in their voice that they hate school, they are pressured so badly from their parents to do well in school because the parents pay alot of money to have their kids in this school. Also there is no time for them to be a kid! No recess, no weekends, nothing. Broke my heart. I asked a kid what he does do for fun and his response to me was "having you teach us english" my jaw dropped. i was in the class and i asked everyone if they felt the same. A girl stood up "can you teach us every period of the day?" it was one heart melting comment after another. so in this 45 min period where there was no teacher, the kids were the teacher. They taught me that they love to learn they just dont like how some teachers teach. They showed me how they truly felt and shared all their emotions because i think they see me as a friend! so today my eyes were opened up and i got to see the school and the teaching from the kids point of view. Now i just have to use this information to better my teaching so the kids can enjoy it and break away from the ordinary and actually start to love learning.
Well i love it here and it has been teaching me so many new things!!!
i love and miss you all
Jordan