Summer of Service

For all the mothers out there who check this blog multiple times a day, I'm blogging for you because I know you have not had the satisfaction of reading a new entry for 2 WHOLE DAYS. Okay, so here goes:
2 major things have happened over here in our dear little town of 300,000 people since I last blogged. First, I was on a Chinese t.v. show. Bizarre, I know. The show was very much like a "Star Search," a t.v. show looking for talented youth. The wanted a foreign female to be one of the judges for the finals, so I stepped up because I thought, "hey, when will I ever have this chance again?" Seeing the backstage of a t.v. show set was interesting and simply confirmed what I had imagined before - chaotic, decisions being made at the last minute. I was instructed to "judge fairly" and that I could only award between a 9.7 and a 9.99. I didn't really understand why that was necessary. They said it was because it was the finals and they were all so good anyway. Okay. So I sat there most of the time doing math, which is not my strong suit. They introduced me and my school and I could see the playback on a screen they had set up. But, let me be the first to say that Leslie, Andrew, and Francine got just as much airtime as I did. The show was completely ridiculous. We all kept cracking up. It was an experience that only the 4 of us will ever completely understand.
In other news, headway was made in my drill yesterday. Well, slight headway. We were talking about religion and Falungong came up. If you don't know what falungong is, well, I don't really either so google it. Basically it's a religion that is forbidden by the Chinese government. Surprisingly, the kids quite willingly talked about it, but I soon became tired of hearing them recite what they had clearly read in the newspaper. I also noticed that when asked to defend their own arguments, they couldn't. "Tracy, why do you think science is better than religions?" "Because science is truth." That's not a good enough argument. This is the problem. There is not enough critical thinking going on over here. The students are not taught how to analyze and think for themselves. They are merely machinese that memorize and spit out. However, that is a huge generalization. I have had some students say some very interesting things that demonstrates that they have indeed been thinking about things. One student, Shirley, said to me, "well, maybe China changes its textbooks...?"
So, the lesson for everyone - Always question and consider what you've been told, then decide for yourself.