End of the Semester and Winter School

Well, here I am sitting on the weekend after we just finished the semester. It went extremely quick, and as any teacher knows the last couple of weeks are much more intense as grades are being compiled. The next 2 weeks start something called Winter School.

Winter School is "non-mandatory/mandatory" school for students. This is kind of like open practices or summer gym sessions for basketball players in America. You don't have to attend, and the coach cannot make you...but everyone still does and knows that unless they have a great excuse they need to be there.

The same is true of this school time in Taiwan. The government does not allow schools to have mandatory school during these next 2 weeks, but nearly every Middle and High School has a Winter School time. On top of that all of the students still come to class, even though they are not required. Taiwan also has a summer school time that is similar to this, and here's how most schools approach the situation. Maybe they send a letter home that says something like this:



Dear Joe Tenth Grader,

We will be starting winter school for the next 2 weeks. As you know you do not have to come. During Winter School we will continue in the curriculum and our physics class will be analyzing Chapters 8-10 of the textbook. If you choose not to attend please catch up on your own so you can continue next semester.

Have a good break,

Jane Physics Teacher



Now...letters like this are probably not written and I threw in a little saracasm, but the general idea is the same. Classes continue as they normally would and if a student misses class they will have to make up all the work their classmates did. Parents also like to have their kids in school because they don't get a break from work, and would rather have their kids studying then home alone playing games.

So during Winter School I will have the same schedule as the first semester. Andrew and I are not too keen on the idea of winter school. We fully believe our students' lives already revolve around studying and could use a break, so we decided to show movies during this time. It will give them a chance to relax and also the movies are in English, so it is a chance to practice some listening. Plus it is no prep work or grading for me :) The exception to this is my Advanced English class, who will be working on a fun project invovling Shakespeare. I know...I know..the words "fun" and "Shakespeare" do not go together, but I think the students really will enjoy it. I can write about that at a different time.

During the second week I will going to Vietnam on a mission trip. The school approved the trip and thus are excusing me from the second week of teaching. Andrew will be around to finish showing the movies and I will have a substitute for a couple of classes.

I'll write more about Vietnam in a future post.

Christmas Skits and Pictures

One more post. I would like to post a couple of Christmas pictures and also some links for those of you interested in seeing more. First the pictures come from one of the skits that I helped with this year. Every year the school asks the foreign teachers to perform a skit for the Christmas Worship. This year Emilie helped to create a skit based on High School Musical, a Disney Channel Movie that many students at CMS love! In the play I played the part of Ryan Evans, and was made my dancing debut. Believe me, my dancing wasn' pretty, but it was all in good fun. I think the kids loved the play and pray that they understood the message. So here are a couple of pictures from the performance.


This is Noel and I in the middle of our dance. She coreographed the dance based on what was actually done in the movie. It took me some practice to get it down, but in the end it was quite fun to perform.



This picture is of the entire cast for our play. All of us teach at Concordia Middle School. The cast is as follows: Emilie, Ray, Noel, Me, Molly, Kevin, Michelle, Andrew (left to right).


If you are interested in seeing more from Christmas, our coordinator here in Taiwan (Matt Wasmund) does a good job of taking pictures and posting them on the Internet. Check out his personal website at: http://picasaweb.google.com/mattwasmund

There are several albums for Christmas activities. Feel free to check them out and ask me any questions if you have them.

Enjoy, don't laugh too hard.

Christmas Caroling

I wanted to write a little bit more about our Christmas celebrations from this past year. One of my highlights is always Christmas caroling. This year I went twice, once for the Friday Night Bible Study Christmas Party (the Friday before Christmas) and the second was with the CMS students that live on campus (on Christmas Eve). I always love the chance to work up and down the streets with the students and fellow teachers singing favorite Christmas songs. I would like to quickly share a couple of quick stories from the two activities.

First, during the Friday Night Bible Study time, I was leading a group with an 8th grade student accompanying me. This was pretty exciting because this student has been helping with guitar off and on this semester and continues to improve at it. It is nice to see him taking ownership and interest in helping us lead songs at Friday Night Bible Study. As we were heading back to church, a lady rushed up to me and told me to stop at small shop. Upon arriving at the shop, I found that was a store that sold ghost money. Ghost money used in Taiwanese folk religion to offer a sacrifice to local gods, in hopes of ensuring better luck in the future. The lady brought out here baby and wanted to listen to us sing songs. Immediately I decided to sing Silent Night, which is the only song that we have a Chinese verse for. The lady and her child seemed to really enjoy the music, and I pray that it can be a witness to the love that God offers them in Christ Jesus.

The second caroling experience was with the students who live at school. On Christmas Eve we all met at 8:30pm and split into 3 groups. We then went to different streets near the school to go sing Christmas Carols. One highlight from this actually came the day prior to our caroling. I went to a local tea stand to buy a green tea (my usual) and the owner asked if we would be coming around the next day to sing Christmas songs. I was really touched that he remembered and was anticipating our arrival. I told him that we would, and he was excited. He knew that Christmas was approaching and that we would be out celebrating and singing. I praise God that things like Christmas caroling can make such a strong impact. It is just one simple way to share the love of God with others.