I’m never ever teaching again

Two weeks, two class periods and about three hours of torture. OK, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but I kid you not — when I first tried to teach Sara Tseng’s Chinese 1 class, I felt like I was going to die.

When I first walked into that fateful room, I felt prepared, as I had gone over the class plan in my head.

Little did I know how frustrated I would become in just a few minutes. Since I have learned Chinese painting and calligraphy for since I was 10, Mrs. Tseng felt that it would be suitable for me to teach the students the art of Chinese New Year’s calligraphy.  

I wasn’t very confident in my skill, but I hardly wanted the freshmen to know that, so I attempted a facade of stubborn strength and superiority. Well, that didn’t work out too well, because I think I left the entire class with a loathing for my existence that could last the rest of their high school career. 

Mrs. Tseng loaded up some of the videos about the history of Chinese art and had the students watch them as I began to cut up some pieces of rice paper, a type of paper that Chinese artwork is usually drawn upon. Suddenly, I heard whispering in the dark room, then more whispering, until it became painfully obvious that the students weren’t even paying attention to the video. 

My temper flaring, I exclaimed, “I can hear you! Stop talking!” causing my fellow newspaper photographer to crack up. Silence finally fell, and I was content. However, almost instantly the whispering started again, and my temper began to fray again. I finally understood why teachers hate it when students talk during lecture; it is just downright annoying and disrespectful! 

Although I had originally planned on actually teaching something, I was simply instructed to demo some painting skills to the students on a screen projector. Once the painting was finished, my job was done, leading me to feel most inadequate. That was my first day of “teaching.”

A week later, I tried to come in and help instruct, but Mrs. Tseng already had everything up and running, leaving me, once again, without much to do. I scuttled around and tried to be useful. 

While I feel like I wasn’t very helpful, the experience of having to stand in front of a classroom was the most difficult. While I’m sure the Chinese 1 class will have something else to say, I was terrified of them. I kept thinking to myself, “What if I make a mistake? What if they hate me?” 

Thankfully, my teaching techniques were at least acceptable.

“You spoke a little softly and but in the end, after they saw you and you taught them, overall they did pretty well,” Mrs. Tseng said.

I found out later on that I wasn’t completely disliked by the students. 

”You were very good at what you did and you taught us about the culture of Chinese artwork,” freshman Matthew Wang said. 

Still, my teaching needs work.

“You didn’t make eye contact with everyone,” Wang said.

Managing to control and even befriend students in high school is a daunting task, and my own teaching experience has given me a much greater respect for all my teachers. I, for one, do not plan on ever teaching again. I can already predict what the outcome would be. Forget about being a tiger mom, I would be a tiger teacher.

Matthew Wang: You were pretty loud and kind of scary at first, but in the end it was ok.

Mrs. Tseng Quote: Because of the setting of the classroom, we could not let everyone see you draw, even with a document camera. Another thing, you  may have wanted to start with simpler techniques. All in all, you did a good job.