A Life in the Day


Okay, so it is 5.30am on a Monday morning. It is time to get up. Showering, getting dressed and having breakfast are usually slow-motion action replays, only not so fast. Then, after a twenty-five minute walk along the street and through the park, I arrive at Green Oasis School, also known as GOS. It's a good school in the centre of Futian, the posh central district of Shenzhen. I am now in my fifth and final year as a Year 5 teacher. Of course I cannot speak much Mandarin and I cannot read any at all, but fortunately I have the wonderful services of my assistant or "teaching partner", Miss Yanee.

 Friday, 15th of June, 2018, will be my last day in the teaching profession and then my wife and I will be returning to Bulgaria for our retirement. We will be leaving just after my 59th birthday, so I will still be a whisker away from being an OAP.
The Porter's Lodge, as I quaintly call it
Teaching Chinese students is a delight. The nine- and ten-year-olds in my class have Mandarin as their first language and that is a bit of a problem because the curriculum is all in English. (Well, apart from their Mandarin lessons, everything else is all in English.) However, the amazing thing is that the students just get on with it. The children do not complain or whinge about having all of their education in a foreign language. Their parents want them to learn English and so the children respect their parents' wishes. ("Respect" is a word that we use a lot at Green Oasis.) On the other hand, it might be the case that government-run Chinese schools are so absolutely dreadful, with sixty or more students in the class and the teachers whacking the poor children every five seconds, so maybe the Green Oasis students have cottoned on to the fact that really things are much better at GOS.


This is a dreadful photo of me trying to look intellectual.
Now it is time for some more photos. Here is a ghastly one of me, sitting at my desk and pretending to do some work. Note the white, green and red flag on the wall, plus lots of other things to do with a certain country in SE Europe.

This is a great photo of Miss Yanee looking like herself!

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