Becoming “Maple Leafers”

Partly because we like to try and pile as much on our plates as we can, and partly because we like to be helpful, we have recently agreed to help out with some of the clubs and extra-curricular activities that are a large part of the Maple Leaf school community atmosphere here.

  Paul has taken on the assistant coach’s role for the ultimate Frisbee club.  Every Tuesday and Thursday 50-60 boys and girls get together on one of the campus turf fields to practice playing ultimate. The discs are great (custom made with the team name- “mallards”- on them) the field is wonderful and the skill level... well its varied to say the least. Many of the students have great technical skill with a disc, and can throw back and forehand passes (although it can be tricky to get any kind of long pass in with the serious wind that blows through here). What almost every student is lacking in is “field sense.”

Back home, it is fairly typical for kids to be enrolled in soccer, baseball, lacrosse, hockey, etc. when they are five years old. We grow up playing sports and many students will play some sort of sports out in the community as well as in their gym class in elementary or high school. This isn’t the case in China where many parents never played sports, and few encourage their children to play sports unless they show a particular aptitude (at which point, sport becomes EVERYTHING). Many of the Maple Leaf students have never played organised, competitive sports, so teaching them how to find open space, lose a check, make cuts and generally not run into each other is the focus of most of our practices. The students are eager to learn and Adam (another teacher and the other coach) is great at coming up with drills that the players can use in game situations. So far it has been a LOT of fun!!!

Kristen also signed herself and Paul up for conversation club and movie night. Once a month teachers meet with students in an informal setting (a local cafe owned by an ex teacher) and just chat. The goal it to help the students work on their English conversation skills in a way that is fun for both the teachers and the students. We have our first “shift” tomorrow. Should be great! Either way we get free coffees and fries so really, it doesn’t matter!

For movie night, both of us will chaperone a Friday or Saturday night showing of an English movie for the high school girls who don’t have passes to leave campus. It gives the girls something to do, and they are always looking for teachers to sponsor these events so that they can get permission to gather together and watch a movie. Our first night is next weekend, and we think that the movie will be Wall.E. Which just happens to be a favourite of ours.