School in Taiwan: Three months in...
Zoe's Communication book. I have to sign it every night. Teacher also stamps her chop, to indicate she's made sure Zoe wrote down all the correct assignments. The top has a list of her homework that she copies from the black board everyday. On the bottom is a short diary Zoe wrote. The blue note is a notice from the school about a performance on Monday, with a QR code to use to get more info.
When I first started posting, I said that the girls had at least two hours of homework a night. A week after that, the girls were averaging four hours a night of homework. They would get home at 4:15, open their backpacks, and then start. They’d be half-way to 70% done by dinner time at 6:45. Then after dinner at around 7:45, they would work for another 1-1.5 hours before I’d yell and scream for them to stop and go to bed. It was madness. I am a strong believer in sleep, and know how much they need, so would insist on a set bedtime. I’d tell them that it doesn’t matter if they don’t finish their homework, and that it doesn’t matter what grades they get. I just wanted them to try their best, but that sleep is sleep and they need it in so they can function properly and grow. Night after night, I’d beg for them to close their books. But they wanted to get stuff done. When we first decided to move to Taiwan, I warned the girls of all the homework they would have. But I told them it didn’t matter what grades they get, as long as they worked hard. But I never thought that they would work this hard, so hard that they’d sacrifice sleep! So now I’ve had to revise what I said, and prioritize sleep over finishing homework.
They take great pride in being able to check off all the items in their “Communication” book (this is a book they use to track all their to-dos with their teacher; and also have to write a daily diary). And, they never complained. They still don’t. They literally just grind through it. I am still confounded by this. Even though I’m not the one with the homework, I’d say that I’ve complained the most out of the five of us.
This is Chloe's Communication book. List of homework assignments up top, and on the bottom, she has to write a her daily diary. Note on the left side, she wrote so much she had to stick on another piece of paper (too much to say!). On the right there's usually a story. And on the very top, they teach an English saying everyday.
Despite my yelling, Chloe would sometimes go to bed at 10:00 or 10:30, and then not be able to fall asleep since her brain was so wired from homework. Starting around 8:00, I'd start to get stressed that they weren't ready to go to bed yet. Over time, I started to realize that it wasn’t feasible to just have the one tutor come and teach them every night, as one child would end up waiting around for the tutor to finish with the other. So I asked another tutor to come, hoping that she’d be able to help one while the other tutor helps the other…Most tutors are also not willing to come 5 days a week, and that’s what you really need when you move to a new country and your kids did not grow up with the language that they are now immersed in. Some people have asked me why I need a tutor, and well, the answer is simple: picture moving here from the US, with just basic Kindergarten skills of speaking and reading Chinese. And then having to read the equivalent of Shakespeare (classic Chinese), chapters on social studies, science theories on how plants grow, math word problems, all in Chinese. I don’t know how to say 'parliament,' 'Bunsen burner,' or 'reservoir' (they had a whole section on water in social studies) in Chinese. It would take me forever to teach them, not to mention the fact that I am a terrible teacher. We’d get into fights, and there would be lots of tears.
A page from Chloe's social studies book My head explodes just reading it.
One of Zoe's math worksheets. I feel like there's never enough room for scratch work.
It’s not easy. Within one sentence, there could be two adjectives and three verbs that needs to be read and explained. Multiply that by 40 sentences…do the math and it becomes clear on why the girls have 4+ hours of homework a night. This is just for Chinese, social studies, and science. And then there’s math. They love word problems here. So even if Chloe and Zoe could do the problem in English, they can’t do it in Chinese unless someone reads it to them. An example: “Bobby walks 5 km to the school. He then goes home after school, but first he goes to the hospital, which is 2km away. Then he stops at the 7-Eleven 3km from there…” You get the point. Long word problems, which take time to read, and then solve.
Words that are so hard! Chloe writes the meaning in English sometimes on the bottom.
As I write this post, and look over at Chloe’s words, I see the words to the right. I honestly do not know what half of these words mean. It’s not like you can easily look it up online either, since you need to know the sound of it in order to type it, and then it takes a while to pick the character (yes, we have tried other computer vision apps, but those don’t always work well either). Also, these words aren’t commonly used. Some of them sound like lawyer speak to me. Some of them are really old phrases that you’d hear an old grandpa say. So that’s where the tutor comes in.
Tutors for some reason were incredibly difficult for me to find. One of them started for a few days, and then quit and said she had to start Japanese lessons. Another quit dramatically one day after not being able to handle the “pressure” (we are still confounded by what pressure she had, especially since I told her I could care less what grades the girls get). We now have two tutors, and it seems to be working out fine. One of them is merely twenty years old, and is a sophomore in college. But we lucked out because her English is really good: on the first day, Chloe asked her what a word meant, and she immediately said, “Community.” I was pleasantly surprised as I was still trying to come up with the meaning in my head. Turns out she had studied at an American school in Shanghai when she was growing up not long ago, so had perfect pronunciation and very good English (and clearly she was very smart to have retained all of that when she was young). The other tutor was recommended by Chloe’s teacher (I’m still not quite sure why I didn’t think of asking him earlier in the school year), and teaches children with special needs at their school. So, she can walk here right after school, and she has infinite patience.
The girls have since had midterms. One morning, Chloe said she tested for four hours, with a short break in between where she could use the bathroom. I never thought the girls would have taken midterms by now, in 4th and 5th grade. Since the school knows they are from the US, they did provide some extra help in terms of reading the questions – like I said, they can do the math problems if they know what the question is asking. Chloe’s teacher actually texted me a day after the exams, and said, “your daughter did very well on her tests.”
While reading this, you may wonder what Chloe and Zoe think about their school...well, they really like it. Zoe said on a Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, "I wish we had school tomorrow! I love our school. It is SO FUN." I have some theories on how the school is able to foster this, despite how much homework there is, but I'll have to save that for another post. They have both made a couple of good friends, and are really enjoying learning. And as for Phoebe, she loves her school too. More on her experience later.