I’m going to start with some feelings that aren’t so specific to me or year 10. Skip to the line that starts with “Year 10” for more specific thoughts.
It feels like yesterday that we all came into our office room, amazed at the beautifully decorated walls and picking up our chalkboards for the first time. I remember picking up our lesson plan sheet, taking note of the future weeks’ plans with other Duke students to better plan ahead, but now, we’re already here. I feel badly for the Friday classes who only had 2 classes with us (学农，端午节，no school next Thurs/Fri). Did I do anything for the Friday classes? Did we? I wish I could go back and do the English classes again because it was so enjoyable and because I learned so much along the way about teaching. I enjoyed seeing students get more comfortable and confident speaking in class, and it was especially rewarding when students who barely spoke the first day were speaking more confidently engaging in class.
I wish I could go back and do over some things with acting class… Sorry Jill. I feel a lot of responsibility because at least I have some Mandarin but didn’t use it to enforce order early on. Students didn’t meet deadlines we set, and I know it wasn’t a mistranslation because we had Yanan, our site coordinator, also come in another day and talk about deadlines in Mandarin. I know it’s hard to set these deadlines without grades or other incentive, but I thought that previous years had been able to have students write and perform their own scripts in a timely manner.
Year 10 definitely comes with more pressure than anticipated. (Year 20, if the program continues to blossom until then, it might be a good idea to know about the possibly different expectations that come with a big anniversary year!) Previous years’ blogs and students told me about the pressure of setting up the final show, but there are some unanticipated pressures in year 10.
(Sorry, my selfie skills are SEVERELY lacking. I will get more pictures with acting class later on. Also, the students are so energetic!)
Not performing on the normal stage on campus, we were told that that there would be limited spots available for students to perform. We heard that film class would only have a few groups’ films shown and that it could also happen to our acting class. I remember when Hsiao-Mei and Yanan were telling us about this, and I wasn’t too happy. I didn’t say much and they commented on it. I didn’t want that. I wanted the kids to all show up on stage, because after all, they were in acting class. Taking chunks of groups’ scripts, we made a bigger story than just the cultural misunderstanding play that we were told to do. Jillian also came up with the brilliant idea of showing another film group’s video during our play (to also include another film group and) to show the passage of time and us Duke students getting closer with students.
Some of our struggles might be unique to our year. Because we tried to combine all the students together, we might have problems that other years, who could have multiple acting groups perform, did not have. It’s more difficult to manage so many people and to make them all happy. It’s hard to keep them all accountable. Having separate groups with group leaders, as previous years had done, might have made things easier.
Our decisions made me think about who we’re actually here to serve. I believe that Jill’s and my decision to combine performances into one might have contributed to some of our acting difficulties this year, but honestly, I would make this decision 10/10 times to allow all the students the opportunity to perform.
Some things to ponder about this year: Why is the stage so nice but the audience seating so small? Few students or parents would be able to watch the final performance this year. Is the nice venue actually worth it? It’ll cost more money, and fewer performances can be shown than if we were to just perform on the school’s stage. (Dance groups were told to combine performances, films cut, only 1 acting performance allowed…) Who are these changes for?
From what I’ve seen from us Duke students, I think we all share the belief that we’re here for the students at No. 9. I think this was most evident when, later on, we were informed that portions of performances might have to be combined to save time. None of us were pleased and we were all defensive of our groups. As we were building relationships with the students, it seemed as though none of us wanted any of the students to miss out on their opportunity to perform what they were spending time to learn. I’m proud to be in this group, where we share this love for the students in the face of these unique year 10 events. Maybe, if we didn’t have to deal with these changes, I wouldn’t have had the chance to know about and respect my teammates in this way. I’d like to believe that in these “negatives,” there’s positive outcomes as well.