week 9 15thMarch -21st March

Personal and Cultural Experience

Temple street is an interesting place to go to in Hong Kong. One minute your fighting your way throgh street vendors selling products from all over Asia and then your amongst fortune tellers, who for a fee will tell you about any part of your future. There is also entertainment amongst the fortune tellers so we enjoyed some singing and some Chinese Opera after a traditional meal, in a restaurant that prides itself on being one of the oldest in the district. It seems that its kept the original tills.

Professional Development

This week I have been working on a presentation for my Hong Kong History and Culture class. Michaela and I choose to look at birth, dating, marriage and death and the surrounding traditions. We wanted to look at the influences on each of these stages in life. It was interesting to compare to the culture in the U.K and also to learn more about the importance of tradition in Hong Kong despite the presure of being a 'Global city' and modernising in a western way.

Norwegian school visit

The International Office set up a school visit to the local Norwegian International school. This is a very small school with only six classrooms. It was set up originally for the children of the missionaries from Norway so it was always meant to be small but now it is struggling to support itself and interestingly there is only one Norwegian child enrolled at the school at present. The school is set up on the international primary curriculum but is more child-centred. In one classroom I went around talking to the children who were all working on different projects that interested them. They had their seperate lap tops and the teacher circled around to challenge the children. There didn't seem to be any need for discipline because the children were all on task and very focused. The school was a lovely environment for the children because of the small classroom sizes there was a community feel. During break the children all played a game of touch rugby together with one of the teachers. I was impressed with the learning environment which seemed less focused on academics and more concerned with the childrens spiritual and moral development and their sense of enjoyment. As a trainee teacher, one thing that has made a lasting impression is the relaxed atmosphere in the classroom. The children are given a lot of freedom but their intrests are challened to ensure they pick up the neccessary skills. I would love to adopt this practice in my future classroom. The children were able to organise their time and work as part of a group in a more effective and mature way then most college students.