How I Ended Up Giving a Presentation at the University....

I'm still puzzled by how it actually happened.

⬜Communication issues?  

⬜Culture issues?  

⬜Translation issues?

⬜Me being willing to help whenever asked?

☑All of the above.

Here's what I do know.  One of my Chinese teachers (Penny) asked me to help someone learn English. I said I would.  At my next lesson, Penny asked me to help another person, something about 8 times and some other thing that I can't remember because what she said didn't make sense to me.  It seemed like a bigger time commitment than what I had, but she kept talking and talking and while I could understand her words, I couldn't understand what she meant. (This is so common--yes, she was speaking English.)  So to quiet her down, I said that I would think about it.  Later, she came to dinner, she told us about a conference at the university and mentioned three topics:  e-commerce, vocational education and teaching styles.  I told her a little about how teaching styles here in China were vastly different than in the US and then the subject was changed.  At my next class, her first question was "What day are you presenting?"  I asked her what she meant and she said that I had committed to do it.  Picture an extremely confused Darcee.  Presenting? What? Where? How????? 

So.  I got myself another teaching gig.  A bit bigger scale.  As she was telling me the amount I would get paid,  I told her that I would do it, only if I didn't get paid. (This is an extremely hard thing for Chinese people to digest.)

When I got home and started processing all of it, my only thought was "Well, here's another interesting way Israel is being gathered." True that. 

What does one say in a 3 hour presentation on teaching styles in a vastly different culture that doesn't welcome change or new ideas AND when you've been out of the profession for nearly 20 years and have no real accreditation to stand on?  Especially to university teachers????

You get on your knees and ask Heavenly Father.  

I took a few pages of notes during my prayers over the next couple of days and then got to work. I took the ideas given to me and searched up some things on the Internet and pulled together a PowerPoint.  

The two main points I was given to present were encouragement (love) and creativity---two *very foreign* concepts to their educational experiences, mind you. A garden theme also came to my mind--how to nurture lifelong learners.  So I went with it.  At first it was such a mess of ideas flopping themselves into my notes.  Little tidbits about gardening, creativity, activities and encouraging students sneezed into my slides.  I procrastinated tightening it up into a working outline for several weeks.  I honestly didn't think it would come together because it was such a mess.  Finally time put enough pressure on me that  I tackled my fear of  organizing it.  As I worked on it (praying all the while), ideas came as how to connect things and lay out the ideas.  It was 100% divine guidance. Here is a sampling of the 40+ slides I had.

One of the activities under creativity was to write down as many questions as they could in 2 minutes--any question, any topic--just as many as they could.  I didn't think this would be that challenging for them, but I was wrong. The highest anyone got was 8 questions.  Most of the others got 1-3.  Perhaps they were so stumped because they are trained to answer as the teacher wants them to and I left it so open ended that they froze. Six easy questions can be written quickly:  Who?  What?  Where?  When? Why?  How? After that activity we analyzed their questions and I suggested ways that they could implement that into their classrooms to expand the creativity of students. 

The next activity was to take the page of 20 circles that I had given them and draw as many things as they could, making the circle the focal point, or main part of their drawings in 5 minutes time.  I knew this would be difficult, but still, I was very surprised.  Here are some of their drawings.

This activity was actually based on the Torrance test for creativity that I gave as a teacher years ago.  Scores for the test are given for idea development, unique ideas, and prolific, interesting thoughts. To give you an idea, you don't score any points for drawing things like a sun, flower, apple, smiley face etc. but you get points for connecting two circles, or turning the circles into things others wouldn't think of or adding interesting details.  

All of the participants drew or wrote inside the circle, except one woman.  This woman's drawings were the closest to what was asked since she used the circle as the basis and focal point of her drawings, however, since they are all faces, she would have not scored really well on the test.  This was also the same lady who wrote down 8 questions.

When I showed them my pictures, they gasped.  It was so outside of their thinking.  Their drawings could easily be translation/communication barriers, but my experience in the culture doesn't think that should take the bulk of the explanation.  Sadly, creativity is a skill that is not fostered here.  It is such a great loss of human potential and it makes me incredibly sad.  

(With my pictures, don't get any ideas that I'm terribly creative, I worked on my circles for several days trying to give them a good array of ideas, and in a few cases, I used the Internet to assist.)

I also had them work in groups to make a tower at least 40cm high (15") that could hold an egg.  They had to make it as beautiful as they could.  The building materials were marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti noodles.  I wanted them to experience creativity in a collaborative setting.  Most groups were successful with this, although two groups did not meet the criteria to be able to support an egg . But this activity was the one they were most successful at.

I didn't get this group's picture, but at one point they were trying to tie the entire bundle of spaghetti noodles together with the ribbon and then put the marshmallows on top to hold the egg.  A very different way to solve the problem!

While this one was quite inventive, they used something that wasn't in their bag.  But I was impressed with their ingenuity.

Admittedly, much of this activity was structural knowledge and not creativity per say, but a form of creativity is problem solving and this definitely was a difficult problem solving exercise for them since they had never encountered these supplies before, let alone build with them. 

The next topic I talked about was love and encouragement.  Their culture is to correct with what we might term as criticism and perhaps even emotional abuse. But as one man from our branch who is married to a Chinese explained to us that it is how they shape the rising generation and their intention is not to harm emotionally, but to train.  He says they are loving, but if correction is needed, it is given very sternly, with very few warm-fuzzy encouragements.  So in my presentation I was directed to highlight loving ways to  guide and shape behavior. (These specific ideas are from Dave Stuart Jr.)

I showed this picture of me with a young Tessa on my back while pulling weeds years ago.  I talked about how I have historically focused on pulling the weeds (my to-do list) instead of loving my wiggly daughter who loved me and just wanted to be with me.  I talked about how much I regret that.  I didn't mean to get emotional at that point, but during the presentation I did.  Perhaps the Spirit communicated with them on the importance of this. (I still have rows and rows of weeds to hoe in this department so it was a wonderful reminder for myself as well.....)

As part of this section I had them participate in a human bridge--to experience love and trust in a physical activity.  I gave them instructions and then showed them a picture of my grandma on a human bridge and told them that if she could do it, so could they!  I volunteered to go first to show them how it was done.

But they didn't buy it.... after 6 people crossed the bridge (one of which was me), they handed me the poles and walked away.  No one else would go.  This lady in the picture above messaged me afterwards telling me how afraid she was at the beginning, but in the end she felt very excited having done it. I wished others would have experienced it as well, but I could not coax them otherwise.  I did find it interesting that those who did go didn't try to persuade others to go--that is what I believe would have happened in the culture I'm accustomed to.  But what to do?  

It was supposed to be a 3 hour presentation.  It would have gone that long had they all done the human bridge. As I was about to finish a half hour early, I remembered that Penny said there should be a question and answer period so I asked them if they had any questions.  They had two: 1)  What are you doing here in China?  2) How old are you?  (If I had forgotten for a teensy tiny moment that I wasn't in the US, I quickly remembered with that question!) Thankfully I don't worry about keeping my age a secret. But I did have to laugh! And we finished 27 minutes early.  I don't think anyone complained about an early lunch. 

All in all, I think it was a good experience for them---new ideas, different experiences and possibly feeling the Spirit! Maybe it will make a difference for one person!

At the end, I received a bouquet of 'flowers' in appreciation!

I have to admit, that was quite creative!!!  You can't see, but the spaghetti noodles were the stems. Go her!

A few notes:

~Giving a presentation with a translator is very difficult--especially with the two languages that don't translate very well.  I had to stick very tightly to my notes or I lost my translator. If I went off script, I had to speak in single sentences. The little bit that Tom was there for said that she didn't translate what I meant very well. I can't fault her for that, it's the nature of the language beast here.  Also, as good as the translator was, she could not understand my spoken English very well.  Those with English majors have a good grasp on the written language, but the listening and speaking are so much more difficult.  One interesting thing was that she asked me if I was Christian.  To which I said I was.  I asked if she was as well, which she confirmed.  Other Christians we've met have wanted to engage in conversation about religion, but not her.  I have wondered if she was a member of the Church because she was so tight-lipped about the topic. That would be cool.

~Penny apologized profusely when she found out that I had been asked my age.  She said it was very inappropriate.  I'm thankful that that isn't something that offends me and I can just laugh about it.  (She had class with other students so she couldn't stay for the presentation.)

~Pulling off the supplies for the human bridge was a task.... After researching the thickness of bamboo needed to hold the weight of a person,  I procured seven 2 meter bamboo poles (only ¥14 for all of them: $1.92).

Penny arranged for a carpenter to come and cut them.  (She paid him a box of cigarettes for doing the job 😒.)  I bought some sand paper from Taobao and we sanded them down.  Then, Tom took me on the scooter to the fabric village and I had a bag made for them.  (I didn't choose the fabric, I just drew up the measurements and design of the bag.  It cost ￥80 for both fabric and labor--$11.) These things sound so simple, but in a foreign country, this felt like quite the accomplishment! 

~Penny insisted and insisted that I get paid. She said she would go get the money and give it to me in cash so no one would know.  She said that she would exchange the money into US dollars and keep it for me until the day before I leave.  She cooked up all kinds of plans, each of them I refused.  I finally had the idea to tell her that I have made a personal commitment to be completely honest and it wasn't honest to take money when I don't have a work permit.  I'm pretty sure she doesn't fully understand what that means.  I think that she thinks I'm fearful of punishment for breaking the law.  While I really wouldn't like to receive a penalty, it truly is a commitment to my covenants, which she doesn't understand.  However, she has figured out a way to 'pay' me.  I mentioned to her that there is a Chinese dish that I want to learn how to make. So she has arranged for us to go learn, the cost for which she is covering.  What can I do?  

~There was one sad thing of the day for me.  I had asked permission to invite a few friends who are very interested in Western thinking to attend.  Permission was given.  One of them showed up early, took pictures of himself as if he were presenting, then standing under the conference banner and one with Tom. Then he posted the pictures on his We-Chat moments saying that his dental office 'associates with the high-class people of Changzhou".  Ugh. Very slippery.  Penny told me that it was typical Chinese.  I guess the director asked this man to leave, but he refused. So during the break, *I* had to ask all of my friends to leave.  I was quite embarrassed not only that I had to ask my friends to leave, but also that someone I invited took financial advantage of the conference. It all made me quite sad. Penny assured me it wasn't my fault and that I don't understand the culture like they do.  I guess you aren't living in China if you aren't learning very interesting things about life here.....  

I'm off to my next learning experience!