Easter Madness

The easiest job in the world has just become easier, since the English department never offers (or forces) as many classes in the Spring. As a result I only have three English classes right now, plus the film class I just created for the heck of it (where I do very little real work). This allows me to concentrate on just 50 students, and the quality of my classes has improved massively and I have also started to come up with better and bolder activities. Certainly some of these have only had limited success. For example, I created a social game where half the class would portray citizens from different English-speaking countries and they would have to find their homeland (assigned to the other half). I attempted to make it organized by creating two concentric circles of students, one of which would rotate. But dealing with freshmen is like herding cats, especially when they are freshmen girls who don't like detaching themselves from their friends with whom they have had a symbiotic relationship since Day 1 of Xuexiao.

But one better idea I had was an Easter egg hunt to celebrate the season. Unfortunately a traditional hunt was out of the question, since there was no feasible way for me to boil enough eggs and then hide them. Instead I decided to combine my "Blindfold Hunt" with an Easter theme. In "Blindfold Hunt" teams of students work together to find an object in an open area. One is blindfolded while the other barks directions. I usually time them and then award a prize to the fastest group.

First of course we had to make the eggs. Plastic ones aren't available so I decided to spend a few kuai and boil about 8 per class. I also had to buy painting supplies. Fortunately the campus store had everything, including these great little paint trays.

With paint involved, I expected some sort of messy disaster (I couldn't find any smocks). Fortunately none of my students ruined their clothes. In fact, they were quite industrious and adept painters, far exceeding my skill--the night before, out some misguided (and exaggerated) sense of patriotism, I had attempted to make an "American Flag" egg which ended up a purple modernist piece. They were very methodical--first tracing their designs, then carefully applying paint and blowing to dry it faster. Of course if I had spent more time with my grandmother as a kid I would probably know how to do these things too. We ended up with some inspired designs:

The hunt was less organized. We tried it at the soccer field. While the class sat near the goal I had everyone place their eggs at random points around the goal box. Then I told the pairs to collect as many as they could (though I forgot the darn baskets). I spent most of the activity yelling at them when they directed in Chinese and making sure they didn't hurt themselves ("Blindfold Hunt" has had its share of near-misses). The problem with the game was that the rest of the class has nothing to do but watch and get bored. But when it became apparent that the eggs could get trodden on, I did volunteers from each painting group "defend" them. Of course I had to explain that defending them did not mean moving them when the hunter was about to find it. One student named "Ankle" decided to scatter theirs in pieces all over the turf in order to prevent discover. Their are always a few "bad eggs" in every group.

Ha ha.
Leb Wohl