After teaching for a few years in NYC Public Schools and then at international schools in Mexico, I felt a bit burned out, and decided that it was time to take a break from the field of education. So, I returned to NYC and took an office job. After a few years in the office, I realized that my place really is in the classroom, no matter how emotionally draining it can be. so, I searched around for schools in China and luckily was offered a job at HFI. The first week of school went great, as often is the case. So, suspiciously, I waited and waited for the honeymoon period to end; but it never did, and hasn’t a year and a half later. It truly is a joy to work with such highly-motivated, intelligent, hard-working, and genuinely interesting students. The atmosphere of the school is more closely related to that of a college campus than to a high school campus in that these students don’t have to be monitored at all times (they don’t need to be), which gives students the opportunity to be independent, and helps teachers to have time to focus on their real job, teaching. Indeed, this is the kind of job that could ruin a teacher’s classroom management skills for life—I haven’t had to raise my voice regarding behavior once with any of my students in the past two school years, and neither have I had to ask a student to do something more than once! The most enjoyable thing about working at HFI, however, is that these students will actually listen to what their teachers say, participate in class activities, and genuinely consider the class’ concepts—in other words, these students want to work hard, and they want their teachers to work hard. I have grown a lot as a teacher here, and look forward to being pushed to work harder and grow into a better professional. Needless to say, my faith in teaching has been restored by the students at this school.

Jul 2018