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| Instructor and students |
This past weekend, November 25-26th, I guided a couple who teach English courses at Hohai University through the A1 class, which covers marking a lapjoint, sharpening, and a strong grounding in handsawing. They live a subway stop away from my apartment and I have come to know them through playing ultimate frisbee. Both budding woodworkers made comments as to how much they appreciated my teaching style. This touched me since pedagogical skills, especially to foreign teachers, are seldom positively acknowledged in China.
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| Proper use of paring chisel |
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| Bench sawing |
They shared with me some of their frustrations as teachers and working within the mainland Chinese education system. They wanted to know how long I had been doing woodworking, I explained that I had started at 13 in a middle school class. Their only equivalent example was learning about welding in a high school physics class.
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| Table mat |
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| demonstrating a combination square to verify a sawcut |
These two happily concluded the class and posted these images on their own WeChat photostreams. During the ride back home, they mentioned plans for wanting to convert their garage into a functional workshop. I'm looking forward to collaborating with these two.
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| Christine's husband's posting |
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| Kevin's wife's posting |
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| If you're not on WeChat, then where are you? |
