School Daze

We had another week packed full of work-related activities. Monday through Wednesday were classes as usual. Then on Thursday and Friday we had parent-teacher conferences. We were a little unsure of what to expect from our international students' families but things worked out well. Pazi held eight parent-teacher conferences while Adan had five meetings.

It was interesting to see the customs of certain families during conferences. A number of teachers that have been with QSI for several years received gifts from parents at the conferences. Sometimes it was flowers and other times it was food. Two teachers even received fruit baskets worth at least $100 dollars from a very nice Korean family that was moving to New Zealand. It seemed that these gifts were generous "thank yous" for the effort put forth to help their son and daughter learn English.

Volleyball Anyone?If we haven't shared this previously, the assistant director of our school approached Adan about coaching volleyball for the school. It turns out that our school has never had a true sports team in the three year history of the school. Our main director, along with the assistant director, have made it a priority this year for QSI Dongguan to field both boys and girls athletics.

Shortly after agreeing to coach, Adan found out that very few matches could be scheduled because the season for other schools was winding down. The QSI Shekou school invited Dongguan to play in a mini tournament they were putting together. The only problem was that since the event was so close in time, the Dongguan team would only have three practices before the tournament! Since the exposure for the girls to competitive play was so vital Adan and the assistant director agreed to travel to Shekou to play a sister QSI school.

Luckily for Adan, he was able to recruit another teacher to help assist him. The other coach was Mr. Rhine from California. It just so happened that he also played college volleyball. It was a huge advantage for both Adan and the girls. Having Coach Rhine's expertise helped tremendously in the early goings. And since there was only time for three practices the team needed to work fast.

The team is extremely young and lacking experience. In fact, there are three middle schoolers on the "secondary" team. That means we have three thirteen year-olds mixed in with several fourteen and fifteen year-olds. We only have two students seventeen or older nearing graduation. All the girls have played recreational volleyball, but practically all of them have no formal experience playing competitively. This also made the task an uphill battle. However, Adan and Coach Rhine wanted to make it a fun experience for the girls to be introduced to a great sport.

Showdown in Shekou
So the historic first match in QSI Dongguan history took place this past weekend. Saturday morning at 7:30am, Adan and Pazi, Coach Rhine, and eight members of our team set out for Shekou. The traffic was smooth and we arrived at the QSI school just before 9:00am. The girls were given brand new team uniforms so they quickly rushed to the changing room to get ready.

After dressing, the girls came out to see the Shekou squads. Literally the girls' mouths dropped. What we saw several girls working on very sophisticated volleyball drills of passing, setting, spiking and overhand serving. In the group were four ladies at or near six feet in height. It was obvious to tell that these girls had experience playing the game.

Now something important to keep in mind is that the Shekou school is much larger than the Dongguan school. Their school has over 700 students as compared to 180 students in Dongguan. This equates into enough players for three volleyball teams! The coach for Shekou helped us out by dividing his best players to compete in pairs on all three of his teams. This was done to help even out the level of play for each team.

Our girls ended up playing three matches in total. Unfortunately, we did not win any of them. However, we were proud of the fact that they did not back down to a team far superior in size, skill, and experience. In fact, we scored twenty points in one game, had several serving aces, rallied six different times, and had two girls actually spike the ball (flat-footed but they scored points). On the flip side, there is definitely room for improvement. We need to continue improving on passing, setting and all out aggressiveness.

We hope to play another international school in the near future. There are at least two schools that we know of that have volleyball teams so it is very likely. Coach Adan and Coach Rhine will continue to work with the girls. Future entries will give updates on how the team is doing.