Me, in a Nutshell.

Hi.

I guess that’s as a good a way as any to begin this introduction; who doesn’t love the classics, after all. My name is Samantha and, while I’m Canadian (Montreal if we’re being specific) born and bred, I am currently working and living in Beijing, China. I came over here in November 2014 after having just worked the two years previously in London, UK as a supply teacher, and let me just say that if this experience has taught me anything, it’s that China can get complicated. I worked at an international school as the Foundations teacher; what’s that, you ask? Well, essentially my class consisted of students that were 4-6 years old, our curriculum was more-or-less a hodgepodge collection of outcomes a former principal had put together from several Canadian curricula, and, due to a lack of resources, I ended up developing the program more in line with a British Year 1 class than a Canadian play-based kindergarten environment. Technology-wise, our classrooms had Smartboards, we were given Macbook computers to use, and, until our owner’s husband took over and drove them away, we had our own onsite IT support who were beyond awesome and helpful.

The school closed in October after a battle with the landlord annoyed the local education bureau one too many times. I’ll spare you that particular story; suffice to say it was the most ridiculous insanity you could ever possibly imagine, but in a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Vogon diplomacy sort of way, if that makes sense.

Bright side, I have a new job I’ll be starting in August in Guangzhou (it’s a city in the south of China, across the water from Hong Kong) at an IB school and, in the meantime, my old school transferred me to one of the kindergartens (think preschool/daycare) owned by its parent company to finish out my contract.

My learning materials are now handmade. All of them.

Less said on that the better.

On the non-career side of things, I will you the condensed version. My family consists of my parents and a sister and a brother, both younger. My sister had a baby last June that is just as cute as can be. In China, I live with a cat named Koda who is a complete and utter loon, but keeps me sane.

For hobbies, I read – mostly urban fantasy and paranormal romances but I’m trying to make my way through some classics – and paint. I am big on movies (it kills me that everything releases later in China; the new Avengers isn’t going to be out here until May 11 and my sister is loving torturing me about that) and television (my favourites are Supernatural, Shadowhunters, and, well, pretty much everything else, but I’ve recently started getting into The Magicians).

And that’s my nutshell.

As for why I wanted to take this course, with technology becoming more and more prevalent, interactive, and accessible, it seemed like the natural choice for today’s teacher.