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Making a Difference
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 05:12
I'm glad I stimilated some discussion when I posted the link to the article. It is frustrating for all of us working in the Middle Kingdom. There are many frustrations, never ending in reality. We can feel very down about it at times and wonder if it is all worth while.
Like others I do my best in the classroom - I'm certainly not perfect, and neither are the conditions under which I work. Classrooms with 40 plus students, for 45 minutes only, with nothing but crappy text books, a blackboard and chalk that disintergrates on touching the blackboard, and a classroom where your voice is drowned by the passing local traffic on the ring road. It is too hot in summer, and too cold in winter, and many of the students would rather be anywhere than an English classroom.
It is the few who REALLY DO learn something that keeps me going, and it is the friendships (teacher/student friendships on a professional basis of course) that touch me, and seeing that "aha" moment when a student suddenly understands something you have been trying to instill in their memories for an entire half semester.
It is teaching the Chinese that all Westerners/foreigners are not BAD people, and that we can be friends, and we can laugh and that we can learn from each other that no one lives in a perfect community. No one.
I often use the question "How do you eat an elephant?" - to my students when they question how they can learn English, and when I try to unscramble my brain after another chaotic and confusing week in the classroom. "Bit by bit" and I am sure all of us are making a difference. "Bit by Bit"
Thousands of years of culture will not change overnight. But I can see so many things changing in China. I wonder what the country will be like in 5 years time, or 10 years. Each of us may have played a little role in helping these changes happen.
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 02:59
#2
that one connection...
Last month I got a text message from one of my students in Handan (Spring 2009). The message will stay on my cellphone. Here is the body of the message:
"Tom, you are really a good teacher. If you can only have one student, let it be me!I know it's kind of selfish but think everybody would think like that if they were me."
Yeap, it's the one's you touch that are important and memorable...and they make all the frustrations of teaching in China seem insignificant!
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 06:46
#3
Thanks for your comments Beryl
Lots of little things make a difference too. :)
What's this?
I think that making just ONE connection is what keeps most serious teachers going, keeps them from "throwing in the towel" [a boxing term that signifies that the fighter and his manager admit defeat].
You have certainly taught in some pretty rough conditions. Younger folks are much more difficult to work with in ANY culture. When you complete your MA, consider a return to the class room. Consider teaching on the college level. It is much easier to motivate the more mature students. (Mileage will vary).
There ARE preconceptions about foreign teachers. Perhaps it might also be accurate to say that individual FTs are subject to prejudice because students and the Chinese teachers have had less-than-satisfactory experiences with FTs. This is the stereotype that we must work against.
I am unsure that our mission is to change a culture or to introduce our academic culture and values to the Chinese student. The change must come from within. You may underestimate your contribution to the Chinese academic discourse. Some students may not grasp what you propose at first.
It may take years.
Your background is in nursing. How many patients actually showed significant progress before your very eyes? I am guessing that most patients who have been entrusted to your care exhibited much physical transformation. They became well AFTER they leave your care. Perhaps you stabilized their condition so mthat they could go home. I am sure, however, that after you last saw them, their healing process EVENTUALLY became complete.
Like those in the medical profession, the teacher rarely has the opportunity to see his charge's progress.
Be sure, Elly, that you made a difference. It's just that you won't know just how much of a difference that you made in people's lives.
Teachers' boomerangs rarely come back.