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August 31, 2005
Keeping the feeling alive
The Chinese university culture still shocks me.
Exhibit A: Getting our class schedules. Each semester it’s been a different drill. Last semester I didn't get my class scedule until halfway through the first class I was supposed to teach. I tried to get this semester’s schedule at the beginning of summer vacation but was told the foreign teachers’ schedules wouldn’t be ready till later. The vacation passed and the beginning of school approached; with a little sleuthing and help from students I was able to navigate the school’s website enough to find what I thought were Naomi’s and my schedules: Foreign Teacher 1 and Foreign Teacher 2. I adjusted myself to the prospect of teaching Business Writing; I was to teach some of the same students I taught last semester, whom I liked. I had no classes on Mondays.
Sunday arrived, the day before classes began. We were summoned at about 10:00 in the morning to the English Department office to pick up our schedules. Lo and behold, my Foreign Teacher number was changed to 5. My classes were completely different from what I expected. I couldn’t have planned in advance if I’d wanted to. My first class was 8:00 the next morning.
Exhibit B: This morning one of my former students came over for my Chinese lesson. After we finished going over my lesson she pulled a stack of papers out of her bag: her classmates’ reports on their summer vacations. As the class monitor, she had to collect them. They were required by the school authorities to write 3000-5000 words about the "social practice" they did this summer – work, study, or practical experience – and have a form stamped by their employer. The form they were given at the beginning of the summer; the report they had learned about the day before. I asked if some of the students had “invented” material for their reports. Of course, she said. In fact, she had gotten a few extra blank forms stamped in case anyone needed one.
Exhibit C: Our first English department meeting of the semester. Four of the seven foreign teachers employed by the English department were in attendance, as well as a dozen and a half Chinese teachers. Mr. Sun, our “leader”, introduced the four of us, politely exaggerating our qualifications and experience. Then he said he trusted that, as foreign teachers, we would do our best to teach writing and oral English to ensure that the upcoming assessment of our school’s English Department by the Chinese Ministry of Education would be successful. This would include making “files” of our teaching, “doing research with our Chinese colleagues,” and “organizing last semester’s test papers.” The assessment is scheduled for next June. Thankfully, Naomi and I will be long gone by then.
| By huzzlecoo | 10:03 PM
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