mrveitch

It took almost a full year for me to fully feel comfortable in
the classroom. That in itself is quite typical for volunteers, but I think my
process of reaching that level may have been a bit different from the norm.
After weeks of feeling like I was accomplishing nothing in the classroom and
just blaming my student’s apathy, I stumbled across the blog of the previous
volunteer. She struggled through many of the same challenges I was facing and I
realized that the problem was not just that I was inexperienced and under
qualified (though I was and arguably still am); it was deeper than that. It is
true, I had much to change myself, but the problem was less that I was a bad
teacher or even a bad person, but I was not meeting my students where they
were. Enlightened, I decided to look deeper into the root of cause; see what
the rest of that “iceberg” we talked about during PST.

I began with the teachers. Starting here was quite
disheartening. I learned that most teachers are teachers because “the job is
easy and the vacations are long”. Sometimes I was told the students were
stupid. I simply couldn’t believe it. True or not, that wouldn’t get me through
the rest of my service. Delving a bit deeper, I learned a lot about Chinese
students’ lives up until they enter college. From the early morning to late at
night, their lives are pre-scheduled and run on a strict routine of study,
study, study. I deduced that this lead to two things in the students. First,
they are accustomed to and work best when things are laid out in a clear and
structured manner. Whether or not they did poorly on the gaokao, they all are
very familiar with the idea of a routine. Secondly, the idea of the power of
choice was quite new to them. They are still expected to attend every class and
have little power of the classes they choose, but the penalties for truancy are
much lighter, and for the most part, they believe their futures to be set.
Thus, whatever they do during this time won’t really change the outcome of
their future. I also heard that many are happy to finally “relax” now that the
gaokao is over.

With a better idea of where the students were coming from, I
went directly to them to find out what they were looking for. I asked as many
students as I could what they thought of their other foreign teachers and what
they learned. The answers here weren’t very useful either and tended to be the
same: the teachers were beautiful/handsome and played a lot of games.
Occasionally, adjectives like “friendly” and “encouraging” were thrown around,
but the students never could remember anything they learned or could speak of
any impact their previous teachers had on their lives. It is important to
note that I did these interviews in Chinese so that their English language
levels would not be an issue. Now I can’t speak to the actual ability of the
teachers, yet regardless of whatever kinds of teachers they really were, this
is what their legacy has become. It was very important to me that I wouldn’t be
remembered the same way; that my legacy would be less shallow.  Thus, I
formed my semesters around a central goal: boosting confidence. This sometimes
led to some interesting conversations in the classroom and students would say
some outrageous things about people or places they’ve never seen or been to. I
do not believe that it is my place to try to change anyone’s mind on things I
may not agree with, but as their teacher it was hugely important to me that
they think about their beliefs. I asked them: why do you believe what you
believe? If after giving something serious thought and they come to the
conclusion that this belief does fall within their values and works for them,
versus blindly accepting it because of “tradition”， I did not question it. Typically, when I poked holes in
arguments for hating Japanese people or against homosexuality, I could see
little light bulbs go off in my students heads when they realize their
arguments were, at best, uninformed. 

It took a long time, but I came to the conclusion that it is up
to me as a teacher to take the time and effort to first determine where their
students are both mentally and technically. They really do pick up on your own
energy and whatever attitude you bring to the classroom. Initially, despite how
many times I was warned not to, I brought with me the idea that my students at
site would be like my students during model school- eager to learn and equipped
with at least decent English. For a whole semester I tried to repeat the
successes I found in model school and found limited success. In the second semester
when I started to finally accept that this was a very different environment,
the students began to respond to me. The largest changes were stricter and more
consistently enforced rules mostly concerning cell phone use and attendance.
They really respond to, and sometimes appreciate, a stricter and more firm hand
from their teacher.

 I’ve never been good at posting but as my service comes to
a close, I believe it is important to reflect on where I’ve been so that moving
forward I can continue to grow and get the most  I can out of life.