Monday came just in the nick of time! No, I haven't become a workaholic or anything. But I was in a lousy mood and needed a hug, and, well, spending every weekday morning in a room full of five-year-olds has its advantages. I knew I liked this job for a reason.
Why, you ask, was I in a lousy mood? Last night a few of us teachers got together for dinner, and one of my colleagues loaned me a Rolling Stone magazine featuring their annual list of the richest stars in rock, which we had talked about a few days before.
The magazine also featured an article on the tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide. Now I've always been lukewarm about Nirvana, then and now, but you couldn't go to college in the early '90s and not have some memories of the band or its tragic ending. So, of course, I read the article, complete with a text of his last interview and a blurb about their very first show, back in 1987. But the bulk of the article was about the sad anniversary. A classic "everyone remembers where they were" moment if there ever was one, the magazine said.
Sure enough, I do remember where I was. I was hanging around the lounge of our college's Spanish House, waiting for a friend who lived there to get dressed so we could go to a stand-up comic show that was appearing on campus that night. Another friend happened to start talking about Cobain and his condition, and at first I thought he was referring to the coma he'd been in in Italy a few weeks before that, but at some point I heard the word "shotgun." Oops. Even though I wasn't a big fan, I knew it would be a memorable moment all the same.
As it happened, that was a memorable time for me already - at least in retrospect. It was just past spring break, junior year, and I was lovesick for a buddy's soon to be ex-girlfriend (they broke up about a week later) and also coping with a roommate-from-hell situation. But I had also just landed a coveted internship on Capitol Hill, and was nearly done with the first really good research paper I ever wrote. I think it was around that time that I started thinking maybe there was a place for me in grad school after all. From that summer onward, my plan was to move to DC as soon as possible, get a few years' work experience to beef up what I considered a so-so academic record, and then give grad school a try. All of which is exactly what happened, except that it took me about a year and a half longer to get to DC than I had hoped (and that year and a half seemed about five times that long to me).
All this came to mind last night as I lay on my couch reading about ol' Kurt. Memories of college in general tend to make me melancholy. Not because I didn't like college - I did, after a bumpy start - but because I think I entered into the experience with ridiculous expectations. Anyone who went to a small, private college knows the drill: it's supposed to be four years of pure intellectual bliss, the first chance ever to be yourself and share your time and space with others who are like you and respect your differences, the polar opposite of high school. Sometimes it was like that, of course, but there were also times when it was basically high school with beer. Nothing is hearts and flowers all the time. The fact that we were all led to expect so much made it rather bittersweet for me that it wasn't quite what I'd thought it would be. Sometimes, therefore, it's easy to forget how many good times I really did have there.
But there's another reason why I have mixed memories of the college years: they were followed immediately by the most depressing year or so of my life, in which I stumbled through a long string of false starts and was on the outs with my family most of the time. Like it or not, that memory is unavoidably associated with the ones that preceded it immediately. My only real regret about college is that I was so set on a career in politics and government that I didn't really prepare at all for any alternatives, which didn't leave me many options when I graduated or for a while afterwards.
One of several options I did consider briefly was - get this! - teaching English overseas. I had nearly forgotten that until I decided to try it again last fall, which is perhaps a reflection that I wasn't all that serious about it back then. It would be a few more years after that until I rediscovered my childhood love of international affairs, which has been my bread and butter since then. So it was that I applied to exactly one ESL program in Prague, was rejected (even in 1995, that market was saturated - I hear it's a real nightmare these days), and then turned my attention back towards domestic politics. I chose a path that probably got me a lot farther in the long run, but was often kind of unfulfilling and frustrating in the short run. Thanks to my living arrangements when I finally got to DC, I had the chance to live with and befriend people from all over the world, but I never really did any exploring of my own in those days. Money was pretty limited in the jobs I was working at the time, although they did pay off pretty well when it came to applying to grad school. I had some great times in those years, no question, but I also came away from them feeling like I hadn't really accomplished all that much.
Since I've enjoyed my experience in Taiwan immensely thus far, I can't help thinking now and then of what it might have been like if I had pursued this line of work more aggressively back then. I wonder if I could have avoided the year and change in the wilderness just after college or the scraping by in entry level jobs in DC once I got there, or if I would have gotten around to going back to school sooner than I did. There's no way to tell, of course, and I do have a habit of imagining everything would be infinitely better if just one thing had been different somewhere along the line, which of course is usually a lot of nonsense. No doubt I would have had some good times and some bad times if I'd gone expat years ago, just like I did back in the USA. But it got me down all the same.
Which is why I was happy to see Monday for once. While making my way into the classroom, I can count on being mobbed by adoring children who are always happy to see me even if I made them stand in the corner for throwing blocks last week. It's hard to be depressed when you have three or four kids fighting over who gets to hug you first!
So I guess the lesson is, don't cry over spilled milk. It's never really too late to start over.
By the way, if you were wondering about the title line, it's from an obscure Bob Franke song whose protagonist sounds like he's in a similar mood to how I was feeling last night. The line in question has nothing in particular to do with anything I've written about here, but it often comes to mind when I'm having bittersweet memories, probably because of a fantastic road trip I took to Toronto with some friends once just before I went back to school.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Losing a bit in translation?
There's a new Chinese-style greasy spoon across the street from our school. It's good for breakfast-sandwiches and such, but I haven't explored it too much yet because they don't have any English menus and I'm not always feeling adventurous first thing in the morning. They do, however, have an English version of the name of the restaurant on their sign out front, and on their cups and bags and the like.
The name: My Warm Day.
This sort of thing is famous in this part of the world, of course: they translate things literally and they sometimes come out sounding a bit goofy. My friend, Lex, made an astute observation about the name the other day. "It sounds like the way you'd describe a day in which you wet yourself first thing in the morning."
It seemed sufficiently gross-yet-funny to pass on.
The name: My Warm Day.
This sort of thing is famous in this part of the world, of course: they translate things literally and they sometimes come out sounding a bit goofy. My friend, Lex, made an astute observation about the name the other day. "It sounds like the way you'd describe a day in which you wet yourself first thing in the morning."
It seemed sufficiently gross-yet-funny to pass on.
Losing a bit in translation?
There's a new Chinese-style greasy spoon across the street from our school. It's good for breakfast-sandwiches and such, but I haven't explored it too much yet because they don't have any English menus and I'm not always feeling adventurous first thing in the morning. They do, however, have an English version of the name of the restaurant on their sign out front, and on their cups and bags and the like.
The name: My Warm Day.
This sort of thing is famous in this part of the world, of course: they translate things literally and they sometimes come out sounding a bit goofy. My friend, Lex, made an astute observation about the name the other day. "It sounds like the way you'd describe a day in which you wet yourself first thing in the morning."
It seemed sufficiently gross-yet-funny to pass on.
The name: My Warm Day.
This sort of thing is famous in this part of the world, of course: they translate things literally and they sometimes come out sounding a bit goofy. My friend, Lex, made an astute observation about the name the other day. "It sounds like the way you'd describe a day in which you wet yourself first thing in the morning."
It seemed sufficiently gross-yet-funny to pass on.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Little victories
I went to the movies in Chung Li on Saturday.
No big deal in and of itself, of course, as I've done just that several times since I got here. (Chung Li is the nearest decent sized city, about 10-15 km up the road from Longtan I think.) But this was the first time I actually had the whole bus route figured out. Going to the movies from here involves catching a bus to downtown Chung Li, then taking a free shuttle bus from there to the mall with the theater, and the return trip is the same. Unless you don't know where or how to look for the buses in which case you have to take at least part of the trip by cab. That's what I've always done before.
Not last Saturday. I finally learned all the relevant Chinese characters to look for on the buses, and the colors of the right buses, and where they actually stop. As a result of my diligence, a trip that could have cost as much as 800 NT (about $25 US) cost exactly 52 NT (about $1.75, maybe a bit less)! It's funny what we get excited about sometimes.
(And no, I've never actually spent 800 NT on a round trip to the movies. Sometimes when a bunch of us from Longtan are going, we'll take a cab both ways and split the cost, which is pretty reasonable when it's split four ways. I'm just saying it could have been that pricey, if I were that irresponsible.)
No big deal in and of itself, of course, as I've done just that several times since I got here. (Chung Li is the nearest decent sized city, about 10-15 km up the road from Longtan I think.) But this was the first time I actually had the whole bus route figured out. Going to the movies from here involves catching a bus to downtown Chung Li, then taking a free shuttle bus from there to the mall with the theater, and the return trip is the same. Unless you don't know where or how to look for the buses in which case you have to take at least part of the trip by cab. That's what I've always done before.
Not last Saturday. I finally learned all the relevant Chinese characters to look for on the buses, and the colors of the right buses, and where they actually stop. As a result of my diligence, a trip that could have cost as much as 800 NT (about $25 US) cost exactly 52 NT (about $1.75, maybe a bit less)! It's funny what we get excited about sometimes.
(And no, I've never actually spent 800 NT on a round trip to the movies. Sometimes when a bunch of us from Longtan are going, we'll take a cab both ways and split the cost, which is pretty reasonable when it's split four ways. I'm just saying it could have been that pricey, if I were that irresponsible.)
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Some good news from home
Some things didn't change when I came to Taiwan. Like my voracious appetite for poll numbers. The latest ones from Zogby are certainly welcome news. Despite the completely flaccid media and their characteristically feeble response to the horrors in Iraq (not to be confused with the up-to-the-minute reports on a certain blue dress several years ago) and the fact that the Dems are still only just starting to get their act together, Kerry is up 47-42 over Dubya in the latest poll.
Even more interesting to me are the results from the "Red states" where Bush won four years ago: they're tied at 45% in those states. Since that subset includes unapproachably Republican strongholds like Utah and Kansas and the like (where Bush is surely 30 points up), a statistical tie means Bush must actually be behind in at least a few of what are supposed to be his "strong" states. If I recall correctly, there are about a dozen states that haven't gone Democratic for President since 1964, which, since Arizona voted for Clinton in '96, is the longest such streak in the country. It would certainly be something else if we whittled that number down by a few this fall.
It's dangerous to rely too much on historical trends when it comes to politics, but it looks like history is on Kerry's side: no president in the modern era (except maybe Truman, and that's stretching the definition of "modern") who trailed in the polls in May has ever won in November, and at least two incumbents who were ahead at this point in the game (Carter and Bush I) ended up losing. In other words, Bush would have to make up more ground than any president in at least the past 50 years has done in order to be elected this time. That would be a tall order for any politician, but for one as polarizing as Bush you've got to wonder if it's feasible at all.
Of course, the graveyard of political trivia is littered with such "unbeatable" precedents which were beaten in the past few elections. It used to be that any candidate who lost his party's New Hampshire primary but still won the nomination was a sure loser in November, but Clinton came in second there in '92 and still won. (Bush also lost the NH primary to John McCain in 2000, but I believe he lost the general too.) Throughout the post-Civil War era, no Democrat ever won the White House without carrying Texas - until Clinton did it twice. It was long said that no Democrat could win Ohio without carrying Cleveland by at least 100,000 votes, but Jimmy Carter squeaked by with 93,000 (and about 10,000 statewide) in 1976. Palo Alto county, Iowa, used to be known for backing the winner of every election since statehood in 1846, but it voted for Mondale in 1984. There was also a county in Oregon that had the same claim until 1992. Now there are none. I think football scores and skirt lengths have always been rumored to have some pull in the whole thing as well, but the details of those escape me at the moment.
But the "behind in May, behind in November" case is, in my opinion, quite different from all of those. Some are clearly nothing more than coincidences, others can be chalked up to marginal electorates in some places or partisan bases that have since shifted. The same can't be said for an incumbent's standing just six months out from the election. After three years and change, the voters know what they're getting and most of them know whether they like it or not. For those who don't, the only remaining question is whether or not the challenger is an acceptable alternative. The fact that Kerry is still coming out a bit ahead in that regard, even after all the venom hurled at him by the chickenhawks regarding his veteran status and the mostly manufactured charges of flip-flopping, can't be sitting too well with the White House just now.
I expect all manner of unprecedented nastiness from the GOPers to try to turn this tide, of course. It's hard to imagine how they could get any more disgusting than the "love Bush or support the terrorists" stuff they've been spewing on and off since 9/11, but I fully expect them to do it. Makes me glad I'm halfway around the world, really! But unless Kerry is really asleep at the wheel, I think the good guys have reason to cheer at last.
Even more interesting to me are the results from the "Red states" where Bush won four years ago: they're tied at 45% in those states. Since that subset includes unapproachably Republican strongholds like Utah and Kansas and the like (where Bush is surely 30 points up), a statistical tie means Bush must actually be behind in at least a few of what are supposed to be his "strong" states. If I recall correctly, there are about a dozen states that haven't gone Democratic for President since 1964, which, since Arizona voted for Clinton in '96, is the longest such streak in the country. It would certainly be something else if we whittled that number down by a few this fall.
It's dangerous to rely too much on historical trends when it comes to politics, but it looks like history is on Kerry's side: no president in the modern era (except maybe Truman, and that's stretching the definition of "modern") who trailed in the polls in May has ever won in November, and at least two incumbents who were ahead at this point in the game (Carter and Bush I) ended up losing. In other words, Bush would have to make up more ground than any president in at least the past 50 years has done in order to be elected this time. That would be a tall order for any politician, but for one as polarizing as Bush you've got to wonder if it's feasible at all.
Of course, the graveyard of political trivia is littered with such "unbeatable" precedents which were beaten in the past few elections. It used to be that any candidate who lost his party's New Hampshire primary but still won the nomination was a sure loser in November, but Clinton came in second there in '92 and still won. (Bush also lost the NH primary to John McCain in 2000, but I believe he lost the general too.) Throughout the post-Civil War era, no Democrat ever won the White House without carrying Texas - until Clinton did it twice. It was long said that no Democrat could win Ohio without carrying Cleveland by at least 100,000 votes, but Jimmy Carter squeaked by with 93,000 (and about 10,000 statewide) in 1976. Palo Alto county, Iowa, used to be known for backing the winner of every election since statehood in 1846, but it voted for Mondale in 1984. There was also a county in Oregon that had the same claim until 1992. Now there are none. I think football scores and skirt lengths have always been rumored to have some pull in the whole thing as well, but the details of those escape me at the moment.
But the "behind in May, behind in November" case is, in my opinion, quite different from all of those. Some are clearly nothing more than coincidences, others can be chalked up to marginal electorates in some places or partisan bases that have since shifted. The same can't be said for an incumbent's standing just six months out from the election. After three years and change, the voters know what they're getting and most of them know whether they like it or not. For those who don't, the only remaining question is whether or not the challenger is an acceptable alternative. The fact that Kerry is still coming out a bit ahead in that regard, even after all the venom hurled at him by the chickenhawks regarding his veteran status and the mostly manufactured charges of flip-flopping, can't be sitting too well with the White House just now.
I expect all manner of unprecedented nastiness from the GOPers to try to turn this tide, of course. It's hard to imagine how they could get any more disgusting than the "love Bush or support the terrorists" stuff they've been spewing on and off since 9/11, but I fully expect them to do it. Makes me glad I'm halfway around the world, really! But unless Kerry is really asleep at the wheel, I think the good guys have reason to cheer at last.
Spare the rod, and welcome to the 21st century!
Just when you thought it was safe to be a kid...
A colleague of mine had a rather nasty incident in class yesterday morning. One of his students - the class troublemaker - stabbed another with a pen. He drew blood and everything, apparently. The victim, who is one of the more well behaved kids in that class, simply went up and told the teacher calmly what had happened.
My buddy handled it quite well, I thought. He took the troublemaker out into the hall and calmly but firmly reprimanded him, complete with a well-deserved threat to call his parents. I happened to see this because I was in the hall giving an oral test to one of my own students.
Later on, I learned the rest of the story.
After he was done with his lecture, my friend turned the matter over to his class' homeroom teacher (HRT in company lingo). The HRTs are native Chinese speakers and thus much more easily able to communicate with the kids when push comes to shove. For that reason, they are usually involved in meting out discipline. As was the case here. The HRT took the offending student downstairs to the office, and they both returned shortly afterward.
"How'd it go?" my friend asked her.
"Fine," she said. "He won't do that again."
"What'd you do?"
"I took the ink thingy out of a pen like he used, and I stabbed him."
I knew this sort of thing was still somewhat acceptable in Taiwan, but I must say it was still a shock to actually have it happen in my school. I don't really know what to make of it, except to say this: we, the English teachers, aren't allowed to hit the students. I like it that way - in fact, I wouldn't have come to work for this company if that hadn't been the case. But the fact that others are allowed to do such things doesn't sit well at all with me. Ouch.
A colleague of mine had a rather nasty incident in class yesterday morning. One of his students - the class troublemaker - stabbed another with a pen. He drew blood and everything, apparently. The victim, who is one of the more well behaved kids in that class, simply went up and told the teacher calmly what had happened.
My buddy handled it quite well, I thought. He took the troublemaker out into the hall and calmly but firmly reprimanded him, complete with a well-deserved threat to call his parents. I happened to see this because I was in the hall giving an oral test to one of my own students.
Later on, I learned the rest of the story.
After he was done with his lecture, my friend turned the matter over to his class' homeroom teacher (HRT in company lingo). The HRTs are native Chinese speakers and thus much more easily able to communicate with the kids when push comes to shove. For that reason, they are usually involved in meting out discipline. As was the case here. The HRT took the offending student downstairs to the office, and they both returned shortly afterward.
"How'd it go?" my friend asked her.
"Fine," she said. "He won't do that again."
"What'd you do?"
"I took the ink thingy out of a pen like he used, and I stabbed him."
I knew this sort of thing was still somewhat acceptable in Taiwan, but I must say it was still a shock to actually have it happen in my school. I don't really know what to make of it, except to say this: we, the English teachers, aren't allowed to hit the students. I like it that way - in fact, I wouldn't have come to work for this company if that hadn't been the case. But the fact that others are allowed to do such things doesn't sit well at all with me. Ouch.
Denial ain't just a river in Africa
Have a look at the latest outrage concerning the Log Cabin Republicans. It almost sounds like they're surprised that their party is dominated by people who think they're diseased at best and evil at worst. Um, guys, where have you been for the past 25 years or so?
If any members of that group happen to read my straight-but-not-narrow blog, I'd really like you to tell me: are those tax breaks really worth it? Do you really love your money so much that you're willing to go on allying yourself with people who hate you just because they'll vote for your rather selfish economic interests? I don't get it. I know at least one friend of mine back in DC thinks it's all because you're mostly white males and being gay is the only thing you don't have going for you in a right-wing culture, but I don't buy that. I've seen enough homophobia to know that that's an awfully big exception, and I'm sure you have too. So, really. Tell me. What gives?
If any members of that group happen to read my straight-but-not-narrow blog, I'd really like you to tell me: are those tax breaks really worth it? Do you really love your money so much that you're willing to go on allying yourself with people who hate you just because they'll vote for your rather selfish economic interests? I don't get it. I know at least one friend of mine back in DC thinks it's all because you're mostly white males and being gay is the only thing you don't have going for you in a right-wing culture, but I don't buy that. I've seen enough homophobia to know that that's an awfully big exception, and I'm sure you have too. So, really. Tell me. What gives?
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Go ask Alice, I think she'll know!
Alice is my hero this week. Not so much for anything she's done, mind you, as for things she hasn't done.
Alice is in one of my more energetic classes, one which features a lot of talkers and a few truly rambunctious 10-12 year olds. I get the impression she's at the higher end of that scale, because she's a little bigger than most of the others, even the boys. (Their age group is at the tail end of those few years when the girls are taller.) But Alice is not one of the talkers. In fact, she doesn't say much of anything if she can help it. She knows the answers, and she'll give them to me if I call on her, but she never volunteers.
In other words, she's just about exactly like I was when I was her age - and for several years after that. At the risk of sounding self-pitying, the reaction I often got from my teachers for being so quiet back then is still a slightly sore point for me. I ran across quite a few teachers in my time who would never think to make sarcastic comments about a child's appearance or height or weight or clothes or most any other personal characteristic - but for some reason, they thought nothing of ridiculing shy kids for being shy. Many is the time I was made to feel three inches (7 1/2 centimeters, but it's just an American figure of speech) tall for not being very outspoken. I have always suspected they were only trying to bring me out of my shell, but of course it had the opposite effect. It also made me aware very early in life about the absurd degree to which most people assign value to charm. That issue still tends to rub me the wrong way these days. Hey, they say Ted Bundy was an amazingly gregarious and friendly guy!
In any case, no, I'm not still bitter about the occasional humiliation I received from some long-ago teachers. I grew up quite a while ago, thank you. But I am still aware of the unfairness of it all, and now that I am on the other side of the teacher's desk, one of my guiding principles is that I should never give a kid credit just for being an extrovert or punish another just for not being one. (I know that a few of my friends are firmly of the belief that anyone who remembers a past injustice at all is by definition bitter about it - yes, Berkeley, I am looking in your direction - but I hope you'll take my word for it that I'm not! Learning from your own hard times can be a very valuable thing to do, I think.)
More to the point, not everybody learns through class participation (a lot of experts think the Socratic method is supremely overrated, if not downright worthless, actually), so it's important for teachers to recognize that just because that tired looking kid in the back row
looks like s/he's goofing off doesn't necessarily mean that's really the case. Sometimes they're just soaking up all the information just by being there.
All of which brings me to Alice. Her class had its final exam last week, and it wasn't their finest hour. Our school, as I have mentioned, grades quite leniently, so anytime you have a test where no one gets a perfect score, that's not a good sign. Such was the case this time, when scores ranged from 96% all the way down to 77% - in a school where anyone who scores below an 85 is entitled (and usually forced by his or her parents) to take the test again.
And who got the 96? It wasn't the girl in the front row who always has a sentence ready with the next vocab word when I ask for one. It wasn't her friend who is always asking me who got the highest score on the latest quiz or test; she came in second this time, but her A is still pretty safe. It wasn't the boy who always yells out all the answers without raising his hand - in fact, he didn't do particularly well this time. No, it was Alice. For 12 weeks - since before I even arrived in town - she's been sitting back there in the corner, listening and apparently taking notes now and then, talking when she must and keeping to herself the rest of the time, and it all paid off! I can still recall all too well what my teachers had to say about students like that, and from my new perspective, I must admit that it's sometimes frustrating when somebody never wants to participate. But not participating is not the same as not learning, I always told myself - and tried to tell most of the adults in my life, though most of them wouldn't listen. I hope I learned from their mistake - and from what I've seen from Alice, I think maybe I have.
I can't help but be reminded of one of my favorite "Simpsons" gags, when Bart decides to participate in class more often for some reason or other (sibling rivalry, I think) and we hear Mrs. Kerbapel calling on him again and again: "Bart!" "Bart!" "Bart!" "Bart!" And finally, "Bart Simpson, stop putting your hand up! You haven't had one right answer all morning!!!"
Ain't it the truth.
Alice is in one of my more energetic classes, one which features a lot of talkers and a few truly rambunctious 10-12 year olds. I get the impression she's at the higher end of that scale, because she's a little bigger than most of the others, even the boys. (Their age group is at the tail end of those few years when the girls are taller.) But Alice is not one of the talkers. In fact, she doesn't say much of anything if she can help it. She knows the answers, and she'll give them to me if I call on her, but she never volunteers.
In other words, she's just about exactly like I was when I was her age - and for several years after that. At the risk of sounding self-pitying, the reaction I often got from my teachers for being so quiet back then is still a slightly sore point for me. I ran across quite a few teachers in my time who would never think to make sarcastic comments about a child's appearance or height or weight or clothes or most any other personal characteristic - but for some reason, they thought nothing of ridiculing shy kids for being shy. Many is the time I was made to feel three inches (7 1/2 centimeters, but it's just an American figure of speech) tall for not being very outspoken. I have always suspected they were only trying to bring me out of my shell, but of course it had the opposite effect. It also made me aware very early in life about the absurd degree to which most people assign value to charm. That issue still tends to rub me the wrong way these days. Hey, they say Ted Bundy was an amazingly gregarious and friendly guy!
In any case, no, I'm not still bitter about the occasional humiliation I received from some long-ago teachers. I grew up quite a while ago, thank you. But I am still aware of the unfairness of it all, and now that I am on the other side of the teacher's desk, one of my guiding principles is that I should never give a kid credit just for being an extrovert or punish another just for not being one. (I know that a few of my friends are firmly of the belief that anyone who remembers a past injustice at all is by definition bitter about it - yes, Berkeley, I am looking in your direction - but I hope you'll take my word for it that I'm not! Learning from your own hard times can be a very valuable thing to do, I think.)
More to the point, not everybody learns through class participation (a lot of experts think the Socratic method is supremely overrated, if not downright worthless, actually), so it's important for teachers to recognize that just because that tired looking kid in the back row
looks like s/he's goofing off doesn't necessarily mean that's really the case. Sometimes they're just soaking up all the information just by being there.
All of which brings me to Alice. Her class had its final exam last week, and it wasn't their finest hour. Our school, as I have mentioned, grades quite leniently, so anytime you have a test where no one gets a perfect score, that's not a good sign. Such was the case this time, when scores ranged from 96% all the way down to 77% - in a school where anyone who scores below an 85 is entitled (and usually forced by his or her parents) to take the test again.
And who got the 96? It wasn't the girl in the front row who always has a sentence ready with the next vocab word when I ask for one. It wasn't her friend who is always asking me who got the highest score on the latest quiz or test; she came in second this time, but her A is still pretty safe. It wasn't the boy who always yells out all the answers without raising his hand - in fact, he didn't do particularly well this time. No, it was Alice. For 12 weeks - since before I even arrived in town - she's been sitting back there in the corner, listening and apparently taking notes now and then, talking when she must and keeping to herself the rest of the time, and it all paid off! I can still recall all too well what my teachers had to say about students like that, and from my new perspective, I must admit that it's sometimes frustrating when somebody never wants to participate. But not participating is not the same as not learning, I always told myself - and tried to tell most of the adults in my life, though most of them wouldn't listen. I hope I learned from their mistake - and from what I've seen from Alice, I think maybe I have.
I can't help but be reminded of one of my favorite "Simpsons" gags, when Bart decides to participate in class more often for some reason or other (sibling rivalry, I think) and we hear Mrs. Kerbapel calling on him again and again: "Bart!" "Bart!" "Bart!" "Bart!" And finally, "Bart Simpson, stop putting your hand up! You haven't had one right answer all morning!!!"
Ain't it the truth.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
MASSive congratulations to all
Nothing new to report from Longtan, so I just wanted to send my best wishes to all the couples tying the knot in Massachusetts. As we also mark the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education this week, here's hoping the ban on gay marriage will someday soon be recalled with the same distaste most of us now have for what Brown undid.
And you know, it's funny. Here my country has now been the fourth in the world to recognize gay marriage for just over 24 hours, and I don't feel like my rights as a heterosexual have been at all impugned like the wackos always said they would be. What a pleasant surprise.
And you know, it's funny. Here my country has now been the fourth in the world to recognize gay marriage for just over 24 hours, and I don't feel like my rights as a heterosexual have been at all impugned like the wackos always said they would be. What a pleasant surprise.
Monday, May 17, 2004
Take this job and shove it?
A colleague of mine found a new job in Thailand recently. For whatever reason, he didn't feel he could go quietly into the night, and sent out a rather blunt (that's an understatement) kiss-off to our company this past weekend. It was a rather rambling e-mail, infused with a number of different grievances, some more legitimate than others in my opinion, and also featuring more than its share of name calling. While I think the letter could have been more carefully considered than it clearly was, it did get me thinking.
In a nutshell, my now ex-colleague feels screwed and lied to by our company, and convinced that he could do a lot better elsewhere. I feel for him, and certainly I know everyone hates the organization s/he works for at least part of the time. But while not passing judgment on him (I can vouch for his experience being a less than stellar one, at least), I found myself thinking repeatedly that it just wasn't that bad. So now I wonder: am I lucky, or just not seeing the big picture?
For my part, I'm pretty happy with the way things have gone thus far. Certainly I recognize that the very long workdays and the sometimes fly-by-night nature of even well established businesses in Asia are not for everybody. But I like being busy, and I've been in and out of the workforce long enough to know that if you wait for an employer who is always above board, you'd better have a lot of money saved up! I know that I am lucky in some ways: ours is a very small branch and everyone gets along quite well, which is often not the case at other branches I am familiar with. There are some things I genuinely don't like about the company, notably its vacation policy; but I've seen much, much worse. Bottom line, my experience on balance has been better than what I expected when I took the job, which is saying something because I was very optimistic about it to begin with.
The catch, I suppose, is that I came here from a place where the management had no respect at all for the employees. In my old line of work, people got screwed all the time under blatantly illegal circumstances, and I myself was one of the victims a couple of years ago. So my high opinion of my current job is at least partially a reflection that the bar was set quite low when it came to job satisfaction. I suspect the same was not true for my newest ex-colleague, and I also think he probably landed in a much worse situation here in Taiwan than I did. Sometimes it is nothing more than a case of good old fashioned rotten luck, such as getting placed with a manager or colleague who hates you for no reason you can control. It's happened to me a couple of times, and it was a very traumatic experience indeed.
What bugs me, though, is that even if my experience was isolated in a way, the fact that it was allowed to happen was a strong indication that there were serious problems with the management of the organization in question, even if not all employees suffered as a result. Could the same be the case here and I just haven't noticed it yet? In a word, yes. It could be, though it isn't necessarily. Maybe my friend was just unlucky or maybe it was his own attitude that did him in, but it could also be that he is the dying canary whom the rest of us should heed for our own safety.
For now, though, I don't see any big warning signs in my own patch. Teaching isn't my natural calling by any means, but it is very fulfilling for me. There's nothing better than the look in a kid's eyes the first time s/he understands something you've been trying to teach. As for the salary, it's not bad at all relative to the cost of living here and I am coming out a ways ahead of where I was financially back in DC. I get along famously with all my fellow-teachers. Perhaps best of all, the fact that none of us plans to stay long term anyhow keeps us all fairly relaxed about job security. If things did turn nasty tomorrow, it wouldn't be the first time I had failed to notice the warning signs, which is a bit scary. But my failing to notice them could just as easily be because they genuinely aren't there in my case.
I'd be interested in hearing from other teachers on this, especially those of you who also saw The Letter. Should we all be jumping ship in his wake, or do you think his experience was just an unfortunate aberration? For my part, I'm planning to stay put for now. I just don't think the situation is all that bad or that it's going to get that way.
In a nutshell, my now ex-colleague feels screwed and lied to by our company, and convinced that he could do a lot better elsewhere. I feel for him, and certainly I know everyone hates the organization s/he works for at least part of the time. But while not passing judgment on him (I can vouch for his experience being a less than stellar one, at least), I found myself thinking repeatedly that it just wasn't that bad. So now I wonder: am I lucky, or just not seeing the big picture?
For my part, I'm pretty happy with the way things have gone thus far. Certainly I recognize that the very long workdays and the sometimes fly-by-night nature of even well established businesses in Asia are not for everybody. But I like being busy, and I've been in and out of the workforce long enough to know that if you wait for an employer who is always above board, you'd better have a lot of money saved up! I know that I am lucky in some ways: ours is a very small branch and everyone gets along quite well, which is often not the case at other branches I am familiar with. There are some things I genuinely don't like about the company, notably its vacation policy; but I've seen much, much worse. Bottom line, my experience on balance has been better than what I expected when I took the job, which is saying something because I was very optimistic about it to begin with.
The catch, I suppose, is that I came here from a place where the management had no respect at all for the employees. In my old line of work, people got screwed all the time under blatantly illegal circumstances, and I myself was one of the victims a couple of years ago. So my high opinion of my current job is at least partially a reflection that the bar was set quite low when it came to job satisfaction. I suspect the same was not true for my newest ex-colleague, and I also think he probably landed in a much worse situation here in Taiwan than I did. Sometimes it is nothing more than a case of good old fashioned rotten luck, such as getting placed with a manager or colleague who hates you for no reason you can control. It's happened to me a couple of times, and it was a very traumatic experience indeed.
What bugs me, though, is that even if my experience was isolated in a way, the fact that it was allowed to happen was a strong indication that there were serious problems with the management of the organization in question, even if not all employees suffered as a result. Could the same be the case here and I just haven't noticed it yet? In a word, yes. It could be, though it isn't necessarily. Maybe my friend was just unlucky or maybe it was his own attitude that did him in, but it could also be that he is the dying canary whom the rest of us should heed for our own safety.
For now, though, I don't see any big warning signs in my own patch. Teaching isn't my natural calling by any means, but it is very fulfilling for me. There's nothing better than the look in a kid's eyes the first time s/he understands something you've been trying to teach. As for the salary, it's not bad at all relative to the cost of living here and I am coming out a ways ahead of where I was financially back in DC. I get along famously with all my fellow-teachers. Perhaps best of all, the fact that none of us plans to stay long term anyhow keeps us all fairly relaxed about job security. If things did turn nasty tomorrow, it wouldn't be the first time I had failed to notice the warning signs, which is a bit scary. But my failing to notice them could just as easily be because they genuinely aren't there in my case.
I'd be interested in hearing from other teachers on this, especially those of you who also saw The Letter. Should we all be jumping ship in his wake, or do you think his experience was just an unfortunate aberration? For my part, I'm planning to stay put for now. I just don't think the situation is all that bad or that it's going to get that way.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
I (almost) ate the stinky tofu
Thursday night is Night Market night in Longtan.
The name is pretty self-explanatory. Local merchants come and line the sides of a particular street with their wares, always including a lot of exotic food - exotic for the North Americans in town, anyway. And it wouldn't be a legitimate Taiwanese food fest without stinky tofu.
Stinky tofu is just that: it's tofu, it's served up hot and fresh when you order it, and it smells like a horse barn. I'm told it tastes better than it smells, and a few of my students rave about it. But only a few. I even know one teacher who tried some by accident and said it wasn't bad, but I know another teacher who tried some on purpose and thought the taste lived up to the name.
Naturally, the conundrum arises: should I eat it? I mean, no matter how disgusting it might turn out to be, it would be over quickly and I could say I had tried it. You might think I'd have outgrown such things by now. I mean, after my Rare Montana Treasure prevailed upon me to try Rocky Mountain oysters when we were in Wyoming last summer and I discovered I really liked them, I thought I had outgrown being squeamish about food. But the thing about stinky tofu is that I'm not repelled in any way by what it is, only by what it smells like.
Once again, that smell greeted us periodically at the night market last night. I've had a couple of odd conversations with my colleague Jim here and there about trying it just for the sake of trying it. "I've got no desire to, Dave," he always tells me. "If you do it you'll be my hero." As I wandered around the market with him and his wife (also a fellow teacher) last night, the unmistakeable smell reared its ugly essence now and again. Although I wasn't especially hungry, Jim and I ended up discussing this pressing issue once again.
"I don't see the appeal, Dave."
"Me neither. But somebody must like it. Some of my kids say they do."
"I don't think so. I think it's all a ploy to get tourists to eat something gross."
"But they eat it."
"True. Don't know why."
I do wonder how many locals really do eat the stuff - there certainly is a market for it, but you don't often see people lining up at the smelly stands. Last night, I opted not to be the first to change that. It's kind of fun to think about being able to say you'd done something that repellant - in a junior-high kind of way, anyhow - but it's something else again when you're actually faced with that smell.
So I decided I was a bit too old to be thinking of eating something I didn't find at all appetizing just for the gross-out factor. Instead, I went for my beloved barbecued squid. Ugly, but tasty and not at all smelly.
The name is pretty self-explanatory. Local merchants come and line the sides of a particular street with their wares, always including a lot of exotic food - exotic for the North Americans in town, anyway. And it wouldn't be a legitimate Taiwanese food fest without stinky tofu.
Stinky tofu is just that: it's tofu, it's served up hot and fresh when you order it, and it smells like a horse barn. I'm told it tastes better than it smells, and a few of my students rave about it. But only a few. I even know one teacher who tried some by accident and said it wasn't bad, but I know another teacher who tried some on purpose and thought the taste lived up to the name.
Naturally, the conundrum arises: should I eat it? I mean, no matter how disgusting it might turn out to be, it would be over quickly and I could say I had tried it. You might think I'd have outgrown such things by now. I mean, after my Rare Montana Treasure prevailed upon me to try Rocky Mountain oysters when we were in Wyoming last summer and I discovered I really liked them, I thought I had outgrown being squeamish about food. But the thing about stinky tofu is that I'm not repelled in any way by what it is, only by what it smells like.
Once again, that smell greeted us periodically at the night market last night. I've had a couple of odd conversations with my colleague Jim here and there about trying it just for the sake of trying it. "I've got no desire to, Dave," he always tells me. "If you do it you'll be my hero." As I wandered around the market with him and his wife (also a fellow teacher) last night, the unmistakeable smell reared its ugly essence now and again. Although I wasn't especially hungry, Jim and I ended up discussing this pressing issue once again.
"I don't see the appeal, Dave."
"Me neither. But somebody must like it. Some of my kids say they do."
"I don't think so. I think it's all a ploy to get tourists to eat something gross."
"But they eat it."
"True. Don't know why."
I do wonder how many locals really do eat the stuff - there certainly is a market for it, but you don't often see people lining up at the smelly stands. Last night, I opted not to be the first to change that. It's kind of fun to think about being able to say you'd done something that repellant - in a junior-high kind of way, anyhow - but it's something else again when you're actually faced with that smell.
So I decided I was a bit too old to be thinking of eating something I didn't find at all appetizing just for the gross-out factor. Instead, I went for my beloved barbecued squid. Ugly, but tasty and not at all smelly.
Kindy Field Day
Field Day. Twenty years later, the words still conjure up nothing so much as all that was wrong with elementary school culture, with the bullies getting rewarded for their brute strength while everyone else was made to feel three inches tall because of our relative lack of prowess at sports. Oh, there would be the token reminder from the gym teacher to not boo, but of course it usually went ignored. I suspect the teachers looked at it as nothing more than a chance to get out of the classroom on what was usually a very hot day, back in that pre-air conditioning era. (It was the '80s, but the school was built in the '50s and I don't think it had ever been renovated very much.)
All of which is just my way of getting around to the pleasant surprise I had this morning when we herded the kindy kids down to a local park for our own field day. It was hot and sticky and of course the grownups couldn't wait to get back inside, but the kids actually played nice and went along with the games just for the sake of playing. What a wonderful change! Of course, that could be only because they're so young, but I'll take what I can get.
There were only two events, tug of war and a hula hoop obstacle course. The teachers demonstrated tug of war by playing an impromptu battle-of-the-sexes match. (Yes, the women kicked our butts, but there were twice as many of them!) We then let each of the classes have a chance facing off against each other, expending a fair amount of energy ensuring that they were about evenly matched in age and class size. Then it was on to the obstacle course, which was a bit over some of their heads - but everyone seemed to have a good time! None of the kids had much of anything to say to me about it all. Mostly they just seemed to welcome the chance to spend the morning outdoors in a fairly bucolic corner of our grungy little town. (And it was a beautiful park - I hope I can find my way back there one of these weekends.)
As for me, the sun and humidity aside, I can see the appeal of getting out of the classroom even when you do have air conditioning. The fact that it didn't seem to inspire any kind of football culture heirarchy among the little kids was just icing on the cake. But I do like icing!
All of which is just my way of getting around to the pleasant surprise I had this morning when we herded the kindy kids down to a local park for our own field day. It was hot and sticky and of course the grownups couldn't wait to get back inside, but the kids actually played nice and went along with the games just for the sake of playing. What a wonderful change! Of course, that could be only because they're so young, but I'll take what I can get.
There were only two events, tug of war and a hula hoop obstacle course. The teachers demonstrated tug of war by playing an impromptu battle-of-the-sexes match. (Yes, the women kicked our butts, but there were twice as many of them!) We then let each of the classes have a chance facing off against each other, expending a fair amount of energy ensuring that they were about evenly matched in age and class size. Then it was on to the obstacle course, which was a bit over some of their heads - but everyone seemed to have a good time! None of the kids had much of anything to say to me about it all. Mostly they just seemed to welcome the chance to spend the morning outdoors in a fairly bucolic corner of our grungy little town. (And it was a beautiful park - I hope I can find my way back there one of these weekends.)
As for me, the sun and humidity aside, I can see the appeal of getting out of the classroom even when you do have air conditioning. The fact that it didn't seem to inspire any kind of football culture heirarchy among the little kids was just icing on the cake. But I do like icing!
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
On a more serious note
It didn't occur to me to post this sooner, mainly because I'm guessing a lot of my readers are colleagues here in Taiwan who already know what I'm about to report. But for those of you back home and elsewhere who are wondering about local reactions to the news about the Iraqi prisoners, well...
There isn't really that much shock as far as I can tell.
It's more or less being greeted as just more of what the rest of the world expects in the wake of George and Dick's Excellent Adventure. As an American overseas, from a strictly selfish point of view, I guess this is a good thing for my personal safety anyway. Since the outrage was already at such a high level, this isn't kicking off any Yankee-Go-Home sentiment that wasn't already there anyhow. (And I haven't run into any overt anti-Americanism yet, for what it's worth - remember, the rest of the world is more aware than most Americans of how illegitimate George W.M.D. Bush's "win" in Florida really was, so perhaps they don't blame it on the voters who, after all, didn't really elect him.) But looking beyond the tip of my own nose, it is, in a word, humiliating. Apparently this is what the rest of the world has come to expect of my government.
I'm tempted to launch into a silver-lining type analysis of how this could help turn the tide more solidly against Bush and solidify our chances of getting rid of him in November, but I find all that too distateful. There is no silver lining when it comes to stories like this, even if some good does come as an indirect result of it. To any Americans who are thinking of switching their allegiances from Bush to Kerry as a result of the news, I say, Welcome to our side, but why on Earth did things have to come to this? That's the bottom line for me - things really shouldn't have gotten this bad before people finally woke up to the truth of what they got us into in Iraq. Of course, as some of my non-American friends will remind me, most people beyond the reach of Rupert Murdoch's media were already aware of that long ago. To the Jim Inhofes of the world who would try to justify this, I can think of nothing to say.
In any case, if I might toss in a bit of solution along with all my thoughts on the problem, here's my drop in the bucket for the cause: for any other Americans overseas who want to vote absentee but need help getting a ballot, this website is a good resource. I finally got the ball rolling on my ballot last night, but it wasn't a fun experience. Here's hoping that link makes it easy for some others.
As for what all this does for American credibility in general...let's just say I have stopped correcting locals when they assume I'm Canadian (which does happen quite often for some reason).
There isn't really that much shock as far as I can tell.
It's more or less being greeted as just more of what the rest of the world expects in the wake of George and Dick's Excellent Adventure. As an American overseas, from a strictly selfish point of view, I guess this is a good thing for my personal safety anyway. Since the outrage was already at such a high level, this isn't kicking off any Yankee-Go-Home sentiment that wasn't already there anyhow. (And I haven't run into any overt anti-Americanism yet, for what it's worth - remember, the rest of the world is more aware than most Americans of how illegitimate George W.M.D. Bush's "win" in Florida really was, so perhaps they don't blame it on the voters who, after all, didn't really elect him.) But looking beyond the tip of my own nose, it is, in a word, humiliating. Apparently this is what the rest of the world has come to expect of my government.
I'm tempted to launch into a silver-lining type analysis of how this could help turn the tide more solidly against Bush and solidify our chances of getting rid of him in November, but I find all that too distateful. There is no silver lining when it comes to stories like this, even if some good does come as an indirect result of it. To any Americans who are thinking of switching their allegiances from Bush to Kerry as a result of the news, I say, Welcome to our side, but why on Earth did things have to come to this? That's the bottom line for me - things really shouldn't have gotten this bad before people finally woke up to the truth of what they got us into in Iraq. Of course, as some of my non-American friends will remind me, most people beyond the reach of Rupert Murdoch's media were already aware of that long ago. To the Jim Inhofes of the world who would try to justify this, I can think of nothing to say.
In any case, if I might toss in a bit of solution along with all my thoughts on the problem, here's my drop in the bucket for the cause: for any other Americans overseas who want to vote absentee but need help getting a ballot, this website is a good resource. I finally got the ball rolling on my ballot last night, but it wasn't a fun experience. Here's hoping that link makes it easy for some others.
As for what all this does for American credibility in general...let's just say I have stopped correcting locals when they assume I'm Canadian (which does happen quite often for some reason).
Stressing for graduation!
That's right, graduation. From kindergarten. All the kindy classes are having graduation ceremonies in a bit over a month and a half, even though three of the five of them are only going up to a new level in the kindy program. Hey, it's all in fun...right?
Well, yes. Mostly. Since most of the kids don't really know what graduation is or what it's supposed to be, it's just one more excuse for them to sing English songs and goof around with the teachers. And, in turn, it's kind of fun for us teachers too - at least it is now that they're getting pretty good at the songs they'll be expected to sing at graduation. Up until most of the way through last week, it was more stressful than anything else for us. I really was worried for a while that the whole thing was over their little heads!
My class will be doing a musical version of "The Ugly Duckling." I'm not entirely sure that they understand the story, but they do seem to like the songs. Fortunately, they have recently reached a point where they cheer rather than boo when they see me putting the CD on for them to sing along with. That's made it more fun for me as well; I'm betting I wasn't much fun to be around during those first few practices when I found myself thinking, "Dear God, they'll never pull this off by July!" Now, my thinking is more along the lines of, "We'll never get them all to behave throughout the event, but at least they'll know the songs.
My only real problem now is that two of the boys in the class are about evenly matched for the title role. Every time I settle on one, he decides he doesn't want to practice, and the other one steps in and does a great job. Then the whole cycle starts again. It's a good thing the kids are so cute; sometimes that's their saving grace!
In another step towards graduation, today was Picture Day. None of us were too happy about that, since it meant keeping the kids under control for getting their pictures taken, and having to leave them somewhat unguarded while we had ours taken. Also, the women teachers were required to wear skirts, which is highly inconvenient for kindy since you're going to spend a fair amount of time sitting on the floor and getting back up, often much too quickly to do so in a dignified manner. So that inspired a fair number of complaints.
I'm torn with respect to how much sympathy I have, of course. As a matter of principle, I am firmly opposed to any kind of skirts-only policy, as anyone who knows me will attest, and I definitely recognize how impractical such things can be when dealing with a room full of five year olds. But hey, it's nearly summer, it's Taiwan, and it's well into the 30s (the 90s in Farenheit) outside. I can think of worse fates than not wearing pants on a day like this. Indeed, I couldn't help but notice that at least one of my colleagues made a point of bringing a pair of jeans to change into as soon as possible, but she never made use of them!
Well, yes. Mostly. Since most of the kids don't really know what graduation is or what it's supposed to be, it's just one more excuse for them to sing English songs and goof around with the teachers. And, in turn, it's kind of fun for us teachers too - at least it is now that they're getting pretty good at the songs they'll be expected to sing at graduation. Up until most of the way through last week, it was more stressful than anything else for us. I really was worried for a while that the whole thing was over their little heads!
My class will be doing a musical version of "The Ugly Duckling." I'm not entirely sure that they understand the story, but they do seem to like the songs. Fortunately, they have recently reached a point where they cheer rather than boo when they see me putting the CD on for them to sing along with. That's made it more fun for me as well; I'm betting I wasn't much fun to be around during those first few practices when I found myself thinking, "Dear God, they'll never pull this off by July!" Now, my thinking is more along the lines of, "We'll never get them all to behave throughout the event, but at least they'll know the songs.
My only real problem now is that two of the boys in the class are about evenly matched for the title role. Every time I settle on one, he decides he doesn't want to practice, and the other one steps in and does a great job. Then the whole cycle starts again. It's a good thing the kids are so cute; sometimes that's their saving grace!
In another step towards graduation, today was Picture Day. None of us were too happy about that, since it meant keeping the kids under control for getting their pictures taken, and having to leave them somewhat unguarded while we had ours taken. Also, the women teachers were required to wear skirts, which is highly inconvenient for kindy since you're going to spend a fair amount of time sitting on the floor and getting back up, often much too quickly to do so in a dignified manner. So that inspired a fair number of complaints.
I'm torn with respect to how much sympathy I have, of course. As a matter of principle, I am firmly opposed to any kind of skirts-only policy, as anyone who knows me will attest, and I definitely recognize how impractical such things can be when dealing with a room full of five year olds. But hey, it's nearly summer, it's Taiwan, and it's well into the 30s (the 90s in Farenheit) outside. I can think of worse fates than not wearing pants on a day like this. Indeed, I couldn't help but notice that at least one of my colleagues made a point of bringing a pair of jeans to change into as soon as possible, but she never made use of them!
Monday, May 3, 2004
Let's hear it for immaturity!
Well, that's not exactly what I mean. But ever since I got to Taiwan, something has been in the back of my mind about cultural differences when it comes to going to school.
Two things - one general and one more specific - have been on my mind. The more general one is the fact that several teachers I had in high school used to bemoan the fact that American kids weren't more like Asian ones when it came to work ethic. We were always told tales of kids spending twice as long at school every day and studying twice as hard at night and loving it all. Furthermore, we would always hear, they were going to eat us for breakfast in the rat race once we graduated.
The more specific one was a rather ugly and borderline racist cartoon my 12th-grade calculus teacher had pinned up in her classroom, which drove the same point home. The cartoon depicted an American teenager and a Japanese one, and the dialogue went something like this:
"Bummer! I hate the first day of school!"
"Not me! In Japan we go to school twelve hours a day, all year long. I love it!"
"Yeah? What does that make you? A nerd? A know-it-all? A schoolboy?"
"Your boss."
(I say "borderline racist," by the way, because the Japanese kid's facial features were very overdone in the drawing. I concede that that part of the story was probably unintentional on the cartoonist's part, but still...)
So, is there any accuracy to all the stories we heard for all those years?
If my experience is any guide, not really. Yes, kids here do spend far more time in school than they do back home, but they're still kids, and the "I love it!" part of the story appears to be totally mythical. Do they really learn that much more? It's hard for me to judge since I only teach one subject, but it doesn't appear that way to me. Certainly, most of them aren't much better at their second language than I was with mine when I was their age. (I suppose French is easier for a native English-speaker to learn than English is for a Chinese-native, but they also spend a lot more time at it than I did.) The long hours really show, too, in the form of school clothes that tend to be awfully dirty and in their tired faces. Also, outside of English class, most of them attend Chinese schools where every class is apparently about the size of a Big Ten intro-to-communications class. They wear numbers on their clothes to identify them - I really do hope they're too young to recognize some of the uglier connotations of all that! But I think they probably are, and it is more a part of the culture here anyway, for better or worse.
And they certainly aren't little machines the way the Japanese kids were so often portrayed to us back in the day. No, they're kids, and they like junk food and comic books and bad music and worse jokes just like so many of us did. I suppose my job would be a lot easier if the stereotypes were true. But nonetheless, I've found it immensely comforting that they're not. It's been great to discover that kids really are kids everywhere and that if one system has some advantages over another, the one still isn't any closer to perfection than the other.
I do, however, kind of wish I were still in touch with my old teachers so I could explain all this to them. Somehow I doubt they'd buy it, though. Given what public school teachers in America have to go through these days, I suspect a lot of them just have to believe that there's a place somewhere where kids act like adults and everyone thirsts constantly for knowledge.
It ain't here, babe.
Two things - one general and one more specific - have been on my mind. The more general one is the fact that several teachers I had in high school used to bemoan the fact that American kids weren't more like Asian ones when it came to work ethic. We were always told tales of kids spending twice as long at school every day and studying twice as hard at night and loving it all. Furthermore, we would always hear, they were going to eat us for breakfast in the rat race once we graduated.
The more specific one was a rather ugly and borderline racist cartoon my 12th-grade calculus teacher had pinned up in her classroom, which drove the same point home. The cartoon depicted an American teenager and a Japanese one, and the dialogue went something like this:
"Bummer! I hate the first day of school!"
"Not me! In Japan we go to school twelve hours a day, all year long. I love it!"
"Yeah? What does that make you? A nerd? A know-it-all? A schoolboy?"
"Your boss."
(I say "borderline racist," by the way, because the Japanese kid's facial features were very overdone in the drawing. I concede that that part of the story was probably unintentional on the cartoonist's part, but still...)
So, is there any accuracy to all the stories we heard for all those years?
If my experience is any guide, not really. Yes, kids here do spend far more time in school than they do back home, but they're still kids, and the "I love it!" part of the story appears to be totally mythical. Do they really learn that much more? It's hard for me to judge since I only teach one subject, but it doesn't appear that way to me. Certainly, most of them aren't much better at their second language than I was with mine when I was their age. (I suppose French is easier for a native English-speaker to learn than English is for a Chinese-native, but they also spend a lot more time at it than I did.) The long hours really show, too, in the form of school clothes that tend to be awfully dirty and in their tired faces. Also, outside of English class, most of them attend Chinese schools where every class is apparently about the size of a Big Ten intro-to-communications class. They wear numbers on their clothes to identify them - I really do hope they're too young to recognize some of the uglier connotations of all that! But I think they probably are, and it is more a part of the culture here anyway, for better or worse.
And they certainly aren't little machines the way the Japanese kids were so often portrayed to us back in the day. No, they're kids, and they like junk food and comic books and bad music and worse jokes just like so many of us did. I suppose my job would be a lot easier if the stereotypes were true. But nonetheless, I've found it immensely comforting that they're not. It's been great to discover that kids really are kids everywhere and that if one system has some advantages over another, the one still isn't any closer to perfection than the other.
I do, however, kind of wish I were still in touch with my old teachers so I could explain all this to them. Somehow I doubt they'd buy it, though. Given what public school teachers in America have to go through these days, I suspect a lot of them just have to believe that there's a place somewhere where kids act like adults and everyone thirsts constantly for knowledge.
It ain't here, babe.
New Link
I actually added it a few days ago now, but allow me to extend an official introduction to Comm-Post, run by a Canadian friend with whom I engaged in all manner of craziness back in DC a few years ago. He's been on a variety of adventures around Europe and the Middle East recently, which stand up well to lunchtime reading. While you're there, be sure to ask him all about how a Slurpee can get you out of trouble with a highway cop!
(Okay, Pat, now it's your turn to add a plug. ;)
(Okay, Pat, now it's your turn to add a plug. ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
