Where's the Sanity

Nothing

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:56:35 GMT

It seem I have nothing to write about anymore. Most of my post are social comments on people and their activities. I guess that's the sociology training. Lately, there has been very few thoughts worth writing about. Personally I am not an exciting individual. I can relate and do most of the things other people do. For me to talk about my life would be boring. On the other hand, I love to read about others. What excites them, angers them or pleases them is fascinating. However, I have come up with a few new ideas. I want to write them down so I can think about them and develop some conclusions. Honestly I want to write them down to force me to continue this journal.

Chinese are delusional about their place in the world. This has a lot to do with the educational system.

Expats need to spend more time observing the world around them and stop trying to do everything immediately. Take a cue from children, they are smarter then most people think. They are always watching others. They are always interested in "how". How did they do that? How can I do that?

I need to get out of China. This is probably a direct response to the first observation.

3:15 in the Morning

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 19:26:11 GMT

The weather here has been crazy. The temperature has ranged from 20-24 degrees during the day, to around 13 at night. So, while large regions of the country bake under a severe drought, we enjoy comfortable weather with sufficient rainfall. A week ago it rained more 150mm.

Yesterday was Teacher's Day. I got e-cards, a bag of chestnuts, and many well wishes from students. It was a great day. Supposedly the school will give us a bonus, but I haven't heard anything official.

I don't really have much to write about. I can't seem to sleep right now, so I got up hoping that would wear me out again. I should probably try reading. There's nothing like a dry bit of writing to bore a person to sleep.

Same Old, Same Old

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 01:58:35 GMT

It's been a rough week. I have come to realize that most schools in China are the same. The problem you encounter in your first job will reappear in your second, third and fourth position. Schools are a business. There are very few institutions interested in the education of their students. Fill the seats with warm bodies and find a laowai with a neutral accent to stand in the front of the room. Sorry, I'm babbling about something that will never change.

Classes started this week. When I arrived I had thought they would not start for two weeks. If the school had bothered to inform the teachers of the start date, I would have come earlier. We received our schedules with only a few days to prepare for class. Although this is par for the course, it never stops irritating me. Luckily, at this school teachers are not expected to teach "real" classes. We are only being asked to teach oral and movies. A few of the more talented (educated, experienced, put upon) have been asked to fill a void and teach a writing class. Somehow I have been lumped into this group. No problem. I have taught writing before and brought all my materials from last year.

Still the first week is always matter of not letting things get to you. There have been schedule changes constantly. Teachers complaining about things that cannot be changed or are culturally part of China. Students complaining about teachers. It seems the school has hired a number of non-native speakers and the students do not like their accents. I can't say I blame them. A lot of their learning is done by rote memorization and imitation. Non-native speakers interfere with their view of what a foreigner should sound and act like. Last year one of our group was a great teacher whose L1 was not English. Nobody would ever be able to tell she was not from th UK. Unfortunately this year things are different.

I'm hoping next week the kinks have been worked out and life can return to the routine of teaching. Oh...I can't believe I just wish for life to become routine.

Close Your Eyes and Make a Wish

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 07:59:25 GMT

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Taking a Break

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 09:46:42 GMT

This will be my last post for a while. I'll be traveling for the next 6 weeks. The vacation time you get working in China is incredible. While I'll have access to a computer off and on during my travels and my trip home, it's very unlikely I will post anything. I'll catch up when I get back in Aug.

Bye for now.

Time to Fly

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:20:57 GMT

Got my tickets. They called at about 4pm.

Back to Normal

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 06:48:36 GMT

Things are going quite well here all of the sudden. The students have agreed to go back to class. The school has agreed to hold all the remaining exams over the next three days and then let the students go home. I got signed off, which means I completed my contract and can leave. They paid me my last pay check. Now all I need is my plane ticket, which the school is getting for me and I am out of here.

6 weeks of summer vacation! Yeah!

Day 7

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 03:49:56 GMT

It's been 7 days since the riot. The students are still not going to classes. Yesterday's big announcement seemed to have no effect on the students. Today they are still marching and shouting. However, it has been raining pretty steadily and that seems to have slowed them down a little.

I tried to have a discussion with the FAO leader, but that is like talking to a brick wall. There was almost nothing to be gained from him.

Yesterday's big announcement included:

The president and vice-president have been fired.
They are to make a public apology
Students will be given a 2nd chance to take their exams
Student leaders will be punished

In regards to the Pres., I don't really care for him. He's a "yes" man who got his job through favors and not ability. As for the VP, he's a racist fool who is only slightly less disliked by most people on this campus then his wife. Since the public apology will be in Chinese, I unfortunately will miss it. I'm pretty sure what ever is said I would not find satisfying anyway. Regarding the exams, that's a no-brainer. They can't fail 10,000 students. That would be an even bigger embarrassment to the school. And finally punishing students, everyone needs a scapegoat. Rumors is they will not be kicked out of school. However, I for one don't trust this school.

I managed to turn in my grades. I refused to fail anyone and thought that would be a problem but everything went smoothly. The secretary of the department is another "yes" man who is easy to fluster. However, since nobody told him what to do, he simply accepted what was given to him.

That is the current situation at ShengDa. I'm not leaving for a few more days. I still have time to see how this pans out.

Another Article

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 10:52:25 GMT

Here is another media report about the Student Uprising.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asiapacific/detail.asp?GRP=C&id=84415

The Saga Continues

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 04:38:56 GMT

Today is pretty much like yesterday. The are large groups of students around the admin building, students are not attending finals, and the riot police are still here. There are many police vans and cars parked just outside the gate. There is even a water cannon stationed in downtown LongHu. The students are still being good. There is a lot of shouting, but there has been no more destruction since the weekend.

The leaders of the college are scheduled to make an announcement tonight sometime after 6pm. This will either quiet the students and things will return to normal or really PO them and we will be in for another round of demonstrations. Currently the students far too committed to quit now. One student I talked to said, "We've been here for 5 days. At this point we have nothing more to lose."

There has been no word on what the teachers are suppose to do about finals. I went to pick mine up at the office and I had one. That would be one test out of 115 students. I got to see the other stacks that were there for the FTs. One teacher had 10-15, another had 5 and two teachers had 1-2.

On another note, the story has made it's way into the international press. AP has published a story and it has been picked up by a number of papers. The most notable is CNN.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/06/19/china.studentriot.ap/

Part 2

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 05:10:02 GMT

The riots of pretty much stopped. There has been some destruction, but that has been limited to throwing things out their dorm window. There are no more mass crowds breaking everything in sight.

Recent events include congregating in front of the admin. building shouting, singing and chanting. The higher up tried to break it up by inviting the students into the auditorium for a discussion. I don't think it went very well. An hour later the students were back on the street shouting, singing and chanting. They must have been out there for 3-4 hours. The temperature was around 30+. They are committed.

Today's events include blocking the admin. building in an attempt to prevent business as usual. They succeeded. Today was the day for money exchange for the foreign teachers. It was canceled. And, the students are not attending their final exams. They are doing their best to prevent other students from attending also. The are gathering in front of the teaching building blocking the doors and shouting at those who attempt to cross the line. I have to admit this is a good tactic. By preventing students from taking the exam they will make it very difficult for the administration to fail everyone.

There is a lot of whining from other teachers, "I'm scared.","I want my money.", "What do we do?" What you do is stay out of the way and make it the administrations problem. None of this actually concerns the FTs. I for one know that I will not fail any student who does not show up for the test. The school will have to do it. I will hand them my grade book and say, "It's your problem now."

RIOT!

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:04:34 GMT

There was a riot on campus Friday morning. I waited a day before post because I wanted to get my facts straight.

Thursday morning was graduation. A day filled with happy students and a lot of picture taking. It was a sharp contrast to the activities that went on at 1:30am. More then two thousand students took to the streets. That may not seem like a lot of people to many of you, but this is a small campus. They were protesting a lot of things, but the catalyst was the name of the institution that would appear on their diplomas. This school is currently affiliated with a major university. That university's name appears first on the actual certificate. In China, name is everything. If they change the name that appears on the certificate, it devalues the diploma. According to the students, when they entered this university they were made a lot of promises. The certification was one of them.

The university's response was kind of strange too. Public universities are no longer to be affiliated with private colleges. This kind of statement is easy to verify and disprove. It amounts to a flow of verbal diarrhea from a scared bunch of ivory tower bureaucrats.

Response to the riot was not what I expected either. Most of the the students expressed overwhelming support. That was predictable, but it was the teachers response that surprised me. In an atmosphere of conformity, there were a large number of teachers who stood by the students.

Except for the destruction of property of innocent businesses, we fully support the students too. They can destroy the campus mural with the founders picture. They destroy every window in the admin. building or any school building. However, there are shops and a bank on this campus that are here to serve the students, not the administration. The hurling of rocks and stealing from these businesses was wrong.

There is talk of another riot to come. It seems that beyond the lies the school intends to become petty and take 50rmb from every student account in order to pay for the damages. There is also talk of a walk out during the final exam.

There's more to come.

And Now It's Time to Say Goodbye

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 00:49:11 GMT

Tomorrow is officially graduation. They seem so young and soon they will be kicked out of the nest. No more support money from mommy and daddy. No more vacations living at home doing nothing. Now they must work year round and take care of everything on their own. It will be sad to see them go. It's been a great year of watching and helping them. Some of them have done very well. One student is actually going to study abroad. She scored very well on her TOEFL and maxed the TEM-8. It will be sad and happy at the same time.

Very soon the teachers will begin to depart. Our little group here at duaned will splinter and the information network will fall apart. I will be left to my own entries without the comments and input from the others that made these post so much more enlightening. It will be good to get away from some of the teachers. We all know that not everyone is a good person or at least knows how to act like one, but it is difficult to be forced to fake pleasantries with those who can't be pleasant. It too will be a sad and happy time.

Best wishes to all the graduating seniors across China.

Strange Happenings

Wed, 24 May 2006 00:30:53 GMT

The semester is ending, but not on a good note. ShengDa had lost another teacher. Until now all of those that have left could not be considered the schools fault. After all foreigners are a wacky bunch. This time the administration did it to themselves. There is not one among us who would not have done the same thing. We wish our departed teacher well and send our support. We also wish ShengDa well. The actions of a few do not reflect on the whole institution. We also know that our friends departure is meaningless to you. Just goes to show how much some people need to learn. Those wacky racists.

Routine

Wed, 10 May 2006 01:01:33 GMT

Life has become a bit routine here. That should be good, but somehow it isn't. Everybody seems to be following a routine, students, teacher, even the administration. This is not boredom. This is not a complaint. This is an observation. This is life.

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 07:02:47 GMT

I know this is wrong on so many levels, but in light of why this blog exists I thought it to be quite appropriate. This also saves me from writing an entry.

Besides, funny is funny.

I want to say thank you to the teacher who is hosting this picture and helped me post it.

Midterms

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 06:51:12 GMT

It's midterm week, or should I say weeks, here at Shengda. Informal classes have up to three weeks to complete their exams. This means the oral and movies teachers can do theirs at their leisure, while the writing teachers get theirs scheduled by the inept secretary. Some of the oral teachers have already started their tests, and oh boy what tests they were.

One teacher sat one-on-one with the students, stared at them and said nothing. The students said nothing and the teacher said nothing. That's it. I didn't know there was a psychic in our midst.

Another teacher had a written test. Hello, this is O-R-A-L. There's a whole other set of classes that teach reading and writing.

Yet another teacher told the students to pick a poem, read it in class and explain how it makes them feel. I must have misunderstood the name of this place, Shengda Trade and Management College. Maybe this is a Liberal Arts school.

And my personal favorite, talk for one minute on whatever you want. How lazy can you get! What, no follow up question? No practicing anything taught in class for the last 8 weeks? Why not just give them an A and save yourself the trouble?

Teachers need to divorce their personal egos from the classroom. There are specific needs these students have and limited specific options for their future. Until EFL teachers think about that, and work for the students they can never be considered a good teacher.

The Information Network of Shengda

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 07:07:11 GMT

Information travel in circles at Shengda. We were given a 4 day weekend here 4/6-4/9. For a month rumors flew as to the actually date of our long weekend. Students were saying one thing, the teachers were saying another, and the administration was saying nothing. Finally a week before the big event the information got passed around to the Foreign Teachers. And who do you think passed the information? You can bet it wasn't the the administration. No, it was the other teachers. This is one example why it's good to make friends.

Another example of information traveling slowly is new contracts. It's recruiting time for colleges in China, and time for Shengda to decide who they want to keep for another year and who they don't really care about. I just learned there are four teachers the college is actively pursuing. It seems these four were actually made offers almost a month ago.

I didn't get any details except they get to keep their apt.

Rule of working in a Chinese college: If you want information, gossip or help, make friends with the other teachers, both foreign and Chinese.

When Things Are Going Smoothly ... Change Something

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 07:05:02 GMT

This school has moved from the annoying to the insane. Their newest thing ... moving the teachers desks. It all started from a recent staff meeting. A teacher suggested the foreigners need a buddy, someone who they can go to for information or help. (Word of advice: Keep your mouth shut durring staff meetings!) This was followed by gross incompetence by the department secretary, which led to at least three confrontations with teachers. The next thing we know we are getting calls from some Chinese teacher telling us they are our "buddies" and "if we need anything to come to them". Some of us were even told we are not to go to the English dept. secretary. I have also learned that our desks have been moved. Some of the foreigners are in one office and others are in a different office. This has also caused quite a disturbance.

I have discovered most teachers are totally ignoring the move. I should explain also there are very few teachers that ever even set foot in the office. I know of only 5 that do any work there. (I don't count holding the required 2hrs. of English Corner as working in the office.)

This school is treading thin ice. More then a few of their recent actions have PO'd a majority of us. There is a letter of complaint circulating outlining the problems. The new hiring season is about to begin. Generally the school relies on recommendations from past to teacher to help attract new teachers. I don't think the recommendations this year are going to be very good. The school needs to learn they need us more then we need them.

The First Week of Classes

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:55:28 GMT

College classes have started again. Now I hope that things settle down and we can start doing what we are being paid to do, teach. It has been a week of headaches. Schedule changes, room changes and poor management have dominated most of our time.

I am content with my classes. I got lucky and did not get one of the three hour writing classes. I could not imagine teaching a one subject in a foreign language for three hours. If the teachers have this opinion you have to wonder how the students feel. I applaud the teachers who managed reschedule this class with their students. They have done well, especially for the students.

This semester should be interesting

A New Semester Begins

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 03:16:27 GMT

We got our new class schedules Weds. Now this was miraculous because we were not suppose to get them until Thurs. afternoon. I should have know there was a catch. Mine and a few other teachers have had theirs changed once or twice. So today, Friday, a new schedule appeared. There is nothing like finding out what you are going to do less then 3 days before the start of class.

The schedules are also a little strange. Some of us have writing class for three hours every week. Last semester we had 2hrs. every week plus 2hrs every other week. I know either way the class has the same amount of hours, I also know both students and teachers do not want to sit through one 3hr class on any subject.

I guess this is just how it works in China. Learn to live with!

End of Vacation

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 02:00:08 GMT

It's offical. The Chinese New Year Holiday is over. Tomorrrow, all responsible teachers are expected to show-up at the office and receive their new class scheduals. Now, while I am eager to know what I will be teaching next semester, I can not say I am eager to make an appearence at 8 o'clock in the morning. We'll just have to see what time I wake-up.

Miss America Pagent

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 06:03:55 GMT

I has recently come to my attention that some people just don't get the Miss America Pageant. There is a misconception that this a beauty pageant. I suggest these people pay more attention. First, these women are not beautiful. I will admit they are above average in looks, but I would not put them in the category of beautiful. Second, the prizes. There are over 100,000US dollars worth of scholarships up for grabs. Scholarship! Money used to further ones education. There are very few cash or luxury prizes included. Third, the competition. There are two weeks of competition before the finals. Everything those women do from the day they arrive at the venue to the day of crowning the winner is judged by someone. There are numerous interviews, not just the ones seen on TV. There are speeches on ideals these women hold or causes they support. And, there is the talents portion. Some of these women have exceptional abilities. All in all the Miss America Pageant is a display of the abilities and intelligence of women. The winner is not the most beautiful women in America, she is an example of the all best qualities women display.

Worthless Activities Women Pursue

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 05:57:51 GMT

Women are different creatures. The way they think is probably the most baffling thing about them. No, I take that back, the way they act after they think is the most baffling thing.

Women snoop. They listen to other people's conversations. They look distastefully upon others. They make value judgments on what they think they have discovered. These judgements are based on their own personal set of values. Then they snipe. They look for others of their own kind to discuss the failings of their fellow beings. When they can't find others who share their beliefs they write a blog. Using information misunderstood or out of context, they air their discontent for the world to see. They don't understand the fallacies behind their arguments. They don't see the lies they spread. They don't believe their actions put them in the same catagory as those they rally against.

So, it time for women to be individuals. Be your own person. Be proud of yourself and your identity. You don't need approval. You don't need to defame others to prove your self-worth.

Well I'll be . . .

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 06:39:00 GMT

I've been on this site just over two weeks and I've already got myself banned from posting comments in two journals. You know that's gotta be a record.