Gassy Monk

It feels right that the first legitimate post I make to this blog be about my students given they’re the reason I came abroad. Two weeks of classes are over now, and these college students seem like they’re already starting to feel comfortable with me. When we first met, many of them would shy away, giggle and avoid eye contact at all costs. And then there were the girls…

Last week we got past most of that but many students are still reluctant to speak out, and speak up, in class. This seems part due to cultural difference & part simply due to a lack of confidence. From what I gather in my short time here, the students are accustomed to lectures & drills with little focus on spoken, creative application of the language. I’d like to see this hesitation subside & hope that next week will see the most vocal classes yet.

My job is to teach Oral English. Right now I have more than 200 students in 10 classes, although this number will fluctuate throughout the semester due to the arrival of a new freshman class in October and the departure of all seniors 5 weeks later. Frankly, this does not mean a whole lot of classroom time because each class only meets 1 day per week (in total, about 10 hours). This does, however, make my schedule flexible enough to focus on extracurricular activities with the students: we play basketball, hold an ‘English Corner’ to practice language & a small group of us have already been on a hike. The age range is about 17 to 22 years, the abilities range from beginners to advanced, and levels of enthusiasm cover the spectrum.

The school, called the Nanjing Technical College of Special Education (NTCSE), is modest and is located in Nanjing, China (Jiangsu Province), a city of over 6 million people. With about 4,000 students and an offering of 10 majors, the school is one of many 3-year vocational schools in Nanjing. The organization I joined in the US, Volunteers in Asia (VIA, www.via.org), works with the school because of its primary purpose – to cultivate future teachers of special needs children throughout China. The teachers themselves have no disabilities.

Many students come from the countryside and a large portion of those expect to return home when they graduate. It is difficult to say how many of the students I teach in the English department will actually go on to become teachers, but it seems that a majority of the current senior class will & they’re excited about it. The younger students generally express a different sentiment – one of feeling locked into becoming a teacher against their will, facing few or no appealing alternatives. I’m still exploring this sentiment & will undoubtedly oversimplify it, but as of now I think 2 big contributors are: 1) students moving from a poor region to the big city & 2) the way the educational system is structured. To compete for high $ (or, yuan) jobs, the students need to score tops on a national exam that is taken around the age of 16 or 17. Their scores determine essentially everything in their life from then on out. Students at 3-year vocational schools are not the…um, cream of the crop, and that’s openly acknowledged here. The top scorers go to 4-year schools, have the best access to higher education & will get the top paying jobs.

So, generally, students see the wealth around them & do not feel confident enough to obtain it for themselves, leaving them feeling inadequate & incapable of changing their situation. This doesn’t describe everyone, but it is common. I need to refine this interpretation, but this is the world I’m in right now and I’m all caught up in exploring it; this is what it’s all about. More to come.

If anyone has comments, please either reply to this post or send me an email (sdicke@gmail.com), whatever. The whole point is to better empathize with my students & I’d like to hear other’s impressions.

A fellow VIA volunteer mentioned something in her last email that I’m going to poach here. There are a zillion things that I could write, but most seem insubstantial after the initial intrigue has passed. I learn something new every day and have nothing to show for it. I hope to capture the differences that seem important in this blog, only dabbling into the smaller things for their entertainment value.

I hope this finds you all well, and I'd like to hear from all of you. I hope to send individual emails as I make the time. To end with, here are some random things on my mind:

There’s a lot of holiday planning going on right now (National Day) in China. Everyone, nearly 1.3 billion people, will be on vacation starting Oct. 1.

Learn Kung Fu in your sleep! Bruce Lee haunts my dreams. Seriously, he’s been in at least 3 dreams since I got here. Lucky for him we haven't had to battle.

Buddha be praised: China doesn’t export all the good tea to England! India, you have my soul but not my cup.

Who will correct me if I start speaking in broken English?

VIA vols: sweep out the cockroaches, check for outbreaks of bird flu & spray some DEET, I'm calling/writing to make some travel plans & will contact you shortly. My people in the US & abroad: you’ve got a place to stay in Nanjing. Swing through sometime & let’s do anything but sing karaoke. Shanghai is close to Nanjing & is a useful travel hub for planes, trains & buses to Nanjing.

# posted by Scott @ 6:56 PM