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From Magic City Morning Star Entertainment
T.D. Polo-Sanchez' letters to his brother in America - Hello luminous brother from the land under the Mandate of Heaven Chinese students mature slower than Western students so one has to subtract five years from their age. I work with sixteen to eighteen year olds, but in reality I am dealing with eleven to thirteen year olds. I have seen five-foot tall mothers take by the hand their six foot, seventeen year old son to school and he better keep up. In China the police will not intervene. There is no point in getting beat-up as well since they carry no weapons. In the states, the police will taser everybody first and figure out the details later. The students complain that I am very strict. I fail to see how ''please wake-up'' and ''please put your hand cream away'' is strict. When I first arrived the students thought they were going to have a party. I did not put up being told to ''f-off'' and have an eraser thrown at me in America to get the Chinese equivalent. In the beginning I yelled to gain control of my classes of sixty students. That did not work because as a foreigner I do not get the yelling privilege of a Chinese teacher. Things changed when I read a web site called ''Middle Kingdom Life'' that explained what teaching English in China entails. What was particular helpful was the section on keeping ''face.'' In Chinese society keeping ''face'' is pretty much keeping your dignity. This is a simplification, but for young people this is all I needed to know. Being ridiculed or called out in class is losing ''face.'' When classes get too loud I do not yell, but simply say, ''I need it quiet.'' The students will get each other to be quiet. Kudos to peer pressure. Now for discipline when a student misbehaves, I call them up and have them write on the board multiple times ''I will not (whatever the offense) in class.'' In one case of a serial napper I made him write on the board and he said ''sheet.'' I could not get sleep out of his mind. The students snickered and laughed as the boy sheepishly went up. The other offenses are things I have to confiscate like comic books, nail cutters, combs, mirrors, candy, and other homework. It beats confiscating knives, drugs, condoms, and even x-rated movies as in my previous job. At the end of class, I call them one by one to retrieve their things. For the boys I have them write on the chalk board and the girls I have them erase the writing. The girls are more obedient, but when they get caught are more stubborn to deal with. For serious cases I just go up to their faces and ask them if they have a problem. I outweigh them by fifty to seventy-five pounds each and they back down. They shun confrontation especially with a foreigner from a country they think as violent. When I walk around supervising their work, I know what goes on behind my back: social cocktail hour and the smuggling of contraband. Sometimes I walk around with some chalk and you can hear the English words increase. They are amazed on how I catch them doing homework especially since some sit in the back. It's pretty easy to spot when you have fifty-nine looking at you and one looking down with their shoulder moving around. To keep face some delibarately lie to me that they were just moving their homework from one place of their desk to another and that it just happened to stay in the middle for ten minutes. If I have a doubt, I let them go with a verbal warning. No matter how much control I think I have, I somtimes remind them of their greatest fear- a Chinese teacher. When the strict Chinese teachers enter the class you can hear the fleas on a cricket sing. Fire shoots out of their eyes and mouth. The students have the choice of dealing with me or dealing with the Chinese dragon in the nearby cave. T. D. Polo-Sanchez
He hopes that you enjoy his posts and remember that he writes with a deep love and affinity to the Chinese people. In this world while we laugh at others and at ourselves, we laugh together. T.D. Polo-Sanchez Email: eslinstructor33@yahoo.com © Copyright 2002-2008 by Magic City Morning Star |
