Demise of the dancing monkey

But your reasoning basically says 'students do not need teachers'. Students do NOT just buy the opportunity to use facilities with their fees.  They also buy the supervision, direction and guidance of those who are supposed to have both content knowledge and pedagogical know-how.

Yep.  I agree.  That's what they pay for.  That's what I was trying to call "organised learning".

(Even so, at a minimum, they still have the facilities: libraries, classrooms, OTHER teachers, classmates, seniors, and so on...)

The students did the best they could given the circumstances they had.  It was when they realised that they would have this teacher again next semester that they went - NO WAY, and really complained.  They used the means they had available to them during the semester to get a better deal, and did what they could on their own to manage the course work and exams and then said "This isn't good enough. This person doesn't respect us or our futures enough to prepare classes, he thinks we will sit and listen while he tells us how wonderful he is, while he talks total rubbish to us.  NOT going to happen again."

Good on them.  Maybe.  That stuff, would you believe, is them organising themselves.  Them doing their own work.  By themselves.

Thin all the immature shit out of that and focus it in an individual and you got yourself the basis of a learner.

Or a complainy whiner.  When they do it as a horde there's something not quite right.  It's right if one talks in terms of unions and power to the people, but seems a little bit off target when talking about learners.

So goes my humble estimation.


Their achievement is a negative one.  They're arranged--correctly, probably, given the characterisation of the teacher in question--to not have something.  The positive next step would be...



Side note: pfft, translate aspiration and personal investment in to money terms and you devalue it.  Yeah, it becomes "real", but so what?  You only buy good lives.  You don't live them without something inside.

And do you goddamn know what--every time someone talks about foreigners eating doufu, they are absolutely and completely both saying something real, and something about themselves.

And if they are throwing that into their mix about their rights as learners and students, they are being as smart about their learning as they might be expected to be.

Good on them for cutting loose a non-teacher, a person paid to be foreign.  Screw em for thinking they did any more than that if they aren't doing any more than that.

(Actually, I wouldn't honestly say "screw them".  I'd be seeing that now's a hell of a good time to focus on creating those learners.  They've set themselves up a standard of their own.  Aside from being more than the usual political challenge, it'd be a great thing to join in with, yeah?)

Well said CP - and spot on.

I have though perhaps fallen a little on the angry Yoda side of the fence on this issue.

I guess I should clarify.  I think really for myself, I want the student to bring half of the work and I'll bring the other half.    And I guess also after some time they'll do more of the work and I'll go and do something else.

Seems like a couple of principles I use.

I have though perhaps fallen a little on the angry Yoda side of the fence on this issue.

I guess I should clarify.  I think really for myself, I want the student to bring half of the work and I'll bring the other half.    And I guess also after some time they'll do more of the work and I'll go and do something else.

Seems like a couple of principles I use.

I think you did fall on the angry Yoda side - and without justification - defending the dancing monkey.

The students DID bring their half to the table.  They brought their willingness to work, to learn and to absorb information.  Just as they did to my classes and the other FT's classes and the classes their Chinese teachers ran.  And if this FT had given them the opportunity by being a halfway decent teacher, they would have done what they do in my classes and the other FT's.  Taken the foundation, the content, the information he should have guided them to, and built on it.  BUT - here they were not given the chance and they KNEW it.  They then, when they heard that the status would remain quo,  said - "Fair go - we want to learn - give us a chance".  WHY THE HELL ARE YOU CRITICISING THEM FOR THIS CHOICE??  It is not just whining.  They had no other recourse open to them.  They had gone through the 'correct' processes and achieved little.  So, they took the next step and went public.  This is something that we would hold dear - freedom of speech!!

And why are you immediately assuming that the students haven't done their part???

It's right if one talks in terms of unions and power to the people, but seems a little bit off target when talking about learners.

Rubbish!  As an example, look at the Australian Students Union.  Go back through the history there and the amazing number of achievements both for 'learners' and in the broader arena.  And you want them to do it alone, one by one?  Why? Despite the rabbiting on about the 'power of one', most social change has occurred through group action.  Maybe with a charismatic leader, but certainly backed by a group.

BLOODY Hell - I support them EVERY single step of the way on this process. Ask the LL ladies - this has been a concern of mine for a long time.

Tonight I had an "FT's Christmas drinks' which for all sorts of reasons turned into a party.  Not one of my major parties - only 30 or so people - but ... it was for fun, it was for enjoyment, it was great for 90% of the time.

But at the end, this FT had bailed up one of the Chinese attendees and was lecturing him on how bad Mao was.  Now, we would probably all agree with him on this, but being a hell of a lot smarter than this guy, we wouldn't jump up and down on a Chinese person about it.  His reasoning for this guy - "Mao had 4 wives, so he was a bad person.".  The FT in question is on wife No 3.     Next thing I overheard  "I will tell you what I think, but this is my house and if you disagree, the I will punch your nose in."  Excuse me?  It's MY house - and if people want to disagree with anyone, including ME, (and especially him) they are perfectly within their rights.  His other totally charming statements to his Chinese wife, in front of everyone -"Why don't you shit on your own arse?".  "If the bottle is empty, then your head is empty".

My job here - to, within the courses I teach, pick up the stuff that this teacher has missed - so a part of my Brit Lit class next semester will focus on developing their academic writing. 

I was told by other teachers tonight that the English Dep't will not give him any classes to teach next semester.  They are relying on the FAO to do 'more'  but their process - no further damage.

CP - if I figure a teacher does his job - ie prepares, cares about ensuring his/her students get the best possible education that teacher can give, then I will support him/her against any student as much as I possibly can.  But when I see a dancing monkey and one who doesn't care - no way will I give any support to him/her. I won't actively undermine (with either admin or students), but I will try to give the students work that might make up some of the deficit and when students need help, I'll give it to them.  But, I cannot and will not accept that the students are being "immature, complainy whiners" when they are asking for a fair go.  They have a right to a decent education, they have worked their little innards out for the chance to get it.

translate aspiration and personal investment in to money terms and you devalue it.

  Again I have to disagree with you. If you TRULY believed this - you wouldn't try to negotiate the highest salary you can, you would be happy to volunteer your services, or to ask only the bare minimum to live on.  This is not the way the world works, and I don't think even Mother Theresa operated on those lines!!.

I don't think he was defending the "dancing monkey,"*

I think CP makes a valid point that a majority of education is what a student puts into it. We are talking about a culture where rote memorization and near verbatim regurgitation of what a professor says is "education."

That's barely teaching. That's an assembly line education. It works for maths, but it doesn't work wonders for fluent, foreign language acquisition.

You cannot effectively teach English language skills with an assembly-line mentality, nor can a student learn English effectively should they attempt to tackle the language with such demands.

Having overheard students complain about how "poor" their teachers were because they didn't like their accent**, looks, style, refusal to discuss certain topics***, and because they actually gave homework with a deadline and wouldn't accept assignments three weeks late - I don't always trust that the "customer is always right," when they are lobbing petty complaints based on very limited experiences. I'd add that a lot of the students who complained the loudest about my colleagues were those who had never had a foreign English instructor prior to coming to university.

Put the laowai into the Chinese mold. Circle can't fit into the hole made for a square peg. Logic does not compute because I am a frog stuck inside of a cobble pot... - That's a prevailing pattern I observe regarding students complaining about foreign teachers. For some reason, students I do not teach feel great comfort in telling me about how much they don't like my colleagues, and most of my colleagues are decent to excellent instructors whose classes I'd enjoy if I was a student. This is said with my different cultural upbringing coloring my thoughts, though.



*can we PLEASE put this myth to rest. Lazy teacher, fucked up teachers, poor quality teachers, but let's ditch this "dancing monkey" myth. It's greasy spoon nomenclature.

**The colleagues were from Australia. The students assume mid-western American accent is "correct" English.

***Three students complained to me that a colleague had made discussion of anything related to Taiwan verboten. He did this to avoid what he believed to be potential headaches and dogma.

What I think I am hearing (seeing) here is that the students are always wrong in their assessment of teachers.  Complaining about teachers is normal for students all over the world - you did it, I did it.  Just as teachers all over the world complain about students - again, if you taught back home, you did it, just as I did.

But both here and there, some of the student complaints and some of the teacher complaints were justified.

And in this case - the students are 100% justified.  I have taught the students who are complaining, the other FT has also worked with some of the same students, they have had FTs for the 3-5 years they have been here.  They are (taken overall) good students - hard working, willing to do extra, a number of them are involved in debate, speaking competitions, SIFE (a group which helps establish business and charity programs within and outside the university for the underprivileged), and other campus social and academic activities.  Sure there are a few students in there who are happy to hit the net bars or stuff around.  BUT - they don't do it in class. 

If the students were as disinterested in real education as seems to be the feeling, only interested in passing, WHY would they complain when they will be given an easy high grade for the course.  HE told them they could cheat on the exams, told them what was going to be on the paper, gave them the opportunity during the 'between period' break (a break during exams - give me a break!! ) to take their exam papers outside the room and compare.  If the students are as disinterested in real education as it seems the basic premise here is, then they would have leapt with open arms upon him - glad to have him as their teacher next semester.  No need to go to class, still get high marks, allowed to cheat. Where's the downside?  WHY didn't they just sit down, shut up and take the easy marks??

And yet the students wanted more. They are not complaining about accent, or age or looks or anything along those lines. They wanted real lessons, real content in those lessons.  They actually wanted to work and learn.  They wanted to believe that they were being taught something they could use in their next classes, or in their jobs. True ingrates.  

This teacher clearly wanted them to do well (!!) and made it easy for them.  All of the other FTs they have had, even the ones where they had trouble with accent (in particular one fella with a very fast, low New York speech pattern) didn't engender this reaction, and yet all of these FTs made them work and failed them when they didn't.  So what could this wonderful teacher be doing to create this maelstrom?

Sometimes, just sometimes, the students could be RIGHT!

Sometimes, just sometimes, the students could be RIGHT!

I gotta agree with Lotus here. IMHO, it's just wrong to assume that all students fall on one side of the fence and all teachers fall in another. I've seen both case scenarios in my tenure as teachers. "dancing monkeys".. there are plenty of them. lazy students are also quite easy to come by.
However, judging this particular case scenario, it does seem like the kids felt they were getting the proverbial shaft and decided to act on it and rightfully so. but it is unfortunately just one exception to the rule.
And yes, the kids do yield a lot of power at universities. their reviews are looked at and taken into account by the administration when making future decisions...

Ah.
As said before, my uni experience is too heavily geared to dodgy foundation schools and JV universitoid programs, where most students were merely diploma-purchasers and, aside from some of the girls,   were unsuitable even for use as landfill.

If I take the TAFE job being dangled before me- due to family situations it's sadly a long shot- maybe I can finally set this record straight...

I think you did fall on the angry Yoda side - and without justification - defending the dancing monkey.

I'll choose not to be insulted.  Perhaps you were drunk while reading. 

(See, now, that I know I laughed while I wrote, and meant in a sharp tongued humorous way, but will you or anyone else think it's funny?)

I was saying social activism is a grand thing for a student, and particularly in this case it's a means to an end, and particularly for a learner, it's not the grandest thing he's about.  I then suggested what it is for a learner to be grand.

They then, when they heard that the status would remain quo,  said - "Fair go - we want to learn - give us a chance".  WHY THE HELL ARE YOU CRITICISING THEM FOR THIS CHOICE??

Bloody mindedness.

But wait.  Take a look back.  I didn't actually call them complainy whiners.

I raised the possibility that this student movement likely includes vague, fuzzy and threatening ideas.  In other words, now's the time to sharpen their focus on what they've actually accomplished and why it's worthwhile.  For who could guess that young people are vague in their idealism?

Celebrating the local social activism of a student rabble is a shiny, happy thing, and it's totally right on, man.  Activism actually is totally "student." 

But whatever.  Maybe they know it already.  really only wrote anything to try spelling out my idea of "learner" and why I think it's good and respectable.

Quote

translate aspiration and personal investment in to money terms and you devalue it.

  Again I have to disagree with you. If you TRULY believed this - you wouldn't try to negotiate the highest salary you can, you would be happy to volunteer your services, or to ask only the bare minimum to live on.  This is not the way the world works, and I don't think even Mother Theresa operated on those lines!!.

So the next time Raoul suggests 5000 isn't a respectable monthly income...


Current standards hereabouts suggest I can get a higher salary if I put effort into making it happen.  I don't.  Nor do I volunteer.  Nor do I get the bare minimum.  I don't particularly buy anything either.  I am Mother Teresa.  Like her, I come here for the girls.  Fawn.

What I think I am hearing (seeing) here is that the students are always wrong in their assessment of teachers. 

I can see why you come away with that observation. Inversely, I also think you are basing your school experiences on other schools as a kind of blueprint of how things are, when that is not always the case. The students have been, can be, and many will be WRONG too. The important thing is to look at situations on a case-by-case basis.

Just as you feel people are refusing to give the students credit where credit is due, the dame applies to the students on many campuses. Perhaps, not yours. But that doesn't mean the rest of the nation's campuses are in the same boat, as Raoul's observations will attest.

There's a simple solution to this: this is not an either-or situation, but a case-by-case, school-by-school situation.  Even with that, it can change over time. It's intangible, except for the fact that there will be students who are not qualified to assess teachers, and there are people hired as teachers who are not doing their job.

By your own account, your school fell into the middle. They listened to the teachers, investigated the matter by sitting in on the class, and the students' claims turned out to be true and action is being taken. So, the students were right, but the administrators gave the teacher the benefit of the doubt.

That is evidence that your argument is valid.

If only every school followed that procedure. Some do not. That's where CP's argument has validity.

I think, when all is said and done, it is impossible to go beyond a case-by-case assessment. Clearly both arguments presented here are common, valid, and wholly possible when one choses to work in China. It's important that both camps present their experiences.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the students could be RIGHT!

And sometimes, just sometimes, they can be wrong: see the cultural revolution.

I'll choose not to be insulted.  Perhaps you were drunk while reading. 

(See, now, that I know I laughed while I wrote, and meant in a sharp tongued humorous way, but will you or anyone else think it's funny?)

Not me. I found it to be a cheap shot at Lotus and that the ribbing works against your argument. Perhaps it's one of those things that's funnier when it's said aloud, accompanied by a change in tone, or a visual wink and a nod, than written on a forum.

EDIT: Corrected sloppy typing from "Louts" to "Lotus." Sorry about that!

I definitely agree that this has to be on a case by case process. Wholesale condemnation of teachers by students, students by teachers is not on.  Here or in any country. Unfair dismissals based on ethnicity, looks, accent etc are to be totally condemned. Categorisation of all students as lazy, unmotivated, uninterested etc is also to be condemned.

The student union process here is a joke - the SU is the mouth piece of the administration and more particularly the political arm of the administration.  Just ask your students what it does for them.  So students actually acting in concert is pretty rare. When they make judgments on their classroom teachers it is at the behest of the admin - not from choice.  This time, they heard news they felt was bad for them, and one person said something about it.  Individual action, that gathered support. 

I have though perhaps fallen a little on the angry Yoda side of the fence on this issue.

Quote from: Lotus Eater on Today at 01:14:16 AM
I think you did fall on the angry Yoda side - and without justification - defending the dancing monkey.

I'll choose not to be insulted.  Perhaps you were drunk while reading.

  This was your nomenclature - I merely agreed - therefore how can I be insulting?

What the final outcome of all of this is I don't know. 

Will it happen again?  I hope not.  I hope this particular need never arises again.  I hope if something like this happens again it is directed towards gaining more lab time, or better resources in the library.

Quote from: Calach Pfeffer on December 26, 2008, 04:12:46 AM

I have though perhaps fallen a little on the angry Yoda side of the fence on this issue.

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Quote from: Lotus Eater on Today at 01:14:16 AM
I think you did fall on the angry Yoda side - and without justification - defending the dancing monkey.

I'll choose not to be insulted.  Perhaps you were drunk while reading.

  This was your nomenclature - I merely agreed - therefore how can I be insulting?

Seriously?  Okay.

I was choosing not to be insulted by the suggestion I was defending the dope your school hired.


Lottie, get them on track, is what I was saying.

Do they, in the environment they exist in, have a model for what it is to be a learner?  Yeah, they do.  And look at what it is: seated in a class absorbing propagandised variations on science, history and culture.

And what did they pull in acting against this teacher?  What are the cultural antecedents?  The 60s?  Flower Power?  Unionisation?

Nope.  Nationalism, powermongering and utilitarian scapegoating dressed up in togetherness, aka The Cultural Revolution, and whatever the hell preceded that because it didn't come out of nowhere.

They turned on a foreigner, L.  A dud one, but a foreigner.  Have they ever turned on a Chinese teacher?  Can they?  Could they?  This student-as-consumer, is he acting broadly, or is he targetting the weak links?  Why?

(Betcha they have turned on Chinese teachers.  Betcha the campaigns were far more secretive.)

Do you see it actually happening as openly against other aspects of their institutional life?


I guess I have.  During SARS there were on campus riots when the lock downs went on too long.

Any other stuff?

What glorious revolution are we witnessing really?






For the sky, she has long since fallen...

I thought about it.  I sound mean.


I think I am on to something with all that bumpf up above, but it's only a part of the story.  Not sure what part.  And it's not at all guaranteed that the kids don't have it covered by themselves.  Sure, they could be possessed by Red Guard demons, but it doesn't seem t-o-o-o likely. 

So let's talk about me for a moment.  I don't like the idea of 19-year-olds judging me, but if I'm proposing to stand up in front of them and direct them somewhere, then they are indeed immediately allowed to judge.  The pleasant thing is they are generally receptive, and in fact do put up with a lot of foolishness, perhaps only because they're young.

So-o-o-o...

So, is that an apology?

For robust assertion?  No.

For belittling an achievement by a group of students?  Maybe not.

For sticking a public knife in your enthusiasm for their shot at self determination?  Um...

There is something good in what they did.  (And a poopload of potential corruption.  If I take it for granted that they are adults with the right to determine how things around them go, then they have a lot to live up to, but then, it looks like they may have opened up one potential path toward that, so...)



Don't you like me better when I'm being rude?  Being patronising is so much less entertaining.  I still say run for the hills.  Those Commie rat finks are up to their necks in this system and can be trusted only to recreate it in the forms they know best: struggle sessions, propaganda posters and rule by most cunning overlord.  Change?  Yes, we can't.  Generations have to die out first.

Meanwhile...