next »

[china-matt]

I've seen both sides of the Kwalitee/Quality situation here. At my first school, the most popular teacher was the guy who threw a ball all day in class.

When I moved on to a training center for a while, I found that the students wanted to learn quickly without a lot of work while playing games. That didn't work for me. The new students got used to my style, but the others didn't. The ones who complained were the students who weren't making progress because they weren't focusing on the problems I identified for them to study. But I did have one student tell me I was the most difficult teacher she ever had, and thanked me for never allowing mistakes to go by.

Now, I definitely consider myself lucky with the job I have. My boss expects me to teach the material well. She doesn't want me to play games (not that I ever would with grad students). Plus, there's a great amount of communication with my boss.

[Raoul F. Duke]

Well, I certainly want my kids to have qualified teachers and a reasonably sound program...which is why she will never come within 200 nautical miles of a Chinese public school or university.

But then I'm just a naysayer, a Gloomy Gus, who neglected to get a REAL teaching cert out of sheer laziness and a terribly unprofessional unwillingness to simply spend the time needed to gain the understanding of my profession and the theoretical body of knowledge it takes to teach a class of 35 sugar-hyped 8-year-olds to say "I want eat hambooorgur!" (which they already knew how to say anyway) with the assistance of my comatose teaching assistant and my parent-panicked school staff.

My real problem, truth be told, is simply that negative attitude. A real professional teacher would simply apply their theoretical knowledge base to justify cheating on tests, changing grades, selling degrees, making incredible bullshit promises to parents, and passing everyone regardless of performance, all with a healthy greasing of bribes and kickbacks, because after all this is just a part of this ancient and wonderful culture, which I as a Western white male with an imperfect understanding of my profession have no right or basis to judge or criticize.

It was this very negativity that led me to squander my formative years on nonsense like learning to operate an apostrophe without driving it into a ditch- a talent in which I seem to be nearly unique- rather than taking on a good rigorous dose of pedagogy that would be coming in so terribly handy in this demanding Chinese educational environment.
What a wanker I am!

If I and other so-called "teachers" were only able to stay positive about this profit-driven only-skin-deep daisy chain, then there would be absolutely no problems at all and everything would be just fine always, and I could sleep soundly in the knowledge that I am indeed a superior human being.

But I'm stuck with this limited vision...these blinkers that lead me to believe that the entire argument is based upon a tragic, self-serving fallacy: that this job wants to move into the professional stage.

It doesn't. It just...plain...doesn't. Oh, sure, a lot of foreign self-actualization seekers want to, but the overwhelming majority of employers, local practitioners, and customers want no part of it. It would be inconvenient, requiring as it does a commitment to unprofitable standards that would make it harder for big important school own mans to drive many big shiny black car and buy so much inverstmernt property, and require too many people to wake the hell up and work for a damn living, and require little Wang Xing to demonstrate some actual knowledge and ability rather than skate through snickering because of Dad's understanding of the bribery system and loyalty to the Party structure.

I'm hopeless. Terrible. I guess I should pack up and go back to to work at KFC. Maybe, with hard work, s'omeday I could get the qual's needed to become a hairdres'sers ass'is'tant. '

[contemporarydog]

These arguments have been around for 100 years!  Each time a job wants to move into the professional stage, the naysayers (generally the people already within that system who don't want to spend the time getting the qual) will always point out the lack of necessity for professional qualifications.  Nursing, teaching, doctors, vets, hairdressers - you name it and every profession has gone through the same process.

Qualifications don't necessarily make you a better anything - but they sure as hell provide a legitimate framework for understanding the profession and it's theoretical body of knowledge.  I still want to see a properly qualified doctor rather than someone who has been to a doctor and figures they can do the same of better job.  I want my daughters taught by someone who knows the field they are studying and who has an understanding of pedagogy. 

Will those of you with children be asking for the schools you send them to to have qualified teachers??

Fine, LE, but again, what do you mean by 'qualified'.  As Raoul has mentioned above, it's a bit of a difference being a non-qualified teacher (but with a.n.y Degree plus CELTA cert) teaching kids to say "I can haz hamburger?" and being a fully qualified teacher teaching a full 'international' syllabus.

Personally, after I've done my PGCE, I won't be coming a million miles of a typical Chinese school, because the resources made available to teachers would make the job too frustrating for a qualified teacher.  When and if the schools here start to look for 'qualified teachers' they're going to have to drastically improve not just the salaries offered, but the setup in its entirety.  If a qualified teacher from the UK has done a long course in order to train to be a primary school teacher where he or she has their own class whom they teach all day, including maths, science, geography, english, et al, they are hardly going to want to go back to the situation where they have to run round lots of different classes, each of whom they see for a few periods a week, and teach them rudimentary ESL.  If the Chinese want qualified teachers in, say, their primary schools, they're going to have to allocate those FTs full 'ban zhu ren' status and give them the resources to teach a syllabus much like they would teach in the UK.  Otherwise, what's the use in hiring a fully qualified foreign teacher?  Their qualifications will be wasted.  A CELTA ought to be qualification enough, in the setup as it stands at the moment.

IMO.

edited: 'rudementary' changed to the correct 'rudimentary' and good hard kicking self-adminstered.

[Eagle]

Not much to add as I don't think "listening" skills are up to it.  I guess as an over-qualified teacher, I have seriously limited my ability to actually teach here in China according to the accepted foundational educational pedagogical beliefs "widely" and "broadly" accepted here. 

I'll go back to having fun with my uni students ... 

[Jack Fancy]

The frustration from your first post RD is completely familiar with me.  I used to pour sweat, blood and tears into my school.  What do I get in return?  A swift kick in the nuts.  Even my most dedicated parents who believe in what I do say I do too much and that most parents just don't get it.  Before I never liked to use much of a book or give tests.  Most parents don't care about the progress their children are making with understanding the language and being able to communicate, they want to see the homework, the tests, the pitch-perfect robotic and memorized one-minute speeches that prove...what?  So, I've come to terms and I've met them in the middle.  After my third price hike and new billing arrangement. 

Now I worry less about my classes as I use a book more, give small tests after every three months (which takes up their money and gives me a rather nice break), rarely teach much outside the book (except under special circumstances such as the earthquake) but still incorporate my teaching style mixed with activities to make the learning experience enjoyable.  I've lost about five students after the price hike but the rest of the parents are liking the new schedule because they can follow it and see the penciled progress of their children.  Rather silly, but I've given up fighting them on trying to teach them how their children ought to be taught and being much more business minded about my school.

I won't say I've completely given up as I still make my classes enjoyable and I push them to learn something.  I'm just much more Chinese about the whole process.

[Calach Pfeffer]

Ladies,

you recognise, right, that you're all passionately involved in what you do?  And correspondingly frustrated, and therefore deep into finding new ways to function?

Group hug, you bunch of teachers, you!!!


As the profession becomes more formalised, it'll require committment earlier in the job history.  People will need to be thinking about getting qualified long before they've actually banged up against the walls and discovered first hand where and how and why a tool would have served a useful purpose.  Correspondingly, the industry will become less creative, less frustrating and less fascinating.

The forces of history and their means of production are clutching at your heels!  Jump high, young grasshoppers!  Resist!  For formalisation, thin creeping professionalisation is driven not by teaching concerns, but by profit margins and gutless, slimy managers, themselves less than half educated to their own profession.  Rebel while you can. 

Or the day will dawn where managers are less slimy, and you, relying only on your twenty years of hard-won success, attempt to hire some young buck for your own school, and you'll look down his resume and wonder who he really is if he hasn't got his MA.

[contemporarydog]

That was a joke, LE.  ("I can haz hamburger").

I think teaching here is a good introduction to teaching, and I certainly don't regret that.  But you do get to the point where you feel like you've done as much as you can.  I won't come back to a school like this once I've got the PGCE, though, whether in China or in the UK.

[contemporarydog]

But it's precisely because it is how it is, that it attracts a lot of 'backpackers', IMO.

[contemporarydog]

The point about would we send our kids to a normal Chinese school is a good one, of course.  For many of us, 'education' is one of the main reasons why, when we have mixed kids over here, we take the decision to move back to the UK.  You're quite right, I wouldn't send my kid to a Chinese school, not because of the quality (or lack of) of the possible FT, but because of the education system overall.  For all its faults, I still think the British system is better. 

[Ruth]

I fall into the category of 'not a real teacher' as my mother, who DID go to teacher's college, put it when I first came to China to teach.  There have been times when I wished I had a course in classroom management to fall back on for those horrendous, out-of-control classes such as have been described above.  I'm sure I could be better at what I do, given some formal training.  But I think I'm doing a good job of meeting the needs of those students entrusted to me.

My uni has the idea that all non-English major freshmen and sophomores should have an oral English exam.  Their score counts for 20% of their English grade.  Each FT has been assigned a Chinese English teacher partner and several classes of students to test.  When they gave us the scoring criteria they only gave us points 6-10 on a 10 point scale.  60% is a pass here.  One of the other FTs asked what we should use to measure the students who are below the criteria for a 6.  Wish I had a camera to record the look on the face of the teacher in charge of this 'little' project.  We aren't supposed to fail anyone.     My partner and I did fail several students.  Ya gotta open your mouth and speak English if you want to pass the oral English exam. 

Today was the last chance for the final few students who missed their first appointment, and the make-up appointment.  Two out of 8 showed.  My partner said the others weren't going to come, because even if we gave them 20/20 they wouldn't have enough to pass their English class.  So, they get a 0. 

Then I asked her what happens when a student fails a class.  Here's where I get back on the topic of this thread...  They are given an exam that is so easy that it is almost impossible to fail.  And the teachers in charge of administering that exam are told to pass everyone.  I asked her how she felt about that and she said that many teachers at the uni have been complaining about this standard for years, but nothing has changed.  She agreed that it cheapened the name of the school and the degree received by students who actually do the work.  The younger teachers here have great ideals, but I fear they are being crushed by the system.  It will be years before they are the ones in charge and by then their integrity might have been beaten out of them.

My uni just went through a huge evaluation.  The gist of the final report was that the setting and buildings are beautiful, the classrooms are well equipped, but the students and teaching are not quality.  At least the evaluators saw through the window dressing.  I truly hope this has an impact on the way things are done here.

[Eagle]

Now, I won't even get into the whole degree/qualification debate. Having a degree does not make you anymore qualified to being a teacher than anyone else.

Perhaps this is true if one goes to university in your country, but in Canada, getting an education degree requires a considerable amount of practical as well as theoretical work including a four month practicum in the final (fourth) year of study.  Personally, I wouldn't entrust my children or grandchildren to anyone but a qualified teacher for an education in Canada.  If I was to be raising children in China then I would likely go the route of an international school.  If I was Chinese, it would be a no-brainer - a Chinese school along with the 1.4 billion others.  A lot of educated, bright Chinese people running around who were "educated" in the Chinese education system for Chinese people.

[contemporarydog]

You're saying that you would not put your children in a Chinese school. In the UK or US you know that the teacher is not some former cheese-monger from Wisconsin who only barely passed high school, but a qualified, professional educator who took the time to get educated.

Ah, but as I said, my reason for that is not anything to do with the qualifications (or lack of) of an FT, but the general Chinese school system.

[contemporarydog]

Now, I won't even get into the whole degree/qualification debate. Having a degree does not make you anymore qualified to being a teacher than anyone else.

Perhaps this is true if one goes to university in your country, but in Canada, getting an education degree requires a considerable amount of practical as well as theoretical work including a four month practicum in the final (fourth) year of study.  Personally, I wouldn't entrust my children or grandchildren to anyone but a qualified teacher for an education in Canada.  If I was to be raising children in China then I would likely go the route of an international school.  If I was Chinese, it would be a no-brainer - a Chinese school along with the 1.4 billion others.  A lot of educated, bright Chinese people running around who were "educated" in the Chinese education system for Chinese people.

He's referring to the holders of general Degrees (i.e. not education related) who make up the vast bulk of ESL teachers in China (and everywhere else).

[ericthered]

Yep, wasn't talking about getting a degree in education. However, we don't have that here. If you want to teach primary school, you enroll in a Teacher's Seminar and study for that. If you want to teach high school, you go to university, get you Masters', with a major and a minor, take the 1 year pedagogikum on the side and you're qualified to teach high school. Uni is the same thing, except for the pedagogue thingy.

When it comes to teaching children, the more qualified the teacher is, the better. When it comes to higher education, I don't think I have ever had a professor who had any pedagogical training, nor were they interested in getting any. Personally, I would rather juggle chainsaws blindfolded than teaching children again.

[Raoul F. Duke]

I think LE missed the bulls-eye by several Astronomical Units.

I've never at any point said that we don't accomplish anything here. We do. But for most of us it's only for a few individuals, a pathetically tiny minority. And most of the rest are shoved through anyway, no matter what, unfazed by us or anything else, to a degree far beyond anything I've heard of in Western countries.

However, I do very strongly agree that the people we work for are worse than Satan, and the system we work in is as rotten as possible. Many of us may not qualify as teachers back home, but these admins (and way too many of the local teachers (certainly not all)) we encounter wouldn't qualify to mow the campus lawns back there, either, and the students that could squeak into a Western college at all would probably last about 3 hours before being smacked up for cheating/plagaiarizing/etc. So, what the hell.

And I am indeed stating that the jobs, and a helluva lot of the students, just aren't worth it. They don't understand, appreciate, or want all that fine educational philosophy and tradition and training we represent. Nor do they want to, and they will fight tooth-and-nail to prevent it from happening.
And it is, indeed, very sad...but it's not the fault of all those "unqualified" teachers. It's the fault of the stinking system that hired them in the first place.

I'm not making my own child any different from any other. No matter who's in the classroom, serious teaching quals are, IMHO largely irrelevant if the entire educational philosophy and practice are useless. And again, overall, I'm pretty sure that the Chinese system is completely useless, except for serving the personal enrichment of the weasels entrusted to guard the local henhouses. I want qualified teachers AND a meaningful education...for everyone.

As for bias against  those with real teaching qualifications, I'm not sure I've ever seen one of those. It's certainly not coming from me. I have deep respect for trained career teachers...so much, in fact, that I hate to see them wasting their abilities in a system that doesn't even know or care what they really mean. If you have government quals, good for you. It's one path (but not the ONLY path) to being a great teacher.
If there is a bias here, I feel it tends to go the other way. How many of us have heard, in a staff room or online, some yammerhead look down their noses at the colleagues around them, and sniff about what a terrible shame it is that a person of their obviou's superiority has to work alongside these terrible drunken backpacker's who are just mes'sing everything up and not giving their work the Code Blue seriousnes's it really deserve's, and making "real" teacher's such as themselve's' look bad? I've heard it way too much...and me and the rest of the terrible drunken backpackers have a few interesting suggestions for them and the horses they rode in on.
I know quite a lot of tremendous teachers here who never had day one of formal teacher training.

Now: everyone who has never had a technically "qualified" teacher who was a useless lunatic load of horse apples, please say "Aye".
<SFX: crickets chirping>

So, back to the main point here...quals are nice, but they don't guarantee success as a teacher. The lack of quals, in turn, does not guarantee failure or inferiority. IMHO those who do have quals and feel compelled to lord over those who do not are just pullin' their own popsicles.

Giving the Education Ministry enough credit to think they may be seeing the problems and wanting to do something about them is at best a HUGE "maybe". My bet is that they're looking up from their gaggle of karaoke girls and asserting through caviar-smeared lips that Everything Is Just Fine. My bet is that all these new visa rules are all about reducing our numbers and increasing the control over us, and doesn't have dick to do with a non-existant desire to really raise the bar.

There's no cake here to either have OR eat.

However, there is also a distinct need for the schools to not have the same requirements as Western schools.

Hmmm...really?
Why?!?
Are Chinese people not as intelligent as us? I don't think so.
Do Chinese students intrinsically deserve less than their Western counterparts? Hell, no.
Do the Chinese not operate on the World Stage at all? Clearly, no.
Should we continue to buy the bushwa that "Well, this is just how we've always done it here, and it can't be changed?" I don't think so...at least not as completely as the apologists want us to.

The Chinese educational system remains a crock of shit because changing it would cost the main players money and face. Period.
To which I can only say: