I am now a writer for the Teachers’ Lounge at The Daily Kos. My first Teachers’ Lounge diary went up yesterday, and was even rescued overnight! In DKos-atopia, that’s a singular honor. So, go read it.

September 13th, 2009 | Tags: China, daily kos, education, ESL, teachers lounge, Teaching | Category: China, General stuff, Teaching, Teaching English | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — Today marks the first anniversary of my arriving here, exhausted and bleary-eyed after a long trek from Hong Kong to the Chinese interior. I’ve been reflecting on the past year for several days now.

Before I get started on those reflections, I want to say that I don’t regret coming here at all. In many ways, my leap across the ocean is the best thing to have happened to me in several years. I am happier, more relaxed, less hefty, and more sure of myself than I was before. As I have said before, I am one lucky fellow.

Many Chinese who meet me for the first time are surprised that a man my age would decide to leave his children behind and live far from his hometown. They fear I am lonely and unhappy. It’s a cultural misapprehension, though, stemming from the difference in our cultures.

In China, people can retire at 50. They also tend to stay in one place, usually their hometown, for most of their lives. Children are expected either to live with their parents, or at least be a stone’s throw away from them. So, for Chinese unfamiliar with American customs, I should be living somewhere on Long Island with one of my kids, taking care (as many Chinese grandparents do) of the grandchildren, playing majiang or chess, and watching TV.

August 31st, 2009 | Tags: anniversary, China, ex-pat, reflections, Teaching | Category: China, Commentary, Teaching, Teaching English | Comments (3)

JISHOU, HUNAN — Yesterday, I read a Washington Post column by Sarah Fine, a young, idealistic teacher who was quitting the profession after four years. It’s a well written, poignant piece, and I wanted to write some reaction to it here.

I had trouble working up a sufficient head of steam to get started. I had lots of things to say, but nothing was gelling in my mind. So, figuring reading something else would help, I swung over to the Daily Kos to see what was up there.

Amid all the political commentary was this excellent response to Fine’s column by teacherken (Ken Bernstein), which at this writing has received more than 350 comments, some sympathetic, some critical.

If you read teacherken’s response to Sarah Fine’s confessional, you will pretty much read be reading my reactions, too. He and I share several characteristics: we both got liberal arts educations at renowned northeastern institutions (he, Haverford; me, Princeton), we both worked in other professions before becoming teachers later in life (he much later than I), we’re both Quakers, both liberal Democrats, both socially liberal, both love teaching.

But I have a few other things to say, now that it’s a day later and I’ve had more time to mull over Fine’s column.

Some of my readers already know my background, but for the benefit of the one or two people who are not members of my family, friends, colleagues or present and former students, here’s a quick recap.

August 10th, 2009 | Tags: burnout, China, respect, Sarah Fine, teacherken, Teaching | Category: China, Commentary, Schools, Teaching | Comments (2)

JISHOU, HUNAN — I spent all afternoon yesterday talking.

As I have mentioned before, a standard feature of any Chinese university (or high school, too, I reckon) is the English Corner, an extracurricular, student-led activity to practice spoken English. My responsibilities here include participation in the English Corner, for obvious reasons.

I live and work at the new campus. Our English Corner is held (weather permitting) every Sunday at 5 pm on a green across from the athletic facilities. I have already chronicled my first visit to English Corner lo! these many months ago. After that initial mob of visitors, attendance settled down in the following weeks to a more manageable number of regulars and the occasional newcomer.

Jishou University (JiDa in local parlance) has, at my last count, four distinct campuses: new campus, old campus, the medical campus in Shijiachong, and the affiliated teacher’s college across the river, where Princeton-in-Jishou fellows Juliann and Stephanie teach. A few students from the old campus have come to the new campus corner, but only those dedicated enough to travel the 3 km to do it.

Last weekend, my fellow foreign expert, David, and I were invited to an English Corner at the old campus. Many students attended, but the crowd was not a mob as it was during my first experience last fall. Once the initial novelty of seeing Westerners in the flesh faded, we all settled down to relatively calm chatting on the green.

March 22nd, 2009 | Tags: China, english, english corner, students, Teaching | Category: China, Commentary, Teaching English | Comments (2)

JISHOU, HUNAN — Hard to believe that the semester is nearly over, but it’s true. Time passes too quickly.

It also means that I have been in Jishou for three entire months. While it may be hard to believe, it’s become home for me. I still struggle with being absolutely illiterate in Chinese and being incapable of having even a simple conversation in Chinese, but I learn new bits of Chinese each day. So, I figure I’m making progress.

Chief on everyone’s mind now are finals, and for the seniors, postgraduate exams. Anxiety levels are high, and we all are busier than usual. Of course, the students are more anxious than the faculty.

This weekend, I need to write six exams to turn into the office. Each writing or reading class has to sit for a two-hour exam. Oral class students need to be tested individually, and I have 35 sophomores, so I’ll be occupied with them for the next several days.

Fortunately, I have had some experience writing exams, and I have been giving the students in-class assignments for a few weeks now to gauge how long they will need to complete the tasks. They naturally want the tests to be easy. We’ll see. We’ll see …

The seniors are the ones most stressed. China has national exams in several subjects for students to qualify for a bachelor’s degree, and thus postgraduate (graduate school, in US-talk) studies. They all have to pass the national English test. Those planning postgrad work overseas also have to score acceptably well on the IELTS or TOEFL English tests.

December 4th, 2008 | Tags: China, english, ESL, semester, students, Teaching | Category: China, Teaching English | Comments (2)

JISHOU, HUNAN — It has been raining pretty steadily since last evening, and the temperature has dropped to the mid-50s (F scale), making a tour of historic FengHuang this weekend less than appealing.

This past week has been pretty busy on the teaching front, none the least because of my diary-keeping assignments to my writing classes. Now that I have 60+ freshmen writers, the task of reading their journals has escalated nearly to a full-time job. But I tell them to practice writing English every day, so it’s my own damn fault that I have to read their efforts.

As a physics teacher, the only student writing I saw with any regularity were lab reports, which don’t lend themselves to creative expression and introspection much. (Though, I have had some gifted writers over the years who played with the form.) I was a little unprepared, therefore, for the remarkable honesty and emotional revelations some of my students put down on paper.

My two smaller senior classes have the same assignment as the freshmen. Their thoughts revolve around the crucial events of their young careers: passing English competency tests, passing subject-specific graduation exams, finding jobs after graduation, writing their 9,000-word exit essays. Layered on to these pretty overwhelming obsessions is the realization that in a few short months they will leave the cocoon of university and the camaraderie of their friends and classmates.

October 25th, 2008 | Tags: diaries, students, Teaching | Category: China, Commentary, Teaching English | Leave a comment