As I've mentioned before, I've been teaching in China since August of 2012, minus an 11 month hiatus for the 2013-14 school year when I was back in the States. No, that photo isn't one of my classes; it came from the void known as the internet. Since returning to China in August of 2014, I've been teaching (mostly English with some elective classes in music, history, and occasionally karate) in Beijing. After all that time (and still without more than a fleeting grasp of the language), I have gotten so jaded with most of China's bafflingly backward ways that I rarely react with more than a sigh to the "T.I.C." moments (ask an expat what it means). I've even learned to anticipate in advance what problems will arise from the endless bureaucracy, xenophobic paranoia, ethnocentric narcissism and mindless, plodding, drone-like nature of the population here.
- "My appointment is at 2 PM? Don't expect the doctor to see me until 4:45, or to even arrive at the hospital prior to 3:15."
- "Baidu maps says 'travel time 45 minutes?' Allow an hour and a half, more if there is a traffic warning."
- "At the bank to exchange RMB for USD and the website says this branch is authorized to do that? Don't presume that anyone behind the window knows how."
- "Sitting at a restaurant and you spot something you like on the menu? It doesn't necessarily mean they actually serve that. It may be on the menu just because of social expectations for it to be there."
- "The taxi driver says the fare is 65 kuai? Expect him to raise it to 80 when we get there with a complaint about not knowing it was so far."
- "Going to the 'international information desk' at an airport and asking questions from someone with a degree in English Language Studies from Tsinghua? Don't assume that degree means that he (or anyone else at the allegedly international desk) actually speaks the language."
- "Got mugged by a local and the Parade-ground Princesses who masquerade as cops in this third-world cesspool of a country are actually arriving to bust it up for once? Expect the cops to demand money from me and let the mugger off Scot-free, then threaten to charge me with assault for fighting back against the mugger, because he's Zhonghua and I'm a 'guailou.' "
It's become rather predictable, honestly, and very little in the country surprises me anymore. But last week, China managed to throw one at me that left me not only speechless but breathless, and not figuratively.
It began as a simple dispute with co-workers. I teach at a public middle school in an outlying district of southern Beijing. The students here... well, they're not exactly the cream of China's crop. I'm the only waijiao in the school, and most of the Chinese English teachers barely speak English. And believe me, it shows in the English-level of the students.
In China, English-language classes are mandatory from 1st grade onward. These kids are 7th and 8th graders, meaning they have had 4 to 6 English classes per week, 44 weeks per year for the past 6 or 7 years, so it makes no sense for their English to be worse than my absolutely terrible Mandarin.
Yet it is. Even in the classes whose regular English teacher actually does (shock of all shocks) actually speak passable English, the students' English level is somewhere between Yosemite Sam's understanding of Zen and Jabba the Hutt's understanding of dietary science. Whenever one of the Chinese English teachers observes my class, I get a quick insight into the reason for this. Whenever I ask a student a question, there is no pause while the student attempts to reason out the answer. Instead, before I have finished asking, the teacher has already begun giving them the answer.
How does anyone learn from that?
Well, at the end of 9th grade they are all going to take the Zhongkao exam, the younger cousin of the infamous Gaokao. For those not familiar with it, Dexter Roberts' article from Bloomberg gives a reasonable synopsis. Needless to say, I do not have a single student, out of the 865 whom I teach one class to per week, who are anywhere close to being ready, or even on track to being anything vaguely resembling halfway quasi semi-ready for that exam. So what have I done?
I've raised the level of my lessons.
...Well, "raised" is a relative term.
To be blunt, I use material with my 8th graders that I created for my 3rd graders back when I taught at a private school in Northeast Beijing. So you can imagine my shock when the Chinese English teachers began to send me complaints on WeChat which, in broken English, stated that the lessons I gave were too hard and the students were getting discouraged. I wasn't having it. I stood firm, insisting "this material was written for 3rd graders right here in Beijing. If this is too hard for 8th graders who have had you as their English teacher for 7 years, then something is wrong."
Later that day, I got a phone call from the foreign liason (a Western-educated Chinese citizen) at the recruiting agency who sent me to this God-forsaken pit, asking if we could speak in person about my lessons.
I went into the meeting with shields up and phasers armed, if you'll pardon the Star Trek metaphor. The beginning was predictable. The agent stated, calmly, that the principal had asked her to speak to me because some teachers had said the lessons were too difficult. I made the same statements in plain, simple English that I had made before, and added "what do they want? Alphabet flash cards and coloring books?"
I wasn't prepared when the agent said, in a calm voice without missing a beat, "basically, yes."
Oh, but that wasn't the punchline. Not even close.
When I shook my head to clear it and asked "I'm sorry, what?" the agent replied, "if their level is low, then give them that."
I was getting argumentative at this point, and I brought up the Zhongkao, asking "how in God's name do you expect them to pass the Zhongkao unless they are pushed? They're nowhere near ready, and time is running out."
That's when the agent leaned back in the KFC booth where she had decided to meet me (it's China) and said "Pat (1), let me... how do you Americans say it: 'cut out the chase?' Something like that?"
"Cut to the chase," I corrected. "Yeah, let's do that."
"Okay," she answered with a nod. "It's not just English. All of their scores are horrible, in every subject. The school knows that. They're poor, they come from poor families, and they're not going to do well on that exam."
I waited in silence for a minute because for one thing I hadn't quite grasped the relevance of their economic status to the education system's attitude toward them, but more because it sounded like something was coming next, but it didn't. "Okay, you lost me. Does the school understand what is riding on this exam for those kids? I mean, they get it, right? They're Chinese educators and this is a Chinese exam. They know what the price of failure is, right?"
And that's when the bomb dropped.
"Pat, the school as already given up on them, and the principal has asked me to tell you you should to."
Now, to clarify, flunking the Zhongkao means "no high school for you: choose between vo-tech or dropping out (Jun Fang)." It's a death sentence for any ambitions the students could ever have of attending university, or joining the damnable Party, or being anything more than a coolie for the rest of their life, unless they are female in which case they might try their luck at prostitution in search for the "hope," if you want to call it that, of more financial mobility.
And here was the agent saying that a school had already written off an entire graduating class, consigning them to that fate. The rationale behind it was as chilling as anything I have ever heard. "Someone has to mine the coal. Someone has to work in the factories. Someone has to be the street-cleaners." For the record, blue-collar labor jobs in China come complete with lower salaries, longer hours, and horrifyingly worse conditions than their Western counterparts. Such a life is virtually indistinguishable from slavery. It's no hyperbole to say an American prison inmate has a more comfortable life than a Chinese laborer.
Flabbergasted, I tried another line of attack. "Wait, this is a public school; a government school, answerable to the Party. Don't they get reprimanded if X number of students don't pass?"
The agent shook her head. "It's different at government schools. The teachers all have what you call 'tenure,' and also, your principal is a Party member."
Something still wasn't adding up in my head. "Okay, even if I was on-board with that, how did the school let it get to this point? I mean, this didn't come up in a single year. These kids have been fed low standards year after year, every year of their lives. The school has built this situation, from the ground up."
The agent, by this time, was giving me a "why don't you get this" stare. "You're right. I told you, they're poor. They come from poor families. This school is built for the poor, and they don't need to go to university. They just need to know how to follow instructions. That's what this school is for: to teach future laborers patriotic skills (2) and how to follow instructions."
There were a few moments of silence as she waited for me to respond. When I was too stunned to do so, she went on. "Pat, you can try to push them if you want. You're not hurting anything. The school is not that worried because really, the foreign teacher's class is an extra. You know that. Your class is not even part of their grade. But really, the only thing you're going to do is stress yourself out, and the students too. I mean... well, you'll be happier if you just give an easy lesson that they all feel good about. It doesn't matter if they learn English, because they'll never need it, since they'll never interact with foreigners."
Maybe the agent is right. Maybe I should just say "not my kids, not my future, not my problem." After all, it's not like I have any great stake in China's future. Lord knows I have no great love for this country, no emotional incentive to see it rise out of the pit they have spent every year since the Hwongwu Emperor took the throne, systematically digging for themselves. In fact, with my family growing up in a country that is threatened by China, I should rejoice at it, knowing "well, my children will not have much to worry about because their competition over here in China is as dumb as bricks."
Why should I care if China has a caste system built into their education system?
Why should I care if China can casually consign entire generations to a life of destitution, for the crime of having been born to parents who lived in destitution?
Why should I care if the country I hate proves itself to be as evil and twisted as I write this blog to show it to be?
...Because I am a teacher. My students' futures are my profession, and "dragonslayer" though I may be, I've never quite learned how to not give a damn about my students.
...Though it seems that's what is expected of me now.
(1) Pat is not actually my name, but since I'm writing a blog that's highly critical of China, in China, it's not safe to use my actual name, or the name of my school.
(2) "Patriotic skills" is a euphemism China uses for "Party allegiance training," coated in a heavy layer of anti-foreign sentiment.
Works Cited
Jun Fang, Philip. "Opinion: One Test Labels 30 Million Students as Failures. That Should Change." Caixin. 2 Sep, 2018. Web, 6 Nov, 2018.
https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-09-03/opinion-one-test-labels-30-million-students-as-failures-that-should-change-101321783.html
Roberts, Dexter. "China Exam System Drives Student Suicides." Bloomberg. 15 May, 2014. Web, 6 Nov, 2018.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-15/china-exam-system-drives-student-suicides