Job Discussion Forums

[Midlothian Mapleheart]

Edited to remove offensive content.

Middy

[YearOfTheDog]

have to eat school food

The fact they can eat school food and not die of food poisoning makes them remarkable people....

I certainly hope this doesn't turn into a flame thread.

[DrKissinger1971]

Middy,
Great post and I hope it puts things into perspective for us fellow foreign teachers. You are absolutely correct about the teacher-student relationship, among other things. I teach at a "students first" college where the power structure is basically reversed. Apparently, Chinese kids do not get enough attention at home from their parents, yeye, nainai, laolo, their waigong, shushu, and whoever else is in their extended family that stretches across generations and family circles, so the schools feel compelled to give them all the bargaining chips. I couldn't imagine being a Chinese teacher and listen to so many people bark at you for their child's poor performance on the CET-4, or something of that nature. You get it.

[missionsonmind]

I absolutely agree. I think the most difficult thing I deal with every day is the preference I am continually given in front of the hard working teachers. I feel sorry for them and spend my afternoons attempting to teach them english and about education...you see these teachers come out of some pretty sad colleges....its a joke...what they teach them to prepare them for teaching...shameful...is it any wonder...and you are right they are barraged by parents who don't know how to parent...the ultimate chinese culture...find someone to blame for your problems....I am appalled at the way the parents treat their children...and then turen around and blame it on the teachers who have no idea how to answer them which makes the parent think they are right...oh if I could speak chinese.....they have no clue...about education or value it...the whole thing is messed up....how did I ever think I could make a difference.....

[Roger]

Good observations - tendentially - though a little overdone in the positive spin.
I have on many an occasion reminded Davers that our Chinese colleagues work under immensely worse conditions than we do, and demanding more privileges is in the long run going to hurt us rather than benefit us.

Bear in mind that our Chiense colleagues put in much longer work days, attend innumerable, and often mercilessly boring meetings, etc.

But where you are slightly over the top is this: I know only a tiny minority of Chinese who actually care for their job, for their students or for the subject for that matter.

The vast majority are in it in spite of themselves. Some actually feel they are victims of social ostracism that preferred others over them for jobs in which speaking English pays well (business, managers etc.). They cling to their jobs with the adhesive power of sycophants.
But then again, the Chinese labour market doesn't reward employer loyalty; either you have a life-time job ("iron rice bowl jobs') or you have a very lucrative one that's not secure or stable.
Go teach at a normal school and ask your students: what job will you apply for after graduation? The majority will say "I want to be a busainessperson!"
These people are not realistic - they do not compare their low number of working hours with the long work days of better paid white-collar workers. They complain their pay is "low", but they fail to see that their workload is significantly smaller.

[7969]

regarding the long hours of chinese english teachers, at my last job, they put in long hours yes, but a lot of that time was spent chatting online, reading magazines, waling on the campus, and sleeping somewhere. much of the rest of the time was spent marking homework. so lets put these long hours into context.

[Kurochan]

Although I would say that Chinese teachers have a much lighter teaching schedule than their US counterparts, one thing I don't envy them for is all the stupid outside activities they are forced to do, like performing in holiday pageants, practicing dances for stupid townwide competitions, etc. Thank goodness as a foreigner I can opt out of doing that crap.

[Midlothian Mapleheart]

Edited to remove offensive content.

Middy

[ContemporaryDog]

I agree that their lot isn't that great. But on the other hand, a lot of their lessons are merely as assistants to the FT.

Also, how many FTs do you seriously think China could attract if it offered 1000 RMB a month? People on this forum complain about salaries enough as it is.

Also, they don't mind staying in the office all day - well bully for them. They have lots of other speakers of their language around, they can sit and natter all day, etc. And chat on QQ on the office computer.

[KarenB]

I think the plight of the Chinese teachers depends on what kind of school they're in.

The first two years I was in China, I taught at a large university. There, the Chinese teachers had better accomodations than the foreign teachers, had a lighter class load than we did, and when they weren't teaching, they had little or no other responsibilities to the school (we, on the other hand, had to judge speech contests, song contests, play contests, give culture lectures, make appearances at all the different English clubs on campus, do English corner, etc.). At that university, only about 10 of the 60 Chinese English teachers knew enough English to be able to carry on a simple conversation at the dinner table.

At my present school (a government vocational college), the Chinese teachers have pretty equal housing, equal hours (unless they're a "head teacher" in which case they have to invest a lot of time in monitoring their students -- but the teachers rotate the head teacher positions every year), and equal expectations outside the classroom. The FT salary is much higher than the base salary of the Chinese teacher; however, the Chinese teachers get multiple "bonuses" throughout the year, so when you add all that up, it bumps their salary up by 50% -- albeit still lower than ours. The English ability of all of our Chinese teachers is pretty good -- most of them are younger and have either had a foreign teacher in the past, or they have made friends with the FTs in the past 12 years, so their spoken English isn't bad, and their written English is ok. Our school also helps them with continuing education, and has even sent some abroad for further education.

[no_exit]

I am friends with a Chinese high school teacher, and besides all the BS mentioned previously, they also have to put up with endless political meetings which are nothing but a pointless waste of time. If they cut the meetings, they get their pay docked. They also have no power and are subject to the whims of their superiors. Does this sound familiar? My friend had the afternoon off, but was told at lunchtime she would have to teach her supervisor's classes that afternoon because he had "something important to do." This friend often has to work more than 12 hours a day, and her school wants to add night classes as well, which the teachers will have no choice but to teach.

A student (not my student, just a girl I know) told me that she was brought into the office along with some classmates to get called out for some various infractions -- smoking, cutting class, failing, the usual high school stuff. Apparently the teachers were being pretty harsh with the students and one boy got so worked up he hauled off and decked the female teacher giving him a tongue lashing, knocking her glasses off in the process. The teacher apparently broke down in tears and cursed the day she ever entered this wretched profession, cursed the children, and cursed the system that turns teachers into nothing more than glorified babysitters, responsible not for teaching, but for cramming as many facts as possible into the robotic little brains of a generation of spoiled rotten brats.

My friend has been teaching for almost twenty years, and if she stays another TEN years she'll be eligible for a retirement pension of 1000RMB a month. Since she is now managing a successful cafe, she has little to no reason to stick with teaching for another ten years just to earn such measly benefits.

I will add, however, that my mother has been teaching for over thirty years in the States, and teachers aren't treated a whole lot better there either.

[Roger]

The true dilemma for a Chinese teacher is this: they feel undervalued, and they know society at large isn't respecting them.
THey accepted the illusion handed down to them by their trainers/instructors/indoctrinators that a teacher is in the noble service of his or her country, and that this sort of idealism commands more respect than occupations that pay better, such as bankers, artists or accountants.
But they experience little in the way of recognition of their unselfishness or idealism because their students are so overbearing and their parents are so supercilious.
They know how powerless they are in spite of the teacher profession's supposed high social ranking and clout over their students; fact is that the social pyramid has been set upside down, with students lording it over teachers. THey fear students and befriend them by hook and by crook.

The majority of them would prefer passing the normal school exams in order to flee the teaching profession - business, diplomacy, international trade. Ask any good English speaker where they studied, and why they don't teach English... the answer to the first question almost always is: at a normal school; and to the second question: you want to make money, and you won't make that as a teacher! You won't make it even if you moonlight because your superiors will force you to attend meetings scheduled ad hoc or on a more permanent basis - so as to prevent you from moonlighting.
The teacher as a poor but honest idealist - deeply embedded in the national psyche. And equally deeply embedded is the urge to flee this scenario!

[shuize]

As pointed out above, this is the case with most teachers around the world. However, the sad fact of life is that most teachers get paid what they are worth. If they could get paid more to do something different, human nature being what it is, most would already be doing it.

[shenyanggerry]

I have two fairly good friends who are teachers. Their conditions do not really match what has been written here.

The first is a female middle school student. I met her when she was moonlighting at a bar - 50 hours a week. She complained about how long she worked. I sympathised until I found out her real work load was ten hours per week. The rest of the day (8 to 5) she has to be in school but usually sleeps or plays computer games. She makes 1000 per month with a bachelor's degree.

The second is a university colleague. He teaches twelve hours per week. He's only there for classes. He frequently moonlights as an English teacher. He makes 2000 per month with a master's degree. He also gets a much better apartment than mine.

Considering that ordinary workers make around 500 per month, neither of them is particularly oppressed.

Yes, I make more than the two of them together teaching a sixteen hour week. Would I come to China for less? No!

[Horizontal Hero]

The part about Chinese teachers having to work hard is not always the case. I worked at a very good secondary school in Sichuan. Chinese teachers taught 10 hours a week, and did about 2 hours of prep/marking a day - total, 20 hours a week, or 4 hours a day. I met a Chinese teacher from another secondary school, and he told me he taught 6 hours per week. Meanwhile I was teaching 20 hours a week, all at that one school. Nothing to complain about, just a lot more than the locals.