Teaching

Photo by Lida Rose

As my juniors last year graduate from Greenwood this week, I've been pondering my own growth as a teacher. It's a strange and wonderful career I've chosen and in my two short years I feel like I've done it all. I've worked with little kids, adults, teenagers, college kids... everyone. I've given hour-long lectures, taught 40-minute classes, have one-lesson weeks now, did twenty lesson weeks last year. I've created my own courses from scratch, worked out of a book, and given one-to-one's in principals offices to explain how an American school board works. What have I learned?

Forgive. The most important thing is to never get angry with a class. It's pointless and you'll lose every time. Chances are if they're misbehaving, you've gone over their heads or your simply boring them. Never hold a grudge. Never expect the bad student (or class) from last week to be a problem this week. Allow them to redeem and redefine themselves. Reward instead of punish. Do this not only for your own sanity, but for the example you - as teacher - are supposed to set as a model behavior. Forgiveness isn't about accepting apologies. It's about moving on.

Entertain. That is, after all, why most students and parents think you're there. Let your personality fill the room and be the sole object of attention. You're competing against a lot of things. Flying paper balls, notes, books, and cute crushes have an advantage. Steal and co-opt them.

Think on their level. I once heard someone say, of teaching kids, that if you ever stop thinking like one, even for a moment, you've lost them. It's absolutely true. If your teaching businessmen, be prompt and efficient in your teaching. If you're teaching little kids, sing songs and be a ninja from time to time. Match the pre-existing vibe of the class and everyone wins.

Review. You'll be floored by how much they forgot. Make it as fun as possible though.

Meaning. Make sure they understand and believe that what they're doing means something and in some way will help them in a tangible way. Make them feel privy to some sort of inside information that others aren't getting. It works as well with history as it does with English.

The American Dream

Things made a bit more since today after having a class with a group of teachers and later with a group of principals with the same topic of conversation. What are the differences between American schools and Chinese schools? I begin by having them participate telling me what they imagine American classrooms looking like. Universally, they sounded like this:

• In American classes, students lounge around on the floor during classes.
• At most, there are 20 students per class.
• American students are more talkative in class, but that's to ask deep and penetrating questions.
• American students and teachers are always great pals.
• American classrooms are "more open," meaning few if any rules.
• American classes are extremely fun, involving lots of games.

More importantly, they all - every one of them - unhesitantly believed American education was better. An example was a principal who told me that 20 years ago educational scholars from China visited America and American scholars visited China. Both teams came to the conclusion that they well disciplined Chinese classrooms were better and the undisciplined American classrooms were worse. In those 20 years, however, no Chinese citizen has won a Nobel prize while Americans have won many.

With that, what we're doing out here makes since. I've often complained about feeling like the foreign teachers are expected to be English-speaking clowns. Come in, play games, make the kids have fun and love English and like magic the language will sink in. Disciplining children is not allowed. What we're doing, it seems, is recreating the Chinese image of the American classroom setting. They want us to come here and do to their students what they think was done to us. They want that magic spark that we were given to rub off on the next generation of Chinese.

Unfortunately, this image of the American classroom is incorrect. While Montessori schools and small private schools do exist, they are rare and most American students endure something very similar to the Chinese classroom.

While most American teachers would love the conditions that Chinese people are describing, the apathy and attitudes of American students prevents it from being a reality. I often corrected their notion of a rules-free zone by outlining each behavior associated with Childhood - horse playing, running, touching - that American teachers spend an extraordinary amount of time preventing for liabilities sake. Thus American teachers daydream of complicit and obedient [and imaginary] Asian classrooms where students want to learn and beg for three hours of homework a night.

In coming days and weeks I want to look at this issue more deeply. I want to more clearly identify, by the numbers, where the strengths of the Chinese classroom are and where the strengths of American education are. I'd also like to explore the idea of why, despite the huge number of science graduates in China, there have been no Nobel Prizes.