Discipline - A story from China

After warnings about how much of an issue discipline would be for me at my placement I was terrified of my first day. Beyond the typical naïveté and cluelessness of a student teacher on his or her first day in the classroom I was terrified of ruffian students actively rejecting any authority in the classroom. Even worse was a separate fear that the students would not reject or accept anything. I closed my eyes at night to see a classroom full of zombies, unaffected by any icebreaking joke I can think of. My mentor teacher, before classes started on the first day, assured me that probably only seventy percent of the morning classes would be zombies. Luckily, he was just trying to prepare me for the dissonance between my prestigious private school background and a less motivated classroom environment. Watching the classroom dynamics for the first two and a half weeks of school has been really fascinating and can inspire countless blog posts on different things I am observing, and it will, but right now I want to focus on discipline. Discipline comes into this situation in the form of classroom management. Educators do not want to be disciplinarians, but in some classes it can be difficult. Gaining trust and respect from the students is key. Without it, educators may be in for some major headaches. This is striking me very hard because it was so different when I was in China. The students, even at lower achieving high schools, were generally quite motivated, and not prone to act up significantly in class. The teachers even said they seldom had to worry about students’ respect. This is for a number of reasons, but I will only focus on one for this entry. I recently listened to one of my former students tell me about a requirement that all middle school, high school, and college students must endure during their first year of each of the above.

This specific account deals with schools in Shenzhen (A modern metropolis in southeastern China) and is from a current freshman in college (he goes by “Kidd”), but it applies to high school as well. This requirement is between one and three weeks of “military training.” One week for high school and middle school and up to three weeks for college or university students. The boy whose perspective I will be writing from was to “train” for the first three weeks of September in daily temperatures ranging from 32 to over 40 C in constant Guangdong humidity. This is his summary of the average day and is by no means an assault on or condemnation of Chinese education. This is Kidd’s experience.

The dorms are what one might expect from “military training.” The students must wake up at 5:30 AM and be dressed (full uniform, cap to boots) and ready to go by 6 AM. The first step is run several laps around the area to warm up. Then there is fitness training. Kidd recounts fifty each of various exercises, push-ups being tip of the iceberg. The military officers keeping them in task (wujing) constantly (nad loudly) ensure that each push-up or other exercise is the most sincere efforts. After these exercises the students must line up and stand at attention. This is for anywhere from forty minutes to one hour, and all movement is strictly prohibited. Kidd stresses that even shaking one’s hands or wiping away sweat are punished offences. The wujing officers’ punishments range from yelling, singling out/humiliating certain students, and in extreme (atypical) cases hitting a student with a bamboo stick. The physical punishment is only for consistent defiance or constant failure to fulfill the tasks. The strikes with the bamboo sticks are generally to the students’ legs. A scant breakfast of porridge is then served at or shortly after 7 AM.

After breakfast the students return to their dorms and clean up. The command is to fold their quilts “like tofu—” a very high standard indeed. If the quilts are not folded to the wujing officers’ standards, then they will cast the quilts on the ground and have it done again. Sometimes the wujing officers ask the students to fold them again regardless.

The next assembly happens at 8:30 AM for various other forms of training. Kidd speaks the most about marching, reminding that it is pretty simple for one person, but to keep fifty students in perfect harmony is not a simple task. When one student falls out of line, the students are to try again and again until perfect harmony is achieved. Kidd emphasizes the aching in the soles of his feet.

Lunch is served between 11 and 11:30 AM, usually consisting of cabbage, cucumber, and other simple vegetables with little meat. After lunch the wujing officers usually demand a little more quilt folding until 1:00 PM. There is an actual rest period until between 2:40 PM and 3 PM (it varies from day to day). This is where Kidd describes the dorms a little bit, saying that it is “a big storehouse holding five hundred students.” Five hundred warm bodies seem to add to the existing heat and Kidd finds it difficult to sleep, citing an average among students of forty minutes to “calm down and fall asleep.” Kidd adds that only wujing officers are allowed fans.

The afternoon training is much like the morning training and goes until dinner time at 6 PM. Dinner is similar to lunch in terms of food. After dinner there is a window of time for the students to shower, but Kidd recalls having difficulty finding enough physical space to shower amongst the masses in the shower room. Kid recalls that even the dish washing room was "full of naked people."

At 7:50 PM is the next and final assembly of the day. There is no training at this time, but instead taking classes about the achievements and benefits of being a part of the Communist Party and watching war films. According to Kidd, who says that this is his favorite time of the day, the mosquitoes also love it, feasting on all the “fresh blood.” At 10 PM is dismissal and 10:30 is lights out, as the day is finally over. Some nights, however, the wujing will wake students up around 1 AM for an “urgent assembly,” where the students must get out of bed and quietly (and in the dark) assemble outside. Failure to do this silently and orderly can result in punishment. This is an exercise of vigilance and again, discipline. To add to this, every student gets at least one chance for individual guard duty, where the student will have to stand “guard” alone for one hour in front of the dormitory during the night.

This is an intense program in the curriculums of Chinese middle schools, high schools, universities, and colleges that serves MANY purposes. Right now, my interest in this program is primarily for discipline. Having students be trained, like actual military, certainly must impact their attitudes toward school, responsibilities, and authority. I saw formalities at the high school I worked in which mirror this discipline. Although students’ behavior and obedience to rules were far from perfect, there was a clear VISIBLE respect for teachers and parents. The way the students addressed their teachers (in Chinese) was different in body language than they way students in US public schools do. Many times I saw students with their arms behind their backs, more or less, at attention, listening to their teachers. I also saw some students turn their backs and mock the teachers once they were free from the teachers’ audio and visual ranges. Is this respect genuine? How is it being genuine or not significant for the classroom setting if the goal is to transfer content into our students’ minds? I have my own opinions here but would rather leave these as questions for now…

Other differences in Chinese education influence students’ discipline in schools. Maybe a stronger cultural importance on grades, specifically the dramatically built up (for good reason) 高考, the college entrance exam, affects students’ respect for teachers and discipline more than this training. What I want to understand more, though, is how to motivate US public schools in less fortunate areas. What outside of the classroom can help teachers keep students motivated to engage in classes?

The Gift - From China

So these past few weeks have been exciting for me. I feel somewhat like my life is divided into two parts. I know that as a teacher I will have to maintain a professional life and do my best to make sure that seeps deeply into my personal life as well. I also now feel a divide between my two experiences. I had one year teaching in a Chinese high school classroom where I learned much over the course of the year (through many mistakes and small victories) about classroom management and lesson preparation. I could fill pages about what I learned, but I’ll keep this entry on topic for now.

This post is about my Chinese high school students. In the 2007-2008 school year I had between 1000 and 1200 10th and 11th graders. Obviously I didn’t get to know all of them on a personal level, but I can say I got know about 50 students pretty well, which is a percentage I can be proud of, given the impersonal nature of the classroom culture, the cross cultural shyness I fought against constantly, and the sheer overwhelming numbers. After one year back in America, away from my busy students (with far more pressing priorities than staying connected with a foreigner they may never see again), I am surprised that I have kept in touch with over 30 of my students, including helping three of them apply to US colleges this year (and all three of them are coming to renowned American universities in August! More about them later!).

Throughout this past school year, many of the students I knew the best were seniors, meaning they had 6+ day school weeks and no time for any fun while preparing for National College Entrance Exam, but still kept in touch. Now that the test is in the past, these students are more animated now than ever, looking for ways to spend their last summer before (most of them) they embark on their collegiate adventures. Through email, google chat, and skype, I have heard many different ambitions, futures, and goals. Eventhough I had the students only for a short time at that school, compared to their other teachers, I feel I got to know them well, but hearing about their futures adds more depth to this. I had one student, an earnest and curious, but focused boy, will go to school to become a jingcha, which is basically a police officer. I have one who will study art in a fantastic school in Guangzhou, one who wants become a city-planner, one who will go into health at a renowned school in Shanghai, and one that will attend a respectable maritime university in a charming Manchurian port town… I could go on with several more… so many different goals and dreams. I don’t see this as my hard work paying off, as I was just a lowly foreign teacher at their school, teaching the only class that they had no grade nor actual requirements (AND it actually conflicted with the rest of their busy curriculum!). What makes me feel good (and honored) is that I get the privilege to be a part of this. They eagerly tell me their exciting news and I feel excited for them. Just as they look forward to embarking on their paths, I look forward to hearing about it down the road and learning about academic journeys far from my own roots and foci. I love knowing that I will see some of them again, be in America or China, especially as they spread out around their vast country, maybe even the world! Also, I see them less and less as students and more and more as developing people. I like the word “evolving” though…

The older I get the less I see education as a specific set of skills. One of my favorite (and least orthodox) teachers from high school once told me that high school was somewhat like a test to see if we can make it in the real world. Granted, he was trying to talk some sense into me after panicking from my first “C” in a really competitive place, but he was sincere in his description of a system based on grades and evaluation. I will not argue that high school is not necessary, but I do distinguish education from high school now. No intellectual’s education should ever stop. I am always observing, considering, analyzing, and critiquing the many new concepts I come across every day. Furthermore, I am constantly revising my understandings, challenging them. Education IS ALL ABOUT evolving. “Seeing my students” at this time is a great image of evolution, and now, as I am nervous and ready to begin student teaching in Redford, Michigan, I am seeing with clarity that in addition to being a high school teacher, I want to be an educator!

Maybe I am lucky that in this stressful summer semester I have been shown such a valuable gem that only teachers can mine.

Thanks for reading,
Adam

Into The Fire - Tweeting in class?

My original opinion of twitter, after seeing how many of my friends used it: A bunch of people shouting into the dark about whatever is on their mind, regardless of who, if anyone at all, will hear them...

Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a popularity contest on twitter this year. This was one of the first times I learned something about what twitter actually is, and it helped ensure my resolve to shun it as a trashy networking site. When I saw twitter show up on a class syllabus this semester as a location for my professors’ office hours, I groaned out loud. Just this week, as a requirement for one of my classes, I have signed up for twitter. A teacher talked briefly about the advantages of twitter in a classroom environment, which blew my mind. Again, my conservative fear of unleashing technology in the classroom paints a daunting picture of a chaotic classroom where kids are tweeting with each other rather than focusing in class. I see this as a higher tech scenario of my high school days (I admit it, I was a bit of a joker with the cell phone myself), when teachers consistently confiscated cell phones. I can only imagine today’s classroom where students must be text messaging each other constantly during class time. I will try not to be alarmed when I encounter this during my student observing/teaching in September.

What surprised me the most in class today was that I actually caught myself trying to imagine myself using twitter to facilitate discussions in my future classes. Two different videos brought this on: one where a second grade teacher use twitter to connect with another classroom in another school while teaching about technology and acceptable use, and one where a college class at University of Texas in Austin uses twitter in a lecture hall to facilitate a discussion for the entire class. Most of the students seemed to love it, praising twitter’s speed and efficiency in getting information to the large screen behind the professor and the fact that it can give students who might normally be shy, but with lots to say, a voice in class (I’ll overlook the blatant ethnic stereotype that immediately followed this declaration in the video). When there is a large class, it can be difficult for a teacher to include everyone in the discussion. I thought these clips were eye-opening, not just to how some of this new technology might be a useful tool for me in the classroom, but also that many different teachers of different age groups are already using it for a myriad of purposes. I started fantasizing about how I can use twitter in the classroom to bring authors, movements, questions, and other topics in literature to life for my students. One classmate mentioned a twitter account for Emily Dickenson, breathing new life (and possibly new relevance!) into her poetry via using various lines and quotes. My first reaction was to imagine what a twitter account for Dante Alighieri would be like. My second reaction was excitement, as I feel strongly about removing students from their everyday colloquial language, hopefully opening up different ways of using our incredible, dynamic language for expression.

But here comes the old dilemma: as I talked about it in my last post, how do I manage the Big Tweety Monster in the classroom? How do I keep my students more on task and less into social networking in the classroom? This is a different scenario than the one with impressionable second graders, who will likely listen more to lectures about acceptable (and even safe) use of technology.

Also, I hope my literature classes will be smaller than that lecture at University of Texas, and that I will have no more than 35 students. As much as I value giving the shy students more comfortable opportunities to speak out, personal interaction/face-to-face discussion is irreplaceable. I want my students to be able to learn from each other by discussing things while sitting in the same room, looking at each other. I don’t think I need to even start to explain why that skill will be helpful in so many ways throughout a lifetime. Communication lays immovable and vital at the core of any humanities class, and one mission of the humanities in education is to build both socially and mentally proficient members of society. I can not imagine feeling good about myself as a literature teacher if I let this priority go!

Any thoughts/ideas on how to apply something like twitter in the classroom, specifically for literature?

Thanks for reading!
-Adam

Both Sides Now - Technology and the English Classroom

This question came up in my technology class: how do you plan on incorporating the use of modern technology into your future classroom?  I thought it would be a simple question at first when I remembered my own high school English literature classrooms, but the more I thought about it, the more hazy it seemed.

Times are changing now, faster than ever, and it only seems that things will accelerate. Nine years ago, in 2000, I remember how the internet was just another possible tool for research while email was something that could be checked occasionally, but certainly not regularly. Oh, and using the internet required clogging my parents’ phone line, as we had dial-up.  By 2003 I was checking my email everyday, by 2004 I was using social networking, Now, in 2009, all of my classes rely on the internet for either assignments, course materials, or both. If I go so much as half a day without access to email I fear that I may develop nervous rashes, like a coveting addict. In 2000, I did not have or want a cellular phone. Now, I am reliant on cell phone calls and text messaging, eagerly anticipating the time when I can get a blackberry to give myself even more regular email and internet access. Also, my 11 year-old nephew has had a cellular phone now for one year! My point is that I know that technology will continue to develop rapidly, and it would be foolish to even think I can accurately predict how I will be using it come 2012!

S0 how will I use technology in what I currently envision as my future classroom?  I am struggling with this now, partly out of fear of the unknown, as I know technology is rapidly changing our classroom dynamics, and partly from what I remember in my English classes in high school. I remember in my high school English classes where my classes were all completely discussion based, some students took a "high tech" approach and relied on the web site sparknotes.com to not only substitute the reading (with the chapter summaries), but also used the discussion points as their own contributions for class. I know that whatever materials were available eight years ago are only tip of the iceberg for what is available now. Having access to such material can be great for students, especially with deeper readings like Faulkner, where treading through them can become a great chore. Students can use these resources honorably to help them navigate through dense readings, but just as easily, students can find ways to avoid doing the actual reading and the actual thinking by abusing these websites. Eventhough I can try to lift discussions above this by questioning students on their contributions to discussions, probing them to the core of their reasoning, I worry about ensuring that the students do the actual readings in the actual text. The actual text is irreplaceable. I can envision a future classroom where all students have their own phones/computers granting access both at home and in the classroom to all the robotic thinking the world wide web has to offer! As a future literature teacher, this is one of my greatest fears. I remember how hard it was sometimes to motivate myself to do the readings for class, and consequently, how easy taking the shortcut on sparknotes.com was!

One thing I venture to say that I actually know about the future is that my students will know more about technology and how to use it than I will. I am starting to understand that as a teacher, I will need to keep up with it and keep my fingers on the ever heating pulses of how high school teachers will incorporate this technology into the classroom. I will need to find a way to use technology to get my students on board with me to explore the literature with even more knowledge and background on the text than I ever had.  I dream of technology supporting and inspiring my students to develop their critical thinking and open their minds, progressing them both as thinkers and writers. I can only begin to imagine the possibilities of what technology in the classroom can do for helping students understand the history, background, culture, and setting of the literary works we'll talk about in class. This way, technology could be used to excite and inspire the students while offering a much better background for understanding the texts than the simple lectures I got in high school. Still, the “old-fashioned” side of me is also the cynical side, and I see technology giving students too many ways around the intense practice that is required to truly benefit from a humanities class. This makes technology seem like something that must be harnessed, censored even. I observed a classroom in Redford, MI, where students permitted to use the computers in class were on a myriad of websites, ranging from the actual online assignments, further reading, facebook, and Wikipedia (the Paul Rudd page). I didn’t groan out loud, but I did foresee an uphill battle, and one that I will only come to understand better with more knowledge on the issue.

Concluding question: What roles should technology play in the literature classroom so that students' intellectual development is not stunted, yet we are still keeping with the times? 

 Thanks,

Adam

Let's Get It Started - Thanks for reading!

This is my first post on my first professional (and only) blog! This blog will hopefully dig into some current issues in American secondary education, conflicts from my personal experience in the classroom, and also recall and compare my experiences as a TEFL teacher in Shenzhen, China! Thank you for reading!

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