First off, I would like to give props to all the teachers out there. It’s impossible to know the difficulties of being a teacher unless you stand in front of a classroom and teach…not just for one lesson, that’s easy. I mean, for a semester, or a year.
For someone who has never taught seriously before, I think I’m doing quite well. The biggest challenge I am facing at the moment is how to draw a line between being a friend, and a teacher. This is the kind of struggle that arises when teaching a group of students for a semester or a year, not just one class…
At the beginning of the semester, a few students asked me for my “wechat” and expressed interest in hanging out with me outside of class. Wechat is a Chinese social media platform that everyone uses. It has a newsfeed, where students post their thoughts and pictures. It has chat and phone calls, such as facebook messenger, but the advantage of wechat is that you can also pay with it, and the money is removed from your bank account directly. I was skeptical about adding them, fearing that it would cloud the boundary between friend and teacher. In North America, or at least in my experience, teachers and students don’t ever become friends during the semester. The relationship is strictly school…
However, the other foreign teacher, who has been at this school for 3 years, explained to me that in China it is not “weird” for students and teachers to hang out together outside of class. Still, I was unsure.
But this happened at the beginning of the semester…now I’m 10 weeks in, and of course, over these 10 weeks, I have gotten to know my students a little bit better. And I like them and WANT to be friends with them, not just a teacher. Half of me thinks that I should be more serious about the teacher/student boundary, but the other half of me is thinking: “well I’m only here for 5 months, this isn’t a long term thing, so who really cares about the boundary between teacher and friend…you’re here to learn the culture too, not just to teach…”
Last weekend, I played ping pong and badminton with some students from my business class. That same business class invited the other foreign teacher and I to their class barbecue and game day, which was also last weekend, on Sunday. They had asked us to plan a game for them, and we decided on organizing a relay race, which included apple bobbing, hopping on one foot, crabwalking and many other slightly crazy things. The relay race required lots of props, and the other foreign teacher and I had to meet with some of the students over the weekend to coordinate everything. Some of the students came to collect some of the game materials at my apartment. On barbecue day, I took the bus with some students from the class to get to the destination, and at the end of the event, some students gave the other foreign teacher and I a lift back to school. I have a couple of my students as friends on facebook now.
Let’s just say, it definitely felt a little strange to hand that same class their midterm exam on Monday morning…
On the midterm exam, I included a bonus question worth 1 point, where I asked students for their feedback: what can I do better as a teacher, what do they want to see more of, etc?
I’ve only read the replies of 40 students so far, and most people say that they enjoy the class very much, because I find ways to make learning fun and I’m always smiling, apparently. A couple of people mentioned that I should become stricter and punish students, such as when they arrive late to class. Not many students said this, there were only a handful, but these comments have been consuming my thoughts incessantly for the past few days.
It’s true; I don’t ever punish my students… When some of them are late, I write it down on my attendance sheet, and this will affect their attendance grade, but I still greet them at the door with a smile. Honestly, I really could not care less if some students are late. Heck, I am someone who is always running late….
And at the moment, I am having this inner debate about what kind of teacher I want to be. This should have been decided at the beginning of the semester, but oh well, rookie mistake. Do I want to be the teacher that stops students from talking, playing on their phones and doing other work? Or do I want to be the teacher that ignores those things because if they don’t listen, it’s their problem, not mine?
Since my students are between the ages of 19 and 22, I don’t think I should baby them. If they choose to play on their cellphones, it won’t be my problem if they get a bad grade…at this point, they should know the consequences of their actions. On the other hand, if everyone started playing games on their cellphone, class would never be productive.
And how about talking in class? Sometimes I hear some chit chat, but I am unsure if it’s students who are asking their neighbour for help about something I just said. Those students are trying to understand, and I certainly don’t want to penalize those who try. Moreover, I don’t want my students to become afraid of opening their mouths, because I enjoy in-class, spontaneous banter. It makes it more fun for everyone, including myself.
Today, I had a video chat with one of my best friends, Alyssa, who is a teacher and she gave me great insight on how she disciplines her students. She explained that discipline is something that gets easier over time. She has become stricter, because she learned that she has to be, if she wants students who listen in class. All of this reminds me of when I used to referee ringette, but also when I worked at Lufa Farms. When I first started reffing, I hated calling penalties, but the lack of doing so made the game more aggressive, and the coaches became more difficult to handle. I gained better control of the game when I disciplined the players and called penalties, right from the beginning of the first period. At Lufa, I used to hate penalizing my suppliers. However, this made my job more chaotic, because they often sent products that had quality issues or did not respect Lufa Farms’ standards. It wasn’t until I started giving them fines for bad quality products that their deliveries suddenly took a turn for the better. It’s quite sad that people take advantage of leniency that way. And I hate disciplining people!!
I don’t think I will drastically change my teaching method. When I give the students back their exams, I will review it with them and I will probably casually ask them why some of them think I should be stricter. Based on their reply, I’m hoping that I can explain to them that they are now 19 years old and they should know what is right versus wrong, and respectful versus not respectful. I should not have to discipline them at their age.
Hopefully word will also get around that I gave one student 0% for cheating and I failed two other students for talking during the test.
Yes, I may be fun, but I’m also serious.