Friday, July 15, 2005
per papa's plea
i'll write a little bit about my schooling experience at Shanghai High School International Division. I feel that it will come off very drab and jaded, but that is only because i lack the true skill to bring an interesting, fair view to my year there. ok, let's go.
I have previously described SHSID as a "cash cow" and a "farce" to many people and perhaps somewhere in the extent of this blog, but let's flesh that out a bit. Every year the administration of this school prolly hires about 30 new teachers, many with questionable (or blatantly nonexistent) teaching experience, most likely based on what their picture looks like. blond hair is preferable, but anybody with fair white skin and a pleasing smile jumps to the front of the line. all of this is done to please the parents and the financial backers of this school. on the same campus is the real teaching institution, the local division. this is the school where students in china have to test highly to get into and then go from there on to higher and better institutions, on their way to the top of the ladder. yeah, i never taught them. that'd be heresy. at the international division we teach the kids of rich expats in the area and, if i may say so myself, teach them pretty dang well considering the lack of experience most of us are endowed with. lots of english speakers and non-english speakers. i'll get to that later.
kevin carter and dee macmahon and alina samuels and so many other teachers came up with some good slogans. we were thinking about getting a tshirt made to commemorate the experience. here are a couple: on front [ shsid ] on back [ nothing is impossible ] that slogan comes from a favorite saying of our admin teachers when we ask them for something. no, no, that is impossible. [ shsid ] [ we teach because we care ] most of these slogans are full of sarcasm [ shsid ] [ the best! ] another china-ism where everything is the best. here, use this stapler, it's the best! [ shsid ] [ yeah... ] there were many other slogans where people made more bold and deleterious remarks, but we held back on those, and held back on making shirts in the end, cuz everyone was just ready to git outta there.
however, all that being said, i loved teaching. i didn't like making tests, grading, making worksheets, all that work crap. but i did love teaching. most of the time. having to worry about class administration is a pain too. i just wish my students were little angels and we could focus on what we were learning at all times. not always the case. but when everything was going well, i was on fire, teaching vocabulary or whatnot - that was when i loved it. kids asking questions, me firing back answers, the whole learning teaching thing. that stuff is awesome. it's the rest that is annoying, and certain teaching institutions make that stuff easier on their teachers. not ours.
we did get paid well, i'll give them that. 1600 us dollars a month, minus tax. and for a while, towards the end, we got our tax back too. but then there was a chinese law found that said we couldn't do that, so next year it's back. good money though, and shanghai is the place to spend it. now, in this upcoming year, i'll spend a lot of the money i just saved in that job. ah, the world of money, a life dealing with and reeling from it. so, in that respect, the job was worth it.
but we had office hours, 8 hours a day, and there were horribly long staff meetings recapping things we already knew. sounds like a regular job you say? yeah, it was. i don't like jobs. who does?
i loved going to a local middle school once a week and teaching real, true chinese kids. all we did was talk, play games, and watch movies. i never had to prepare for that class or make tests. that's what i wish i had been doing the whole year. nothing but shangbao.
instead, i also taught sixth native english, seventh non native history (i am no history major by a long shot), and ninth non native english. they all had their good and bad points, history mostly bad. i just don't like history that much and didn't convey much of an interest to my kids. i was a bad teacher, i'm sorry to say. in english class, i was better though, being more qualified and confident with my knowledge. i'm an okay grammarian, an excellent vocabularist, and an enthusiastic reader-alouder. but of course, i never taught in a vacuum, so my kids would act up and disrupt the flow. normal classroom antics and all that. just annoying to deal with when all i want to do is go home and take a nap. again, like most jobs. and probably a lot easier than most teaching jobs, neh? so all in all, an easy laid back year in shanghai teaching some cool kids that i'll probably never see again. an international life is an unsettled one.
i'm glad to leave the first floor apartment i was living in, part of the foreign teacher dorms that looked as if they would fall apart after one day in san fran or kobe. i don't miss the dust and the mosquitos and the centipedes associated with my first floor lodging. my neighbor john gildersleeve does not miss his rat pal that he met early on in the year. it was a dump, but a free dump. near my last day there, another teacher's room had a water leak of massive proportions and the dorm guards had no idea where the water main was. i had a better guess, but couldn't access it, so we had to wait fifteen minutes while the maintenance people made their way there from their respective homes. meanwhile, the room below, john g's (he had already left - the day after our last day, that boy was outta there) was filling up with water that was dripping through from the room above. fun shtuff.
apparently our year wasn't as hectic as the year before, when there were some real crazy types working there, drinking all the time and passing out in different sections of the campus. not showing up to class, etc. the eight hour workday was a new invention thanks to our predecessors. many a story was told about those fellas by the few teachers that remained from the year before.
my friend scott morrison will be celebrating his sixth year at that school next year, more power to him. jena balton will be staying in shanghai, but studying chinese, bless her heart. everyone else pretty much left. i think there are 8 or 9 out of 36 returning, crazy folks. i'm going to return there for one day in august to pick up a key left there for me, but that'll be my last dealings with that school.
it was a good year in many ways, but i can think of better ways to spend a year. the friends i made are indispensable and now i'm going to have to make new ones, but that goes back to the life of a world traveller and all that. is it better to make hundreds of year-long friends around the world or make a few good friends and stay put in one place developing those friendships for the rest of your life? hard to say. any answers to that would be appreciated.
e
I have previously described SHSID as a "cash cow" and a "farce" to many people and perhaps somewhere in the extent of this blog, but let's flesh that out a bit. Every year the administration of this school prolly hires about 30 new teachers, many with questionable (or blatantly nonexistent) teaching experience, most likely based on what their picture looks like. blond hair is preferable, but anybody with fair white skin and a pleasing smile jumps to the front of the line. all of this is done to please the parents and the financial backers of this school. on the same campus is the real teaching institution, the local division. this is the school where students in china have to test highly to get into and then go from there on to higher and better institutions, on their way to the top of the ladder. yeah, i never taught them. that'd be heresy. at the international division we teach the kids of rich expats in the area and, if i may say so myself, teach them pretty dang well considering the lack of experience most of us are endowed with. lots of english speakers and non-english speakers. i'll get to that later.
kevin carter and dee macmahon and alina samuels and so many other teachers came up with some good slogans. we were thinking about getting a tshirt made to commemorate the experience. here are a couple: on front [ shsid ] on back [ nothing is impossible ] that slogan comes from a favorite saying of our admin teachers when we ask them for something. no, no, that is impossible. [ shsid ] [ we teach because we care ] most of these slogans are full of sarcasm [ shsid ] [ the best! ] another china-ism where everything is the best. here, use this stapler, it's the best! [ shsid ] [ yeah... ] there were many other slogans where people made more bold and deleterious remarks, but we held back on those, and held back on making shirts in the end, cuz everyone was just ready to git outta there.
however, all that being said, i loved teaching. i didn't like making tests, grading, making worksheets, all that work crap. but i did love teaching. most of the time. having to worry about class administration is a pain too. i just wish my students were little angels and we could focus on what we were learning at all times. not always the case. but when everything was going well, i was on fire, teaching vocabulary or whatnot - that was when i loved it. kids asking questions, me firing back answers, the whole learning teaching thing. that stuff is awesome. it's the rest that is annoying, and certain teaching institutions make that stuff easier on their teachers. not ours.
we did get paid well, i'll give them that. 1600 us dollars a month, minus tax. and for a while, towards the end, we got our tax back too. but then there was a chinese law found that said we couldn't do that, so next year it's back. good money though, and shanghai is the place to spend it. now, in this upcoming year, i'll spend a lot of the money i just saved in that job. ah, the world of money, a life dealing with and reeling from it. so, in that respect, the job was worth it.
but we had office hours, 8 hours a day, and there were horribly long staff meetings recapping things we already knew. sounds like a regular job you say? yeah, it was. i don't like jobs. who does?
i loved going to a local middle school once a week and teaching real, true chinese kids. all we did was talk, play games, and watch movies. i never had to prepare for that class or make tests. that's what i wish i had been doing the whole year. nothing but shangbao.
instead, i also taught sixth native english, seventh non native history (i am no history major by a long shot), and ninth non native english. they all had their good and bad points, history mostly bad. i just don't like history that much and didn't convey much of an interest to my kids. i was a bad teacher, i'm sorry to say. in english class, i was better though, being more qualified and confident with my knowledge. i'm an okay grammarian, an excellent vocabularist, and an enthusiastic reader-alouder. but of course, i never taught in a vacuum, so my kids would act up and disrupt the flow. normal classroom antics and all that. just annoying to deal with when all i want to do is go home and take a nap. again, like most jobs. and probably a lot easier than most teaching jobs, neh? so all in all, an easy laid back year in shanghai teaching some cool kids that i'll probably never see again. an international life is an unsettled one.
i'm glad to leave the first floor apartment i was living in, part of the foreign teacher dorms that looked as if they would fall apart after one day in san fran or kobe. i don't miss the dust and the mosquitos and the centipedes associated with my first floor lodging. my neighbor john gildersleeve does not miss his rat pal that he met early on in the year. it was a dump, but a free dump. near my last day there, another teacher's room had a water leak of massive proportions and the dorm guards had no idea where the water main was. i had a better guess, but couldn't access it, so we had to wait fifteen minutes while the maintenance people made their way there from their respective homes. meanwhile, the room below, john g's (he had already left - the day after our last day, that boy was outta there) was filling up with water that was dripping through from the room above. fun shtuff.
apparently our year wasn't as hectic as the year before, when there were some real crazy types working there, drinking all the time and passing out in different sections of the campus. not showing up to class, etc. the eight hour workday was a new invention thanks to our predecessors. many a story was told about those fellas by the few teachers that remained from the year before.
my friend scott morrison will be celebrating his sixth year at that school next year, more power to him. jena balton will be staying in shanghai, but studying chinese, bless her heart. everyone else pretty much left. i think there are 8 or 9 out of 36 returning, crazy folks. i'm going to return there for one day in august to pick up a key left there for me, but that'll be my last dealings with that school.
it was a good year in many ways, but i can think of better ways to spend a year. the friends i made are indispensable and now i'm going to have to make new ones, but that goes back to the life of a world traveller and all that. is it better to make hundreds of year-long friends around the world or make a few good friends and stay put in one place developing those friendships for the rest of your life? hard to say. any answers to that would be appreciated.
e
