Related posts:

1. CP8: Subtle Abuse
2. CP10: Cultural Criticisms
3. CP11: Jayden and Artists

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP13: Welcome To Beijing, Miles and Ji Tan
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

Related posts:

1. CP11: Jayden and Artists
2. CP12: Funemployment
3. CP14: Reward Sytems

Sources:
China consider passing law which forces youngsters to look after elderly parents… or face jail
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP8: Subtle Abuse
3. CP5: Usher and Ethan

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

The video shows a Chinese kindergarten teacher repeatedly pushing, pulling, and hitting a little girl. The girl’s mother got the recording from the school and posted it online.

The story, according to ChinaSmack’s translation of the mother’s post, is this:

I am already almost at my wit’s end, but I just want to get some justice for my child!!

My daughter is only two and a half years old, and attends Xuzhou City children’s art school [nursery/kindergarten]. On the morning of September 1st, she had a quarrel with another child in her class over a small stool. Allegedly, my daughter scratched that child’s hand. That child’s mother just so happens to be a teacher at the nursery, and when she heard what happened, she rushed over to vent anger for her daughter. That child’s mother, Teacher Chen, then not only shoved but also hit my daughter for 10 minutes, and throughout all of this, all of the other teachers uniformly stood by and did nothing, not a single person going forth to intervene.

After my daughter was hit, the kindergarten teacher even called me and said that my daughter hit bit the other child, and wanted me to take the child that was bitten to go get a rabies vaccination!

After rushing to the school, I had a quarrel with that child’s mother, and only after I had requested during the quarrel to watch the video footage did I learn how my daughter was hit. I no longer want to remember that heartbreaking scene, but I forcefully copied the video recording from the kindergarten, am posting it here, hoping to ask everyone to help me, using legal channels to safeguard our personal rights!

I know this is something nobody wants to see, but here is the video:

It’s obviously vile and terrible. And it’s shocking to actually see it being done.

But I have to point out that although this is a worse-than-normal case, it is by no means uncommon. This type of treatment is very common. It’s usually not this intense, but it can be at times. I’ve witnessed it. And so have many other foreign teachers.

And as for the exposure this video is getting, I doubt much will come of it. Maybe, maybe the teacher will be fired. Besides that, this will just be ignored.

There are probably government officials who are just happy this wasn’t another kindergarten stabbing.

Related posts:

1. Letter From A High School Teacher
2. You Look Down But Far From Out
3. G-Day Plus 1

Note: Just a heads up, at one point I drop the F-bomb about ten times. I also sing. Just letting you know in case you find that (the singing) offensive.

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP8: Subtle Abuse

In three short videos he covers the basics of living in China, including the economy, standard of living, working, dealing with the state, and the people and culture.

He’s about ten thousand times more succinct and on point than I manage to be, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy that.

My favorite video is the third, “People and Culture Shock.” Pretty much everything he says is right on target. I would qualify his observations by saying that they are less true in the major cities, Beijing and Shanghai, than for the other parts of China, although they still apply.

Anyway, enjoy.

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1. IASISK – Shanghai
2. China Puts The “Jew” In Juice
3. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl

Note: It’s forty-eight minutes long. Forty-eight minutes of baller. Don’t hate.

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1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP8: Subtle Abuse
3. CP11: Jayden and Artists

Note: It’s a bit rambly, just so you know going in.

Related posts:

1. CP5: Usher and Ethan
2. CP8: Subtle Abuse
3. CP7: I Don’t Give A Figgity Figgity Figgity What?

As always, leave your comments or email me.

Related posts:

1. CP5: Usher and Ethan
2. CP4: Graduation Day
3. CP8: Subtle Abuse

Note 1: yes, I know it’s pronounced “in-ter-rog-a-tive.” I’m living in China, just be happy I can form any real sentences.

Note 2: I didn’t mean “only 15 episodes” sarcastically. I realized it sounded that way upon re-listening. That wasn’t my intent. I’m genuinely impressed at how quickly Brett Veinotte started addressing family issues in the School Sucks Podcast.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

Nearly one in ten young Chinese under the age of 17 have some sort of mental disorders, a recent survey suggests.

The Beijing Anding Hospital and the Chinese Medical Association hosted an international conference about the mental health of young people on Sunday.

At the meeting, Chinese scholars said that at least 30 million minors in China are plagued with mental disorders or behavior problems.

By the year 2007, China had 341 million minors, accounting for 26 percent of the country’s total population.

“The number 30 million is based on regional researches in recent years. Since the mental health of children must have worsened over time, the real number could be even higher,” said Cui Yonghua, a child psychiatrist with the Beijing Anding Hospital.

“Child patients have been increasing sharply over the past years. Now we do not have enough beds for them,” said psychiatrist Cui.

This is tragic, truly. But I’m going to make a maybe somewhat controversial statement that this is a good thing. In fact, I’m sure every generation prior to this one has had a higher percentage of mental disorder. These kids acting out and receiving actual psychological attention (and media attention) means that things may get better for them and for future generations.

Still, this is a powerful and sad indicator of the terrible treatment of children.

Reader Will also juxtaposed the mental disorder story with this one from the day before. I think it speaks for itself.

Related posts:

1. CP3: Treatment of Children
2. “Injustice has a cause, debt has an owner, out the door and to the left is the government building.”
3. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl

But I have been here for over 3 months, so I want to try. Remember, I’m just going off what I’ve experienced and extending it with a little reason. If I’m totally off-base and you think everything I’m saying is nonsense, please let me know.

Okay, enough qualifying. Here’s what I’m going to say about Chinese people: They lacky the passion.

Among almost all the Chinese people I have met and talked with, I find a total absence of passion.

In order to understand what I mean when I talk about passion, we’re going to have to use the West (specifically America) as a comparison. Which means I’m going to have to paint another culture with a broad brush.

Genuine Passion

When I think about passion in the West I usually break it down into two categories. The first is genuine passion.

Genuine passion is a deep love and enthusiasm and drive for something. It’s easy to associate this with artists. People who truly and deeply care about painting, or music, or cinema, or literature. But it could be about anything.

I consider Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan some of the most passionate authors I’ve read. It’s science and reason and truth that they are passionate about, and you can feel their enthusiasm in almost everything they write.

I think you can have that same enthusiasm and joy toward anything and everything, from stamp collecting to webdesign to philosophy to psychology to baking to chemistry to life itself. And I think most passionate people are passionate about everything they do, not just their main interests.

It’s sometimes hard to quantify, but you just know. You can tell by the way the person talks and by their body language. You can sense their excitement or awe or enthusiasm.

I’m sure you’ve probably experienced both sides of this. You’ve been able to tell when someone you’re talking to really cares about the subject, when it excites them and energizes them. And you know what it’s like to talk about something you really love. (At least I hope you know what it’s like.)

This type of passion — genuine passion — I also associate with a few other traits.

One of them is a level of disregard for what other people think. Passionate people pursue the things they love, despite what anyone else (friends, family, society) thinks about them. It’s part of that drive that a passionate person has. They are individuals, not conformists. Social norms aren’t going to stop them.

Another set of traits I find in most passionate people is honesty, openness, and curiosity. They don’t hide or hedge or minimize the things they believe and value. They are open about how they feel and what they think. And at the same time they are often curious and willing — in fact happy — to listen to other people’s thoughts and opinions. Passionate people are excited by others who want to engage them on the things they care about.

(I would say this is true even for passionate religious people. In my experience, people who are really passionate about religion are often the ones willing to listen to my (very opposing) ideas. It is your average my-parents-were-religious-so-now-I-am religious people that get defensive or evasive about their beliefs.)

(Oh, and I would also like to clarify that I don’t count zealotry and fanaticism as being passionate. I see that more as an unhealthy obsession. So, just like I wouldn’t call a heroin addict “a person who is passionate about heroin,” I don’t consider a fanatic “just a really passionate person.”)

Bandwagon Passion

I see genuine passion here and there in the West, but overall it’s pretty rare. What I see a lot more of is a watered-down version of passion, something I’ll call bandwagon passion.

This pseudo-passion copies the enthusiasm of real passion, but little else. It leaves out the true dedication, and joy, and individualism, and curiosity found in genuine passion. And it’s easy. It’s so easy.

This is embodied in almost every popular issue or movement in America. From environmentalism to health-care reform to supporting the troops to helping the poor to protecting small business owners to blah blah blah. Just pick an easy issue and jump on board.

Listen to celebrities talk about environmentalism as they fly around in their Gulfstreams. Or the conservative politicians talk about family values as they cheat on their wives. Or the college kid who thinks it’s so important to stop war as he supports a president sending 10,000 more young men to die in the desert. Yes, psuedo-passion almost always comes with a healthy helping of hypocrisy.

I do realize that some of the people who care about these issues are genuinely passionate and not hypocritical. But they are the rare ones. Most are just followers who are defensive when challenged and always ready to jump on the next up-and-coming topic.

Raise a flag for some trendy social issue and watch these slithering bandwagon passionistas gather round.

Wasn’t This Supposed To Be About China?

Yes. There was a reason for those tangents. And here it is: I see none of that in China.

The genuine passion, already a rare thing, is unsurprisingly absent. But so is the bandwagon passion.

Most young Chinese people I talk to — not all, but most — are totally devoid of either form of passion. I met an American girl in a bar and one of the first things she talked about was how she is “really into human rights.” Whether it’s genuine or bandwagon passion, this doesn’t happen when you talk to Chinese people.

I ask Chinese people what they care about and what they are really interested in and I usually get the most mundane answers: hanging out with friends, going shopping, going to the movies with friends. I mentioned this to my Chinese assistant and she said “Chinese girls do care about things. They care about shopping and shopping and make-up.” She was being funny, but there was some truth to it.

And it isn’t just the content of the interests. It’s also the way they talk about them. That spark of enthusiasm and excitement I talked about before, I don’t see that. They sound bored with their own interests. They sound bored that you even asked them a question about their interests.

Again, there are exceptions.

I was talking with a 26-year-old Chinese girl the other day who was extremely passionate about everything she brought up, even her job. I was so surprised that I actually said something to her.

“You know, I really think it’s cool how passionate you are. Most people I talk to here aren’t really excited about anything. You’re pretty enthusiastic about everything.”

She looked at me and smiled, “I love life. Being pretty will fade when I get old, but I hope I always keep my passion.”

Ballin’.

As cool as that was, it was only shocking because it’s so counter to my normal experiences with Chinese people.

Show Me The Passion

Obviously, I don’t want Chinese people to fix this problem by following Americans and jumping on every trendy bandwagon. But at least that Western pseudo-passion reveals an underlying desire to be enthusiastic and excited about something. A desire I’m having real trouble finding in China.

I have some ideas about why there is this lack of passion. Most of them have to do with parenting and the treatment of children. It’s also part of the culture in general. It’s a topic that needs a lot more thought and investigation.

I can say this: The biggest exception to everything I’ve been describing is children. Children are absolutely not like this. My students are passionate and enthusiastic and excited every day, about all kinds of things. I can’t even count the number of times a day one of my 5-year-olds runs up to me and breathlessly explains something they are excited about. And when I respond with enthusiasm, they get even more passionate.

So don’t think I’m describing some genetic problem or anything like that. This is a result of nurture, not nature. The kids in China start out just as passionate as all children. It’s ground out of them by the usual suspects: parents, teachers, and politicians.

How in particular is something I’m not sure about. And why it is different than in the West. Why isn’t there at least bandwagon passion here?

In the comments let me know what you think of this. Am I right or wrong? What do you think the causes are? And tell me your thoughts on why I’ve found China to be a passionless desert.

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1. McCoy’s First Day
2. 30 Million Children With Mental Disorders
3. CP5: Usher and Ethan

I was always perplexed by these responses. They were part straw-man — suggesting that anarchists naively believed in a conflict free world — and part invalid deduction — asserting that if there was conflict then it was necessary for an authority figure to resolve it.

The first part wasn’t hard to understand. Straw-man arguments are a dime a dozen. But the second part seemed so illogical; how could anyone reach such a conclusion?

Why would so many people automatically associate the resolution of conflict with the necessity of authority?

Now I know at least part of the answer.

Everyday in school I see my students being taught two lessons that lead directly to the acceptance of statism:

Lesson 1: Conflict Is Bad

This is the first and less obvious lesson that is being reinforced constantly.

Conflict is a bad thing. It’s bad when it happens. It should be avoided at all costs. Conflict is the worst possible outcome of any interaction.

That’s what kids learn.

Teachers and assistants hover over children during every activity. And at the first sign of a disagreement they swoop down to “break it up.” The result of their interference is often that somebody gets in trouble.

These situations occur dozens of times every day. Two kids will argue over who gets to play with a toy or who gets to be first in line for their snack. They get into conflicts over taking each others’ crayons or books or whatever. They fight over who holds the jump rope they’re using to tie up their teacher and tickle him (I always get them back).

Almost every time something like this happens a teacher or assistant is waiting to step in and stop the disagreement — and sometimes to punish the student “responsible.”

This sends one message: conflict is bad.

Conflict Is Natural

Conflict isn’t bad. And it isn’t good either. I wouldn’t use any moral labels when defining conflict. Conflict is neutral.

Conflict is the natural result of interacting with other human beings. Every person has their own values, desires, and needs and everyone has different ways of satisfying those needs. In any relationship or community or society it is absolutely NORMAL that these different and competing interests result in conflict. It’s not a bad thing. How could it be?

What I would apply terms like “good” and “bad” to are the ways of handling conflict. For instance, violence is a pretty bad way of handling conflict (I’m looking at you, statists). Peaceful negotiation, on the other hand, is generally a pretty good way of handling conflict.

When a conflict is handled poorly the consequences can be devastating, as surely all of us have experienced. But a when a conflict is handled well, it can be a great thing and actually improve the relationship.

It is the bad ways of handling conflicts that causes teachers and assistants to interfere. They want to prevent the children from hitting or fighting or name calling. It’s well-intentioned. But by constantly interfering they don’t teach children real conflict resolution skills, they just teach them that conflict is a bad thing.

It also teaches them the second lesson, that when there is a conflict, the best thing to do is appeal to authority.

Lesson 2: Authority Resolves Conflicts

This is the second lesson. It’s more overt but it is also more dangerous.

The consequence of training kids that conflict is bad and that an authority will always be there to intervene imprints this programming onto them: when there is a conflict, an authority figure will resolve it.

On my first day of class — no exaggeration, my very first day — a student I had never spoken to before came up to me and said, “Arthur took my pen, will you give him a frowny face?”

I can’t remember the rest of the conversation, but it went something like this:

“No sorry, Eric, I don’t think I’m going to give him a frowny face.”

“He took my pencil!”

“He didn’t take my pencil, though, why should I give him a frowny face?”

Cue the blank stare I’ve seen hundreds of times by now. “But…but…you’re the teacher!”

“Want me to go talk to Arthur with you?”

“No, I want you to go beat him up and get my pencil back.”

The point of that dialogue is to show you just how much children are trained that authority is the ultimate conflict resolver. Whenever there is a disagreement, if you handle it on your own, an authority will intervene anyway and you’ll get in trouble. But if you appeal immediately to authority you might just get your way.

Authority is there to resolve your conflicts, whether or not you want it.

Conclusion

The connections to statism should be blatantly obvious.

Instead of teaching children infinitely valuable conflict resolution skills so that they can learn to handle disagreements peacefully and efficiently, they are taught to fear and avoid conflict. And in the case conflict does arise, they are trained to run immediately to the nearest authority figure and plead their case, otherwise there will be punishment.

This is what most children are exposed to for 12 years of school — and probably longer in their homes.

Is it any surprise that they become adults and can’t imagine a world where conflict is resolved without authority?

Related posts:

1. From Childhood To Statism: Introduction
2. 3 Things Wrong With The Rewards System
3. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?

I want to show some of the ways that schools, teachers, and parents train children to become statists.

In this introductory post I want to set up and explain what this series will cover.

For starters, this is not a complete analysis of the origins of statism in childhood. I will use the examples that I have seen first-hand. It will be based on my experiences.

Secondly, it is not about the origin of statism as an intellectual theory. I don’t want to examine where the idea of statism came from, but rather where the psychological acceptance of that idea comes from.

In order to explain the difference, we should start with some definitions.

Statism

Statism is the ideology that proposes and supports the use of states — or governments — to organize human society.

A state, if we go by the standard political science definition provided by Max Weber, is an entity which claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. This is actually a pretty good definition, considering it’s widely accepted by academics.

Let’s break down a little bit more, just so we can be really clear on what we’re talking about when we say “statism.”

The word entity is of course meant very loosely in the definition. There is not a physical thing that exists called The State. There is a group of people. They may be fixed or they may be a rotating group of people but they are just people. They are the bureaucrats, politicians, policemen (and so on and so on) that fill offices and buildings and barracks. This aggregation of people is what we call the state.

And this group of people “claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.” What does that mean? It means they claim that in a given area, only the people making up the state are allowed to use violence and it is moral for them to do so but immoral for anyone else to do so.

This is starting to sound a little bit like “I’m allowed to hit you, but you’re not allowed to hit me.” And it should, because at its basic and truest form that’s the idea of statism. One group of people is allowed to use violence against the rest.

As Leo Tolstoy famously put it: “Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”

Acceptance of Statism

Despite the endless justifications for statism (“voting this” and “social contract that”) the core premise is completely…retarded and insane.

The idea that you can solve complex social problems like education or health care or poverty by allowing one small group of people threaten and coerce everybody else is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. And one reasonable people would never accept. But almost everyone does…maybe even you.

I’m not here to convince you that statism is evil and supporting it is immoral — maybe I’ll do that in another post. So before you start writing me emails saying, “But Anderson, if one group of people didn’t have a monopoly on violence who would build the roads?” I want to remind you that my purpose in this series is to identify why people accept such a clearly retarded and wrong idea.

Because, although the idea may be wrong, it’s only dangerous when people buy into it.

If I had the idea that every human being should drink bleach, well, without widespread acceptance it’s just a stupid idea. But imagine if everyone starting believing in it and supporting it? That’s where the real danger lies.

The same analogy can be made with slavery. The idea that one person should be able to own another is an evil idea — and an idea not unrelated to statism — but it was only truly vile because people accepted it.

That is why I’m not interested in the origin of the theories that promote and support statism, but rather the origin of the acceptance of statism.

It is the acceptance of statism that has allowed it to become a plague on this planet. In the 20th century alone states have murdered over 260 million people — I’m talking about unarmed, innocent people, not soldiers in war. Faced with this pile of bodies, most people still never question whether or not statism is a good idea.

And as I said in the first section, I believe it is because we are trained to accept it as children.

So, over the next few posts I want to talk about some of the “lessons” I see that lead directly to this unquestioning acceptance.

Check back soon…

Related posts:

1. From Childhood To Statism: Conflict Resolution
2. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

“First of all, I don’t believe you are causing any harm to your students. If you are caring and truly concerned in their learning, it can never hurt them. Be sure it is the students you are really focused on and not your own needs and desires. This is hard to differentiate sometimes. Kids pick up on sincerity and embrace you. Otherwise, you are just tolerated or discounted. You must think solely for the kids and what it is they need. These are extremely young; my experiences have only been as low as a second grade level, but I have worked with some of these wee ones too along the way. Give them what they need to blossom and grow. Each student is different, so their needs differ. You can’t teach them as a whole.

I understand you are having difficulty in the participation concept as far as building a classroom code. I have attended workshops on that and utilized it in my classrooms the past 3-4 years. It works on some levels, but not others. On the level it did work, it would apply too to the younger grades.

With obstacles of culture and language it would be difficult but not impossible. The best means to get this across to such a young age group would be to ask questions that lead them to creating the concept. Go towards your goal by breaking it down into steps forward. Just jumping into a discussion about rules or determining class conduct is too broad and abstract for that age group. For instance, simply ask: “How do you think I should be treated as a teacher?” You could simplify it even further if needed. Break it down to “How do you talk to a teacher? How do you act in class? What do you do when you have never played that game?” They of course will answer the standards–with respect, with attention, behaving well…

You can then ask other leading questions to get to the areas you want…Ask- -How about joining in my activities? How about asking questions when you don’t understand me? How about trying something new even if you are worried about it…and so on. Starting with the teacher focus would probably be easiest. Then you do the same to draw them into how they want to be treated by you. Ask: “How do you want me to act towards you?” If they don’t respond, ask other leading questions: Do you want me to talk to you away from your classmates? Do you want me to listen to your ideas? Do you want me to let you come up with some topics to study?” You get the idea. Bring in too how they want their classmates to treat them in the same way. You have to be really fundamental with them. Just start simply with one basic question. Grow from there.

Maybe you could just do one each day for a bit. What I did, you could do too. I would place a large piece of paper on the front board and responses were written on it. You can simplify it with just 1-2 words. If you did one a day, you could put your heading on it and put it aside, then at the end you could put them all together and post them. You can also use symbols (stick figures, images) to promote your ideas. For example teacher stick figure with a really big ear for listening to you or bunches of little stick figures holding hands and playing with the big teacher face smiling. Something like that might break through the language problems. Think Charades in images.

That level is quite young to get this philosophy across. It may be too young. I think you could start a framework for it, though. You know the students better than I, so you will know if it is possible or not. Maybe you could just choose one concept to address for a while and focus all your attention to that. Try talking to some Chinese non-teaching acquaintances for their input on the matter too. They may have some good ideas for you. I found many teachers in opposition to this concept. I had to present it at a faculty meeting. Talk about not speaking the same language…oh boy! Change is a dirty word to most, no matter what arena. My students also were weirded out by it too, at first. Be patient. It all takes time. You build up to what you want. Just do it from the heart, not the head. You’ll get across to them. Let me know how this progresses for you. It will be interesting.”

Related posts:

1. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl
2. My New School (and What’s Been Up The Past Past Couple Months)
3. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?

I’m getting a lot of “advice” about disciplining my students from the administration and the Chinese assistants. For the first few days it would just be things like:

• “The students don’t respect you enough.”
• “You are too nice to them.”
• “You let them do whatever they want.”

One even said to me, “The students, they don’t fear you.” To which I responded, “Correct.”

The assistants aren’t saying it to criticize me, they like me and are trying to help me manage the classroom. They are also afraid of the headmaster. She has a reputation of popping into classrooms and being very unhappy if they children are “out of control.” However I run the classroom also affects them and their jobs, which they obviously don’t want to lose.

Most of the time I just nod my head and listen to what they say. Now and then I make comments back that try to explain my position. “They are not military. They are five.” When I say something like that the assistants usually looked defeated, or annoyed, or both.

A few days ago, though, my main assistant actually made a point that gave me pause. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. She told me that Chinese primary schools were very strict and the teachers could be very mean. “If the children don’t learn to sit quietly and listen to the teacher now, they will have many problems in primary school.”

That was an interesting argument to me. What if I was actually going to cause them to be attacked and abused even more?

I’m here teaching English, but one of my main goals is actually just to show these kids that they deserve respect and equal treatment. I want to give them an example of an adult that treats them like they are real people, not the typical slave treatment that most kids — especially in China — get from adults.

The more I’m successful the more these kids will view authority based on power as being illegitimate. They’ll see that just because someone is an “authority figure” doesn’t mean they have the right to bully you or coerce you or treat you badly.

The more that becomes a conscious thought the more you resist bullying, controls, force, and authority.

And what happens when these children go to primary school and are faced with authoritarian teachers? If I have been successful, they’ll have less respect for their new teachers. And what will that result in? The likely outcome is that even more bullying, coercion, and brutalization will be spewed in their direction.

This problem reminds me of an issue that many people from bad families face when they have younger siblings. Should they tell the younger siblings the truth about their parents? Should they explain to them the nature of the conflicts in their family? Giving the younger brother or sister a better awareness of their situation might make their home life absolute hell. Some argue that it is better to let the sibling build up defenses until they are able to leave the home. Others argue that they deserve to know the truth no matter what, and waiting until they are out of the house might be too late.

I don’t think there is a clear answer, but you can see the similarities between that situation and mine.

Is it better for these kids just to build up defenses and get through school? Will becoming aware of how badly they are going to be treated make things any better?

Obviously, me being more strict or authoritarian is not a possible solution. And I refuse to accept that these children would have better lives if they never met me. But I also can’t deny that they may have a harder childhood in school because of me.

So, what does it mean? Is it possible that I’m making it worse for my students?

Like I said, I’m not looking for an answer or a solution. But it’s a question that I’ve been thinking a lot about and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Let me know what you think: leave a comment or email me.

Related posts:

1. From Childhood To Statism: Conflict Resolution
2. Anderson’s First Day
3. Letter From A High School Teacher

This process can be initiated by teachers at the beginning of the term to establish rules that the whole classroom finds fair and are willing to follow. Students are more likely to keep to their end of the bargain when using No-Lose Conflict Resolution and participative rule setting because of a simple bit of common sense called The Principle of Participation.

Simply stated, the principle holds that people who are invited to participate in making decisions or setting up rules that affect them somehow are more willing to abide by them or keep to their part of an agreement. We all like feeling that our views are being represented.

Sounds great. But it isn’t easy to do. Yesterday’s class didn’t go well. I’ll explain some of the reasons I think I failed.

I Don’t Speak Chinese

This is a pretty obvious one but I think it’s important to understand how hard it is to communicate with children that don’t speak the same language.

There are some native English speakers and a few kids who are semi-fluent. But for most our interactions involve very basic, merely functional English communication. It is simple stuff like hello, how are you, go outside, go to the bathroom, who wants to play and whatever phrases we’re learning that day.

Oh yeah, there is also upside down. (This is a frequent request from the girls who want me to pick them up and carry them around upside down. It’s like some kind of drug; they get high on having blood rush to their brain. Anyway, I love the game too so I’m not complaining.)

The rest of the communication is nonverbal. This shouldn’t be underestimated. I know 100% that the kids can tell from my body language, the way I smile or laugh, how I pick them up, and everything else that I’m different from the Chinese assistants.

But when it comes to communicating an idea it gets much harder. I said to the whole class “I know this classroom has a lot of rules and I know that you guys don’t like some of them. I was hoping that we could spend ten or fifteen minutes and talk about the rules and see if we can come up with some that everybody agrees on.” The English speaking kids understood this sentence (partially at least, more on that later) but the Chinese kids had no clue. And how could they? I tried to simplify what I wanted but it isn’t easy to do. And it just confused them more. This led to the second problem.

The Chinese Translators

In my classroom there are a couple Chinese teachers who are there to help. One of them is my assistant and part of her job is to translate for me.

Usually, this isn’t a problem. She’s the nicest of the Chinese assistants and treats the kids very well. Unfortunately, this whole Principle of Participation thing wasn’t something she was even remotely familiar with. So when I said “I know you guys hate the no-talking-during-lunch rule” she translated it to “no talking during lunch.”

She wasn’t doing it maliciously or anything. When I told her I wanted to talk about the rules, she probably just assumed that it meant we were going to recite the rules. What else could it mean?

Either way, her translations essentially came out the exact opposite of what I wanted. She turned it from a participative rule setting session into a reminder about all the rules currently imposed. Fail.

This Idea Is More Foreign Than A Second Language

This is the issue that even had the English speakers confused.

Children in schools are not used to getting a say in the rules. Even if they have great parents that practice these techniques (and there is probably a 1-in-2-billion chance of that being the case) there are even fewer schools that do. Kids are used to being ordered, prodded, pushed, commanded, controlled, subjected, restrained, adjusted, confined, directed, punished, silenced, and finally questioned. They’re like terror suspects minus the water-boarding (or not).

I’m some foreigner, that they’ve only known for a week, sitting them down and essentially saying “we’re going to do things the exact opposite of every thing you’ve previously experienced.” They had no idea what I was getting at. It was kind of like when I first told them we weren’t going to do rewards and punishments back on day one and they all just looked at me like confused puppies. Only then it was cute and funny. This time it was sad.

So What Do I Do?

I think I’ve laid out the biggest three issues. I can’t speak Chinese, my translators don’t know what the fuck is going on, and my kids aren’t used to this sort of thing at all.

So how can I make this work? I don’t know actually. I’m going to keep trying. But short of learning Chinese myself or hiring my own excellent translator I’m not sure what to do. I can’t go back in time and make their parents start them on this system. And I can’t change the way the entire school works.

This is why I’m writing this post. I want your ideas. I know there are some extremely intelligent people who visit this blog and I’m sure you are one of them. Help me.

Leave a comment or email me. Or, if you have no ideas, maybe you could pass this post on to a friend. Thank you!

Related posts:

1. 3 Things Wrong With The Rewards System
2. Letter From A High School Teacher
3. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?

Before I talk about some of things wrong with this system, let me first say that it is way better than a strict “do as the authority figure says or get punished” method. It actually tries to establish a consistent set of rules for what constitutes good behavior and leans much more on the rewards side as an incentive. Compared to a system that essentially treats kids like slaves to be yelled at and bullied into behaving, the rewards and incentives approach is a great leap forward (China pun, har har).

The rewards system is to strict authority what democracy is to dictatorship. Sure, democracy is better than dictatorship, but it’s still a piece of shit. Here are three things that are wrong with the rewards system:

1. It Only Teaches One Thing: Obedience

The reward system is supposed to incentivize good behavior but what it really does is teach children that being “good” means following the authority figures’ rules. Now it doesn’t really matter what the teacher defines as good behavior. It might be not talking during class or always raising your hand before asking a question. Sometimes it’s just a reward for the correct answer — which sends a terrible message to the kids that don’t know the correct answer: you’re not good.

This is especially bad when you have a big old heap of arbitrary classroom rules. For example, my Chinese assistants don’t want the kids to talk during their meals. They have a good reason for it: there is only limited time to eat and once the kids start talking they almost always ignore their food. Then lunch will end and won’t be finished and they’ll be hungry the rest of the day. But if you combine this with the rewards system you end rewarding the kids that sit quietly during their meal and punishing (with frowny faces or loss of playtime) the kids that chat while eating.

I don’t know about you guys, but punishing a kid for talking while he’s eating seems like a pretty asshole thing to do. And it certainly isn’t going to teach them anything about morality. The only lesson they will get is do what you’re told and you’ll be rewarded.

What if the rules are rational and fair? Well that certainly would be better, but I’ve just never seen it. Sure there are classroom rules about hitting and fighting — I would consider those “rational” — but there are plenty more that are about things like sitting quietly, listening to the assistants, sharing toys, not speaking out of turn, lining up before going outside, washing hands before food, etc. Again, rewarding a kid for lining up before going outside just teaches them to obey authority, nothing more.

Even if you could establish a set of rational rules, I think the message would be the same. The authority you were learning to obey would be less random and make more sense, but you’d still be learning to obey. Consistent and reasonable authority is absolutely better than random and arbitrary authority, for sure, but the lesson is unchanged.

2. It Punishes The Wrong Person

Wait, what? I’ll explain. If I’m teaching a lesson and my students aren’t listening, if they are talking amongst themselves, or staring bored out the window how is that their fault? I’m the one who is being paid to teach them. It’s my job to make my lessons and engaging and interesting. If the kids are finding my lessons boring or uninteresting I’m pretty sure that it’s my fault, not theirs.

Instead of giving them frowny faces for not listening or stars for paying attention maybe I should just focus on being a better teacher. My students don’t owe me anything, and rewarding them for paying attention to my boring ass flashcard game is just a lazy excuse for being a shitty teacher.

It applies for almost every classroom rule that you might enforce using the rewards system. You can’t settle disputes between children without the threat of a frowny face? Fail. You can’t get the students to wash their hands before eating unless you give them stickers? Fail.

I’m not saying that it’s easy to do. It’s hard as hell. I know. I’m struggling to do it. But I refuse to switch to a system that punishes or rewards the students because of my shortcomings.

3. It Establishes Artificial Consequences

When it comes to kids you hear a lot of talk about having to teach them the “consequences” of their actions. This is always done by making up some bullshit fake consequence and then imposing it on them. This is often the excuse you hear for spanking kids. Besides it being just plain wrong to hit a kid, the excuse of “it teachers them consequences” is so retarded I hate even having to address it.

Guess what everybody? In the “real world” as “mature adults” you don’t get spanked for not behaving. Excluding the one violent relationship we are all forced to participate in with our benevolent political masters, nobody is allowed to use force against you when you “don’t behave.”

What are the types of consequences we do have to face? Well, there are the outright cause and effect ones. For example, if you don’t eat, you die. These are pretty straight forward and no child needs to be taught cause and effect through punishments and rewards. Kids learn cause and effect just by interacting with the world.

There are other types of consequences too, like how your actions affect others emotionally. These aren’t learned as easily as the physical cause and effect consequences, but you don’t need a rewards system to teach them. In fact a rewards system can’t teach these types of consequences. The only way you grow to understand the emotional effects of your actions is through empathy. You have empathy for yourself and understand how others effect you and then you have empathy for others and understand how you effect them. How do you encourage this in kids? That’s probably a topic for another post, but I think you start by showing them empathy.

Related posts:

1. Why I’m Failing At Participative Rule Setting
2. From Childhood To Statism: Conflict Resolution
3. Letter From A High School Teacher

My first class was half an hour and it was a group of 5 and 6 year olds. I got them up and moving with Head, Shoulders and then did some body part flash cards with them, and then played a game with them. This class was only 30 minutes and went pretty well considering the circumstances.

The second class went much worse. It was what my placement coordinator called an international class, of 2 and 3 year olds, who speak very little English. The first problem with this, as Anderson pointed out, was the fact that 2 year olds have much more important things to learn. Why the hell are they even in school at this age. The second problem is that the Chinese teachers for whatever reason don’t give a crap about these students.

So I was left basically alone, unprepared with teachers who refused to really help me or the children. I suppose it could have been worse, they could have been ass holes to the students like the ones at Anderson’s school. So I tried as hard as I could to keep their attention and to teach them colors and body parts and did really enjoy it when the students knew what was going on.

The best part of my experience with the second class was when I was saying goodbye to them. They were all very sweet and were telling me that they would see me next week, and were excited to give me a handshake or a high five as I was leaving which I found to be incredibly sweet and awesome.

That was pretty much it for my first day, and I’m getting excited for teaching these kids when I actually have some plans and music for them.

And one other note. I also met another American who teaches at the same school that I am going to be at. We went out for a beer at the end of the day and I asked him his motivations for teaching and what he thought about the kids. The first thing that he said was that he believes that there are no bad children, and we went on to talk about methods for teaching and stuff.

It is refreshing, after seeing so many of the new recruits, and how they don’t seem to give a shit, to meet somebody who when you ask them a question like that, that their first response is that there are no bad kids. It really does make me excited to know that there are other people out there who are doing this for all the right reasons, and realize the impact that we are going to have on these children, as opposed to people who are doing this just to get to China.

So overall a pretty bad day considering the circumstances, but one that affords me great hope for this coming year, and has made me really excited for being here.

Related posts:

1. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?
2. My Day
3. Anderson’s First Day

The Worst Parts

Pretty much any time I was dealing with adults. Like McCoy explained in his last couple posts, trying to get things done (in an honest and legitimate way) is like pulling teeth in China. I spent all of my “adult interaction” time trying to figure out if I was keeping my job, if McCoy was getting one, where we were going to live, and why no one would just deal plainly with us.

But that wasn’t so bad. The absolute worst part — and will continue to be the worst parts of all my days — was seeing the poor treatment of children. It’s mostly a lot of little things that show how little respect adults have for children. The worst incident happened during the students’ lunchtime.

I was in my classroom sitting with my students when a Chinese assistant stormed into the room with a student of a different class. She was pulling him along with one hand and had his plate of food in the other. The assistant forced him into a seat at a far table and slammed the food down in front of him. She yelled at him angrily. Then, she pulled him out of his seat and dragged him toward our table while pointing and yelling. It was in Chinese but I guessed it was something like “Look at how well behaved they are!” She put him back into his seat, hard, and then walked out of the room.

My kids were just staring at me, trying to read my reaction. I got up and walked over the boy who had just been yelled at and sat down in front of him. He was sitting silently, staring at his plate of food, and brooding. After a few seconds of me sitting there he looked up.

“My name is Anderson. What’s your name?”

“My name is Derek…” And he burst into tears.

Jesus Christ, I hate this. “What’s wrong?”

He mumbled some words in Chinese and English. It sounded like “I don’t like this food. I don’t want to eat it.”

Suddenly the Chinese assistant appeared back in the room and came stalking over to our table. She slowed down when she saw me sitting there and sat down without saying anything. I asked her what the problem was. Her response was in Chinese, angry, and directed at Derek.

“He doesn’t like the food?” I asked.

The assistant nodded but gave Derek a look like You’re such a bad kid for not wanting to eat this.

“Can’t he just eat something else?”

She looked at me. Angrily at first, but then her face sort of… calmed. She picked up the plate of food and led Derek out of the room, presumably to find him something else to eat.

This was a small incident, especially in the grand scheme of how children are treated around the world. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a perfect example of adults not treating kids like they’re human beings.

I talked to the other teachers about it later and they agreed that it was terrible, but also warned me that I would see a lot of more it. “This is just how things are here. You can try to report the assistant, but since she didn’t hit the kid no one would do anything. Hitting isn’t even a big deal in China, let alone yelling. And if you do try to get the assistants in trouble it will just hurt you more. They are the headmaster’s eyes and ears and if you get on their bad side you won’t be here long.” Great. I’m going to see this happening over and over and every time I will have to walk the thin line of trying to help and protect the kids without pissing off the assistants. Because truly going after the aggressive assistants would mean losing any chance of helping the kids.

But this is the shit you have to deal with when you’re trying to do decent things in a world full of terrible things. What other choice is there besides giving up and accepting that the world will always be full of terrible things? That’s something I would be more inclined to accept if it wasn’t for what’s next…

The Best Parts

Easy, the kids. Spending the day playing with 5 and 6 year olds. How could that not be the best part? And the hundreds of moments of them learning and playing and laughing and just enjoying themselves that I got to witness and be part of.

I’m going to do a post describing my kids, but for now trust me that they are totally awesome. There are so many conversations and interactions that I want to explain, but I’ll just give you my favorite.

I was beginning my English lesson that was all about introductions. Every student is supposed to say something like “Hello everybody, my name is [whatever]. I’m five years old and I’m from [wherever].” So the Chinese assistants wheeled over a big whiteboard for me and I started writing out the introductory phrase.

“Excuse me, excuse me!” called Roxy. “But the last teacher used to write down all of our names and if we behaved we would get a star next to our name. And we got three stars then we’d get a sticker.”

Obviously, I was not going to do the whole rewards and punishments thing. “Hmm, well, what if we just forget about that whole star and sticker thing and you guys just behave on your own?”

I watched seven heads tilt like confused puppies. “Um, okay, I guess…”

So that was definitely my favorite moment. I just laughed and we moved on. It worked and the kids all behaved. It probably won’t always work. But the kids can’t ever really misbehave anyway. They want to do certain things and I want to do certain things. It’s not “misbehaving” just because I don’t want them to do it. The challenge is finding ways to work together so we can both get what we want. It’s definitely much harder than just “I’m the authority figure so do what I say.” But so what? The price for treating someone like they are a real human being and not a slave to be ordered around is never too high.

Anyway, this is a pretty long post so I should wrap it up. There are more sad moments that I could recount, but many more happy ones. I think I’ll save both for my next 360 days.

Related posts:

1. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?
2. 3 Things Wrong With The Rewards System
3. My Kids’ Day (Or At Least How I Imagine Their Day Is)