Spot the difference

One thing I'll always remember from sixth grade was my social studies teacher, Mrs. Diamond. She looked old enough to have witnessed the crossing of the Delaware river and she ran a tight ship. Especially when compared to the cool, new, young math teacher who was closer to my age than to most of her colleagues, Mrs. Diamond scared kids.


I remember that the summer before my sixth grade, she had just taken a trip to Egypt and told us all about it. Perhaps the most important thing I remember about Mrs. Diamond, though, was a banner made of about 10 pieces of A4 paper taped together that ran the length of the blackboard and read:

"Different doesn't mean better or worse. It just means different."

I feel like I'd be lying if I said that seeing that quote everyday for a year had some inspirational and positive impact on my life, but at the same time, I remember it quite vividly. Especially as foreigner living abroad, I try my best not to discriminate on difference alone, and I certainly teach an attitude of acceptance to my own students.

This semester I've started teaching a junior high reading class once a week. In addition to reading, I try with sisyphean effort to chat with them before and after class. While it is quite hard to get a 13 year old kid to have a friendly chat with his foreign language teacher, I finally found a subject that they will talk about: School, or as they like to say: Jail.

I often share stories about my life in middle school and high school to offer a starting block for a comparative conversation. The stories they tell me about school are indeed drastically different from that of a suburban middle-class Long Island boy, but remember:

Different doesn't mean better or worse. It just means different.

*  *  *

• "What was the best thing that happened to you today?"

I asked this question and the most interesting response I got was "I did well on 2 of my tests." I probed and found out that the student had 5 tests that day. I probed further and found out that 5 tests in a day is just an average day (though this student was a 7th grader and the 8th graders claimed 5 tests is a light day for them).

On the subject of testing, currently, junior high students take placements tests to get into high school (although that is being phased out, and my 8th graders are the last ones to have to take this test).

• "Kevin will be late today. His teacher kept their class after school." 

After my boss said this and left the room without any further explanation, I started asking the other kids about what could have possibly happened to make a student late for his English class that starts at 6:15 PM on Tuesday evening.

I started by reminiscing about my middle school years and memories of being "...out of school by 2:30 in the afternoon. If I didn't have sports practice, I was home by 3:00 and watched at least an hour of cartoons or TRL while eating a half a box of cereal. If I had a lot of homework, I usually wouldn't start until the evening, and personally probably never spent more than 90 minutes on homework in one day." 

I told this story to an audience of wide eyes and slack jaws, so I started asking questions.

What time do you get out of school?

"Depends on your teacher."

Huh? Don't you have bells that let you know when class is over?

"Yes, but the teachers don't pay attention to them."

When I was in school, we already had one foot out the door by the time the bell rang. Even if the teacher was in mid-sentence.

"Wow."

So what time are the teachers supposed to let you out?

"It depends on the teacher."

Aren't there rules? Don't the teachers have bosses?

"They support the teachers."

What time do you usually get out of school?

"It's always different."

So you actually never know what time your finished school.

"Right. It could be 5:30, or 6:30."

Wow. By 5:30 I would have had already polished off 3 bowls of cereal, the funny pages, the crossword (if it was Monday), and my daily movement. 

"It's like jail."

So that's the reason that A) I always have students late for my 6:15 class (which originally started at 6:00, but it was clear that the students would hardly ever make it on time), and B) Most of the students bring the most disgusting and unhealthy "dinners" to class because, McDonalds is not only the only thing between school and English class, but it's also the only thing they have time for (and even then, sometimes they come straight to class and my boss goes out and picks it up for them).

• "What things do you hate as a punishment?"

This ranged from "can't play computer games" to writing things like "I will not blah blah blah" 100('s of) times, but the discussion turned towards punishment at school. One student started passionately telling me about a time when he was falsely convicted of cheating on a test. For the record, I would trust this student to take my yearly income in cash to the bank for me, and I could really see how upset he was about it. The  ensuing conversation was quite long because it involved him describing things which he didn't know the English for (quite effectively), so I'll just sum up what I learned:

For his cheating offense, he received 1 mark (which I equated to points against a driver license). In order to erase that mark from his permanent record, he needed to do 15 hours of some sort of community service at school, which involved anything from sweeping leaves, emptying garbage cans, cleaning bathrooms, etc. As it turns out, his 15 hours was the lowest of three levels of punishment (30 and 45 hours being the other two options). I asked what happened if someone didn't do the community service, and he told me that it follows you to high school (again with the placement test), and to the university level. Given the already competitive nature of Taiwanese schools, a bad mark from junior high is not something you want to possibly be the reason you didn't get into a good university.

I went on to explain "detention" to them, which is just staying after school for 1 hour in silence (meaning I would get home at 4:00 rather than 3:00 with my homework completed). 

• "What did you do today?"

Some kids insist that nothing good or bad happened to them, so in order to get them to practice their English, I have them walk me through every step of their day. What time did you get up? What did you eat for lunch? So on and so forth until I feel like they've spoken their daily English quota. 

Here was the most interesting response as of late:

"My class practiced turning left and right."

Excuse me?

This girl's English isn't the best in the class, so I thought for sure their was some language misunderstanding, but by the end of the conversation, I realized that she said exactly what she meant: She practiced turning left and right. Allow me to paraphrase what I learned:

During P.E. class (which, mind you, stands for Physical Education), the students stand in line at attention (if you are thinking army drills, you're on the right track). The P.E. teacher then barks out orders, such as "turn left," "turn right," "salute," etc. for the duration of the class (40-45 minutes), and every day for a month (according to one student). Because I still couldn't wrap my mind around this, I stood up and told them all to be teachers and tell me what to do. Even before I got my first instruction, they told me I wasn't standing properly. Feet need to be pointing 45 degrees out, making a perfectly right-angled V shape (duck footed). "That's not a comfortable way to stand. It's completely unnatural," I complained to my teachers who didn't seem to care. "Turn right." I did it, incorrectly of course. The right way to turn right is to pivot on your right heel and move only your left foot, right? "How was that?" "Better. Now turn left. Salute. Turn right. Turn left. Hands behind your back. Stand up straight." 

They had a lot of fun ordering me around, so I decided not to tell them about my floor hockey, volleyball, and kickball P.E. class adventures.

*   *   *

My students think school is a sour mix between prison and army boot camp. My retrospective memories of school are void of substantial amounts of pressure. I see first-hand every day that these kids are burned out. They spend their evenings and weekends in extra classes, seemingly in place of the social life and fun that I had.

Throughout these stories, I think it's obvious which education system I'd prefer for myself if I had to do it all again. As a result of teaching in Taiwan, I often wonder if I'd ever subject my own offspring to this type of education. However, after taking a step back from this tendency to side with what I'm familiar with and what worked for me, I can't help but wonder: Is Mrs. Diamond right? In terms of educational systems, is there better or worse? Or do we just call them "different"?

As it stands, I'm trying to be objective. I realize that people from different areas are more or less privileged than others and have to put in different amounts of effort in order to get the same opportunities. What do you think?

***[Keep in mind that none of these stories were fact checked, so maybe the students exaggerated and/or lied. Kids are kids.]