Earlier this year, I left the teaching field after serving for eight years. With my resignation came the culmination of my journey with the Chinese education sector, commencing on my collegiate studies in China in 2010. I know there are many longer-serving Chinese teachers whose remarkable careers literally dwarf my years of teaching, but mine was, to be honest, not so much I can be proud of.
When I was in China, we were equipped not only with the required language proficiency, but also with the basic theories and applications in Chinese teaching. The second block of knowledge gave so many inspirations to me and also to many of my batchmates, and I discovered that the Philippine setup of Chinese education, in general, is repetitive and not modern.
Upon graduation, I was determined to change the fate of Chinese education, at least in our school, for the expected five years that I need to finish per the scholarship contract (I extend for three more years, totaling eight years). I felt the need to do magic tricks to make the students really learn the language. So fresh from China, I have this fervent passion to make a change.
I observed how Chinese classes work. It is common knowledge among Chinese schools that cheating is rampant in Chinese exams, a clear manifestation that students are just into passing the subject, not into actual learning. That was the very first issue I was passionate to solve. This is the only thing I can say I made real contributions to the school - to instill academic honesty and integrity in all of my examinations. You can ask my former students how extra strict I was in that area.
With the observation phase done, short-term and long-term plans were made to make Chinese class interesting and conversational; I devised a rewards-based activity that will engage students in accumulating experience points whenever they converse or try to speak Chinese while in school. After several years, I expect an overhaul of the curriculum, first by changing the textbooks that we use for decades, then by obliterating subjects that are not practical in nature.
What I envisioned to occur was everybody beginning from the top-level administration would be supportive of this idea. After all, we're a Chinese school, who can say no to progress when it comes to Chinese education, so I thought.
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| From Wikimedia Commons. By Leanne Walker. Public Domain. |
But it was not the case.
In those eight years, I had several unpleasant instances, some of them came to the point of escalation, meaning parents going straight to the administration to complain about me. I am not inclined to cite examples, but all of those were due to my passion to build a better culture for Chinese learning. There were times I was readying myself to give up my job midyear because I or the fellow Chinese teacher I was defending was not given the chance to justify my or her stand, almost no one came to our defense when we were ridiculed tete-a-tete or behind our backs, or because Chinese department is on the losing side case upon case upon case.
I cannot understand, our institution is a Chinese school, we are Chinese teachers, we belong to a vital branch of the organization. Essentially, it is for the purpose of propagating Chinese language and culture our school is built. Why can't we be treated the same?
With this began the piling of my frustrations towards my career. The passion that I had to bring changes were gradually turned into impatience and dissatisfaction. Impatience because nothing has ever happened to the initial plans, dissatisfaction is due to the fact that I wasted a total of twelve years of my youth (four years of studies in China plus eight years as Chinese teacher) into something I now define as a movement not worth fighting for. Towards my last months at school, it was really a mental torture to be constantly reminded of my professional failures and personal misfortunes. I have to admit, the amount of anger and frustration spilled over, consequently affecting my attitude towards my colleagues, my students and my work performance as a whole.
And that is how my "good" passion soured over time and overtook my life for quite a while.
I am not writing this post to malign peeple, but to highlight these points I need to share, especially to the younger people.
1. Do not pursue plans that are fairy tail-like. It's good to make layouts of what you want to achieve, but mentally prepare yourself when the plans go off due to these factors: people enthusiasm, project materials and time target. In the imagined world, these can come together in perfection with the peeple around supporting you, cheering on you to proceed with your plans. That is not how it is going to be in our world.
Also, there's no genie to grant your wishes to have the resources ready and to have time extension to make these plans happen. While we can somehow change people's attitude from being nonchalant to being interested, materials and time are limited and non-renewable. That being said, only do drafts that are realistically bound by what's available to you.
The major mistake I made in this aspect was I did not take into consideration that I'm employed in the Philippines, not in China. Despite their ancestry, there is a profound lack of pressure among Chinoy students to study Chinese, for one, it is not an official language here (and it will never be), two the education system is not strong enough to compel them to take Chinese classes seriously. The enthusiasm is low because students are already tired from their English classes coming to our class, textbooks are limited (yet no one is convinced there's an urgent need to write or publish new books) and Chinese language instruction is squeezed to within 120 minutes per day. So, the plans never materialized all these years because of these factors that, despite all the rapid advances of the humankind, never saw changes and seemed to be deeply embedded into the system.
2. In an organization, it is hard to achieve 100% support, even from the ones you thought you definitely have their backing. Always make room for doubts. Ask the people around you on what they feel about your plans. With this, you can have a more vivid picture of the people enthusiasm factor I mentioned in the first point. On the other hand, the "against all odds" thing is a rarity and is not feasible if you're gunning for a bigger and greater purpose, because you need many people to make it real. If you ask me for a percentage threshold, you can go for at least 70% of your target peeps to make an endeavor successful.
I was wrong in striving to achieve 90-100%, for it really crashes me whenever I had few detractors to the project or had mishandling of details in the program. I remember my group leader in the college student council told us one time, "You can achieve perfection for yourself, but don't force it to the people around you." Sadly, it only made sense to me years after.
So, when you implement a beneficial project, it is already commendable if you have at the minimum a real clear majority of the peeps that feel good about it. You can listen to comments, helpful or not, but with an attitude that will push you to improve and do more.
3. Keep in mind that passion is not always virtuous. Have you ever encountered "passion" being entered into ESP/GMRC books? If there is, I should say you must know the context first before actually believing in it. "Patience is a virtue," we often hear someone say, but never "passion is a virtue." Wondering why this is?
For being passionate is a double-edged sword. It can be beneficial, detrimental, or both at the same time. Throughout history, we saw passion gave birth to nations, organizations and movements, so I thought passion must be good because it brings people together. I thought being passionate can inspire people to join me in the movement I want to fight for.
Then it hit me, I neglected the role passion played in wars and strife that are happening worldwide. They fight because they defend the object of their passion. Passion can be a potent force of division and even wars (remember how World War II started).
In reflection of my years of teaching, I came to know that I indeed was blinded by my passion. I hurt a lot of people. I was adamant to let go of my stance and in turn became apathetic and arrogant because I felt peeple should support what I have in mind because the department I represent is also part of a bigger family. My journey in the Chinese education sector is an example of a good passion turned bad.
So to avert this, always evaluate if your level of passion is still acceptable to all parties involved or not anymore. Have a friend or a Counsellor to help make the checks and balances. Do not ever rely on your own understanding. This I failed to do bigtime.
Right now, I am employed in a very different world outside teaching. I am immersing myself with the peeple that possess the right attitude in accomplishing the many projects we have in the team. I know I have to do the right thing this time, by keeping with me the painful lessons of the past and by putting just the right amount of passion into everything my hands do.
Just the right amount.
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