Buttercup: At least for me, it’s not shades of racism. I was like the last rat deserting the sinking ship that is education in the English speaking world. I couldn’t teach in those systems anymore, and I certainly wouldn’t send my kids through most of the schools I taught at in Australia or England.
I did try to fight the noble fight, but all it probably did was shave years off my life. I often criticise the Taiwanese system, but I’ve never had kids throw things at me here. I’ve never had kids right in my face swearing at me. I’ve never met an assistant principal or other teachers here who have been assaulted. Whilst sometimes we’re treated like clowns, I’ve never sat in a staff room here and listened to a teacher tell us nonchalantly (like it’s happened so many times before it’s not shocking to her anymore) that a kid threatened to get his father to come up to the school and rape her.
I criticise the kids here for often being unable to think critically, yet they’re generally fairly courteous. A lot of kids in the schools I previously taught at were all about their rights but either couldn’t think about the consequences of their actions on the rights of others (teachers, students or people in the broader community) or simply didn’t care.
Also, everyone in the West seems to have an opinion on everything, but doesn’t know anything to back it up. They all had a comment about the Iraq War, but couldn’t show you where Iraq was on a map, tell you anything about the history of Iraq or even tell you the meaning of democracy (yes, that happened in one class I had), let alone talk about the process of how countries consider going to war. They all have an opinion on Wall Street and the financial crisis, yet understand absolutely nothing about their own personal finances, let alone those of an entire country. Actually, they look at you like you’re able to channel supernatural powers just because you can do basic mental arithmetic.
So there’s a start of a list of why I think education in the West is fucked and why I think in some respects, Taiwanese education has it all over what I experienced elsewhere. Pity I can’t mix and match.
I fought things constantly. Parents always want standards, except when it’s their kid being called out for being a little prick. Many of the staff and management at these schools appeared like they’d just survived the Siege of Leningrad and would always tell me that I tried too hard and I was wasting my time. I’ve been actively undermined for this very reason – because I made them look like the jaded, burnt out shells they were. I’ve seen foreign teachers deliberately fed to the wolves, such as the case where a Mr Chou (presumably of Chinese extraction, and with fairly weak/timid English, so probably not long fresh off the boat) was given the worst group of fifteen year old boys in the school, perhaps as an act of sadism to see how long it would take to break him, and indeed, he lasted less than a year. I developed what, in any other circumstances would be considered paranoia, just as a self-defence mechanism. It’s bad enough that you have to think that anything you say or do can be twisted and manipulated by these borderline criminal students, and that the automatic response to that will invariably be to see you as guilty until proven innocent (by which time your whole life may have turned to shit). No, it’s the completely unfounded allegations by some manipulative little prick that you’re still semi hung out to dry for, even if you’re later proven completely innocent, that completely broadside you ad knock the stuffing right out of you. Fortunately, I managed to avoid all but the most minor of such incidents, but I saw them happen around me. I believe it would only have been a matter of time before my number was up.
So, you want to know why I’m not trying to make a difference in the world, well it’s because I’ve had the shit kicked out of me emotionally and professionally. Some have had the addition of the physical. You want to know why I’m so misanthropic? It’s because nothing will make one a misanthrope faster than the unbridled horror of a classroom, staff meeting or parent-teacher meeting. None of what I do fucking matters if the underlying culture or educational ethos is rotten to the core, as I really believe it is in the West. People wonder why I’m so right wing in many respects when I’m a teacher. It’s because I’m a teacher that I’m like this. I didn’t start out this way. I used to be heavily on the left on most of the usual grab bag of issues such as corporal and capital punishment, the right of free education for all, etc., yet I was driven to my position by encountering the dregs of humanity on a daily basis.
Jimipresley is right on the money when he says things will persist regardless in this country. That’s why I would probably want to homeschool my own children or perhaps send them to certain private schools if I could afford it. This isn’t about here, there, public schools, buxibans or anything else. It’s that the human situation is a bad situation because the human situation is all too human, or to use a more modern medium, it’s a big shit sandwich and we’re all gonna have to take a bite (and the more bread you have, the less you taste the shit, so eat or starve). I realise now that I have to make my money while I can, as fast as I can whilst suffering as little additional personal damage as possible. My ability to save the world from itself can no longer extend beyond my own epidermis, largely because the world not only doesn’t want to be saved from itself, but it actively wants to wallow in its own shit and drag in anyone else within reach.