A Rough, Blessed Week

This week has been really hard.  I've been plagued with feelings of isolation, ineffectiveness, and heartbreak.*

And yet - 

• I've been the recipient of unsolicited encouragement emails from friends back home.
• Two of my Chinese friend have gone FAR out of their way to explain to me - at great length - exactly how I've impacted their lives.
• I threw out my pain into an anonymous FB-group I love. (DFTBA)  After a couple of hours I had some truly insightful and kind words of encouragement from strangers in Glasgow, Florida, Ohio, Norway, and Australia.

I feel incredibly blessed that God has responded to each struggle this week in such direct, specific ways. It's like finding a buoy in open water when I'm exhausted.  Isn't that wonderful?

A few kind, insightful words from a stranger on the internet that I turned into a sign for my wall.

*Finals are also looming, so grading, preparation, and skyrocketing stress are all working to tie my shoulders in knots.

Sweeping Change of Plans

The past three days have been a whirlwind of meetings, ideas, and a striking change of plans.

A couple of months ago, I decided that I would not return to China next year.  There were a number of reasons, but the most pertinent factors were position (I should be teaching music, not English), salary (American sized-debt needs American-sized salary), and a couple of core-level culture clashes.*

This weekend I was invited to be a part of an interview team for the World Academy for the Future of Women.**  It's possible that I'll be writing more about this organization in the future.  For now, I'll just say that it's a club focused on propagating confident and effect women in leadership positions.  Besides interviews, I'm also teaching the club members a song to perform at a Symposium this weekend.  The members of this club are some of the most driven and competent students I've met at the university.  They listen closely and act whole-heartedly.  I've been very impressed by the caliber of student I've seen both in the club, and in students who apply for the club.

As I talked to these women (and a few men)  I grew more and more excited about the people, their goals, and the values they were working to instill.  I had numerous conversations with leaders and colleagues about the upcoming year, planning out themes, leadership development, partnering with other institutions, and selecting a dynamic group of fascinating, young Chinese women.  I quickly found myself thinking, "I'd stay in China for this."

The Academy is eager to have an on-site coordinator, but at the moment there's no funding for the position.  After many more conversations and meetings I've worked out a plan that has potential.  At this moment, a friend and current teacher in the music department is helping me arrange an audition/interview with the head of the university's vocal department.  If he likes what he hears, I could potentially be hired to teach private voice full time next year.  There's also a slim chance that I could be hired to teach English again.  If one of those options work out, the Academy may supplement my salary in order to keep me on as a coordinator.

There are numerous loose ends to this 'plan.'  I wouldn't mention it at all, but I think prayer works.  The next week is full of hurdles for me: concerts, interviews, solos, grading, international travel arrangements, residence permit applications, resumé updates, proposals to write and important interactions with powerful people.  If you're a praying person, please pray for favor and clear guidance. If you're not a praying person, please cheer from afar!




*I'm not referring to an argument or feeling of anger.  Some elemental parts of Chinese culture flow perpendicularly to my personal convictions.  I've learned how to accept and function with the differences, but I'm not at peace with them.
** Link for more information:  http://globalinteractions.org/world-academy-for-the-future-of-women/

Culture-Win

The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a friend a couple weeks ago after an incredibly successful evening out with my students.


"I had a major 'culture-win' tonight.

Compared to the stories I hear from other teachers, I am incredibly blessed with amazing students. At the beginning of the year, skill and work ethic levels were all across the board. At this point of the year, all of my students follow me, almost all of them respect me, and many (maybe most?) of them like me. Except for ONE.

In my largest class, there are two stink butts*. One of them is completely disengaged 90% of the time, but she's respectful about it. The other one is AWFUL - heaving heavy sighs, rollings his eyes, laying his head on the desk, looking straight into my eyes and keeping his mouth closed when he's supposed to be practicing new sounds or words. Every student has a day when they're not learning well, but he's consistently a disrespectful jerk that I want to kick in the shins.** I've worked really hard to handle it in ways that don't make him lose face, because 1) if he's embarrassed, he'll shut me out. 2) If the class feels bad for him, they will ALL shut me out. After months of covert effort with moderate success, I finally hit a point yesterday where I felt like I was the one losing face by allowing him to treat me the way he does.

The way to handle conflict in China is to use a mediator to soften the blow. The way Americans (especially me) handle conflict is swift, clear confrontation. See the problem there? I hate involving a third party. Why make more drama than necessary? But my first goal is to create an environment that will help my students learn - their culture, their rules. So after class I invited my monitor (class leader) out to dinner tonight, told her vaguely that I wanted to discuss a couple of problems and invited her to bring a friend she trusted along. I didn't want her to feel too isolated. Chinese business meetings are 90% social exchanges, then a 10% business, usually at the end of a full meal. When I met my student that night, I saw she brought not one, but NINE STUDENTS from my class! I thought, 'Well....nevermind then. We'll just have fun.' Following tradition, we got a private room in a nice little restaurant, they gave me the honor seat (such a subtle, lovely nicety), and ate fantastic food. It was really fun to swap girl-talk with my students!

After we had finished, the monitor asked me what it was that I wanted to talk about. Then I realized that they were all aware of and completely ready to talk through the issues. I never mentioned the problem-student by name, but when described the problems, it it was obvious they knew who I was talking about. I said over and over that as a CLASS I was very pleased with them, but that I felt loss of face because of this one person's disrespect. What followed was an excellent and open conversation.

These 10 women are all committed, consistent students, and there are only 35 students in the whole class. I talked through my problem, described how I would approach it in America and my concern with the cultural conflict if I used the same tactics in China. They appeared to respect and appreciate the consideration, and they gave excellent feedback. I cannot explain how affected I was by the riveted attention and serious expressions on their faces. They were concerned WITH me about the problem, displaying an amazing level of maturity and invested care. I felt respected on a very deep level.

We exchanged ideas, and they laughed when they told me, "Back in the dorms, we talk about how smart you are about how you respond to people who don't listen very well and how you rearrange the classroom!" They also mentioned the overall positive change in attitude about class since the beginning of the year. We talked about activities that did and didn't work well. Luckily they were most critical about stupid activities that I was REQUIRED to teach! So I told them, "Yeah, I thought that was dumb too. My boss told me I had to teach this idea this way." We all laughed, and had a wonderful conversation about learning theory and how an activity that isn't helpful for one person can be very important for the learning of another person. I could see their worlds exploding a little bit - I love it when that happens!

An unrelated but meaningful part of the night were a couple of short, powerful conversations about how to recognize the difference between good and bad men. (Chinese college-aged girls have a reputation among the foreigners for being idealistic, naive, and uneducated about relationships. They idealize traditional male-female roles and they have no sex education. Many of my college-age students are sexually active, but they don't know how babies are made or what STD's are because it's taboo to talk about.) Many Chinese women are victims of physical abuse. We talked about the personality traits of good men, how to see them, which kinds of men to avoid. They were so attentive - I could see that some of them had only talked about it once or twice, and many of them not at all.

After dinner we took a walk through the park holding hands (yes, I've expanded my cultural comfort-bubble to accept holding hands with a woman), learning words in Chinese and telling stories. We made plans to go to KTV (a karaoke chain), ride bikes to the mountain, and go pick strawberries.

I feel like this was an all-around complete "culture win." I had a problem, stepped out of my cultural comfort-zone, followed Chinese protocol, and won the respect of my students. They felt empowered to speak openly and wholly considered a perspective very different from their own. Now all I have to do is show that I've truly heard their feedback, which won't be difficult at all. Even if the stinker student completely flies off the handle, I know that a third of my class made of the best, most vocal students will see it as a temper tantrum instead of a reaction to an "offensive foreigner." They will be supporting ME. There was so much potential for things to go badly tonight, but I took the time, did it right, and it really paid off.

It was such a rich, rewarding experience. It was one of those times that remind me just how much my students matter to me."

I still prefer direct communication, but I'm proud that I was able to relate with my students in the way they needed me to.

*Stink-butt is a technical teacher-term

**I've never actually tried this

In the Eye

When I was in college, I took a conducting class where my classmates and I took turns teaching and conducting.  My most vivid memory of this class was the discussion following one of my teaching segments.  The lesson had gone well, and my teacher joined me at the front of the room.  He looked intensely and powerfully into my eyes, and said"Nicole*, your power is right here," as he put his finger firmly against my temple, pointing at my eyes.  My expression didn't change, but all I could think at that moment was,

'My teacher is touching my face.'

My classmates started to giggle as my teacher removed the illustrative finger and explained.  "Your power is right there, in your eyes.  This is your best classroom management tool.  I'd be really afraid to cross those eyes."  Some of my classmates were still giggling, so I immediately shot them a really intense teacher-look (which is sisters with "the mom-look") and burst out laughing when they immediately jumped back and stopped laughing.

I keep this little insight in the back of my mind as I experiment with different classroom management techniques.  He was absolutely right; 90% of the time I manage my class solely with my eyeballs.  It's especially true in China, where my eyes are 21/2 times larger than everyone else's and a strikingly different color.  Sometimes I shoot a look at my class and they gasp out loud, or switch from distracted talking to pin-drop silence in seconds, and all I want to do is laugh and yell "RAWR!!"

And sometimes I do.  My students laugh with me, but they're still just a liiiiiittle bit afraid.  Just enough for the LOOK to be effective.  I guess it just proves that 'the power is in the eye of the teacher.'




*At the time, we had an indecent number of girls named Emily in the music department, so I went by my middle name, Nicole.                                                                                                                                                

Unbelievable Opportunities

I just spent the last hour lecturing a group of 10-15 students about Islam.

SURREAL.

A couple weeks ago, one of my students asked me if I would be the advisor for the Model United Nations (MUN) club on campus.  Obviously I was interested.  When I asked her what she wanted from me, she said, 'Do you know about religions? Can you teach us about Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam?' She almost jumped out of her chair when I told her I could!  I was careful to tell her that I would teach ABOUT these religions, not tell people what they should believe.  ....but I can't believe the opportunity that just fell into my lap!

I talked about Mohammed, basic beliefs about the Koran, Allah, and the importance of living a hilal lifestyle.  We discussed the 5 pillars of Faith and distinctive practices of Islam all over the world.  I even used a powerpoint - teacher points!

It blows me away that because of my background, education, and natural curiosity, I have a mountain of information to teach students who have no knowledge about religions at all.  Of the 10-ish students present, one of them had one Muslim friend. We talked about burqas, head coverings, dietary restrictions, Sunni and Shia believers, the Crusades, the Jewish diaspora at the fall of Jerusalem and the war of 1945 that reestablished Israel and displaced the Palestinians.  And ALL of them paid rapt attention and asked detailed, intelligent questions -- every teacher's dream.

At the next meeting we will discuss Buddhism.  I'm a little more nervous about that because I live in CHINA, but it's not likely that any of my students are practicing Buddhists, so that's a consolation.  They asked me to begin with Christianity, but I want to hold out on that one - it's worthy of much thought and preparation.  I'm so excited to be doing this here!

**A gentle reminder: I can speak freely in this format, but I highly prefer that the name of the university I teach at NOT be mentioned in the comments.  Thank you for your discretion!