English Competition

Ben had been asking me a couple of days back for questions to give students. I had assumed that they would be for a starting point in group discussion, so I went with two questions: "If you woke up and didn't know anything about yourself what would you do", and "Are highly intelligent people allowed to ignore social customs and rules?" I thought these were pretty good, and Ben said he'd probably use them.

Then a few days later I get a text from Ben looking for judges in the English speaking competition. It's one held by our department with our students involved. Alas, I was busy on Thursday and thus could not commit myself to judging for the required three days so I declined.

Yesterday as I was crossing the street, one of my students told me she was going to be in the competition, so I agreed to go. She said it would be on old campus. Ben told me it would be on new campus.

It was on new campus.

Ann was also planning to go, and Will, and their mothers. Their mothers have brought with them a sinus cold that Will, Ann and I have seem to also acquired, along with the mother that did not bring the sinus cold. We all went to new campus, some by bus, some by taxi, and walked in. Because we were foreign, we were given front row seats.

It is an interesting thing, being foreign.

There were 15 contestants, 10 whom I taught, and I realized Ben has taught more students than I- but next year, I will have taught more students than him. At this point, he and I are almost even for students, given that he's repeating a year of students and I have had 7 new classes crammed into this semester along with my year-long students.

The winner was one of my students, which is an unsurprising mathematical probability. However, I was unsurprised that she won- she does have good English, her topic was about critical thinking, and she had a very good question. They all did a good job, but the girl was a winner by at least a point from everyone else.

There was another student of mine who had a very loaded question. Ben told me later he it was the one question he did not input- it belonged to someone else. And it was a very loaded question indeed. "Do you think it is fair that every students in China can graduate?" Ben can argue that he would never have used such incorrect grammar. I'm willing to believe him- the poor student realized in that moment that she would be alienating either the Chinese teachers with one answer and the foreign teachers with the other- and indeed, one of the foreign judges seemed angry at her lack of knowledge on the answer. He gave her the lowest rating of anyone, and instead of being fairly close to the other numbers, he was a full two points lower than everyone else.

Her answer was as summed up in a few key points: Yes. 1. Sutdents who remain stuck in the system for a long time fill up slots that are needed by other, more capable students and if they move on those capable students can come to college. 2. If they really do poorly in school, they will do poorly in their jobs and suffer throughout their careers as being incapable, so even if they make it to the real world through whatever means, they will "reap what they sow". 3. The Chinese college system has exams and a credit system, so students who fail too many classes or exams don't make it through college, and the question itself is flawed and untrue.

She had two minutes, and she touched on a lot of key points. She handled this, by far the toughest question, very diplomatically and though she was dying on the inside, knowing there was no way she could win, she held herself tall and answered calmly, being one of the few people to reach all of her points in her two minutes for answer.

This has been a huge question for the foreign teachers this year, too. Ben has failed a student only to have the student's rich uncle come and have the school say "Oh, he probably graded it wrong, we'll change the grade". I had a student who failed my class take a final exam again (but you know what, I'm okay with that as she was really close and the only one who failed). The system here is that there is another final exam, and that if you fail the class you take the exam again.

Most students are pushed through colleges. It's not hard, as long as you do have money. On the other hand, it is true that if you fail classes, you will be kicked out. You just have to really try to fail your classes.

The judge who rated the score low argued with me later (not in a soccer-mom argument, but explaining his points) that she should have known the system is flawed, and that pushing people through, taking the exams so many times, is not helpful to anyone. The system is too forgiving, and she didn't talk about that, which lost her points for him.

I pointed out to him (after the competition, when I asked about it) that she may not have known the system is flawed, because it's the only system she's known. It seems flawed to us, but it's how it is in China, and perhaps it is only flawed because we're using a different set of standards.

His frustrations are felt by all the foreign teachers at times. Why bother failing a student this semester who doesn't show up and do his work when I know his rich uncle is coming in and going to bail him out? (Mostly because I have control over the grades, and I'll fail him even if my TA apologizes and says I graded him wrong, because I feel it's my duty to be as fair as possible to the other students.) When reading a transcript, how do you know those grades weren't faked? I don't, after someone told me that when they applied abroad they could just change the grades a little. There are whole universities in China designed to pass little rich snobs who don't actually want to learn. Their parents will set them up with a decently paying job, and that's the end of it. How can we try and tell our students to be the best they can be, to push themselves, to challenge themselves, to encourage learning when at times it ultimately doesn't matter? Take cheating. So many people cheat, it hurts the average student to not cheat. It hurts them because if they don't, they'll have a lower score than everyone else, and if you have a lower score nobody is going to bother with you.

To say this in a question, though, is pitting the foreign teachers against the Chinese teachers. It is giving the student to have an attack on the school system, yes, but at the cost of alienating her permanent teachers. Even a kid last night who said "when I first came here I hated it, I regretted it, but now I realize I love this place" was publicly scolded for admitting that he didn't want to come to Henan University!

My poor student knew that with this question she was damned. She answered as gracefully as she could, and Ben sat there looking as if he had come up with the question when someone had inserted it into the random-question slots. I do think if she had another question, her score would have been higher. By far, she had the best answer to any question, the most thought-out, the most supported with evidence and points, all in two minutes!

When the contest was done, I congratulated the winner, I talked to the other students, but I sought her out- I had to tell her that she had the best answer of anyone. It was the only thing I could do for her knowing she hadn't won, and the pain that comes from loosing and the unfairness of the question weighing on everyone's mind. I told her she had the most excellent, diplomatic answer, and that it was a loaded question- no matter what she did, half the judges would either like or dislike her words. We hugged and she thanked me, and we hugged many more times and there was a photo, and then we parted ways- it was 10:00pm and the mothers had to get back into our apartments, and the gate was by now locked and only Ben has the key to enter in.

When we went back, some of us went to McDonald's to eat. I bought Ann and her mom a sandwich to enjoy as their last meal before her mom goes back.

And then I went to sleep!