Life so far

There's less than a month to go. It has been nearly two years. 

The internet has been giving me such trouble that for about three weeks I couldn't even load my e-mail, let alone send it. That's how fast it is- it won't load yahoo mail, let alone google. 

There have been a couple of good things: 

I judged the English Speech Competition with Callie. We broke up the questions between us, which was great. So there wasn't one question master, there were two. I also gave the most Pro-Chinese speech I have ever uttered in my life. The upside was that I had many happy people cheering, my students recording my speech on their phones, and one administrator who last year told the students all the foreigners should learn Chinese (as if we couldn't understand Chinese or have someone translate, speaking about someone in the room and assuming they don't speak the language is just plain rude) later took her photo with me. It was pretty good, if I say so myself. People afterwards saw me on the huge TV screen in the center square on Old Campus. I was really pretty. *.*

Ann is coming on the 17th, which has been good. My air-conditioning is working on and off (mostly off). Again. I've been able to sleep, which is also a finally. 

There was a leaking pipe that caused the foundation of the hallway leading to my wing of the building to, well, leave the building when it rained. Everything washed out. So they had to go fix it. I'm not sure anything's really fixed, or better, but there was a huge hole in the ground for a very long time. How exciting.

A few  bad things: 

I've given up on trying to take the trans-siberian to Europe. Since Jackie has been in even less contact this year than last year, I'm just so tired of fighting and pushing to get my way in China. You have to, but after two ten-month cycles, it edges on you. And when there's no support behind you, well, then it gets really hard. So I'm going to head off and I'll be back home in July! I'll still be able to make it to Europe, though.

As it's the end of the year, it's the "I no longer care" wave that I have to fight. Everyone in the states is done with college and done with learning right now, but here everyone is still going. And the Chinese teachers will soon grade the gaokao, which is that giant exam, which means their classes are cancelled. 

All of my writing students plagiarized at least one section (most of them did more) of their final papers. I've contacted my TA about what to do. All of them. 

I asked them why. They mentioned the paper was too hard at 2000 words in 5 weeks, they had never written a research paper before, they wanted to be sure their grammar was correct, they were not familiar with the American company.

My points: Next year, they'll have to write 5,000 words for a research paper. I showed them how to use quotes and how to put sources in their own words. Students last year had 5,000 words to write. I knew they had never written a research paper before, which is why the entire semester was spent breaking it up and talking about what we could write and writing things together. 

I tried to make this as basically simple as I could, as I am a foreign language major myself and I know how difficult it can be to write in a foreign language. It's hard. There would be mistakes. That's why there was so much time to correct the mistakes as well. 

What I've done: I've contacted my TA about it, and told them I'm writing a final exam. And I will be writing the final exam. Here's part of my Ta's initial response: "Hey eaaf don[']t be mad. They just don[']t know the severity of plagiarism or more accurately they [are] not got used to work without any plagiarising..."

Sometimes my Ta is awesome. Sometimes I want to pull my hair out. It was followed up by, "Trust me, I know how you feel. I was so mad when I first found my students cheating". So there's something to make me feel a bit better.

I've had a long time thinking if this was my fault or my students' fault or what could be done differently. I've heard many different opinions, but what I think I'm going to settle on is this: They said they couldn't do it. I thought they could do this paper. I believed in them. I showed them how to use sources, how to write this thing, though it was very, very basic, and they've had me for two semesters, so they know better than to copy. 

So I'm re-evaluating whether I still want to be a teacher. It's something to think about, with one class not even doing the assignment in class, in another one half the students walked out, and now most of my writing students have plagiarized. A couple, bless their hearts, rephrased things or were trying to use quotes with citations. Those students are diamonds in this sea of... rough. 

I'm also debating how much of it is this university- the Australians, in a different program have their own troubles but at least they have someone in charge, and they have meetings with the department. Ann's own program pays nearly double here and there's a lot more support for her, I feel, and it even has training! Here the foreign teachers are mostly mascots; we have nothing to do with the department, we never see or talk to the other teachers that are not our TAs, we are never asked about our opinions and we are paid the least amount of pay possible in China. 

Normally, I'd say that the students are the reason you come here. A few people want to learn Chinese while teaching in Kaifeng, but your Chinese will be broken and it'll never be as good as if you were to just study it. But with these students, what they have done and how they are defended... well, I guess I can say I'm glad to be going home. I'm sorry this blog is more and more negative. Part of it my be the end-of-the-year-blues. Part of it is things like this that keep stacking up and up. Department wants to you to teach double-classes for no extra pay? Students are allowed to plagiarize? 

Granted that last thing is an issue in many Chinese universities, not just this one. I am aware it is a problem, I just never expected it to be such a big problem.

I think if I ever get another teaching job, I want to know I'm very well supported, that there are structures in place to deal with such a huge event. I'm going to take a couple weeks in July though to think if I really want to keep doing this.