Frustration!

I am about two thirds of the way through reading a writing assignment by my twelfth graders and I can feel the frustration boiling inside me. Sometimes they do well, but this time around it feels like we are back to square one. It’s like everything I taught them about grammar and essay structure (not to mention sentence structure and punctuation) just flew out the window.

And the worst thing is, they have their IB exams in two weeks. All I can think right now is, please don’t let them write so poorly on the exams!

A little background information. I teach Japanese students in Japan who have been in an immersion program, studying in an IB course and taking most of their classes in English, since they were in elementary school. We are in Japan, so they are not immersed when they leave the classroom, but they have studied English in an “immersion” academic setting for a long time. So why do they still refuse to pay attention to grammar, sentence structure, and mechanics? I just read an essay that was one long paragraph without any indention or breaks between ideas! An essay!

Take a deep breath. They have their good days and their bad days. Clearly this was an off day for them.

It is hard getting students to understand that writing is more than putting ideas on paper. Writing in English is like learning a whole other language. It is different from spoken English. They need to think about the rules and the conventions. Not indenting paragraphs is unacceptable, in my book.

But I need to put myself in their shoes. Their first language is Japanese, which is a totally different language with completely different conventions. Even the way they organize an essay is different, not to mention that they use a writing system which is a combination of traditional Chinese characters mixed with two Japanese phonetic alphabets.

However, I still think they should be able to do better. Even though I teach English through content, I make sure to give them language support by teaching them about grammar and sentence structure rules. I don’t spend days and days teaching grammar out of context, but I make sure that we cover the basics and I expect my students to know the basic language for talking about language, such as parts of speech, basic sentence types, clause structure, verb tense, and so on.

Some students get it, and they put effort into monitoring their grammar. The effort they put in is so worth it, because after a while their written language becomes much more fluent than their peers. It is a pleasure to read fluent language. But choppy, riddled-with-errors, sloppy language is like…… torture.

But this is my job. I am an English teacher, specifically an English teacher to ELLs. They all have their struggles. I so rarely get to read fluent English. I accept that. But I think they could do better. They just need to pay attention to the rules of the language and revise! How do I get them to pay attention and revise??

There will always be some students who are great thinkers but who just don’t understand that the way you say something, the way you put your thoughts into words is also important. How can I get my students to understand that they will be judged and criticized and disrespected just because their English doesn’t sound fluent? People can be harsh. If my students go out there into the English speaking world, they will be in for a surprise. I sometimes wonder how universities deal with international students whose written English lacks fluency? I have seen many Japanese and Chinese students go off to university in America or Canada or the UK…. and I always wonder, will they be in for a harsh wake up call when they turn in a paper that has so many language errors?

Maybe I am being too critical. I can’t expect them to write fluently. But I can expect them to use a subject before a verb…..right? They might not ever get third person singular verb agreement down perfectly…. but everyone can indent a paragraph, right?

Well….. back to it……..

How can I get my Japanese students to want to interact more in my classes, and how can I use this interaction to help them develop their English?

I have a lot of introverted students in my eleventh and twelfth grade classes. Part of this may also be a cultural thing, since education in Japan is very teacher-centered and the students are taught to remain quiet and focused on the teacher. The other issue is that Japanese culture discourages people from standing out too much – my students are explicitly taught that it is better to fit in and maintain group harmony. So they tend to not want to speak up and have everyone staring at them while they take that risk to answer a question. Whatever the reason, my high school students are so quiet, and it can be difficult to create the energy I would like to see in my classes.

This term I am really focused on this issue because I am doing a research project for a distance education class I am taking, and I have decided to research class participation and student interaction. I have struggled to get my students more active in my classes, but this term, I am taking direct action by seeking out methods I can use and trying new strategies to get them speaking.

I intend to blog about some of the things I find out and report on how it goes. The class I will be using as my guinea pigs are my eleventh graders – I have been their teacher for the last two and a half years, I know them very well, and they have been my guinea pigs before and they are used to it. And they are also an extremely quiet class, but a class with a lot of great minds and creative thinkers. There really are a lot of introverts in that class – by introverts, I mean people who prefer to think first, act later. They are very thoughtful kids, in the sense that when I teach them, can see the wheels turning and the spark is there, but they keep it inside and muse on things and then their interesting ideas tend to come out in their writing.

So I am going to try to get this class more active by making them more willing to open up and share their ideas. I don’t intend to try and change them into extroverts; I just want to teach them about the positives that can come from working in a group and being willing to share our great ideas with others. And also I want to use interactive activities to help them continue to develop their English, since they are all English language learners.

I plan to read up on some of the fundamental philosophies that are relevant to this type of social education, such as Vygotsky’s “Thought and Language” and Piaget’s constructivism. I am also reading a more current book called “Content-Area Conversations: How to Plan Discussion-Based Lessons for Diverse Language Learners” It focuses on the idea that content classes should include lots of time for student discussion, and that raising the bar and encouraging a higher level of academic conversation in the class is a great strategy for promoting learning, especially for English language learners.

Anyway, I’m thinking about all the ways I can get this class speaking and interacting more, and I am going to try out some new strategies. From time to time, I’ll report here about how it goes.

Why do we feel the need to generalize about education in Eastern cultures versus Western cultures?

I was checking my daily Facebook feed and I came across an interesting article that someone had shared. The article was titled “Struggle Means Learning: Difference in Eastern and Western Cultures.” The article is from 2012, so it is a couple years old and I’m not sure why my Facebook friend chose to share it, but it caught my eye because I teach in Japan and I often find myself comparing education here to education back home in the United States.

Pretty quickly into the article I had a negative reaction. The main premise of the article is that Eastern cultures view “struggle” as a valuable part of the learning process, and cultures such as China and Japan tend to encourage students to face a difficult situation and struggle through it. This might be true. However, I was irritated by the way they chose to present this argument: through a single anecdote about a psychologist who was observing a math class in Japan, and found it interesting that the teacher chose a boy who was struggling with the problem to do it on the board rather than a good student who knew how to do the problem. According to the article, the psychologist Stiegler “knew that in American classrooms, it was usually the best kid in the class who was invited to the board.”

We have a lot of generalizations being made with that anecdote. My first thought as I was reading it was that this choice to have the struggling student come to the board was not based on culture – it was based on the unique teaching style of that particular math teacher. I am sure that many American teachers use strategies such as these to help both the struggling student and the class learn how to accomplish a problem. And I have seen teachers in Japan show preference for the students who already know the answer by asking them to give the answer or write it on the board.

Later in the article, the psychologist offers another generalization about Eastern education:

“Stigler says, in the Japanese classrooms that he’s studied, teachers consciously design tasks that are slightly beyond the capabilities of the students they teach, so the students can actually experience struggling with something just outside their reach. Then, once the task is mastered, the teachers actively point out that the student was able to accomplish it through hard work and struggle.”

Again, this just seems like good teaching practice to me. Most teachers I know are familiar with the concept introduced by Lev Vygostsky called the Zone of Proximal Development, which says that there is a difference between what a learner can do by himself, and what he can do with assistance. Teachers who use this strategy design a task that is just out of the reach of the learner, but then provide scaffolding and other strategies to help the child learn how to achieve the learning goal. Eventually, they will be able to do the task on their own, without the teacher’s assistance. The “struggle” they go through to get to the point where they can do the task on their own is part of the learning process, and it is a very effective teaching strategy, in my opinion.

I guess the article meant to emphasize the fact the the Japanese teacher actively points out that it was the students’ hard work and perseverance that made them able to achieve the goal, rather than their natural intelligence, which Americans tend to place high value on (according to the article). But I’m not convinced that Americans don’t also place great emphasis on hard work and struggle – we believe in the idea of the American dream and we respect, even worship, personalities such as Steve Jobs who dropped out of college but built a supremely influential technology company. Entrepreneurship is a highly valued quality, and most people agree that it is a combination of perseverance and perspiration that brings success.

My point is that the article uses these types of generalizations to make a blanket statement about education in Eastern cultures and Western cultures. While there is probably some truth to this idea that Eastern cultures view struggle differently from Western cultures, I felt that the article was too comfortable making quick assumptions and using anecdotal evidence to try to convince me of this cultural difference between education in the East and West.

I have worked in both Japan and China as a teacher, and I just don’t understand how people can so easily lump the two together and talk about “Eastern” culture. They are very distinct cultures. China places great emphasis on teaching students the virtues of Confucianism; Japan promotes social behaviors which help to maintain group harmony, sometimes to the extent of sacrificing the individual’s needs. I know these also are huge generalizations, but in my experience they are aspects that are unique to China and Japan as individual cultures. We often lump these ideas together and say they are “Eastern.” Then we put ourselves in the category of “Western” and we make these ridiculous comparisons. But by doing so, we do a disservice to ourselves, making it seem like our cultural values are lacking in something, and to Asians, since we are basically stereotyping.

I have seen excellent teachers in Japan and China. I must acknowledge that students in both China and Japan are ahead of American students as a whole when it comes to math (but I don’t necessarily think we would want to put our students through what they put their students through to achieve these high standards in math). But I have seen terrible teachers in both countries, just like I have seen terrible (and excellent) teachers in America.

I think it would be better for both the “East” and the “West” if they stopped comparing themselves to each other by saying one is better at this, while the other is better at that. All this does is provide fodder for politicians to criticize a system and say that teachers in one country are not as effective. Instead we should strive to find the teaching strategies that are proven to work, and then make sure that teachers everywhere are using those strategies. I don’t think these stereotypes are the answer – solid research of what effective teachers do in their classrooms – all over the world – is what we need to look at. Find the great teacher and sit in her classroom – then tell the whole world about her success.

You can read the article and listen to the NPR story it was based on here:
“Struggle Means Learning: Difference in Eastern and Western Cultures” (Mind/Shift)
“Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning” (NPR)

Grade inflation in the US is part of the culture….but it doesn’t have to be

One thing that I have realized since I began teaching internationally is that in the United States, grade inflation is such a part of the culture that it has become completely normal.

When I was a high school student, I expected to get all A’s and B’s, without working too hard. Sometimes I had to put in the extra time to make sure I got an A and not a B. But I don’t think I ever got a C in high school. I will admit that I cared about grades probably more than the average student. I was in honors and a couple AP classes. But I don’t think I had to work that hard to pull off all A’s and B’s. I definitely found time to have a social life and my part-time job at KFC.

And the funny thing is, when I applied to colleges with my weighted 4.0 GPA, I didn’t get into several schools that I thought I might get into, including UC Santa Barbara, which has a reputation as a party school. Which tells you that universities are probably very aware that grade inflation is rampant.

It should be stated that my high school was just a regular public school in Southern California with a large population of students and it wasn’t known for having a stellar academic program or anything. It didn’t have a bad reputation either; it was just a normal suburban high school. I know that other schools, some private schools in particular, have much higher standards when it comes to grading. However, I think that on average, most students in America experience a similar situation to what I went through.

A couple years ago when I started teaching in an International Baccalaureate program in a secondary school in Japan, I finally realized that my understanding of grades was based on a system that has all but eliminated D’s and F’s.

In the IB program, we use what are called “assessment criteria” when we assess student work. For example, if I grade a literary analysis essay by a ninth grader, I would use a rubric with three criteria: content, organization, and style and language mechanics. Each criterion goes from a scale of 0-10, with 10 being a very successful performance in that criterion.

Here is the assessment criteria for “content” so that you can see what I mean:

Criterion A: Content (receptive and productive)                                                    Maximum: 10

Achievement level	Level descriptor
0	The student does not reach a standard described by any of the descriptors below.
1–2	The student demonstrates very little understanding of the text and topic, and little or no awareness of the author’s choices. There is little or no detail, development or support. In creative work, pieces show very limited imagination or sensitivity; the student rarely employs literary features, or employs literary and/or nonliterary features that do not serve the context or intention. The use of terminology is missing, inconsistent and/or incorrect.
3-4	The student demonstrates limited understanding of the text and topic, and sometimes shows an awareness of the author’s choices, although detail, development and/or support are insufficient. In creative work, pieces show limited imagination or sensitivity; the student attempts to employ literary and/or non-literary features; these sometimes serve the context and intention. The use of terminology is sometimes accurate and appropriate.
5-6	The student demonstrates a sufficient understanding of the text and topic, and an awareness of the author’s choices, using adequate detail, development and support. In creative work, pieces reflect some imagination and sensitivity; the student generally employs literary and/or non-literary features that serve the context and intention. Terminology is usually accurate and appropriate.
7-8	The student demonstrates a good understanding of the text, topic and the author’s choices, using substantial detail, development and support. In creative work, pieces reflect imagination and sensitivity; the student employs literary and/or non-literary features that serve the context and intention. Relevant terminology is used accurately and appropriately.
9-10	The student demonstrates a perceptive understanding of the text, topic and the author’s choices, consistently using illustrative detail, development and support. In creative work, pieces reflect a lot of imagination and sensitivity; the student employs literary and/or non-literary features effectively that serve the context and intention. The student shows a sophisticated command of relevant terminology, and uses it appropriately.

When I first started using the IB criteria, I would read my students’ work and then use the IB rubric to assign the appropriate grade. But I realized that if I were going to give a true measure of the student work I was assessing, I would be giving scores much lower than an 8 or a 9.

As you can see from the scale above, it would be very common to give a student a score of 5 in the IB Program, since a 5 means the student demonstrates a “sufficient understanding of the text and topic.” If we convert that to a percentage, that is a 50%. But if you give that kind of score in America, you are basically telling the student that they have failed!

This took me some getting used to my first semester teaching in this program. I remember the first piece of writing I graded, I assigned really high scores (all 7’s and up) because I just didn’t feel right about giving students what seemed to me like a failing grade.

I have since realized that my discomfort with giving low scores comes from my experience growing up in an academic system that gives out A’s for making effort, B’s as just satisfactory, and C’s to make a statement about a student’s poor performance. D’s and F’s basically mean the student didn’t turn anything in and/or they just never came to class. Do teachers in America ever give a D based on actual performance?

I think teachers feel a lot of pressure from parents and from administration to give A’s and B’s. The universities are clearly aware that this is going on. But why do we want to keep a system like this? It makes these letter grades basically meaningless and gives a student very little information about their performance. It sends the message that effort is most important, not the actual work they do.

Grade inflation is one of the many things that is wrong with the way schools assess students in the US. I have a whole list of other things that I think could be improved, but I’ll save that for another post.

I’d be curious to know if you, reader, have had a similar experience. Is grade inflation a serious problem in the US?

 

I hate being the center of attention….. but I love teaching because I believe in student-centered learning.

I am a teacher, but I feel very uncomfortable standing in front of a group of people and speaking to them for a long time. I have always had stage fright, and I still feel it a little when I am standing up there and I suddenly become aware that all my students are staring at me. Of course they are – I am the teacher. But it makes me feel weird to be the center of attention all the time.

This probably seems like it would be a deficiency for me as a teacher, since I have to stand up in front of people and speak all the time. However, I think it has actually caused me to be a better teacher. I think it is a good thing if teachers feel that standing in front of our students and speaking for long periods of time is just weird. It is weird. I don’t understand how people can do that. I don’t think that is the way to be a great teacher.

I don’t feel comfortable unless my students are involved in the lesson. I rarely let myself indulge in long monologues. Every once in a while, I can’t resist telling them about something I find interesting; I might stumble onto a topic related to something I can just go on and on about (usually a language-related topic – I am a huge grammar/linguistics nerd), but even though passion for a subject is the key to attracting students’ attention, I know that there will always be a student who begins to zone out after a certain amount of time. So when I find myself going off on that tangent, telling them this really cool story about this really interesting topic, I make sure that I see an end point to it. Otherwise, I am sure I will lose some of them, no matter how interesting I think what I am talking about is.

My natural discomfort with being the center of attention has made me a better teacher – I know it has. Instead of telling students what I think they need to know, I use questions to guide them to the answers they come up with. Sometimes they make their way to the answers I myself have to the questions – sometimes they find their own answers. So often, they come up with ideas that I never considered. I use big questions all the time as the starting point of my units and I always come back to them throughout to find out what new ideas the students have.

I’ll admit it, I love having my students do group work. I know some people hate doing group work. But if you think you don’t like group work, it is probably because you got stuck in a group with people who didn’t really want to do the work, or maybe it was because the teacher was using group work to avoid having to actually do any teaching. For group work to really be effective, the teacher has to do a lot of planning and guiding before and after the students are in groups. I never send my students into groups and then just leave them to it, and stay up at the front doing my own thing. I always walk around and listen in and interact with them as much as I can. But I also keep my distance when I see that they would feel uncomfortable with me butting in. The fact of the matter is, we are a social species. Our progress as a species has been because of our collaboration. No man is an island. We have made it to where we are because we have stood on the shoulders of giants. Students need to practice working in groups because this is how great ideas are born. I believe that much of education should be collaborative. Group-work provides opportunities for greater learning.

Now that I have become more versed in the language of education and theories of learning, I realize that there are many teaching strategies out there that promote the style of teaching that I embrace. For example, I was doing project-based learning units with my students before I had even heard of PBL. But when I found out about it, I realized that there was a whole philosophy for this type of teaching, and teaching strategies like PBL embrace that philosophy.

Of course, I heard about cooperative learning when I was working towards getting my teaching license. It is a common term used for group work. But I think my style of teaching is more than that. It is a fundamental belief that my role is as a facilitator, as a mentor. But I am not a star. I am not a celebrity at the center of attention, with all eyes on me. I want to help promote deeper learning in my students by designing memorable learning experiences through experiential learning, through interaction with peers, through inquiry. This is what I love about teaching. I love watching them in action. When I can walk around the classroom and see learning happening in every direction, I feel satisfied.

It is my personal opinion that if you are standing in front of a class full of students and you suddenly realize that all eyes are on you and that you are talking and they are listening and it just feels weird… well that is the right feeling to have about that situation. Direct instruction has its place in education, of course. But I promise you, if you are speaking for more than ten minutes without stopping, somebody is zoning out…..

Teaching internationally doesn’t always mean teaching in an international school

I have been teaching abroad for the last six years. During this time, I have worked at four different schools. It seems like a lot, but many teachers get into international teaching because it allows you to move around and try out different places. I am at a point now that I prefer to stay in one place at least two years (I am entering my third year in my current school), but I am happy that I have gotten to experience a variety of places.

When people think of teachers who are teaching abroad, they usually think of ESL teachers or teachers in international schools. International schools are schools that cater to an expat population in a particular country; often the students who attend them are children of diplomats, expats sent abroad by a company, entrepreneurs, or people who have married a local resident and have chosen to make a life with their spouse in that country. These schools tend to be made up of a diverse population of students, in addition to a small percentage of students from the local community who are accepted into the school.

However, there are many schools one can work at in a foreign country that are not “International schools.” Teachers with licenses from their home country, such as American teachers with a state credential or British teachers who have their PGCE can find a variety of teaching opportunities abroad that pay the equivalent of or more than what they would make at home, while allowing them to experience a foreign country.

Before I go on with identifying some of the various options out there, I will say that most licensed teachers who intend to teach internationally for the long-term aim to eventually work at a “top-tier” international school (international teachers tend to refer to the various international schools as “top-tier” and “lower” or “bottom tier” and some even give schools informal rankings such as “first-tier,” “second-tier” and “third-tier.”  However, everyone seems to have a different idea of what these “tier” categories actually mean.) For example, there are some excellent international schools in Asia that pay extremely well (especially when matched with the low cost of living in certain countries), such as Shanghai American School, Singapore American School, Jakarta International School, American School Japan, and International School Bangkok. Many international teachers hope to one day find their way to working at one of these great top-tier international schools.

However, we can’t all start our international-teaching career at a premier international school. For many of us, we must work our way up the ladder that consists of rungs which are private language schools, lower-tier schools and local schools in the local public or private system of a particular country.

Here are some of the options out there to get you started climbing up the ladder towards your dream job in an international teaching career:

English/ESL:

Teach ESL in a private language school – There are thousands of private English language schools in countries all over the world. You could teach the basic communicative skills – speaking, listening, reading, writing – to any age group, from preschool to adults. This type of job does not usually require a teaching license, just the basic TEFL certificate to get you started (in my experience, if you have a teaching license, you do NOT need the TEFL on top of it just to get hired at a private language school). The quality of schools varies, and since these are for-profit institutions, you could find yourself working long hours for little pay. But it is always an easy option to get you abroad if you really want to go. And if you enjoy teaching ESL, you can go for more advanced degrees (Masters in TESOL, CELTA/DELTA certificates) and find the higher paying jobs, such as jobs in universities or jobs teaching specialized English (see next two options).

Teach ESL in a university/college – Some teachers go abroad to teach in universities. The hours can be really great, leaving you with lots of free time. These contracts usually supply you with housing and airfare to the country. ESL teachers with many years of experience or with good qualifications usually get these jobs (but not always – there are places that are desperate for English teachers that may hire people with less experience).

Teach ESL in a private company – With some  teaching experience or with specialized knowledge about a field (such as teachers with experience in the business world or people who have worked in or studied sciences/technology), you can get hired working at a company that needs a teacher to teach business English or specialized English to the staff. These jobs are out there, and they are usually better than the standard private language school job. Here is a link to one example of these types of jobs: IES (Japan).

Teach English in a public school – There are programs run by governments in certain countries that aim to bring in foreigners to teach English in public schools. You do not necessarily have to have a teaching license for this type of job. JET is a rather prestigious program in Japan. Other programs are the NET Scheme (Hong Kong) and EPIK in Korea.

Primary and Secondary Schools (all subjects)

Teach your subject in a “lower-tier” international school – There are many schools out there that are less established than the well-known international schools. Young schools take time to improve their academic quality, to build up their resources, and to hire good staff.  These schools are often eager to hire teachers from abroad to teach at the primary and secondary level. If you are just starting out as a teacher or just starting your international career, these can be excellent stepping stones. In countries with a high demand (such as China), you might not even be required to have a teaching license.

Teach in an international program in a local school – There are so many different types of programs out there where you can teach your subject in local schools abroad. (I am especially thinking of secondary school teachers.) For example, in China, local students are NOT allowed to attend international schools. Only those who have a foreign passport may attend international schools. However, many Chinese students would like to receive an education that prepares them for universities abroad rather than taking the gaokao path (an exam Chinese students take at the end of high school which basically determines which level of Chinese university they can apply to). For this reason, there are lots of new, alternative international programs being offered through public schools where the students take their high school courses in English. There are AP programs to prepare students who want to study in America (I worked in one). I have also heard that some Chinese schools are now offering the international baccalaureate (IB) program. These are great options because you can teach your subject, getting valuable experience yourself, and you also get to be truly connected to the community you are living in. By the way, these programs exist all over the world, not just in China.

Teach in a local private primary or secondary school – In addition to those unique programs that I mentioned in the previous example, there are also private local schools that look to hire teachers from abroad. Sometimes this is because they offer a bilingual program, where the students receive a certain percentage of instruction in the second language (English, in our case). Other times, these private schools bill themselves as “international schools” because they are for-profit schools that want to attract local students who are interested in receiving a more international education. While for-profit local schools often have bad reputations, they can be a great option if you find the right place that allows you the lifestyle you are looking for. They may not offer a rigorous standard of academics, but they often are lower-pressure teaching environments. These are also a great stepping stone option.

These are all types of schools I have encountered in my experience teaching abroad. Many of them are even examples of schools I have worked at. If you would like more specific information, such as names of specific schools within these categories, I am happy to share what information I have.

I know my recommendations are very Asia-focused. The fact is that most of my experience has been in Asia (although I did work at a private university in Mexico). If anyone can share other international teaching options found in other areas of the world, that would be very appreciated!

How important is it to like your coworkers?

So much of a teacher’s job is done independently from other people. We are responsible for our own classroom, the designing of our own lessons, and planning our own curricula (based on a set of standards of course). This is something I enjoy about teaching – I am responsible for coming up with a plan to get my students to achieve the learning objectives. Language arts, in particular, allows for a lot of creativity and flexibility in how I facilitate my students’ acquisition of skills and knowledge.

Having so much control over the job I do on a daily basis is a significant positive of the job. I teach in an international baccalaureate program, so I follow the specific guidelines of that program when I design my curricula, and there are a lot of specific guidelines! But in the end, I am the person who figures out what my students will be doing on a day-to-day basis. I love having that freedom to be creative and come up with interesting and thought-provoking units of study.

I work in a relatively small program of about 15-20 teachers within a larger Japanese secondary school. As I already stated, it is an IB program, also known to the students and teachers as the “bilingual program” because the language of instruction for most of the classes is in English. In our school there are several other “streams,” including a regular Japanese secondary school program. The international teachers in the IB program all sit in an office together; because it is a Japanese school, we do not have our own classrooms to work out of. (In Japanese schools, the students stay in one classroom for most of the day, and the teachers travel around to them to teach their subjects.)

This means I do spend a lot of time around my colleagues, since we all have our desks in a room together. This is both good and bad.

The positive of sitting in the same room to do our prep work is that we are able to communicate really easily about day-to-day things and about the students. In fact, we tend not to use email as much to communicate about most things. It means we get a more immediate response if we need to ask someone a question, and we are able to be more clear about what we mean. This helps to avoid communication problems. I think we are also very much in touch with each other about our students. If one teacher notices that a student is having issues, he/she might mention it in the staff office and then we are all more aware of what’s going on with our students in their other classes.

The negative of sitting in the same room with my coworkers is that I feel like I can never escape them. I don’t have any personal space where I can go to and work on my own, in peace and quiet. When I am in a bad mood and I don’t feel like talking to people, I can’t really get away and I just have to deal with them. Of course, this is the situation for many people who work in corporate settings, but I do find it really frustrating sometimes. Also, if people are chatting in the office, it can be difficult to concentrate on my own work. But headphones and a subscription to Google Play music has solved that problem for me, for the most part.

But now to the main question. How important is it to like your coworkers? This experience of working in an environment where I am always in such proximity to my coworkers has made me think about this a lot more than I might if I had my own classroom to escape to.

I realize that your colleagues can really make your experience so much more fulfilling. Having people around you who are excited about teaching, who seek to try new things as a teacher and to share their ideas could be such a motivating aspect of the job. Unfortunately, most of the people I work with are extremely independent and do not seem to want to collaborate very much. One reason for this might be because we work in a Japanese school where the workload is extremely intense. We have very heavy workloads and also the nature of working in an IB program means we have so much to think about and so much paperwork to keep up with. I definitely think that contributes to the lack of collaboration going on where I work. But personality also has something to do with it. Many people I work with are very focused on work being work only – they show up at 8AM, work hard until the end of the day (usually around 6 in our school – we work long hours for teachers!), and then go home. They don’t make an effort to connect with the people around them.

I am sad about this aspect of my work environment. I love my job and my students, but I don’t feel satisfied by the work relationships I have. Also, living abroad can be lonely. It is hard to make friends where I live because it is a very Japanese suburban community. It would be nice if my colleagues were more interested in socializing. I know people like to have their space and to keep work and freetime separate. I totally understand that. But in the past, when I worked at schools where the teachers enjoyed socializing from time to time, getting together for a Friday happy hour now and again, I felt a lot happier.

The fact is, if we are working as islands, doing everything in our own little bubble, we miss out on so much opportunity to grow as teachers. Collaboration is really key to improving your own skills. When I was doing my teacher-training before I got my credential, I was required to log a certain amount of teacher observation hours. And every time I observed a new teacher, I came out of it with a new idea and new inspiration. Peer observation is a useful exercise, in my opinion. But even more useful is just developing a supportive working environment where people value the idea of professional learning communities and are eager to learn from each other and share with each other.

I think that the environment of the school and the style of the managers and administration can play a big part in developing this type of collaborative environment. In Japanese schools, traditionally, students work very independently to achieve academic success. In the IB program, collaboration is encouraged. And as teachers, in my school, we do what we are required to do by the IB in regards to collaboration. But it isn’t the natural environment; it feels forced, actually, since many of the teachers seem to not be happy about having to do the types of collaboration activities we do once or twice a term when time permits.

To conclude, I love teaching but at the moment I don’t love my coworkers. They are lovely people and when we do collaborate, I always enjoy it. But I am hoping that eventually when I move on, I get to experience the opportunity of working in a group of people that is more engaged with their colleagues, more excited by the prospect of learning from each other, and when it comes down to it, more friendly, gosh-darn-it!

Response to the NYT Article “Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t.”

I read an article in the New York Times today that annoyed me. It’s another one of those articles along the lines of how bad American students are compared to the rest of the world. But this one was focused on how bad American universities are.

Basically the author claims that Americans believe their universities are the best, but that recent studies/statistics/international tests (PISA and Piaac in particular) show that American college students are way below their international counterparts, particularly in regards to their ability to do math as compared to students in other countries.

These articles pop up all the time, and they often bring up the fact that American students are bad at math. And it can’t be denied, when you compare American students to their counterparts in Japan and China, American students ARE worse at math. But does that mean the whole system is worse?

I taught in China for three years and I am currently teaching in Japan. I have mainly taught students in the upper echelon, the students who are college bound, many of them hoping to go to college abroad. They are the cream of the crop, really. And some less creamy ones mixed in. I feel like I have some awareness of the caliber of student here in Japan and also in China, especially the elite students.

They are amazing at math, but that is because they are expected to be working at a much higher level of math at a younger age. Math is a priority. Students who struggle in math face extreme pressure to improve their performance in math. Even the ones who struggle and must take the lower math are still performing at a higher level than most American students.

This long-term, hardcore, intense study of math from a young age is why they are better at math! But I don’t think it means that American colleges are not as great as many colleges in other countries.

The fact is, American colleges ARE rigorous. I attended University of Massachusetts, Amherst for my general ed classes – my first two years. I found the professors to be challenging, inspiring, and critical (in the best way possible). I learned so much. In addition to that, I had the opportunity to work for a cooperative business on-campus, which was basically a student-run business that was overseen in the same way that an on-campus club or organization would be. We were overseen by the UMASS organization of cooperative businesses, along with about six or seven other co-op businesses. It was such an invaluable experience – I worked with about 10 other students to organize from top to bottom the running of a small sub-sandwich shop in one of the dorms. I learned how to run a small business, do inventory, purchasing, planning, publicity. And I made friendships that were so meaningful because we were participating in this challenging venture together, and we had to figure out how to run it AND agree about how we would run it. It was exhausting and fun and one of the best learning experiences of my life.

American universities offer these types of extra curricular activities to students; I believe that these types of activities beyond the classroom are so important, so stimulating, and so valuable! Not just to student learning, but also to their social development. The array of activities and opportunities on campus make the experience of attending an American university really unique.

I ended up transferring (a long story for another day) to UC Berkeley and finishing my undergraduate degree in linguistics at that top university. I won’t try to convince you that UC Berkeley is one of the best schools in the world – it is, and everyone knows it. But I do feel like I have some perspective because I went to a lower-tier public university (not lower-tier, really, just lower-tier when compared with Berkeley) for my first two years, and I was challenged and enthralled by my academic experiences in both places.

However, I think what really sets the American universities apart is the access to resources. To go to school at a large public university and have access to an incredible library, like the one at UMass Amherst or at UC Berkeley. That in itself is a gift to any learner. If you go to libraries at Japanese universities or Chinese universities, I guarantee you that they just don’t compare.

And being in proximity to great minds who are at the center of groundbreaking research studies….. my professors at both schools discussed their research on a regular basis in lectures. Some of that spirit for inquiry just rubs off on you when you are surrounded by it. You can’t help but be inspired to think, to ask questions, to debate with your peers, to practice being a thinker like those professors in front of you.

I loved my college experience in America. I believe that having the opportunity to take two years of general education courses allows students to become more well-rounded and more sure of what it is they want to focus on. Being a specialist is important, but that’s what grad school is for. American universities at the undergraduate level produce well-rounded thinkers…. at least, that’s what they try to do. Some responsibility also falls to the student to take advantage of the opportunities they have before them.

Everyone knows these studies which compare different countries and try to figure out which students are the best are just bunk. It’s impossible to get a fair measurement because so many aspects come into play. But just based on my own experience living and working abroad for many years, having the experience of working closely with many Asian students, seeing the style of Japanese and Chinese education in action…. I have to say that there are talented students everywhere. But if I were to choose where to go to college, if choosing between Asia and the US… I would choose to return to university in America in a heartbeat. American education is expensive, but the learning opportunities are incredible.

 

Why I hate grading papers.

On days like today, when I have a stack of papers to grade at the end of the term, I feel myself constantly questioning why I chose teaching as my career.

I’ll be honest. Grading papers sucks. It is exhausting. Especially when you are an English teacher and you have to grade papers written by students whose first language is NOT English. It adds a whole other dimension to the challenge of making yourself sit with a stack of 100 papers in front of you and push yourself to just do it.

I have a few rules that I have developed over the last few years. I try to keep to these rules, and then it usually works out better in the end. The first and most important rule is that as soon as I feel myself getting angry, I stop grading papers. It happens a lot, actually. I’ll be reading an essay and the little mistakes that students make that I’ve harped on about, but that they never seem to attempt to correct, just start to piss me off. Like when they write the title of a novel but they don’t capitalize it OR underline/italicize it. It’s such a basic rule. Or when they refuse to double space even though I’ve shown them exactly how to do it. Or when they write “There are 2 reasons why…” instead of “There are two reasons why…” Or when they spell “dangerous” as “deinjures” (that’s one from today, actually – a seventh grader). When the little things start to drive me crazy, then I have no choice but to take a break. Otherwise, my comments will get nasty and the anger will come through in red pen – and it will be there forever. (Until I pull out the white-out – I have had to do that before when I wrote something really mean, but white-out by the teacher on an exam does NOT look good).

Another rule I have is that if it is a midterm or a final exam and I sit down to grade it, I have to push myself to get through ALL of them that day. It really sucks when you have exams that you are slogging through. With essays and research assignments, I have to break those up and grade them over a few days. But with exams, if I just let them sit, then my students are constantly bugging me about them. And I feel them weighing on me. And if they are end-of-term exams, then I really have just a limited amount of time before I need to start dealing with figuring out grades, so it’s better just to suck it up and push through it. Plus, it’s really important for the students to receive feedback in a timely manner and all that jazz….. so I try to push through the exams as soon as possible.

Of course, I broke that rule today. I graded 25 out of 32 end-of-term exams that my seventh graders took today. It’s just such a big class. And 6PM came around and I was hungry and so my husband I went out for dinner. And now I am here and it’s 9PM and I just can’t bring myself to finish grading them tonight. Momentum is really important when you have determined to finish a class set in one day. You just have to push through it, and if you stop, then it’s very likely that you won’t sit back down and finish them.

I guess my last rule is that I take the grading seriously. I tell myself that many of my students have put in the time and the effort, at least in their own way. They deserve my undivided attention and my serious assessment of their performance. Sometimes it is obvious that a student just hasn’t put in the time, that they just sped through it without really trying. For those students, I allow myself to go faster through it. They make it easy, actually, since there is less to grade. But for the students who have obviously put some effort in (and a lot of them do, in fact, TRY even if it doesn’t seem like it) I do my best to focus in and give them the best feedback I can.

It’s funny… the title of this post started off as “Why I like teaching and why I hate grading.” But I think I’ll save the “Why I like teaching” for another day. The fact is, even though I hate grading (I HATE it!) I absolutely do like teaching, and there are so many reasons why. So at the end of the day, when I still have 50 exams and another 40 essays waiting for me to grade because it’s the end of the term, I just have to remind myself that in two weeks, it WILL BE DONE – report cards and all of it. And at the end of the day, I love teaching. Soon enough I can focus on the part of my job that I love, and this hellish part will be over…… soon enough….

My Blog

I haven’t been writing on this blog. I had all these grand ideas that I would write a blog about education, and it would help me to be a more motivated educator while also helping me professionally. But then I got busy with work, and I was overwhelmed by the courses I was taking to clear my credential, and I never felt the motivation. And so this blog has sat here, a relic of an aspiration.

Finally, this morning, I woke up with inspiration. I sat down at my computer and started typing. The words were flowing. I had to take a short break to go to work (I had to work a half day because it’s a Saturday workday). Then I came home and continued where I left off. 

I finished the blog post. But then I did something stupid. 

I left the webpage I had been writing it on. (I had been writing it on WordPress directly, where it says “New Post” and encourages you to just start writing). Obviously, this was a ridiculous thing to do. But I thought it had been saved as a draft, or I thought WordPress would save it automatically, or I thought…. well, you know how it goes. The post is gone.

So the post I was just about to post is gone. Should I give up blogging? Just when I was ready to get started again?

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I am writing this now as a way to keep the momentum going. I really don’t feel like writing it all over again. But at least with this sad little post, I have something to keep me going.

Writing all about education isn’t working for me. Even though this blog was born as a blog about education, I am going to ret-con that idea and just write about whatever I feel like writing about. Since I am a teacher, it is likely that many of those posts are going to be about education. But this is me desperately trying to keep the patient alive. This blog might die. (Not that it had much of a life to begin with.)

So today I am going post this with the intention that I will start this blog again. Who knows what it will be about. Hopefully it will be interesting. At this point, no one is reading it except me so it doesn’t matter anyway. But I am going to try to make it happen.