Monday, and in my 8 o'clock class this morning I had a student who kept giggling to himself as I talked, making me wonder if I had my clothes on the wrong way round or unfastened or had drawn all over my face with the whiteboard marker, and whose very red eyes made me conclude by the end of the two hours that he had come to my class stoned.
Then at the end of my class a small posse of Chinese students stayed behind, and one of them approached me to tell me that I was wrong to call Taiwan a country because it wasn't. I conceded that I knew it was a political issue, but he was having none of it - it was wrong, and I just shouldn't do it. It only came up because of a slide on which I'd asked the students to name the labeled countries, as a way for them to check their geographical knowledge of East Asia.
Then at the end of my class a small posse of Chinese students stayed behind, and one of them approached me to tell me that I was wrong to call Taiwan a country because it wasn't. I conceded that I knew it was a political issue, but he was having none of it - it was wrong, and I just shouldn't do it. It only came up because of a slide on which I'd asked the students to name the labeled countries, as a way for them to check their geographical knowledge of East Asia.
2 comments:
And had the Chinese students actually identified Taiwan? I presume they were American Chinese students. Is this subversive activity on their part, or, for that matter, on yours? And should you bend to he pressure and avoid mentioning Taiwan altogether? Oh, the moral dilemmas involved in teaching!
No, they were mainland Chinese students expressing the official Chinese position.
Post a Comment