So my nephew almost got kicked out of school today. He's a naughty, boisterous, middle school boy. Exactly the type of kid I would have hated both as a student and as a teacher. He got blamed for breaking a chalkboard, though he was not the only person playing the game that led to the chalkboard "breaking" (developing a very small crack).
But that's not why I'm writing today. I'm writing because of what the teachers here are saying to the students. Verbal abuse is apparently accepted pedagogy, at least in this city. An acquaintance who is taking driving classes, recently complained about instructors verbally abusing their students calling them sha bi (a stupid, errr... part of a woman's anatomy). And yet, there is so little supply (of instructors) and so much demand (for instruction) that people put up with it. My nephew's teacher (and one could argue that the same basic supply/demand relationship applies with middle school teachers in Xining) is alleged to have told a Muslim girl she was so stupid she might as well just start eating pork. Let's leave alone, for a second, that this is incredibly hurtful. Let's also leave alone that the Han teacher was (unwittingly) insulting people who eat pork--and thus his own ethnic group--as stupid. But this teacher is allowed to shout racist, verbal abuse at his students. This is education in Xining. My child (whenever s/he comes into existence) will most definitely not be attending school in China.
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About TimAs you can see elsewhere on this webpage, I conduct research on ethnic minorities in western China. This blog offers semi-academic musings on the minutiae of daily life out here--the sort of information otherwise destined for footnotes. Categories |