Thanks riddlemethis,

Yunnan? I have fond memories of that place. Not just the school and the students we taught in/taught, but I also enjoyed some excursions to some lovely laid back historic places in that province.

I'm impressed with your attempt to get involved with the teaching policy and curriculum at your college, and can understand your frustration. I believe that your college is a private one- is it not? I think that a private college is a contradiction in terms. Now, I can understand the concept of a private training centre or language "school". Those places are really only businesses. However, a college surely has a real responsibility to educate students. In an exclusively private college, education is almost certain to take a back-seat.

A public college would be a much more suitable setting for what you're trying to achieve. I may have read it wrongly, but in a recent post you indicated that you were considering leaving China. If you do in fact stay in China, then my present school would not be a bad choice for you. It is a semi-private establishment, but because of its public side and maybe also due to its close relationship with an American university, it is not just concerned with the business side of things. A conscientious, whole-hearted teacher is very much appreciated here and they are rewarded for their efforts. This school is far from perfect, but what I said in the previous sentence makes it a school where I think you personally would make more progress in. The foreign language management will support you if they see you making a genuine effort to make a difference. The vice-dean here has asked for my advice on the curriculum, and they seem to encourage input from teachers who they feel have their hearts in teaching.

I've been here just over two years, but will likely leave at the end of this semester because of family reasons. If I was planniing on staying at a school indefinitely, this one would be my choice. Anyway, you know where we are.

Keep your head up. I know that you won't give in and that you realize what you are doing is worthwhile. Keep up the good work!

Yingwen.

Hi Riddlemethis!

Well, Fish made a good point, when he mentioned that the scissor may have "turned" into something else. When is a pair of scissors not a pair of scissors? When one half of the pair has gone and it's now being used as a knife! I have a pair of scissors at home which are fully intact, that sometimes double as a trimming knife when I want to, for instance, trim an A4 piece of paper down to A5 or some such thing. Even if the half scissor you mention is always in the same position when you arrive and is not being used when you enter the room it doesn't mean it is never used, of course.

Alternatively, the plan could be to leave it there until the other half is found. The other half may have worked loose and before anybody got around to repairing it, it was lost. Now nobody wants to take responsibility for throwing what's left away. That would be to big a decision to make by yourself on your own initiative. So there it sits. This would be illogical of course if the staff know that the other half broke, because then there would be no chance of finding the other half as it's probably been thrown away. In that case maybe theyre waiting for the other pair to break. Then they can make one pair from two broken pairs of scissors. Of course it may be possible that only SOME of the staff know that it broke while others still occasionallly look for the other half that somebody else knows has already been thrown away, but havent got around to telling them yet.

Maybe somebody will in time deliberately break the good pair of scissors and use the good half with the spare half to make another good pair of scissors! Then again, it could be being used as a symbol to indicate that in that office, one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. Because of the extreme cost-cutting measures that are rampant in these establishments, maybe the scissors are so cheap that they broke within a short period of time. We only bought them one month ago, lets use them in a less efficient state for a year or two before replacing them so as to get our money's worth. Yet still, the broken scissors may be left there in the hope that somehow the other half will miraculously appear from nowhere and attach itself to the half laying there. An indication, perhaps, that in China people tend to believe that if they wait long enough, problems will fix themselves. What faith!

This half "pair" of scissors may highlight the lack of communication between close staff members and the reluctance of anybody to take responsibility in getting anything done. I don't know if this is related, but my computer has on occasion broken down. The procedure for repair here is to inform the secretary in the FL department, and she will in turn inform a young teacher who teaches computer programming courses. He also works in the media room. What usually transpires is "NOTHING", for at least 24 hours. On inquiry of when I might get my computer fixed, I'm often told by the secretary that this young man has been informed by her of my problem. Now the inference is that she has done her part, so the responsibility is not hers anymore. As far as she is concerned she has washed her hands of the problem

Now I have four basic choices regarding course of action. I could constantly badger her until she finally nags him into fixing the problem, or secondly, I could go to see him and nag him myself. Thirdly, I could give up, go home and throw said computer out of the window where it would enjoy the thrill of a quick three hundred foot descent ending with an explosive collision with concrete, or finally I could call the vice-dean (which I should have done in the first place, although she's often understandably busy and unavailable) and then sit back as the young man has my computer fixed before I've had time to put the phone receiver down. Staff here, are often reluctant to chase others down and follow-up to make sure tasks get done. Why? Firstly leaders in China generally delegate nearly everything to junior staff. So often (and this is certainly the case in my school) the secretary in a college is doing the job of a dean. The problem is when the secretary gives orders to staff, others often don't listen because she's not the dean. Because she's not the dean, she is reluctant to badger staff until the task is done. This of course results in many important tasks either being delayed for a long time or not being carried out at all.

Other problems stem from the fact that due to cost-cutting Chinese schools often don't employ specialists for certain tasks. For instance in the special needs school that I worked at in London for a year where there were no more than 300 students in the whole school, they employed somebody whose sole job was to fix any computer in the school that had a problem. As there is no such position in my school where there are 10,000 students, unless the dean personally steps in, often no-one will take responsibility for a broken computer because it's not their job, and they're often to busy doing their real job. Also, because they want to keep good relations with their fellow staff they are reluctant to insist that others get tasks done. Why should a computer programmer teacher listen to a secretary? Why indeed? It's not his job, anyway; he's not a maintenance man. I must add, though, that my school is generally efficient in regards to getting most things that I desire, seen to. Theyre pretty swift when it comes to domestic repairs in the house, and when it comes to assistance with matters regarding my teaching responsibilities.

Whew! Thats quite a long post that started as a discussion about scissors. Maybe Ive got too much time on my hands. Id better stop here and begin my holiday. Im not sure if my comments above have covered your point or if I have missed it completely by going of on the wrong tangent. Is this supposed to have any connection with the original post by Bo? If it has then Ive done a terrific job in taking this thread well of topic. Anyway, its good to hear from you on the board again, and to know that youre still active in China. Enjoy your break, too. Look after yourself.

I'm glad that you've finally been paid, and the sarcasm in your reply is also noted.

As a foreign teacher who has had his share of problems with schools, I very much empathize with your predicament. Why did nobody answer you and give you advice, though?

Maybe like myself they wonder why somebody would STAY at an establishment that hasn't paid them for FOUR MONTHS. Bo, you should have been away from that school months ago. By staying there you are perpetuating the actions of crooked schools, exemplified by the one you work for. You should never have let the situation get to that point.