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I had a high anxiety day today.

I had forgotten the power cables to my computer in a classroom yesterday and was hoping it would be empty, but when I got there it was full of students so I just stood at the door and really nervously asked the teacher there to give them to me. I kept thinking she would probably think there was something really wrong with me.

Then I had my Friday morning class, which has been becoming more and more of a struggle to teach. One problem is that they're really low, the other problem is that there are a lot of boys in the class, and another problem is that I think they're getting rude and to be honest I don't think I have the nerve to stand up to them. I get nervous!!

I sometimes think I have some sort of OCD or something. I am usually okay as long as things go according to plan... but when I have to do something like write on the board or talk to the students, I get really nervous. But of course it depends on what I eat or do the night before, I think... I was feeling pretty terrible all morning, and all the way through to lunchtime.

Yes, I think I just get into this frame of mind where I desperately need to control my surroundings...

The idea of going in front of a class room full of people and writing on a caulk board makes me wanna cry...my worst memories in school were having to do that! I cannot imagine a job where I would have to do that in a foreign county, with mostly immature humans judging my every move. I would have to pop lots of sedatives to get through the day. You are to be commended for pushing through. I really like to read your journal. I am glad you are still writing, Odo. Take care now!

Today I actually burst into giggles when a student couldn't answer a question in class.

It was really weird, because I wasn't trying to be mean... I think it was just something that happened out of frustration or possibly some sort of exhaustion. I feel absolutely horrible about it now, because I'm sure it seemed like I was just being extremely cruel and I think she might have been pretty upset.

The thing is, I had already repeated the answer 4 or 5 times... the same exact words in the same exact way. A lot of students probably knew the answer already... I was really expecting it to stick, but she didn't know the answer and I finally just said 'that's okay, it's not important' and that was it-- I burst into giggles and couldn't stop.

And honestly, the student wasn't paying attention. The students always think I can't tell, but head down always means cell phone. If they're sleeping I allow it, but what makes me want to go for the jugular is when they think I can't tell they're not listening... but I suppose it's worse when they just flat out don't care if I know, or if they're being ****s about it.

I did that trick with the elementary students too... I would get the answer from someone who was keen, then ask someone who wasn't paying attention for the same answer. Then I would just go around picking on students who obviously weren't paying attention... asking them the same question over and over, using exactly the same words. So after a while of doing this, most of the class would know the answer and the person who didn't would look like a fool.

But really, I think a lot of students have pretty much completely tuned out of my class... so I'm planning on giving them a rude awakening next week when I tell them that the textbooks they haven't been filling out are actually worth 20% of their final mark for the course. Of course, most students do at least try to fill in the textbooks... it's really not hard since 75% of my class is dedicated to giving them the answers.

Still, humiliation isn't a solution, I don't like the idea of my class having that atmosphere... and it could be that she wasn't listening because her comprehension level is low and she has given up trying to understand me, or because I was talking too fast. I shouldn't have laughed.

But I'm honestly wondering if next semester I should just deduct marks for being rude. I won't even have marks for actually doing things... it's all just for their behavior. So they can't sleep, can't use cell phones, can't talk back, can't talk while others are talking, etc. I'm pretty sure that if you eliminate all the distractions, there's really not much left to do but listen to me and do the work... I mean, what else are they going to do?

Maybe I could do 60% behavior and 40% everything else... so actual ability aside, only the ****s will fail the course.

I seriously almost completely broke down a few minutes ago when a student handed in her video assignment only to reveal that she had tacked on a bit at the end where pretty much her entire class told me that they loved me and thought I was a great teacher. There was a lot about welcoming me to China and hoping I have a good time here, etc.

Like a lot of people with SA, I have a hard time accepting praise and focus on the negatives... all of this stuff has been said to me personally, but something about seeing it in a video made me so happy. It's like getting a love letter or something.

So yes, as an evil plan to melt my icy heart and give them all good marks, this was pretty gosh darn effective.

On the other hand, a lot of them really didn't follow my instructions... but how can I possibly do anything except tell them I love them all, give them a good mark and tell them I hope they do better in the future? :idontknow:

Odo said:

Today I actually burst into giggles when a student couldn't answer a question in class.

It was really weird, because I wasn't trying to be mean... I think it was just something that happened out of frustration or possibly some sort of exhaustion. I feel absolutely horrible about it now, because I'm sure it seemed like I was just being extremely cruel and I think she might have been pretty upset.

The thing is, I had already repeated the answer 4 or 5 times... the same exact words in the same exact way. A lot of students probably knew the answer already... I was really expecting it to stick, but she didn't know the answer and I finally just said 'that's okay, it's not important' and that was it-- I burst into giggles and couldn't stop.

And honestly, the student wasn't paying attention. The students always think I can't tell, but head down always means cell phone. If they're sleeping I allow it, but what makes me want to go for the jugular is when they think I can't tell they're not listening... but I suppose it's worse when they just flat out don't care if I know, or if they're being ****s about it.

I did that trick with the elementary students too... I would get the answer from someone who was keen, then ask someone who wasn't paying attention for the same answer. Then I would just go around picking on students who obviously weren't paying attention... asking them the same question over and over, using exactly the same words. So after a while of doing this, most of the class would know the answer and the person who didn't would look like a fool.

But really, I think a lot of students have pretty much completely tuned out of my class... so I'm planning on giving them a rude awakening next week when I tell them that the textbooks they haven't been filling out are actually worth 20% of their final mark for the course. Of course, most students do at least try to fill in the textbooks... it's really not hard since 75% of my class is dedicated to giving them the answers.

Still, humiliation isn't a solution, I don't like the idea of my class having that atmosphere... and it could be that she wasn't listening because her comprehension level is low and she has given up trying to understand me, or because I was talking too fast. I shouldn't have laughed.

But I'm honestly wondering if next semester I should just deduct marks for being rude. I won't even have marks for actually doing things... it's all just for their behavior. So they can't sleep, can't use cell phones, can't talk back, can't talk while others are talking, etc. I'm pretty sure that if you eliminate all the distractions, there's really not much left to do but listen to me and do the work... I mean, what else are they going to do?

Maybe I could do 60% behavior and 40% everything else... so actual ability aside, only the ****s will fail the course.

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I understand the kind of frustration you feel. Having been a teacher, I know what islts like to feel so frustrated that you laugh to keep from crying.

I had a professor in college that would fail you for being late to class more than twice. She was so extreme. I disagreed with her once and she kicked me out of the class for being "combative and confrontational" everyone hated her, but they were on time and listened.

I didn't hate her, I just always thought she had the wrong profession. Anyway, I don't think she took it personal. At that point, I think the class can deduce that you are past the limit of patience.

Odo said:

I seriously almost completely broke down a few minutes ago when a student handed in her video assignment only to reveal that she had tacked on a bit at the end where pretty much her entire class told me that they loved me and thought I was a great teacher. There was a lot about welcoming me to China and hoping I have a good time here, etc.

Like a lot of people with SA, I have a hard time accepting praise and focus on the negatives... all of this stuff has been said to me personally, but something about seeing it in a video made me so happy. It's like getting a love letter or something.

So yes, as an evil plan to melt my icy heart and give them all good marks, this was pretty gosh darn effective.

On the other hand, a lot of them really didn't follow my instructions... but how can I possibly do anything except tell them I love them all, give them a good mark and tell them I hope they do better in the future? :idontknow:

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Gah. This made me tear up. Again, I can absolutely relate. And you're right... It does feel like a love letter. Something that restores your resolve and reminds you of why you put up with the hard days.

Sounds like you are doing an amazing job, Odo. It would have melted my resolve as well... Hehe. Maybe not completely..,. But pretty darn close.

nodejesque said:

Gah. This made me tear up. Again, I can absolutely relate. And you're right... It does feel like a love letter. Something that restores your resolve and reminds you of why you put up with the hard days.

Sounds like you are doing an amazing job, Odo. It would have melted my resolve as well... Hehe. Maybe not completely..,. But pretty darn close.

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Thanks!

Even better, it was the class that I was so frustrated with (the one where I broke out laughing)... so it's like I've been redeemed.

The great thing about teaching university is that it's not weird to talk to the students outside of class, so I have them all on this popular Chinese messenger program called QQ.

I talked to the girl I laughed at on the messenger last night, thinking she would be angry with me, but she was actually pretty cool... she was joking and laughing and posting funny pictures as young people tend to do.

She didn't bring it up or even seem to care about it. She also did a video and tacked on a special goodbye she made herself... so I guess maybe it wasn't the nightmare I thought it was.

I suppose that in the west she would have been mortified, gotten indignant, obsessed over it, talked to her friends, made it into a students rights issue (we have the right to not be mocked in class), blogged about it, drummed up support, complained to the board, sued me, tried to have me fired, and then finally end up in tears on Fox News or something... there would be comments like 'Disgusting... a teacher who likes to pick on young girls. He should be fired!', and 'This is Obama's fault!'... but instead it's not a big deal and everything is fine.

My Friday morning class, on the other hand...

Here are some thoughts I have been having lately:

1. Getting over any bad habit is just a matter of making peace with that desperate feeling you get when you give it up.

2. There are a lot of situations where words only hide the truth, and trying to express yourself can end up making you more dishonest than you would have been if you had just kept quiet.

3. Every time you say something cruel, there will be someone who will take those words and use them to turn people against you, giving them the high ground. It is extremely easy for the wrong person to take a momentary lapse of self control and use it to paint you as a monster... and the more you try to hurt that person, the easier it will be for them to turn your own words against you. And they get to be the victim and have everyone bond with them over all the misery and resentment and frustration with people like you. Well played, I say!

But it doesn't really hurt so much when the people who have been turned against you no longer matter... in fact, it just makes it easier to move on.

And when the emotional charge of gossiping and bonding through outrage eventually dissipates, what will you have to bring you together again?

4. It's odd how I can go through life doing the things I have done, constantly believing that it's the right way to go about doing things, making myself miserable, and yet still insist that the way I'm doing things is the best thing for me. I really have to wonder if I wouldn't be happier trying something completely out of left field.

I suppose this can also apply to the last 12 years of my life... or possibly even longer... with a lot of dead ends and sort of passing through people without ever really holding on to any of them. I really envy people who have had lifelong friends... I think they're a rare breed.

I think I'm pretty clueless, actually. It's obvious that I am. I like to dream more than I enjoy tangible reality... and I suppose I've always liked ideas more than people. So I connect with people more through my idea of them than through who or what they actually are. I project the idea onto them, and then fall in love with that combination of the projected idea and the person inside of the idea... who might get out sometimes, but never quite seems to make themselves truly heard.

5. One of the happiest moments of my life was actually when I dropped a job in one of the ****iest ways possible... I did a midnight run. I didn't tell anyone I was leaving, I just didn't show up to work one day, made a beeline for the airport, got on a plane and never looked back. I left behind an FWB, some students, all of my co-workers, my apartment, my last paycheck... everything.

That moment was so light and free and amazing I don't think I could ever replicate it. Of course I ended up in one of the worst jobs I had ever had immediately afterwards (karma, I suppose), but for that moment I felt like I had control over my own destiny, and that moment is actually a pretty strong memory. I had to suffer for a few months, but things balanced themselves out and that moment was incredible.

Everything was clear and light and clean. People who try to convince others that it's better to hang on, adhere to the rules and fulfill your duties really don't know what they're talking about... and most of the time it's less about some sort of cosmic rule of decency than their own personal desires.

6. I had that feeling for a brief moment the other day. It wasn't as intense, but there was a stirring and I was momentarily exhilerated by it. It was in many ways like dropping a heavy load. You miss the weight sometimes because you've gotten so used to it, but what a ****ing relief! You can stand up straighter, breathe easier, and everything you had long since stopped noticing tends to jump out at you more, because instead of a routine where you are just focused on a series of simple steps, your entire world is suddenly exploding with unknown possibilities.

It's almost like the sort of eureeka moment at the peak of an LSD trip... you suddenly have it all figured out, but of course you can't express it properly no matter how articulate you are. For some people, this would lead them to believe that it doesn't truly exist, or that it was an delusion... it's strange the amount of importance we assign to articulation, especially since it could never hope to capture what we truly feel, or what we are truly capable of knowing.

It always seems to be the case that we talk out of fear, or because it's expected, or to confirm the things we believe are true... but actually believing what we say is probably a bad idea. We trick ourselves into believing the things in our heads by relying on logic or ego or narratives that allow us to feel a certain way... I honestly think we believe that if we didn't have those words, it would be impossible to understand each other's intentions, and we would end up being more paranoid about each other. But I think this belief comes mostly from the fact that nobody really appreciates silence anymore, and it's so difficult to achieve that people have just grown to fear it.

Haha maybe I'm thinking about my new Chinese semi-girlfriend and our inability to communicate.

Point 5 sounds like an awful lot of fun! Nothing like the feeling of (at least temporarily) dropping the chains of pragmatism in which society binds us, through conditioning, from an early age.

1. I'm going to a hot springs tomorrow night. I've never actually been to one before. They were always around and I knew they were popular in Japan and Korea, but I was always afraid of the whole naked minority thing and being a curiosity. But I guess I won't be completely naked. I hope I can relax... but then, my friend insists that not many people will be there because it's too cold. Plus, it's Monday night.

I'm going to have to get a hotel in that city... which I'm not completely happy about, but it's so great to get out that it actually doesn't bother me. Plus, my friend will drive me home so I don't have to buy another train ticket. It's one of the big downsides of living in the middle of nowhere.

I have been going out so much in the past month... it all started with that trip a few weeks ago. I've been seeing movies in the theater, going into the big cities, etc. Still, I'm glad that I live in the middle of nowhere, because it's quiet at night.

I'm also learning Chinese. It's not an easy language to learn, but I'm used to reading Korean so I'm not completely intimidated by the characters to the point where I just say '**** it I can't learn this' and give up right away. Plus, my phone converts pinyin to the characters so it's actually kind of fun... a lot of memory work, but I get a pretty positive reaction from my Chinese friends.

Right now I'm learning fruit and the characters always have a sort of tree-looking shape at the bottom... so a lot of the time the characters actually look like what they mean, which is pretty cool.

Still, I always want to say the Korean words for things...

2. Tonight a student that I don't even teach contacted me because she heard that I am nice! She is a film and television major. I really wish I was teaching them, because that was also my major, but apparently they don't get a foreign teacher. I like my students a lot, but it would be cool to teach students who have similar interests... I feel like I would have more to say to kids who love movies than kids who think about economics, statistics and investment.

3. I got some new vitamins and they're working really well. My anxiety level has dropped quite a bit in since I got them. I had a few days without vitamins and I was pretty shaky...

4. I'm actually not doing too badly right now. There are some things in my life that I'm not completely happy about, but I have friends, I have things to do, people are interested in me, I'm going out, I'm exercising, it's not too cold and not too hot, and I'm learning a language. Last night I went out for dinner with my buddy and he told me some really fascinating stories about his life. It's a great time to let go of the past and embrace the present. It's like a huge weight has been dropped from my shoulders and I can finally start looking ahead to the future.

Odo said:

3. I got some new vitamins and they're working really well. My anxiety level has dropped quite a bit in since I got them. I had a few days without vitamins and I was pretty shaky...

4. I'm actually not doing too badly right now. There are some things in my life that I'm not completely happy about, but I have friends, I have things to do, people are interested in me, I'm going out, I'm exercising, it's not too cold and not too hot, and I'm learning a language. Last night I went out for dinner with my buddy and he told me some really fascinating stories about his life. It's a great time to let go of the past and embrace the present. It's like a huge weight has been dropped from my shoulders and I can finally start looking ahead to the future.

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Before I even got to #4 I was going to say that you sound like you are doing much better! That's great Friends, interesting things to do, and exercise (and, I'm assuming, a good diet and sleep) - it's amazing how simple the things are that we need to feel good/normal. I think all of those things are essential, and if you take one of them out you're going to feel unhappy (it's amazing how often people with social anxiety try to deny that they need friends, too, out of bitterness, or any social approval - don't kid yaself )

Re: #3, that's very interesting and although I was aware that nutrients are essential to mental wellbeing, part of me was always skeptical that getting adequate nutrients really made that much of a difference as far as anxiety goes. Maybe I should look into that myself.

Also, from a previous post, you said getting over any bad habit is just a matter of making peace with that desperate feeling you get when you give it up - this is so spot on.

I always like reading your thread

I had a really amazing day today... by far my best day in China so far! I went with my new girlfriend to a hot springs.

I had a lot of problems getting to the city where we were going to meet... but I managed to get in and we went to the beach for a nice walk at night! The temperature was warmer than here... around 19 or 20, which is actually really nice.

It's really great to have someone local who can show you around, especially when the city is so charming.

My girlfriend wanted to pay for absolutely everything... my hotel, all meals, the hot springs we went to today, and even my train ticket home. I actually had to force her to not pay for things. Like actively insist that I at least chip in. I shoved money into her hands repeatedly, telling her to please take it. On our first date she disappeared for half an hour and I later found out that she had bought me a new wallet... and it cost $60. I only managed to pay for the movie on that one. Before we jump to the conclusion that she's a sugar mama... she's actually 10+ years younger than me. Yes, my new girlfriend was born in 1989.

But of course, that's not really the appeal of dating her. The appeal of dating her is that we just have so much FUN together. I'm actually going out and doing things after what seems like years of being stuck in routines. I mean, I've always managed to find things to make me content, and maybe it just seems exciting because it's new... but I am actually travelling and having experiences, and if I have a suggestion or want to do something, she actually considers it instead of telling me she doesn't want to/can't/won't for whatever reason. I honestly think the best part of this relationship is finally having someone who is willing to do what I enjoy doing. I have always tended to travel alone because I could never find anyone like that... it had seriously gotten to the point where it was crushing me to hear it. But I suppose it's a side effect of not having a larger social circle and being too timid to actually join clubs or organizations that share my interests.

I had never been to a hot springs before today, but it's actually kind of awesome. I had to buy a Chinese-style bathing suit which is a ****ing speedo and it was nasty tight... my new girlfriend insisted that my other bathing suit wasn't good enough but I think it was language barrier issues and her not recognizing that it was a bathing suit, not that mine wasn't good enough. It was awful and my rolls of flab that I've really tried hard to shed looked extra disgusting being shoved into it... so did my legs. It's really hard to feel dignified in a speedo, though... the pictures that were taken didn't help my body image. :sad:

I guess I had always pictured a hot springs as old people in a hot tub, but this is a collection of pools that you sit in... and a really nice garden with the music and the statues and such. There was one with wine and one with sulfur and one was green and another was turquoise... apparently these are special in China because they use sea water. It was actually a really really nice place... they also had the fish that eat the dead skin off of your legs and feet. Some people actually sit in the pool but I wasn't about to do that.

I have to wake up early and work tomorrow but my brain is still on holiday... and on Friday we're going to the mountains! I seriously had almost zero anxiety all day long... or maybe just a few tiny traces. I even carried a huge tray with two heavy bowls of soup on them... that would have been a nightmare for me, usually.

On the weekend we went to a famous local mountain, hiked up to the top of a mountain peak then went ziplining across to another peak. In the afternoon we went on a bamboo raft down a scenic river and they served us different kinds of locally grown tea.

Then we were just lazy and went back to the hotel. I actually had a bit of a fever, plus it was cold and rainy out.

I don't have any complaints.

So today I discovered that China is actually even less Christmasy than Korea. I have decided that this is actually a good thing, because they never get it. We don't take their festivals and turn them into our own thing, so they shouldn't do it to ours either. But they do it anyways.

This is why Christmas here was relatively painless compared to Christmas in Korea. It's infinitely more annoying when a country takes your biggest holiday and turns it into a day where couples eat cake than if the only thing they do is eat apples because they're still in the process of making up shit to do on their imported holiday.

I swear to ****ing god every other holiday in Korea was about young couples doing something together... they had a day where men gives presents to women, where women give presents to men, where they give presents to each other, where people feel bad about being single, etc. But the thing is, the Koreans actually get really into the iconography and their superficial appreciation of it all even led to me once seeing a massive neon Christmas tree plastered on the side of a skyscraper in Seoul. They don't really care about what it means anywhere else in the world, but at least it looks like Christmas to some extent.

Apparently in China the only thing they've come up with so far is to eat apples, because the word for apple sounds like 'happy'... and I guess they have a superstition where if they eat an apple on Christmas, they will be happy in the coming year. So the only Christmas present I received today was an apple... well, that and some money to buy an apple for myself because my girlfriend is moving. On the other hand, I didn't give anyone anything so I still came out ahead!

Anyways, I didn't even really think about it being Christmas... there's no snow, it's not really cold, there's not really much excitement (the students are stressing about final exams)... all of the cues that usually lead up to Christmas day were missing. So when it arrived, I just sort of let my students wish me a Merry Christmas, repeatedly said I wasn't going home, and then carried on as if it were just another day.

But even though China is only vaguely warming up to it all, I honestly think I've actually seen more publicly displayed Christmas icons here than I did when I was living in Toronto. Say what you will about privilege, I feel like the whole tolerance thing (combined of course with consumerism pandering to minorities) is killing a lot of really good traditions. It's nice to be accepting of everyone, but Christmas is awesome... the lights, the icons, the magic of it all... even the whole Jesus thing is kinda beautiful, and I'm not big on religion at all. If you're not going all in, then all you're left with is a shitty reason to buy a lot of crap, which ruins everything. Trying to please everyone is never a good idea, because you're left with a cultural void.

I have to admit, I'm pretty shocked over how much I like China compared to how much I like Korea. I don't know if I could ever really have a honeymoon period with a country like I did before because I've gone through it so often, but in some ways it's happening now. At first it was hard but I've really warmed up to it all and I'm actually pretty comfortable. There are annoyances of course but none of them are culture-specific so much as related to specific people.

So yep...

It's amazing how quickly a run of almost total euphoria can hit the wall and turn into one of the blackest periods of your entire life.

I seriously have been having some of the most stressful, unpleasant days of my life... and I can't even talk about it because it's too painful to say.

Today was utterly, objectively bad... seriously, I can't even remember the last time I felt so low.

Tomorrow I have to get up in front of over 100 people and give a presentation for 1.5 hours... and I don't know if I have enough material. On top of that, I have to pretend that I'm actually happy to be there. I seriously want to just back out of it... but when I tried before, the dean got involved. I probably shouldn't even care, actually... it's not like I can't get another job. That's not why I feel so low, though.

I seriously thought that things were turning around for me... I actually felt confident and happy with myself for a few weeks, and my anxiety was almost gone. Now I've gone in the other direction, and pretty much wish I was dead.

Probably no one will care.

Today I have just been laying in bed and trying to sleep as much as I can, comforted by the way that sleep can feel like death, and picturing the guy from No Country For Old Men coming up behind me with his cow-killing machine and putting me out of my misery as quickly and painlessly as possible.

So sorry that youre feeling so crappy, Odo. I hope things turn back around for you.

So I am doing better now.

I have been trying to post here but the internet is so bad that I keep losing my posts.

The air quality has been horrible over the past week... so I ended up getting a cold. This on top of my other problem has made me feel pretty miserable, but at the same time I am taking this amazing Chinese cold medicine that makes me sleep for 12-14 hours.

I guess the other thing I am going to talk about is my Chinese girlfriend. I am starting to realize why she probably wants to see me. She has resumed working and she works almost all day long. I think she is probably making a lot of money (for China), but I gotta say I feel sort of like a housewife or something. I've been basically on vacation since the middle of December, but I can't go anywhere and my money situation isn't quite as good as it was in Korea, so I'm pretty much stuck... and I'm feeling a little needy. I guess I will go to see her this weekend, but yeah... it's hard to have a relationship with someone who works all the time, especially when they're in a different city. It's only 100 minutes by train, but it also takes an hour to get to the train station from here... and I always have to get a hotel, because being Chinese she lives with her parents and I don't get to meet them until we're a little more serious. All of this adds up in the long run...

I was planning to go to Nepal and do Everest Base Camp with my girlfriend but I honestly don't know if I can afford it. I guess I get paid in a few days and I get a little extra because of the extra lecture I did for their culture festival, but if I was in Korea at my old job right now I would have been a lot wealthier. If I was in a city and could get private lessons, I would be doing better. But I have to admit, I am much less lonely than I was in Korea-- I actually have people in my life and something approxiamating a normal, fulfilling life. I have friends, a girlfriend, a job, some really cool students... I suppose having a better day-to-day life is probably worth not going on trips during the vacation...

This is a work rant, so feel free to tune out.

I just spent a few hours putting together the marks for my course, and I've realized that quite a few students have failed. They deserve to fail, but I really don't want to fail them.

The college system here isn't like back home... basically, everyone always passes in the end, and all that failure means is that I have to do make-up exams and massage my marks somehow to make sure they all eventually pass the course. So basically, it's just giving myself extra work for the same result.

On top of that, some absolute genius decided that we would be given bonuses based on how popular we are with the students. We need a 98% approval rating to get it-- 98%!!! I have about 360-some students, so that means that if 7 of them don't like the fact that I failed them, I lose money.

On top of this is the fact that we received absolutely no guidance before we started, and I stupidly came up with a marking criteria I realize isn't going to work and now I'm retroactively tweaking it to make sure my marks come out okay.

So they think the final exam is worth 40% of their mark but I reduced it to 20 because I also decided to GIVE them all 20% for showing up or at least having a valid excuse when they don't. I seriously have a class where about 40% of the students simply didn't hand in the assignment I gave them. It's worth 20%. I told them 30%, but I also reduced its value.

I checked their books at the end of the year to find a few of them had just been ****ing off for the whole semester. That was another 20% they lost. I also sort of retroactively decided that participation should be another 20%... mostly because the marks were too high considering most of them just sat there and did nothing all year while a small minority were active. So most of them got 10 out of 20 for participation, and whoever got up and spoke in front of the class like a champ ended up with the full 20. Maybe that's the problem.

I suppose I could make the final worth 30 and reduce the assignment to 10. That should push most of them towards a pass. I have students now who are sitting at 33%. They would show up hungover, sleep through the whole class... or just sit there being twats. I didn't really do anything about it because they're supposed to at least be interested in becoming adults at this stage in their lives so it's not really my responsibility to hold their hands and tell them to do their work. I think it should be pretty obvious at this point that if they don't do the work they're not going to pass.

I have one student who seems to have debilitating anxiety about speaking English... to the point where she refused to take the final exam, ignored the assignment AND wouldn't participate in class. I mean, there was nothing... she just stood there as my voice became gentler and gentler, trying to encourage her and make it as easy as possible... until finally I gave up trying. I think I spent about 20 seconds asking her what her plan was when she was the only one in all of my classes who didn't do the final... and the final was simply two people speaking very basic English for 1 minute, using questions from the book. After that 20 seconds was up, I just said 'okay' and moved on. I'm not sure if that's the best way to deal with her or not. I really don't think she would have responded to me trying to rally everyone together to give her a round of applause or a lot of support.

Her book was fine, however... so top marks for that. Oh, did I mention that completing your book is simply a matter of copying the answers off of a powerpoint slide? This is apparently too much to ask from some of my students... but this one got it. Also, she showed up to every class no matter how painful it was for her-- so there's another 20% for being a trooper. She gets 40% for copying answers and coming to class. It's moments like these when I really feel like a great facilitator of learning.

But while I get that some people just aren't cut out for these things and maybe it's not fair that she's being forced to take my course, if a student simply refuses to do the things that are worth 60% of their mark for the course, they're going to fail! It's sad but true.

On the other hand, there is at least one student who is probably going to get 100%. I think as long as a student puts in a regular amount of effort, they could easily walk away with a mark in the 80s.

To be fair, this whole semester has been a really up and down lesson in low-tier Chinese University learning that would have been a LOT worse if I didn't have any teaching experience.

Odo said:

.........I just spent a few hours putting together the marks for my course, and I've realized that quite a few students have failed. They deserve to fail, but I really don't want to fail them.

The college system here isn't like back home... basically, everyone always passes in the end, and all that failure means is that I have to do make-up exams and massage my marks somehow to make sure they all eventually pass the course. So basically, it's just giving myself extra work for the same result..........

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Seriously!?

Does that mean that even students that have actually failed a course, get their marks "manipulated" so that it "appears" on the record that they have actually "passed" the course? What is the point of that? :question:

That must be a very frustrating predicament they have put you in. :sad: