no effort for a university degree

The other night I listened to a freshmen student from another university enthusiastically explain that students copying each other’s work or copying from the Internet is very good, necessary, that they all do it.  She saw absolutely nothing wrong with it.

these DVDs cost $1 each on the street,
my students can get movies before they are released

We were sitting at a café English corner.  I turned to the guy sitting between us, a graduate student who I know pretty well because we often talk at the Chongqing library English corner.  Innocently, I asked, “Is that common?” already knowing the answer.  Plagiarism is a student way of life in China, maybe even encouraged with a proliferation of mostly free or ridiculously cheap pirated movies, DVDs, music.

He agreed that most students copy, that many will just watch videos on their phones during class, that students will pass classes and graduate without having done any actual college work. 

This was my experience last semester when I failed 4 students who either didn’t come to class or didn’t do any work.  Their class teacher, a teacher assigned to babysit a group of about 400 sophomore students in the department, came to me flustered and confused, saying “We never fail students in oral English!”  I said, “Even if they never come to class?” 

This happens in China.  Students work so hard to survive high school and the gaokao (college entrance test) that when they get into college, they come expecting their life will now be easy, that they will not have to work.  In China it’s very hard to get into college and very easy to get out, the opposite of the way it is in the US.

At English corner, my graduate student friend went on to explain that some students think university is a time to relax because they already know their future.  “How is this possible?  How will they have the knowledge and skills needed to do their job?” I asked, truly baffled and surprised.

“Guanxi,” was the only way he could explain it.  Student success and future is about who the student’s family knows, their connections, relationships.

In our TEFL training, the PC told us if we fail a student and the school says pass them, we pass them with a smile.  So, I grudgingly responded to my failing students’ class teacher that I would be happy to pass them.  She said the department would have to have a meeting about this.  The next week, she found me again and said that they will fail them, “to teach them a lesson,” but that they would be removed from my class this semester. 

Then, when the semester started, there they were, in my classes.  And they come every week.  And they look at their phones for most of the 90 minute class, even if I stand by them.  Why bother coming?  These deadbeat students stand out because most of my students fully participate with impressive effort, even if they feel unsure or shy.  They are the reason I put my full effort into teaching here.  I just need to let those few students who don't care check-out with their phones and hope they don't affect the students around them.