Essay for Lanzhou University

What do you hope to accomplish from this class?

On the first day of class at Lanzhou University, I wrote the above statement on the board looking forward to learning how I can help my students.

One student answered: “I hope that we become good friends!”

My reply was: “Thank you, but I came here to China to teach. I know we can become friendly, but I came here to be your teacher, not your friend.”

As a high school teacher from the United States, this was what I learned – teachers and students cannot be friends. There must be a boundary; there must be a clear distinction made between the roles of teacher and student. I had made the mistake in the past and learned the only way to be a good teacher was to be friendly, but not their friends. I had to make sure the students knew I was there to teach and not to be their friend. It made the learning easier for both parties – student and teacher; child and adult.

The student who answered this question had a foreign teacher, another volunteer, last year. She told me later that the foreign teacher was a great friend but not that concerned with teaching. I resolved that I was going to blow their socks off from what they learned from me.

I love being a teacher. I love that I am in a position to constantly learn from my students and to guide, cajole and motivate them to be the best they can be. Through working with my students I learn how I am guided, cajoled and motivated as well to be the best teacher I can be. I love to be in a community of learners, never afraid to take risks, make mistakes and learn from each other.

I came to China because I believe in education and wanted to explore this profession in a new country, immerse myself in a new culture and to learn from a new group of learners. I brought with me my not only my resource books, my ideas for lessons and my passion to be in the classroom, but also my preconceived notions of what it means in the United States to be a teacher.

As I learned quite quickly while teaching in China, boundaries do exist, but they are very different. Living on campus with the students, something that few Chinese professors are able to do at Landa, I learned that the boundaries were cultural. Language, different life experiences, age, different world views and environmental comfort were some of the new boundaries I quickly noticed. But it was English, their zeal to learn it and my fervor to teach them, that brought my students and me together.

By relaxing my old view of boundary and becoming friends with my students, they became my teachers as well; showing me the way around campus, taking me on a climb up the mountain, introducing me to amazingly delicious foods in the various restaurants, and learning from them about their life experiences and world view.

It was overwhelming in the beginning, the dismantling of previous boundaries and constantly running my head against the new ones. But it was my relationships, my friendships with my students who held my hand as they weaved around the new walls that I became comfortable with life in Yuzhong and in China.

Now after a year, I am amazed at what we, my students and I have accomplished. I have never felt so empowered and so secure with my life in Yuzhong. The students know me, know that I care deeply about them and I know that that feeling is reciprocated. I look out for them as I weave them through the new boundaries for them as they learn English, Western Culture and Literature and they are my guides for my new walls.

Pretty soon all those boundaries are the size of the net that separate me from my weekly badminton buddy. We recognize each other and respect each other, knowing what they are learning and what they have accomplished. I know that my students are my friends. I know that teaching in China has and still is a wonderful experience that I will treasure the rest of my days. I hope to continually learn from them and deserve their friendship.

My socks are blown off by my students. Boundaries are relative and can be, when needed, dismantled.