Teaching

How it started:

An email, a random list of tasks and my decision to work in China

“We are recruiting teachers for the next academic year 2019-2020.  If everything is OK, I will send you work permit letter in the middle of July.  You are asked to arrive in China after August 26.  The next semester will begin on September 2.”

This was the beginning of the acceptance letter that I received on March 21, 2019. 

So that was how “It” started.  A few days before, work was another meaningless work day. 

 I had a 2 hour meeting during which HR discussed a new means on how to evaluate our direct reports.  There were graphs and forms and instructions.  Every year, we would put every employee on a grid.  Each would be labeled from <high potential, high output> to <low potential low output>. 

High potential/high output	Med potential/high output	Low potential/high output
High potential/medium output	Med/med	Low/med
High potential/low output	Med/low	Low/low

The whole thing looked a bit like a tic-tac-toe board.  Or maybe a grid on how to cook steaks.  All I could think was:  my output is going to be low if I have to sit through too many more meetings like this. 

 After that, I met with a student who wanted to talk to his Torts teacher about Torts.  She had, as an introduction to the class, laid out the assumption that society is based on an unarticulated social contact.  For those of you not versed in Torts;  'A tort can be broadly defined as a civil wrong, other than breach of contract.  It is any legally recognizable injury ariving from the conduct )or misconduct, because in some cases, filing to act may be a tort) of persons or corporations.  It extends beyond a contract, into a geopolitical space."  So like, if you slip on a sidewalk, although you may not have a contract with the sidewalk's owner, society has decided that there is a social contract.  You've hurt yourself because of something that I have done or failed to do, so I may owe you compensation.  He wanted to talk to her about that.  Sort of.

The student interrupted his teacher to ask if Torts are applicable to a person living on Mars.  At first she thought he was joking.  Then she thought maybe it was a bizarre hypothetical.  Quickly, she realized that he was serious.  He was wondering if he could escape the social contract imposed on him if he moved to Mars.  That got him a meeting with me, the Dean of Students.  Who had just finished a meeting about how to meaninglessly rank my staff.  Was this really what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life?

So, I started looking at various websites:  The Chronical of Higher Edu

cation job site:  https://chroniclevitae.com/job_search/new  (International section); HigherEd jobs -- https://www.higheredjobs.com/international/search.cfm?CountryCode=44&Remote=1 (China section); Jobs.ac.uk (international section).  There were jobs out there.  Most of them were in China and Korea.  Some were in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.  One was in Afghanistan.  Another in Macau. Many were looking for English Teachers.  Some were looking for administrators.  I just happened to have both credentials.

And so I started to send out applications in the format that I knew best:  Cover letter and CV.

 Most didn’t receive a response.  I can understand why.  I was a person who was in her mid-50s.  I had earned tenure as a faculty member at a small liberal arts college.  I then worked as a Dean of Students at more small liberal arts colleges, a large research institution, a law school.   Most asked for my salary.  A US salary is much, much higher than the salary in the countries advertising.  There was no space to make the comment that salary wasn’t important.  I sometimes entered my monthly salary rather than my yearly salary, in hopes no one would notice.

It was at that point that I realized that most Americans teach in China as a gap year, or at the beginning of their teaching careers.   They are young.  They have few ties to anything.  Overseas teaching offered the freshly minted BA student a chance to travel.  It offered the MA or PhD candidate a job.  (These days, jobs in higher education, stateside, are rare. The job market is so abysmal, the options are teach part-time for low pay and no benefits or go abroad and keep teaching credentials fresh while building a publishing record.  But that is a tough road.  Getting back to an American university is hard.  Some, who choose this path become permanent ex-pat teachers.)

That however wasn’t my gig. 

Another meeting.  This time with the ACT group.  ACT is one of the new acronyms devised post-shool-gun violence times.  It is used to identify and problem-solve about threats on campus.  It stands for Assessment and Care Team.  It really is where the complaints go when the librarian’s ex-husband threatens to kill her.  Or a student is dismissed,  Or a student threatens her roommate  Or a teacher makes inappropriate comments to someone.   A report is filed with the ACT and they try to figure out how to keep the campus safe and free from guns.  There is nothing like the anticipation of an Assessment and Care Team meeting to make you look longingly at the map of the world and think, “Surely there must be something else that I can do.”

And then an email came from Jiaotong University.  “We have sent your application on to the English Department and will let you know if it is accepted.”  24 hours later, I received notice: 

“We have accepted your application.  I will begin to apply the work permit for you.  The following is the documents I need:

1. PhD diploma authenticated from the China embassy or consulate in your country.  Keep well the original document.

2.  Certificate of No Criminal Record, which must be authenticated in China embassy or the consulate in your country.  Keep well the original document.

3.  The report of your physical examination:  you must have a physical examination in the hospital or the physical examination center appointed by the China embassy or consulate. I need scan of report of your physical examination.  Keep well the original report.

4.  Document of teaching experience from your employer.

Please let me know where you will apply for your work visa (Z) from China embassy or the consulate in your country.  If from the consulate, please let me know the exact name.  Also photo.

So, there it was.  March 21.  Was this an acceptance letter?  Was it a scam?  Was it a joke?

My calendar beeped, telling me that the ACT meeting was starting.   I responded to the Chinese email. :  “Thank you so much!  I look forward to working with you.  I will begin to gather the documents.”

And that is how it started.

Wendy's place of employment:
Where ACT meetings and HR demos take place.