In the united states, my favorite teachers and professors always said their drive to continue teaching came from their students. They, the educators, formed personal connections with their students and found themselves inspired by them. This passion is what kept them going through the daily grind year after year. Here, it's not like that...at all. First of all, at either middle school, high school, or college level, a teacher would never DREAM of sharing any kind of personal connection with their students. Office hours simply do not exist. Teachers do not give their email addresses to students. They do not fraternize in the hallways.
From the beginnings of primary school, a strict hierarchical code is established between educator and pupil. The teacher is ALWAYS right, and his/her methods are judgement are NEVER to be questioned by the student. I recently noticed something I found unusual in the demeanor of my colleagues. Not only did they dislike the students, they seem to resent them. As one colleague quipped, "well, they think they know everything. They are SO arrogant! Of course they're going to fail their exams". I was quick to point out to her that at 18, in the western world at least, EVERYBODY thinks they know everything. Additionally, I was shocked that it's not the administrations' goal to have the students perform well on the exam. Some students are studying for the BAC PRO, kind of like a professional SAT that is administered at the end of highschool. Others are at the post-BAC level, and they are studying for a test called the BTS, which is a professional qualification in hotel work and cuisine. Now, when I took any form of exam at school, especially the AP exams in high school, my teachers felt they had a responsibility to make sure we performed well. Now, I am certain part of that drive was motivated by the fact that students' scores directly affected the amount of federal funding the school would receive in coming years. Nevertheless, my high school teachers actually seemed to care that we did well on the exam. Not so here. The attitude is very much, "well, its not my problem if you fail the test". So, what I want to know is, what gets these people out of bed in the morning? What makes them come to work? The power trip? Some of them really, seriously, seem to hate their students and detest their job. It makes for slightly awkward and unpleasant work in some classes, for not only do I feel they hate the students, they don't seem to care about the assistantship work I'm doing. Oh, and moreover, another odd thing is that there are NO native speakers (aside from me, I guess) who teach English at the school. What this means is that the English lessons are littered with grammatical and phonetic mistakes. Yet, I am powerless to correct my colleagues. This goes back to the hierarchical system here. I am between the status of a student and a teacher. Therefore, I simply cannot correct my superior, even if she is giving her students a future of horrible English structure. It's insane out here!
