From blackjack to blackboard
Nothing felt less natural to me than standing in front of a class full of students when I first arrived in China. I made a living playing blackjack in the UK, so this was a bit of a career change. Not that the new job description was in itself the source of my discomfort at being the centre of attention: that’s just the way I’m made. These days, however, an ECG would struggle to register so much as a mini-spike when I present myself to a class for the first time.
Perhaps this in part due to the paradoxical sense of anonymity I feel in China, despite often being the only non-Chinese in a room, a street, or a supermarket. Anonymity feels very calming to me. Outside China I think it would have taken longer - if not forever - to establish the same degree of relaxation in the classroom. I attribute the acquisition of this comfort zone to the greater anxiety of my students at the prospect of interacting with a foreigner; if there’s one thing I can empathize with it is verbal paralysis.
As someone who knows exactly what intense classroom anxiety feels like, therefore, I find my own self-consciousness trumped by a desire to relieve the doubts and discomforts of my students. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes these days to dispel the fears of any individual class members and establish a relaxed tone. Once a good rapport is in place the process of learning and the rewards of teaching follow more easily.
Gaining the trust and respect of your students is not enough to be a good teacher, of course. I’ve seen some truly great teachers at work who possess a real gift for imparting knowledge. It is without any vestige of false modesty that I tell you I’m not one of them. At the same time, trust and respect are not insignificant and they have been instrumental in making me more of a counselor than a tutor during the last three years.
Teaching in China is not without its drawbacks and frustrations, about which I will write more in a later post, but in my experience these are outweighed by the positives, chief of which is the affection and respect I receive from my students.