The Red Tide: Taiwan, education and Western liberals

I had lots of great pictures from this protest, and lost all of them. A shame. So I've stolen this from Wikicommons like a scrub and I'm not even sorry. 

On October 10th, 2006, I was sitting in a Starbucks across the street from Taipei Main Station watching an angry wave of red roll by.

I had arrived in Taiwan just one month before, knowing next to nothing about Taiwan but thinking, as young graduates often do, that I knew quite a bit. It went something like this: there were two main parties in the "Republic of China" - the KMT, which I knew about, and the other one, which I didn't. The KMT had been the republicans-in-the-lower-case-sense who had fled from China, establishing themselves in the last vestige of "Free China", which was Taiwan. I hadn't known what Taiwan had been before that, so I assumed it had been Chinese. That must have been accurate, my subconscious surmised, because nobody had corrected me. The KMT had helped to develop the island into an industrialized and prosperous nation, eventually granting the people democracy. About a third of Taiwanese supported "reunification", a third independence, and a third were undecided. The language of Taiwan was Mandarin Chinese, and the people were Chinese. Chiang Kai-shek had been "corrupt", which was unfortunate, but he was much better than Mao Zedong. Because they had fled China, the KMT obviously did not support "reunification", which even then I did not think was a good idea. I didn't know about the other party. The current president was Chen Shui-bian, who was that other party, and who was pretty bad because he'd stolen some money, so the protesters were probably right. I knew that cross-Strait relations was "a complex issue" but ultimately, as the people of Taiwan had no consensus despite having democratized and having no other impediment, the current status quo was in everyone's best interest.

Pretty clear, right? Wow, I sure did know a lot! Practically a PhD-level expert, that was me. Just hand me my diploma.

I considered myself a good liberal: educated, well-traveled, thoughtful, engaged - a reader, talker and thinker. I cared about egalitarianism, justice, freedom and democracy, and simply doing the right thing even if it is to your detriment. I considered myself open-minded. I was secure both in my liberalism and my opinions and knowledge on Taiwan.

After all, this is what I had been taught. This was the entirety of the history of Taiwan that I had learned in my high school Social Studies class, crammed in at the end of a long unit on China. This was the version of history I defended to my teenage students in China when the subject came up. Nobody mentioned Taiwan in college, even though I'd studied International Affairs with a concentration in Asia. My main focus was South Asia, but that was still no excuse. I hadn't thought anything of it at the time, because it hadn't occurred to me that it might be important.

I had taken one course focusing on China in college - Chinese Culture Through Film. The professor was a lovely woman who had studied in Taiwan, but "had actually wanted to go to the Mainland". At the time, China had been closed to visitors, but she "had a Mao suit" that she "wore all the time", and thought of her professors in Taiwan as "doughy, soft capitalists."

While there might have been a thread of bitter irony in there, a knowledge that her earlier belief in the greatness of Mao's socialism had been misguided - to put it kindly - I hadn't picked up on it. I hadn't been to China yet but I felt a wave of sympathy for this viewpoint, because I assumed, being the larger country, that China was "more interesting" and Taiwan a backwater - of course someone would prefer to go to China.

This was what I knew about Taiwan. Therefore, this was all there was to know about Taiwan.

I'd come primarily because, after a lackluster year in China, I thought I'd give the place a try. I figured I'd probably leave in 2-3 years.

So I sat there as an incoming tide of vermilion-shirted marchers engulfed the street, flooding in to the Starbucks, banging drums, shouting for the president to step down, and generally making much merrier than you'd expect at an American protest.

The person I'd planned to meet so we could check out the action together didn't show, so I talked to a few other people there: protesters and regular coffee-drinkers alike about the Red Shirts and Taiwan in general. I don't remember many of the details of that conversation, but I do remember thinking that nothing I was told fit with the paradigm of Taiwanese affairs I'd believed. So these guys were KMT? No, not all of them, but most. So they were the other party? Some of them. So, if Chen's the bad guy, his party is the problematic one, yes? Hmm - in some ways, but not others. If the KMT gave Taiwan democracy, why does he hate them so much? Well...

Why do they hate him?
Well...

Wait, so these protesters support "reunification"?
No. Not necessarily. Actually, probably not.

That's the other party?
DEFINITELY not.

It wasn't just a different perspective - it didn't have a place at all. It was like trying to run an iPhone app on an old HTC. It made as much sense as coffee with salt or English on a night market t-shirt when one speaks coherent English.

Later, as I picked my way through the vermilion detritus washed up on the sidewalks - little did I know that protesters diligently cleaning up after themselves would become a feature of future Taiwanese social movements, the leaders of which were still in high school or starting college in 2006 - I thought one thing:

I didn't know much about Taiwan at all, and it was time I started really learning.

My name is Jenna Cody. I am a Typical American Liberal, and that is my origin story.

* * *

It's 2017 now. I still read quite a bit on Taiwan. I differ from the typical American liberal in that I've lived abroad for most of my adult life, and in that I am deeply pro-Taiwan: almost everything I thought I knew when I first arrived I have either found to be wrong, partially wrong, or far more complicated than it at first seemed. What might have been correct is now hopelessly out-of-date.

While not anti-China, I see no good argument for trusting the Communists, nor any argument for "unification" when the Taiwanese clearly don't want it, and generally don't identify primarily as Chinese at all. I hang with cool people - real, bona fide experts, advocates and activists - who know things. I've learned a lot, though I wouldn't call myself an expert.

Most Taiwan supporters I know here are liberals by American standards, although our most visible influential allies in the US are conservatives, often right-wing ones at that. This bothers me for a few reasons, the first of which being that the future of Taiwan is a fundamentally progressive one. How could it be otherwise when Taiwan, to cite just one example, will be the first country in Asia to implement marriage equality? I am not sure that social conservatives are the best allies to a country which, on many (though not all) important issues, would be more likely to side with the American left. Beyond that, I worry that their support of Taiwan is more often than not related more to a fear or dislike of China than any real pro-Taiwan sentiment. And, of course, the very idea of preserving the sovereignty of a self-ruled free democracy is fundamentally liberal.

I am not the first to wonder why it is that the American right has taken up the Taiwan cause, whereas the average American liberal, if they take note of the issue at all, either doesn't think it is particularly important or is more actively pro-China than you'd expect.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the pro-Taiwan community, how to talk to American liberals about Taiwan is a core issue. Many of us are mystified as to why a pro-Taiwan stance is not immediately recognized as a liberal one: a sovereign nation, a vibrant and engaged democracy in which civil discourse is taken seriously, freedom of expression, national health insurance and recycling as much as possible are so normal that they're taken for granted, human rights are considered fundamental and both women's and LGBT rights have made great strides, the people are committed to peace and think of the US as an important ally rather than a hegemonic threat.

Taiwan is not perfect, but how is this not every liberal's dream?

Not only is Taiwan democratic and free, but it is standing up against everything liberals hate. Just over a hundred miles away, a brutal authoritarian regime regularly violates human rights, torturing and murdering its own people, restricting basic freedoms and acting increasingly expansionist - both in terms of territorial grabbiness, but also intellectually, trying to control the marketplace of ideas not only at home, but abroad.

Every single day - I cannot say this enough - the Taiwanese people wake up and go about their lives, building their country and making it better, refusing to give up or give in, despite a catastrophe-creating number of missiles pointed right at them. And not only do they refuse to surrender their land and their freedom, but they are committed to solving the problem peacefully. This is the very definition of not only liberalism, but also courage. This is probably the single most heart-rending reason why I stay: I could make more money elsewhere, but I believe in Taiwan.

And yet, for whatever reason, liberals who balk at Russia's expansionism and (now, at least) sympathize with the Palestinians couldn't care less about Taiwan. It makes no difference to them that the thickest, richest, freest democracy in Asia is in real danger of being swallowed up by one of the most horrific dictatorships of our lifetime.

I am not the first person to observe this: both Ketagalan Media and J. Michael Cole have covered this issue extensively.

However, nobody yet seems to have publicly asked the question that could lead to an answer:

Why?

Why don't liberals care about Taiwan - or worse, why are some actively anti-Taiwan? Why is the best writing on Taiwan often found in conservative news sources, and why do liberals start explaining away their apathy whenever Taiwan is brought up?

If we are going to solve the issue of how to talk to American liberals about Taiwan, first we need to know why they don't care to begin with.

I am not an expert, and I don't claim to have a final answer. I can, however, start the conversation. Once we know why, we can formulate solutions.

I tried to write this in a longer post and got bogged down in how much there was to say, so I've decided to split it up into several posts, and I honestly have no idea when it will be finished.

For now, I want to talk about one of the roots of the problem: education.

It isn't surprising that the average Westerner either doesn't care or has inaccurate knowledge about Taiwan when what they are taught is essentially a condensed version of tired KMT talking points. Although my own teacher was careful to note that Chiang Kai-shek was no saint, the KMT as a whole comes out looking rather spiffy in this whole narrative.

It's also not shocking that people assume that China is speaking the truth when they say that annexing China is "reunification" if one's education only covers Taiwan post-1949, heavily implying that before that date, Taiwan and China had always been united. It borders on a lie of omission, and I'd make a solid bet that the average high school Social Studies teacher (and perhaps a few professors who didn't study the region) actually believes that this was the case, or simply hasn't considered the issue long enough to know that it is an issue at all.

It's easy to think that the two sides both see themselves as "China" when that's how it is taught. To be fair, it was the official view of the two governments for some time - the issue is that the few sentences it would take to point out that the official position of the Republic of China does not reflect the view of the people aren't added to this. It's not a big leap to make the argument that nothing can change because both countries use "China" in their official name, and to therefore think that "reunification" either wouldn't be so bad, or that accomplishing it peacefully is possible.

All sorts of nebulous beliefs might form from the mind of a well-meaning liberal with this kind of education: that there was a meaningful "split" in 1949, and that that split was between "Taiwan and China" rather than "the PRC and the ROC". That the KMT is doing the right thing by pursuing closer ties, because after all they brought about successful democratization in Taiwan. That the DPP, considering this history, are the real "troublemakers" by being so "anti-China" (if one even knows who they are). That "one country two systems" is a strong and workable solution.

And most insidiously, that the Taiwanese, being "from China", speaking Chinese, having "the same history" as China and considering themselves "Chinese" would happily "reunite" with China if only China would liberalize and democratize. The very idea that this will never happen and no amount of liberalization on the part of China will change Taiwan's desire for de jure sovereignty, that there was never and will never be a "One China"  that includes Taiwan, is nearly heresy after a curriculum that hits these points.

If you believe that, then it's easy to jump to believing that the US not only has no moral obligation to stand by Taiwan, but that in fact should actively stand down. That it's better for everyone involved - including the Taiwanese if they are considered at all - if "reunification" happens.

So, perhaps as an adult with such an education, you read about the Tsai-Trump phone call. You are predisposed to thinking the party that "advocates independence" is a troublemaker, and as a good liberal you hate Trump, so of course you are upset. Of course Taiwan is the problem.

You might read about Tsai refusing to acknowledge the "1992 Consensus", which the reporter treats as a real consensus that was made and is valid. Being a good, educated liberal, you Google it to find out what it is. As you've always believed that the two sides considered themselves "China", it's not hard to believe that of course they'd agree on "One China", perhaps "with different interpretations." Through that lens, Tsai's refusal to acknowledge this looks like troublemaking rather than an attempt to correct the narrative.

You certainly don't question what you read in the media, because the media hits all of the points that match up with what you've been taught. This confirmation strikes you as plausible and persuasive. As a good liberal, you tend to believe what people say if it lines up with your education. Insisting that the world is different from what teachers teach and textbooks say - and the media you trust confirms - makes you sound like...my god, a right-winger or worse, a Trump supporter. Heavens no!

Let's take this further - not only is the average liberal reader the beneficiary of this kind of education, if they even got that much, but the reporters who wrote the story were too. They can't write better articles, because they genuinely don't know better. They check their facts perhaps with a think tank or simply looking it up, and come across other references to things like "the 1992 Consensus", again from people who don't necessarily know the whole story themselves. The information validates itself in a feedback loop of inaccuracy that nevertheless comforts everyone in it, from teacher to reporter to reader.

Of course, mileage varies. I have friends who have no connection to Taiwan beyond me who know a fair amount about the issue - they're perhaps aware of the web of assurances and communiques that the decaying shanty that is today's US foreign policy on Taiwan is glued together with. Even they tend not to see why the status quo is a long-term problem for Taiwan, or why "economic cooperation" with China is never only economic cooperation.  On the other end, I've met well-meaning educated liberals who genuinely did not think Taiwan was democratic, or even believed that it was already part of China, in a similar position as Hong Kong.

I realize that I'm speaking from experiences I had in school in the 1990s and early 2000s, but honestly, to hear young Westerners today, I'm not sure much has changed.

I know that Taiwan is not likely to get more time in Western educational curricula, but perhaps it doesn't need it, especially in high school. In my school, we spent about as much time on it as we did Australia, and perhaps more than we did on New Zealand. Australia and Taiwan have a similar population, so that's all that can be expected.

However, the time it is given really must be better used. Unwittingly treating Taiwan like nothing more an extension of the KMT regime, before which nothing that happened there mattered, heavily implying that it has always been Chinese is simply not good enough, and is a huge part of why we struggle to gain liberal support now.

It seems simple to say that teachers simply need to teach the truth - a mention of aboriginal settlement, the truth of Qing colonialism, Japanese colonialism (that in my education this was skipped over completely astounds me even today), a bit more time exploring KMT brutality in Taiwan, and a bit less on China's views of Taiwan which can honestly be summed up in one sentence. A few minutes explaining that the current status of Taiwan under international law is undetermined, and what the US's actual Taiwan policy is. A treatment of the views of the people of Taiwan that...well, that take into account their views at all to begin with, and is also accurate. Not using the term "reunification". Making it clear that the Taiwanese are so against unification not because they're just garrulous or quarrelsome, but because their history really is unique. Less time comparing Chiang to Mao, and more on these other issues. You could do it in the same timeframe.

Of course, it's not that simple. Schoolteachers are not omniscient in their subjects. History or Social Studies teachers won't necessarily know these details themselves, and we honestly can't expect that they will. I would probably make an excellent history or Social Studies teacher, and I don't pretend to be an expert in every territorial conflict around the world. I'm not nearly an expert in Abkhazia or South Ossetia - though I can tell you some - and I have been to Georgia. Recently. 
In universities, however, we really do have to do better. We have to stop assuming that someone studying China is equally qualified to teach or talk about Taiwan. Professors who teach Taiwan-related topics should know what they're talking about. We absolutely must fight Chinese influence in non-Chinese institutions of higher education. This is absolutely not too much to ask. Universities can and must do better.

This must go hand-in-hand with looking squarely in the face of what the Chinese government is and how it operates, and teaching that truth. No more tiptoeing around out of fear of being called "racist" (racism, while a real problem, is not the problem here), no more downplaying Chinese human rights abuses and propaganda and other United Front efforts abroad, making the place seem like a liberal's wet dream of socialism, "ethnic food" and adorable pandas. We can't tell the truth about Taiwan until we tell the truth about China.

With China actively trying to peddle its version of history in Western institutions of higher education, this problem is especially intractable. They're pushing their own red tide on the world, and the problem is, people are swallowing it. How are we to target CPD or the textbooks and other materials when the major textbook manufacturers probably aren't that interested (and themselves may have received just this education), and there is a lobby of pro-China activists who will fight us at every turn and - because those listening to our debate also received this education - are just as likely to think we're the zealots and nutjobs with a weak grasp of the facts, not them.

There are other things we can do, however. Right now, a typical liberal belief is that unity is always better, and that 'nationalism' is generally undesirable. Even too much patriotism is viewed with a bit of suspicion - frankly, rightly so. Nationalism is often assumed to be ethnic nationalism - always a bad thing (and yes, I happen to agree with this) and complexity in the debate of unity vs. separation is often ignored. The idea that one might desire sovereignty for one's nation without it being about ethnicity - which, in Taiwan's case, it isn't - doesn't get much play in educational institutions, and the idea that more unity is not always in everyone's best interest (especially when one of the actors in the scenario has insidious intentions or is blatantly expansionist, as China does and is) is given none at all. Even the idea that the United Nations might be failing in some regards doesn't seem to be a point of discussion in the average classroom.

If we can flip on its head the liberal assumptions that unity is always the best decision for all involved, and that nationalism is inherently ethnic and therefore bad, we might just get enough people thinking about Taiwan in a different way, which could lead to a bigger change.

Maybe I'm hopelessly optimistic, but I have to think something will work.

Looking back on the journey I took from thinking I knew everything to actually knowing some things and knowing that there is so much more I have to learn, I realize that it didn't just come. I had to dig. If all I'd done was read media I trusted and compare that against Wikipedia and the education I'd received, I'd still be here defending, say, the KMT's development policy as the real force behind the Taiwan Miracle (hey, some poorly-informed people still do. Even when they're in graduate school). I might still think the 1992 Consensus was a real thing that had been agreed upon. I might accept without question that Taiwan was fully a part of China for the entirety of the Qing dynasty's possession of it, which I might still assume entailed controlling the entire island.

Occasionally, someone will assume that I was 'indoctrinated' into being so staunchly pro-independence through having 'the wrong kind' of friends. In fact, I came to this on my own after a fair amount of reading and simply living here, seeing for myself what Taiwan was about. I keep the company I do because of the way my beliefs have evolved, not the other way around.

Once or twice, it has been insinuated that I feel this way because "anti-China", "China-hating" or "sinophobe" forces in the West use Western educational curricula to inculcate a fear of China into students like me (I can't think of anything more ridiculous - if anything, Western education is too lenient on modern China and mostly wrong about Taiwan).

In fact, I'd say that if someone had the experience I did, sitting in that Starbucks watching a scarlet tsunami of something they could not at all fit into their pre-set notion of what the world was like, and they'd set out to do something about that, they'd probably end up in more or less the same place I have. Especially if they stuck around.

Really learning about this topic is difficult, not only because Taiwan isn't on the radar of most Westerners, but because both China and the KMT are actively trying to muddy the waters, making clear truths more controversial than they ever needed to be, so that even a reader like me can be accused of having been "brainwashed".

I got out of this miasma of inaccurate learning by living here and really digging. The average Western liberal will never live here, or even visit. While they have the critical tools to dig, they probably won't, not because they refuse to think but because they never even realized there was something to dig for - and, frankly, nobody has the time to be well-read in everything. I can't expect of others what I cannot accomplish myself regarding other parts of the world.

Even if someone does dig, there is so much inaccurate information out there that, after awhile, even the most well-meaning person might start to believe it. That's where fighting inaccuracy in media reporting comes in, which will be the subject of my next post on this topic - whenever that is.

In defense of private institute English teaching

Let me make this clear in the beginning: I'm playing devil's advocate here. I have a lot (no really, a lot) of criticisms of the private teaching market, which in Taiwan usually consist of cram schools/buxibans. I wouldn't call working for them a good work situation generally, and if you do so, you lose a lot of the perks of being a teacher. No one-month-salary annual bonuses, no paid summers off, no access to the pension program, few salaried positions available, and very little job security when most of us are on zero-hour contracts. It is possible to get a job as a nobody with no experience, qualification, training or even relevant volunteer experience, and be thrown into work without adequate training.

The work doesn't pay nearly as well as people seem to think it does - better than more traditional teaching in Taiwan (but not necessarily elsewhere) at both public schools and universities, and better than the average twentysomething office worker, but not nearly on par with credentialed mid-career professionals in other fields. Work hours tend to be long and scattered, and you teach a lot because you need to in order to earn enough money. That gives you much less time to put care into planning lessons, let alone doing research, action research, writing, reading, giving or attending workshops or doing all of the other things I associate with a professional teaching career. Everyone encourages their teachers to seek professional development and certification, but nobody is willing to sponsor it.

And, ethically, a lot of the cram schools here, and around the world, treat their teachers like migrant laborers or are just straight-up racist or the worst kind of neoliberal "we can take what we want from you and offer you as little as possible in return" employers.

I can't say I'm "happy" with the way this industry is run nor with what those who work in it get for their efforts.

However, after spending a month among other experienced English teachers from different contexts around the world, I do have a few things I can say in defense of working in a language institute.

One more caveat before I begin: these advantages only seem to accrue to those who have accumulated experience and often credentials, and in Taiwan are often easier to come by if you stay long enough to get permanent residency. They do not necessarily apply to all new teachers.

First of all, it's easier to get uninterrupted vacation time, although that time is almost always unpaid. Many of my classmates had to fly back (I suspect at their own expense) for work-related duties at their schools partway through the program and miss a week of classes - nobody would ever ask me to do that. If I say I need a block of time off, I get it as long as I request it reasonably far enough in advance, with no "but you have to come back for these specific three days to do this specific thing" in the middle of your six weeks off" nonsense. Other than being expected to show up for class, nobody calls me up and says "you must be here for this, this and that" or "you have to do these things". I essentially have no single boss or manager.

It also means I get as much vacation time as I want, which is very useful on a Master's program and was also useful in the aftermath of my mother's illness and passing, and my dad's heart surgery less than a year later. In late 2014 I told my employers and private students that my absence would be indefinite, and that was fine. I had work to return to five months later when my family issues were more stable. When I needed to take off again just a few months later for my dad's surgery, that was fine too. When I finished the Delta, I told them to hold off on all new classes until I was done, and they did. When I decided to do this Master's program, I said I'd need a few months off over the summer and that was fine. I had free reign to choose the dates and arrange things as I pleased. If I had the money and wanted to take a year off to just do whatever, I could, and I'd still have a good chance at having work offered to me when I was ready.

And unlike many teachers, this leave is not limited to school breaks. My mom's situation started getting really serious in late autumn 2014, long before any school break. You can't plan major family upheavals for summer vacation. They happen when they happen.

The fact that this time is unpaid actually works in my favor: when you have paid leave, of course the leave you get is limited. In Taiwan that could be as little as seven days (which I think is cruel, actually), in the US perhaps two weeks, in Europe five weeks. But ultimately, there is a limit. I have no limit, as long as I have the money to finance it.

On the other side, a lot of my classmates have paid leave and don't have to go in - they have months and months of free time with a salary coming in. Some of them are taking off to just hang out in Europe for awhile, which you can do when you're being paid an expat salary in the Middle East but your university is on break (although, again, you don't get to choose when that break is). It would be great to be able to afford that, but I ultimately can't. I could move to the Middle East - there would be work for me and the pay is stupendous - but I put up with the crappy parts of working in Taiwan like the low pay and scattered hours because I want to be in Taiwan.

A second advantage is the lack of administrative hassle. I have no real administrative duties - I don't have to show up for many meetings, I don't have to do reams of paperwork, I don't have to grade heaps of tests (my IELTS classes have tests, but class sizes are kept low so it's not an onerous task). I don't have to sit in on department meetings, nor do I have to spend time doing extra activities like running a drama club or English Corner (which I'd happily do if I were paid for the extra work, but of course we never are, so I won't do them). I may only get paid for the hours I teach - with the expectation that the pay for them covers lesson planning time, though I'm not convinced it does - but I don't have a lot I have to do outside of those hours beyond planning classes.

I also appreciate that, not working in a big institution, I am not pushed into a testing culture I don't support. I don't have to teach to a test - I help prepare some learners for IELTS, but that's not the same thing - and I don't have to teach towards a test that I think has deep validity issues. I don't need to test my private students at all, nor my business students: some form of direct test of the skills we work on (e.g. giving a presentation in a presentation skills class) serves as adequate assessment for final reports. Even my IELTS students' mock tests don't count for anything other than as a way to check their skills against the demands of the test they will ultimately take. It's just not an issue I have to contend with, so I am free to adopt other methods of assessment, and feedback comes not in the form of grades but real feedback in evaluation reports and conferences. It's actually a really lovely advantage to have and a low-stress, high-efficacy way to teach in a more holistic and meaningful way.

Of course, that's my situation - I'm sure at other cram schools there are tests, and the teachers may not care for those tests, trust the results or particularly care to give them.

Although this is not true in all private teaching contexts, I really appreciate that there's no administration breathing down my neck telling me I have to do certain things in class, not all of which I'd be likely to agree are necessary, nor telling me how I must teach. I have a classmate whose administration is insistent that there be no L1 in the classroom, even though current thinking is that limited use of L1 has a place there. This is despite inviting four-star names in the TEFL world to give workshops to teachers there, who reaffirm that L1 can be put to good use in the classroom. It's "not their policy" so teachers are instructed to ignore all of that.

Nobody would dare tell me how I must teach in a similar way. Back when I worked at a chain school in Taiwan they did to some extent, but as I've moved on to take classes at better schools, I am free to implement a teaching style that aligns with my principles as I see fit with nobody looking over my shoulder or breathing down my neck. I even have a good level of freedom over the coursebooks I use, and when they are assigned, total freedom over how I use them.

Another point worth mentioning is that, at least in Taiwan, I do make more money in the private system than I would in the formal education system (unless I were to work at an international school). The gap is not as big as you might imagine, as I don't get any of the perks - annual bonus, paid summers off, a pension program - but the take-home pay for my work is still somewhat higher. People associate cram schools with low pay, but honestly, the public schools and universities, while they offer stable pay, offer less than what I currently earn. The highest figures I've seen outside the international schools are in the NT$70,000/month range, and to be frank, I find that low. And compared to wages in other parts of the world (Japan, Korea, the Middle East) it is quite low indeed. Nobody stays in Taiwan for the great salaries.

And for that better pay, I also seem to always have more free time. I almost certainly teach more in-class hours, but the lack of administrative and other work required of me means that my peers in the formal education system seem to put in longer hours.

Of course, these advantages don't accrue to every teacher in the private language school game, and newer teachers especially are more likely to find themselves in schools that have a set curriculum and way of teaching, with all of the associated tests and administrative duties, and are likely to be trained to teach in that specific way (on the other hand. newer teachers are less likely to have teaching principles formed over a long period of experience and training that they are loathe to set aside).

It is worth noting, though, that not all cram schools are created equal. In Taiwan, not everyone is a third-rate chain school or one-off with a silly name like "Mickey Bear America Funtime English ABC School" or for adults, "Oxbridge Scholar's Engrish Acadamy". The two places I take classes with are both classified for business purposes as "buxibans", but they are run more professionally than one generally , as educational institutions that, while private, are managed by people who actually care about the education they are providing. There really are better places one can work for, it's not all chum.

In short, it's not all bad. People wonder why, after seeking out all of this training and development and being easily qualified to teach in a more formal setting, why I am still teaching for hourly pay. I am not entirely in the cram school system as I take classes where I please and have my own private students, but the structure of what I do isn't all that different.

I do it because of the freedom to teach how I like, the freedom from tests and administrative work, the freedom from limits on my time off, and freedom from a school bureaucracy telling me how to do things.

Perhaps someday I'll move on and work for a university or international school (I can't imagine working with learners younger than high-school age) or more formal educational institution, but if/when I do, along with the advantages (paid summers off! A more 'prestige' job description! Perhaps time to research and publish!), I'll also be acutely aware of what I'm losing.

Taiwan doesn't value professional educators, or, why I'm still pissed at the government

Yes, I know that sounds like a giant duh headline, something we all know. But bear with me, please. 

Earlier today, I got a message from a student thanking me for helping bring his IELTS score to the level he'd need to go abroad, a fairly dramatic improvement for what was a short class (this is not typical; it usually happens when a student has the language level needed but needs guidance as to how the test works and how the productive skills sections are assessed). Another student let me know recently that she also got the score she needs, and will be attending a top school in the UK. These are young people who are Taiwan's brightest lights and future leaders - in the two examples above, they'll be going to some of the best schools in the world and studying in a science faculty.

It felt great, but it also hit me: this is why I'm angry about the new dual citizenship qualifications in Taiwan on such a personal level.

I have worked hard to be the sort of teacher who can bring about that kind of improvement, or at least identify where longer-term study needs to be focused. I've put myself through CELTA (not a big deal certification-wise but it was a huge commitment to leave Taiwan for a month to get it done, as no course is offered here), Delta (which is a much bigger deal and a real professional qualification), received other useful training - there is a reason why I can't be specific - and I'm about to start a Master's program in the field. After that, I might go on to a PhD, or I might get a teaching license if I want to work in an international school. I might do both. 

This is in addition to getting results in the classroom while still building rapport with students, and a decade of experience doing it.

Nobody can say that I haven't done my time professionally. I've neither over-relied on experience without a training foundation nor leaned too much on credentials. In any other field, including education focusing on any other subject, few would dare to imply that what I do is not professional.

And yet, this is exactly the message the government is sending with dual nationality regulations that seem designed to keep English teachers out, to differentiate them from everyone else as some sort of lesser labor.

I won't deny that a lot of English teaching jobs are like this. Many are just fancy daycare, where the purpose is to provide a place for kids to go after school so Mom and Dad can work insane amounts of overtime. A lot of teachers really are not qualified, either - and I don't just mean through lack of credentialing, I mean through lack of meaningful training or improvement. I would like to see this change, while still providing a place in the industry for new potential talent to find work (and I'd like to turn the majority of the industry into something worthwhile and respected enough that true talent is more likely to stick around).

The problem is that the new laws, essentially, say that we all work at fancy daycare. That none of the work many of us put into professional development - essentially what makes us real professionals - matters. That not only could we be replaced by 22-year-old Whiteguy McBackpacker, but that if we were, performance would be essentially the same. That working for a university teaching 65-person "conversational English classes" (if you're wondering how one teaches conversational English to 65 people at once, the answer is that one doesn't) is more valuable than working one-on-one or with small group classes to bring about real improvement that has real world effects. Effects like, oh, I don't know, ensuring a business presentation goes well enough that it plays a tiny part in keeping the economy humming. That one of Taiwan's potentially great future scientists gets to go to Oxford. In ensuring a speech delivered abroad makes Taiwan more visible to the world. 

They lay bare what Taiwan (the government, but also many people) think about English teachers: that we're useful but our job is not meaningful, that those of us with professional qualifications don't have serious qualifications, that it doesn't matter, any unqualified person could do our job, because all English teaching work is essentially unskilled, undifferentiated labor. That they think we don't do real work at a real professional level. They make it clear that the government, and many people, really do believe one native speaker is as good as another, and any native speaker is better than a local (this is, of course, not true).

This is why I've asked you to bear with me: most people make this argument in terms of wages or jobs. They say improving yourself through training and meaningful experience won't get you a raise, and most jobs aren't worth it. They're right that most jobs in Taiwan aren't worth the effort, but not all jobs are created equal. People saying this generally have not worked to get to a higher level themselves, and are thus not aware that there is a whole level of better jobs available if you just make an effort to be a professional. My argument is different: I might complain that wages are stagnant and there are deep issues in TEFL in Taiwan that need to be addressed, but I do essentially believe that if you work towards professionalism in ELT, the industry will reward you somewhat. You will find better-paid jobs with better employers. To some extent, ELT takes seriously those who take it seriously. My issue is with the government essentially turning a blind eye to this, paving the way for so many everyday citizens to do so, as well.

I find intrinsic meaning and professionalism in my work and don't need the Taiwanese government or people to take it seriously for me to do so. That's important; I need that if I'm even going to carry on. I do truly believe my work is meaningful. I won't even hedge that with a sentence header expressing a personal opinion. My work is meaningful.

It seems clear to me that Taiwan would be a stronger country if everyone who was committed to this nation - from blue-collar workers to the folks mopping up kids' pee at Hess to me to a tech worker somewhere - had a path to citizenship. I do not mean to imply that I deserve one but others don't. The purpose here is to point out a problematic attitude held by the government and many people here.

Of course, this issue is not limited to Taiwan, and finding intrinsic meaning in what I do is important.

But it still stings, y'know?

Those "letters of agreement" Taiwanese universities signed are scarier than you think

The caption reads "Chinese hearts are easily broken" - it can also be read as "Handle Fragile Chinese Hearts With Care"

Update: apparently the number of schools who signed these letters is "at least half" of the originally reported 157. Here's a link to an updated article. 

I just want to make a quick comment on the story that at least 80 or so universities in Taiwan have signed "letters of agreement" that students from China would not be exposed in class to certain areas of political discussion (namely, Taiwanese independence or sovereignty, or anything that might challenge the idea of "One China").

The agreements don't seem to have had any impact on what is actually taught in classes (from at least one account, orders are not handed down to the actual educators regarding what they may and may not cover in class and these issues are discussed), and seem at this point to be mainly intended to smooth the process for Chinese students coming to Taiwan.

I'd argue, though, that this doesn't mean they are a non-issue.

Chinese universities are hardly independent academic entities with the full range of academic freedoms one can reasonably expect in free societies. I am not an expert, and so do not know the exact extent to which individual universities are beholden to, or take orders from, the Chinese government, but I believe I can safely assume that they are all beholden to some extent, and take orders to some extent - more likely than not, to a great extent.

If, then, the letters are indeed 'pro forma', it is because nobody in China is insisting they be enforced. I don't see it as being a strategy far removed from "we'll send Chinese tourists": sure, they'll send Chinese tourists, until it is strategically convenient for them not to do so anymore. That move backfired (ha ha) but we all know it was the intended strategy. Those who relied on Chinese tourism complained as predicted, and "Taiwan's economy hit hard! Cross-strait tensions!!!!" became a bigger issue than it ever ought to have been, had the whole truth been reported rather than simply the loudest voices.

In this case, is it too hard to imagine that these letters are being asked for, and yet compliance not insisted on, for now - but that once it is strategically convenient to do so, that could easily change?

What happens when there are enough Chinese students in Taiwan, or at any given university that can be reliably expected to complain, that immediately cutting off new enrollments could serve as a threat, or be otherwise beneficial to China, the next time the people of Taiwan vote in a way China doesn't like, or the government they've elected doesn't adopt the supplicant position China demands? It seems clear to me the government could do that, and their own universities would comply.

Then it turns into headlines around the world: "Taiwanese universities suffering as China cuts off student programs", which lead to articles about how this is hurting Taiwan, which lead to piss-poor punditry about how Taiwan, by being a 'troublemaker' rather than taking the most conciliatory stance possible, is causing its own problems and creating 'tensions' across the strait. It never seems to matter that China is usually the one taking the actions and making the threats.

Indeed, bent-over, cheeks agape appears to be the only position many around the world feel Taiwan is allowed to reasonably take vis-a-vis China - often from people who in any other context talk real big about freedom, democracy and respect for sovereignty.

This would be worse than the tourism strategy, however, because Taiwan does have too many universities and, rather than allowing them to close without complaint, they actually will suffer when Chinese students are recalled or new enrollments ceased because China has found it strategically convenient to suddenly insist on the enforcement of these agreements. And they will complain, and it will make the news, and people will call Taiwan the 'troublemaker', wash, rinse, repeat.

Meanwhile every other country gets to more reasonably debate what growing Chinese influence means for academic freedom in their country. Everyone else gets to talk about how China's actions globally - most clearly revealed by the actions of Confucius Institutes worldwide - are part of a strategy to dominate the narrative about China, and truth in general.

Some universities may feel the pressure to comply, and, if this practice continues now that it's been brought into the public eye, we will have no idea which ones they will be. Academic freedom will be threatened, and students from Taiwan (as far as I am aware no class is made up entirely of students from China - even if one is, China has no right to insist that a university abroad educate them in a certain way) will also be shorted. China wins either way: the universities comply and education in Taiwan becomes influenced by Chinese censorship, or they don't and a bunch of bullshit articles are spawned that make it look as though Taiwan is the problem.

This is one reason why I get so annoyed with the "but any warming relations with China are good! It's always great for us to have good relations with China!" crowd. No, it's not, because every single thing the Chinese government does towards Taiwan that appears conciliatory is meant to advance their end goal of annexing Taiwan. No exceptions. The tourists, the students, the trade deals, the investment, all of it - is aimed directly at eating away at Taiwanese sovereignty and creating a vortex of integration that they hope will eventually push Taiwan over a critical event horizon.

In truth, this is their strategy around the world - it's not even that subtle! - but with the less critical aim of controlling the world narrative. With Taiwan they want both to control the narrative and to succeed in their goal of territorial expansion. In other countries it's a problem to be discussed, a peripheral concern to be addressed. In Taiwan it's critical to address for the very survival of the nation. Many countries do this - the US tries to promote its own narrative as well - but again, in the case of Taiwan, its own continued existence is at stake.

So, perhaps this sounds like a crazy-ass conspiracy theory - the Chinese are always out to get us. But it's quite plausible, it's in line with their actions toward Taiwan in the past, it's in line with their actual stated goal (it's not like they hide it!) of annexing Taiwan, and it makes perfect sense in the context of how universities and academic freedom operate in China.

These letters may seem like pro-forma non-issues now, but, even if you call me crazy, I truly do not believe that if they continue to be signed that they will remain a non-issue. This does not mean that I have a problem with Chinese students in Taiwan - I would like to see them here, and be exposed to Taiwan, the successes of Taiwanese freedom and democracy, and what true academic freedom means. I have no problem with them, and in at least one of my work capacities I engage with them frequently. With very few exceptions, I have never had a problem or complaint. This is not about the students.

However, I cannot stress enough that agreements like this are not an acceptable pre-condition for those exchanges to happen, and that the Chinese government will certainly attempt to use its flow of students abroad to further their political agenda.

I am really sick of those Nazi re-enactment kids

There is a reason this was OK but the high school students' Nazi re-enactment was not
From here

...and yet here I am writing about them. 

Make no mistake, however, I am sick of them. I just don't want to hear about it anymore, and I won't write about them again.

I'm not going to get into the "but their freedom of speech!" retort because it's intellectually shallow. These kids have freedom of speech - they have not faced and will not face criminal charges for this. Freedom of speech never gave anyone the right to freedom from criticism or backlash from the public regarding what they've expressed.

I'm also not going to get into "why is it so taboo?" It's not taboo. Movies and even war re-enactors re-enact painful scenes from history, including the horrors of Nazism, fairly frequently. If the subject matter is handled sensitively then there's generally not a problem with it. The issue here is that it did not meet that standard. This is true for historical re-enactments of all sorts for a variety of purposes.

Remember how we all watched a re-enactment of executions under the White Terror during President Tsai's inauguration? Remember how, while people remarked on it, there wasn't this kind of critical backlash? Because the re-enactment had value: learning value, historical value, emotional value. Nobody (well, nobody with any sense) thinks that such re-enactments should be forbidden or are all in bad taste, no matter what. It's how the events are handled when acted out, and why the re-enactment is staged in the first place, that matters. (Edited to add: not everyone thinks that the re-enactments in the inaugural play were handled well - I too have some criticism of them, but overall do feel they had historical value if, perhaps, it was not portrayed as accurately as it could be).

Also on the trash heap: "well they don't know that much about WWII. The evils of Nazism haven't been ingrained in them the way they have in us". Sure, but there's no excuse for that. Just as we Westerners could stand a more comprehensive approach to Asian history - from the horrors of Mao to the White Terror to Pol Pot, Japanese imperialism and beyond - this should be better taught in Asian schools. In fact, even in Asia these subjects don't always seem to be fully understood: why is it that Chiang Kai-shek and Chairman Mao bobblehead toys can be purchased in half the gift shops of Taiwan? What is the purpose of making two brutal dictators adorable?

And yet another one for the dumptruck: "people do lots of worse things, Americans can be just as insensitive!" Yup. Thinking of all the idealistic young Westerners a generation ago who wore Mao suits to be "cool" (or worse, because they actually bought what Mao was selling) or make tasteless jokes about some of the more awful events and people of Asian history also makes me shake my head. But "they do it too" is not an excuse.

What bothers me, really, then, is the complete lack of value - historical, pedagogical, emotional - in this particular re-enactment.

The dramatically staged executions during the inauguration performance had historical value and emotional weight. Through them, we can be reminded of the horrors of the past - it pushes us to remember the history of agonies Taiwan has battled through and in some way pushes Taiwan to come to terms with its own history (something that is avoided more than it should be). Through the re-enactment, the horror of what took place in that era is laid bare, and it provides a useful lens through which to examine Taiwan's progress, current status and future. It was not a perfect dramatic performance, and there are reasons to criticize it - and the depiction of Han settlers driving out the original aboriginal inhabitants of the land - but nobody would say that no re-actment should have taken place. If it made you upset, good. It should.

There is similar value in films dealing with history, whether fictional, semi-fictional and documentary, and value in historical societies re-enacting battles and other scenes from potent events from the past: through them we can understand what it was like for the people involved, in some small way, and hopefully learn from it.

This, though? This was a group of teenagers choosing a decidedly un-fun subject and having, well, fun with it. It was not handled sensitively and, as a teacher, I fail to see what learning outcomes this might better bring about. What exactly did these students learn about Nazism by putting on snazzy uniforms and marching around? What of the weight and pain of history did this impart? What greater understanding did they gain? How did they learn to examine the issue critically, look at various sources and discuss the ideas within, or apply the lessons to the timeline of history, the world as it is today and the future?

There are certainly ways to teach Nazism in schools in Taiwan and elsewhere. The subject is not taboo - or should not be - and there may even be room for historical re-enactments if they serve a purpose.

However, one of the first things I learned in my teacher training is that every activity included in one's lesson should be carefully and critically evaluated for how well it will enable the class to meet its aims: how it will enable the learners to learn what you want them to come away with. Not only are we asked to look at each activity and decide if it is the best possible choice to propel the class toward successful learning, or if another choice might be more targeted, more efficient, more engaging or more relevant, but also if each activity is properly scaffolded and ordered to bring the class, in stages, through to a greater understanding of the subject (whatever level of understanding you have specified in your aims).

I am not a perfect teacher. Sometimes I get lazy - I try not to do it often - and perhaps I grab an activity because I'm short on time when another, more involved one might have been more fruitful. Sometimes I reflect on a class and think "that wasn't scaffolded as well as it could have been, I shouldn't have had to give such a long explanation of this or that issue". Sometimes I think "well, we met our aims, but I'm not sure that the level of understanding is as deep as I'd like it to be." I think all responsible, professional teachers think this way.

Certainly, syllabuses and curriculums are littered with pointless school projects that amount to wheel-spinning or extra whiz-bang showiness but do little, or nothing, to actually promote absorption of and understanding of the subject matter. Certainly - and not only in Taiwan - is critical thinking training often sacrificed for these surface-level school projects that are usually money and time sucks (or they are sacrificed at the altar of 'this is on the big exam so memorize what's in your book, we don't have time to think too deeply about it, you just need to answer some questions').

I can honestly say if I were tasked with teaching Nazism to a history class, this sort of re-enactment would have no place in it. Not because it is tasteless, though it is that, but because it lacks value. If, however, in some lesson a re-enactment, handled appropriately, did have value I would incorporate it.

I could give you a very long list of things that might be better included: from debates to class experiments (such as the brown eye/blue eye experiment) to readings (not only textbook readings but books such as The Wave, The Book Thief and perhaps even Stargirl which is seemingly unrelated but in fact carries that us-against-them mentality so intrinsic to the Nazis into the modern world in a different way). I am not afraid to face slightly unnerving lesson plans - if you are not unnerved by Nazism then you didn't learn it properly - and would not even be opposed to a class experiment where some children had to hide, others had to find them, and the hiders were punished if they were found whereas the finders were greatly rewarded - and to see if the finders were willing to capture the hiders for their reward, knowing the hiders would be punished. Then to bring them all back and talk about how that felt and why, and how it might manifest in the world today.

I might include something like the lesson told in a Facebook post that's going around:

When I was in 7th grade, our teacher put on a video and told us to take notes. Ten minutes in, she threw the lights on and shouted at Steven [Lastname], telling him he wasn't taking notes and he should have been. But the thing was, Steve was taking notes. I saw it. We all saw it. The teacher asked if anyone wanted to stand up for Steve. A few of us choked out some words of defense but were immediately squashed. Quickly, we were all very silent. Steve was sent to the principal's office. The teacher came back in the room and said something like "See how easy that was?" We were reading "Anne Frank."


But this? What does marching around really teach? Does mere imitation really have any value? Thea answer is no, and that goes for any re-enactment. Was the Wushe Incident re-enactment of any greater pedagogical value? I'd say no. Had the students chosen to re-enact events in a different way, with teacher guidance leading them to better understand those events through the resulting play, would that have been more valuable? Certainly.

It's tasteless, yes. It shows a deep and painful lack of understanding of important events in world history, yes. It also shows a lack of understanding of why the backlash was what it was - last I heard, the principle of the school was resigning but the students themselves did not really seem to understand what they'd done wrong or why they were being criticized so heavily.

All of that is true, but it's the complete lack of educational utility of the whole thing that really gets me.

All that said, I really am sick of this story and I'm going to stop talking about it now, or writing about it in the future.

The Master Hunt

If you've noticed that in the later half of this year I haven't been the most consistent blogger in terms of frequency of updates, it's because I actually have some exciting news!

First, I've been published! This isn't my first publication (I worked for a regional newspaper before I started college, and more relevantly have a story relating one of my experiences in Taiwan published here) but it is my first academic publication. It's not even all that academic, because I don't work at a university, don't have academically-based postgraduate education (my Delta is technically equivalent to a Master's but is more of a professional degree than an academic one), don't have a research budget and, thus, can't really do hard research. But, I did enjoy writing it, and hope you check it out - first link in this paragraph. I explore teaching note management skills as a method of introducing learner autonomy into the classroom, with an exploration of my own note-management teaching strategy.

Second, I've been accepted to grad school! I'll be starting at this program at the University of Exeter in July 2017. It's a program with a special schedule made for people like me who can't just up and move to England, or somewhere else, for postgraduate study but don't have a lot of options where they live. I applied quite early, but I was ready to and the platform was open, so I don't feel too weird about that. I would have gone this year if I'd had the money. That's what took away my blogging time, to be honest.

Anyway, I have a few thoughts on my process of researching, choosing and applying for Master's programs as an American in Taiwan. I am sorry to say that while there are some good things, it's mostly bad news. That is unfortunate not only for Taiwan, but also the USA.

A dearth of options in Taiwan

My biggest hurdle was finding a good program - I started in Taiwan but just couldn't find one that quite met my needs. I may not be in Taiwan forever, so I did need something from a school that is highly regarded internationally. I'm sorry to say that nothing on offer in Taiwan fits the bill. NTU is the only university of international repute, and doesn't offer my desired program. That doesn't mean other universities are necessarily "bad". They are not, however, universities whose degrees will get you noticed abroad.

There are MA TESOL and MA Applied Linguistics/Applied Foreign Languages programs in Taiwan: Shi-da, National Taiwan University of Technology and other schools offer them. Many are taught in English. They would not, however, help much internationally. Also, testimony of what one actually learns on these programs from a friend who did one in teaching Chinese turned me off to the idea of studying in Taiwan. He was, shall we say, less than impressed.

I have heard that there's a Master of Education program available through a small university in the US that allows you to take classes here, but that was something someone told me - I haven't found any evidence of its existence in my research. Anyone?

Columbia University Teacher's College Tokyo would have been an option, but they are apparently closing the campus - at least, a friend of mine went there so I know it's a real thing, she says it's closing, and I can't even find a reference to it existing online. Not that it matters: the tuition was similar to that in the US, and I can't afford US tuition. So, studying in a fully face-to-face program from Taiwan was quickly dismissed as 'not an option' for me.

Distance programs aren't great options

There are a number of distance programs: Nottingham, University of Southampton with the British Council and more in the UK (many, many more - I couldn't possibly link to them all), USC and Anaheim in the US (these were the only two distance programs I could find) - but I didn't want to do a distance Master's.

Why? The first reason is that, rightly or wrongly - and I happen to think wrongly - distance-learning postgraduate degrees tend to get the side-eye from academic institutions looking to hire, even if they are from reputable institutions (they also run the risk of not being recognized in Taiwan). The second is that I did distance learning for my Delta. It was fine, but I want something different. I want to actually meet people in person and have real-time discussions using my actual voice.

...neither was going abroad

So, I looked into what it would take for me to do a face-to-face Master's outside of Taiwan. Brendan and I are super-solid, I knew we could weather this, though I didn't particularly want to be apart for a year or two. I looked at King's College, Durham, University College London and more in the UK (not even going to bother with links, you can Google those yourself) and very few choices in the USA, because I honestly could not afford US tuition. I also looked at York University in Canada, but couldn't have afforded to live there and pay tuition. The same is true for the universities of Melbourne, Brisbane and Queensland, which I also researched. I looked at Germany, as well, but most schools (at least the ones I looked at, including Bonn) want you to pass a German proficiency test even if you are taking a program in English. I doubt I'd have the time to learn German at that level, so...no.

My country of origin is not affordable

In fact, I only looked at two face-to-face programs in the US: Columbia (because if I'm going to commit I may as well aim high - also I wouldn't need a car in New York and it's close to family) and SUNY Albany, one of the bigger campuses of my state university system and the only one to offer an MA TESOL. State university tuition would have been "cheaper" (cheaper than Satan's own private university pricing, so that's hardly a consolation) and at the time I was thinking I could live with my grandfather. He's since moved and that is no longer an option.

This is where I throw a lot of shade on the USA.

Total tuition for the programs noted above that are based in the USA:

USC Rossier School of Education (online) - approximately $50,000. They bill it as being the same as face-to-face: you videoconference the classes and they treat you as though you are 'there'. You're not residing there, though, so I do wonder why the tuition has to be as high. They don't need to worry about space, maintenance, grounds, utilities or security during my residency because there isn't one.

Anaheim University (online): A little over $20,000, including inexplicable fees such as a "graduation fee" and a "thesis fee" (which is apparently to print and bind your thesis, but $450? Are they binding it in unicorn leather? What the hell?) I appreciate that they are trying to break down exactly what your $20,000 is paying for, and I appreciate that their tuition is more similar to what UK schools charge. But the breakdown doesn't make them look good. My 'graduation fee' is all the fucking money I pay for my fucking degree, not some $300 you tack on. No. Not Okay. Also, I have some serious side-eye for charging for an online degree what UK schools charge for a face-to-face degree. Why exactly does it have to be that high?

SUNY Albany MA TESOL without state certification (which I don't need) - face-to-face: $12,000 and change, per year, 2 year program so $24,000 total. For in-state tuition.

Columbia University - face-to-face: fuck that I'm not even going to bother, what the fuck makes them think a fucking English teacher can afford to pay that shit back, fuck you, a fucking pox on your house!

In comparison, the distance programs in the UK cost about 7,000 pounds, and face-to-face cost about 15,000 and change - for the whole program. This is for international students - don't forget that. What that translates into in US dollars is changing by the day, but suffice it to say the total tuition for an international student (did I mention international), not in-state or even a citizen, is cheaper than going to my own state university in the US which is supposed to be the affordable option.

My program at Exeter is quite a bit less than that, and I'm an international student.

English teaching isn't a particularly highly-paid profession - I could never have afforded to pay back US tuition. It's just not feasible.

It is really sad that my own country couldn't make it possible for someone whose career requires postgraduate education, and who would certainly do well in it, to actually get it.

This is a prime reason why I do not intend to return. Why should I give "back" something to society through teaching and education that society doesn't see fit to give me? I appreciate my basically okay public education through secondary school but the US tertiary and postgraduate system is completely, and utterly, fucked. I want nothing to do with it.

But thanks, UK!

To end on a high note: when I got my offer letter I walked down the street alternating between feeling like this, and like this.

Update on the Fu Jen University Protests

So, thinking there would just be an "update - agreement reached, strike worked!" type post, I read up on the "resolution" to the Fu Jen Catholic University's protest and hunger strike to remove the unfair - and I say that unequivocally - curfew on the women's dorm when no such curfew applied to the men's.

I was wrong. There is a lot to say about this. First, a question - it doesn't seem like the curfews are abolished effective immediately but will be abolished at some point in the future. Is that true, or did I misunderstand the (somewhat poorly-organized) article?

First and foremost, while I maintain that this is not completely attributable to "Asian conservatism" but is also in large part a symptom of "religious conservatism" (I am not a big fan of mainstream Catholic or any religious conservatism, if you hadn't noticed, and would never tolerate it being imposed on me) there are positive and negative things about the fact that the women had to protest, but also that they won.

The good: well, that they won. That civic activism actually means something and gets something done in Taiwan, and it shows that the "passive/listens to authority/Confucian values" nonsense so many people ascribe to the Taiwanese are false. They are willing to fight! How do we know? They keep doing it! From The Republic of Formosa to 228 to the Kaohsiung Incident to the farmers to the White Lilies to the Sunflowers (the aptly-named Red Shirts didn't seem to have that much of an impact, though I admit bias in not caring for their agenda), if you say the Taiwanese are not willing to fight, you need to read a goddamn history book.

That the youth have not lost hope, that they're willing to fight and they are not the strawberries their condescending parents make them out to be. How many of those older folks calling the young generation 'strawberries' would have fought to end an aspect of gender discrimination in their schools? Their own parents were the ones doing most of the fighting for democracy - what did they fight for? That this sort of activism, which seems to be dead or ineffective in the US - still has power here. I hope that never goes away.

The bad: that they had to protest at all. Their position was reasonable, their goals logical. They should have been able to talk it out with the administration without having to make a massive fuss about it. It reminds me of my own occasional skirmishes at work. While I am always quick to say that my current employers - both of them - are generally very good, and I am in a much better position than the vast majority of English teachers in Taiwan now that I work at a truly professional level (yes, I welcome your hate for saying that in the comments), I have to say this: in the past, at one employer, when I've had to fight for something I deserved, be that enrollment in Laobao (labor insurance) or a well-earned raise, I have felt like attempts at talking about it reasonably are met with resistance, or at the very most no action. It has left me, on a few rare occasions, with the feeling that if I want something I deserve, I must fight for it more strongly than I should have to. I should be able to sit down and talk it out and reach a reasonable solution without having to, I dunno, threaten to quit (a real threat, not a bluff - I was ready to quit over getting a real raise). But, nothing happens until I pull out the big guns, at which point I get what I want but am told I didn't have to pull out those guns. Except I DID, because if I hadn't I wouldn't have gotten anywhere! And I know this from having tried that route and not having gotten anywhere!

Anyway. Ahem. I shouldn't have had to take the nuclear option, and FJU Cinderella shouldn't have had to either. A hunger strike should never have necessary, and it says something rather damning about FJU and Taiwan in general that they did, even as it says something good about the students being willing to organize and fight in the first place. When will we get to the point when reasonable goals don't have to be fought for with hunger strikes and occupations?

Second, I've spent the past week or so asking around to see on an anecdotal basis what the dorm rules are like across Taiwan. I asked people who attended and stayed in dorms at NTU, NCCU, Kaohsiung Medical College, Zhongxing, Yangming University and noticed a comment on my blog from someone who stayed at the dorms at Wenhua. According to these people, Wenhua also has discriminatory curfew policies, and NCCU has no curfews of any kind but makes men sign in and wear ugly orange vests - a perfect deterrent to getting laid? A "don't fuck me" vest? - when visiting women's dorms, but women can visit men's dorms freely. The others either have equal curfew policies or none at all.

This seems to corroborate the data in the article above where well less than half of Taiwanese universities have discriminatory dorm policies.

All I can say is that it does point to Fu Jen being a special case, perhaps due to religious conservatism, but it's also far too many. Even 26% is too many to have discriminatory policies.

Finally, two points in the article:

The first is that refusing to support the protestors because as you "want to protect your daughter, not discriminate"? Screw you. Wanting to protect your daughter because she is female, but not your son in the same way, IS discriminatory. There is no way to separate the two. If you discriminate in whom you want to protect, you are discriminating. WORDS MEAN THINGS.

As a counterpoint, I loved how someone called out that whole "women are responsible for not being victims" line of thinking. Dangers to women in Taiwan are not women's responsibility to fight, they're society's responsibility to eradicate in men.

Along these lines, Taiwan's youth rhetoric on social issues is refreshingly modern. I'm a huge fan. Among the youth you don't hear any of the old "I heard this in Asia" tropes (e.g. "It's not racist because it's natural" or even worse, "there's no racism here because there are no black people here" or "of course we should have equality but women need to be extra careful") - they know racism when they see it, they are aware of intersectional issues and call out when something is race, class or gender-based (or, relevant for Taiwan, age-based), or some combination of same, or all three. They know sexism when they see it and are bracingly able to call out patriarchal ideas of blaming women for being the targets of men rather than blame the men for having targets in the first place. I am excited to see this generation grow into the new leaders of Taiwan. The folks in power may not get it yet, but they do.

And next, there's still a long way to go - the idea of implementing an electronic card system in place of the curfew so "parents can monitor their children's movements" is almost as problematic as an actual curfew! These aren't kids, they are legal adults. They're in COLLEGE. They shouldn't have to use a card that registers their comings and goings for their parents to check. I can't imagine accepting the idea of my parents monitoring where I was at all times of day and night when I started college at 16 (yes, 16. Yes, I'm bragging. Deal with it), even though I lived at home, let alone when I transferred and went away to university at 17. The idea of being monitored at 18, 19, 20? Not acceptable. What really needs to change is the idea that parents have such a right to control of their adult children. And that will be a much slower - but still possible - cultural change.

The Tale of Lance Lightning

I've sort of hesitated in writing this post because it forces me to come to terms with my past.

That sounds way creepier than it really needs to, but it probably got your attention!

Back in 2002-2003, when I was living in China, I had a coworker who was teaching at another branch of our small provincial English language center. He had a very memorable name - we'll just change his name to "Lance Lightning" - and was an retired-military Englishman with a grizzled-in-a-wiry-sort-of-way air about him.

We traveled to Kunming and Dali together - this is not as weird as it sounds - we got along quite well (I tend to get along with grizzled-Englishman types, the more sarcastic the better) and generally hung out going to tourist spots together, meeting up after breakfast because I was a poor kid staying in hostels and he could afford proper hotel rooms.

At one point, Lance mentioned something about teaching - some educational concept I hadn't heard of - and I asked him about it and where he'd learned it. It was probably something I really should have known about before embarking on a year of teaching abroad, like classroom management. He said he'd taken a CELTA course before coming and, quite offhand, that he did so because "if I was going to move abroad to do this, I thought I'd better to it right or it's not worth doing at all."

That's just the sort of person Lance was. And although I was a feckless 22-year-old at the time, that attitude appealed to me. It's a part of why we got along - he didn't suffer fools (and I suppose that because he suffered me as his weird pink-haired coworker-and-traveling-companion, that I must not have been as much of a fool as I now see myself as having been, and I probably liked the validation).



Me and my weird pink hair in Kunming, late 2002 - it was way pinker than this old photo makes it seem.

Anyway, I remember wishing I'd had the forethought and money to have done it that way.

In Kunming, Lance and I stopped at one of the famous temples - either Yuantong or Golden, I don't remember which. It was cool and overcast, a bit drizzly. So much for the famous Kunming weather! Leading up to it was a very long staircase of marble or granite, really onerous to climb. Being a retired army guy, Lance jogged up at a comfortable pace and met me at the top. I climbed comfortably for some time but was huffing and puffing and pushing myself forward by the end.

"Well, you made it," Lance said. "The key to getting up a long stairway like this isn't how strong you are. It's got nothing to do with muscles. It's all about the respiratory and circulatory system. If those are weak, you won't pump the oxygen you need to give you the energy to get to the top. You're not fat" (at the time I wasn't overweight, now I am), "but it looks like you've got some working out to do."

My first reaction was defensiveness - hey, I wasn't that unfit! - but I tamped that down. He was right (I mean I'm not sure about the exact physiological aspects, but generally speaking, he wasn't off base).

In later years I would look back at that moment - it wasn't just about climbing stairs. I wanted to teach as well as Lance could jog up and down those steps. Confidently, knowing what I was doing and how I should proceed, seemingly effortlessly (though it's anything but). Just as one might work out to improve respiration and circulation, I wanted to work out my mental muscles to be a competent, trained teacher.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

Over the next few years I backpacked around Asia, tried to work in finance, couldn't bring myself to care enough about the field to achieve anything within it (and I did try - I just inherently wasn't interested), got an evening job teaching ESL to Korean immigrants, saved some money and moved to Taiwan where I taught English again without any sort of qualifications or credentials for a few years before finally getting my act together and getting a CELTA, then moving on to Delta and IELTS examiner training. Eventually, I will get a Master's. I need it if I ever want to work in this field in a Western country.

Fast-forward to now, and that offhand comment from Lance is quite possibly a part of why I've since swung so far in the other direction - I have the zeal of the converted. I know the CELTA course is a quality course because I've done it. It won't make you a star teacher, but it will give you the basic competency you need to move on to better performance - something you aren't going to get from experience alone.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

Here's the thing - Lance wasn't a career teacher. He wasn't a seasoned professional. What I respected - and still respect - about this worldview is that he saw a fairly affordable basic course that would allow him to do his "retirement" job with a basic degree of competency, and he shut up and took the damn course rather than construct some unrealistic narrative in which he didn't need it, a narrative that would have insulted teachers, the profession of teaching, and the generations of hard work and research in education, pedagogy and second language acquisition that people have put into the field, all to make himself feel better about not taking his new job seriously. You don't need to be a career teacher to do this. You don't need to plan to stay in it for more than a few years. Even so, you can do better than showing up and pretending your accent and face is enough.



A dragon carving somewhere in the Golden or Yuantong temple, Kunming, China, late 2002.

Now, I advocate pre-service teacher training (as in, taking some sort of English teaching course before you actually begin working as an English teacher), specifically the CELTA, Trinity or equivalent, and will go so far as to say that a.) I think this, or something like it, should in fact be a legal prerequisite for employment in ELT in all countries and b.) I do not view ersatz "English teachers" who lack such qualifications as professionals.

I'll go even farther than that - not only should all English teachers have to get a basic, respected qualification (CELTA, Trinity or equivalent) but that if someone wants to open an English language center, they either need to be, or need to hire, someone with adequate credentials in ELT in order to ensure that the training, curriculum, materials, hiring etc. are all in line with sound educational practice. In short, to ensure that the school wasn't run by businesspeople whose only concern was profit and who were not concerned with the actual quality of the product being provided.

Perhaps it would be acceptable for someone to go abroad and teach English for a year or two without a CELTA if and only if the school in question had a qualified head teacher on staff who trained all new hires, and whose training was examined and approved by a higher accreditation agency or a committee within the Ministry of Education of that country. After a few years, however, it should be required that they either get a CELTA or equivalent (or take the TKT), or leave the field in that country. Government incentives to schools that help sponsor their long-term teachers to gain these credentials would be a solid step forward.

"But Jenna," you're probably thinking, "you didn't do that. You started as a backpacker-teacher! How can you then say that you don't think others should be able to do exactly what you did?"

And you'd be right. So before writing this post I had to think long and hard about why I now feel the way I do, and if it's fair to do so when I benefited from a system that allowed me to get a pretty well-paid job (by Taiwan standards) without having even remotely close to the qualifications I should have had to get it.

Here's what I've come up with: if I could do it all again, I wouldn't have started teaching without doing something like the CELTA first. In 2002, after graduating from college, deciding not to go into Peace Corps (long story), and choosing instead to spend a year in China teaching English, I would have instead delayed my trip by 6 months, saved enough to pay for the CELTA and living expenses in a relatively inexpensive country like Thailand, and done that before moving on to that first teaching job in China.

After all, the CELTA course cost a pretty packet for 2 people to do, with an apartment back home to pay rent on, along with living in a fairly expensive city like Istanbul, but it wasn't so expensive that I as a singleton couldn't have pulled it off in, say, Chiang Mai at age 22.

22-year-old me would have been pretty pissed to learn that she couldn't go teach English abroad without first laying out a few thousand dollars for a basic teaching qualification.

22-year-old me was also an entitled, spoiled idiot. An spoiled idiot who did not understand that she was not so special as to not need basic teacher training before, you know, teaching. That professional fields require, by their very nature, some sort of training to be taken seriously in. That I might have a natural knack for teaching but that's not enough to make one a professional- level teacher, or a "teacher" at all. I was playing teacher, like a kid might "play doctor" or "play firefighter" (or "play lawyer" if kids were inclined to do something that dull to kid sensibilities). That being a native speaker did not qualify me to teach English, just as being "good at math" or even "highly educated in math" does not qualify one to teach math. That being a native speaker of a language is not the same as understanding the underlying systems of that language, and even if you understand those, being able to teach them using sound pedagogy is a different skill entirely. That teaching is so much more than knowing something - knowing how to impart it is equally if not more important.

So yeah, 34-year-old me would tell 22-year-old me to suck it up, save up the extra money and do the damn course. Then she could bum around for a bit, but eventually, if she were to get serious about the job, she'd have to find a job under a real director of studies and improve her craft before moving on to higher qualifications.

With that in mind, reading articles like this bring me back around to that thing about my past that I don't like to admit: that I took the easy route, and that I regret it. I should not have been allowed in front of a class of students who were paying (or whose parents were paying) for the experience. It was one giant facepalm, and I didn't get better until I got some decent pre-CELTA training. My entire professional existence was probably one huge facepalm, in fact, until approximately 2009 when my experience finally caught up with my training. I was doing alright by the time I did the CELTA, but I was not a professional:

"It can easily be the case that native speaking teachers working abroad, in large part because they do not speak the local language, are excluded from the decision making process at their schools. This leads to the native-speakers feeling frustrated because they are not being taken seriously as professionals, while the non-native teachers sit quietly thinking, “Well, you’re not really professionals, are you? You were only hired because you’re a native speaker.”

And that's exactly it. If you're only hired because you happen to speak a language (or in many cases, simply look like you do), then how are you a professional? Professional work requires training and development. It needn't be a teaching license if you're not working with kids. It needn't be a Master's, just as you can be a financial professional with Series 7 and 66 certifications but don't necessarily need an MBA or degree in Finance.

As such, no, I don't think that what makes a good teacher is necessarily the piece of paper to say that they did this or that course - although the content of the courses themselves help. It could be done through more informal on-the-job training, but, honestly, most schools don't even offer that and those who do offer training of such varying quality that it simply cannot be the basis of "professionalism" unless it's either standardized by an accredited authority, or there is a way to show measurable outcomes (in much the same way that a business professional may start out with an unrelated degree but proves themselves through measurable outcomes that lead to promotion). The only way I see this happening in teaching is for everyone, at some point, to take a similar training course just as, say, financial advisors have to do with those Series 7/66 licenses.

22-year-old me would have been butthurt to hear that she was not a "professional". 22-year-old me was an idiot. 34-year-old me accepts it, and is still worried that, not yet having a full Delta, she is not quite professional enough. Incidentally, the end of that conversation with Lance about some aspect of teaching practice entailed me admitting I had no training whatosever, and Lance saying "you're pretty smart. You'll be fine." I see no reason why others can't be "pretty smart" too, and have no problem with kicking those who aren't out of the field.

What worries me is that a lot of these "native speakers hired as teachers" isn't just that they aren't qualified, as I wasn't (and so I can only imagine that in the classroom a large number of them are variations of the walking facepalm that I once was), it's that, like 22-year-old me, they get super butthurt if you say so. They don't like to hear that they aren't professionals, that perhaps their opinions aren't as valid as teachers with training, that there is a reason employers view them as replaceable and interchangeable and don't take them seriously (although I also get the feeling that employers purposely look for "teachers" they don't take seriously as native speakers without qualifications are much easier to "manage". If you are some rando businessman who started a school to make money but you don't know jack about teaching, then it can be quite inconvenient indeed to have a teacher with some training challenging your decisions, most of which are pedagogically crap).

They want to construct a narrative in which one learns to teach by doing it - forgetting first of all that "doing" doesn't mean much if it's not augmented by training and feedback from a professional who can point out where you're going wrong better than you can, and so if you learn by doing without that meaningful feedback (which most teachers at these schools don't get, as most schools don't have a competent, qualified head teacher or Director of Studies), you'll just pick up a bunch of bad habits that you won't even know you have (and will get very defensive about being called out on). Second of all that if you try to "learn to teach by teaching", along your path to learning you've just stepped on a whole bunch of people who've paid you to learn how to do something, and not even gotten a quality product out of their investment. How is that fair?

A system like the ones I proposed above - force English centers to have some modicum of professionalism before they open or to maintain their business, and force teachers to either come in with a qualification or only allow them to work for businesses that can provide training, and even then only for a specified period of time - would not be onerous. The regulations would be quite manageable for any business that takes itself seriously - any business you'd want to have around, in fact. It would get rid of the bottom-feeders and barrel-scrapers, and free up a saturated market so that better quality schools could open, hiring better quality teachers. It would be a net win. Sure, some schools would go out of business but as I see it, good riddance. And sure, some foreigners would find the CELTA/Trinity requirement too onerous and not choose to teach English. Again, I'm fine with that. We could use fewer "native speaker backpacker-"teachers". Open up the market to higher quality. And it would be a definitive step towards improving the profession and maybe those of us who take ELT seriously getting a little respect as teachers for once.

And, come on, all you "native speaker teachers" with no credentials? You can be better than whiny-ass 22-year-old me. Almost anyone can. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.