A Teacher’s Finals Week

For the first time in my life, I am on the other side of school exams. I am the teacher responsible for doling out tests and marking papers, donning the mask of a tyrant that students believe teachers stash for this time of year. I am the first witness to their acquiescence upon receiving a less-than perfect score; I feel a subtle pang of guilt when they cringe at their grade and plead for second attempts.

My red pen—something I once considered a simple writing tool with a fun splash of color—is like a guillotine that chops down attempts and transforms them into errors, sharpening with each use until its very appearance inspires petulance. A crossed out word here, an underlined vowel there. Routine pen strokes that, for these young Chinese students, foreshadow more homework, studying, and parental scolding.

My students often hide their spelling tests from me because they have such aversion to being wrong. It is an aversion that balances between fear and repugnance, one built upon the intensity that is the education system of Hong Kong. If I happen to raise my pen even to scratch my head, some of my students ostentatiously slam their miniature hands on their papers, insisting they do not have mistakes for me to mark. Their eyes betray their uncertainty; their resistance reveals their skewed perception; their compliance communicates their conditioning.

These past weeks of December, I’ve asked all my students what they plan to do over the Christmas holiday. Without fail, “homework” and “studying” have been a part of their answers. Homework and studying are furtive yet conspicuous and present like a shadow. What I found disconcerting was not the holiday assignments, but the unblinking and unphased countenance with which my students spoke of it. Neither a hint of contempt nor a wrinkle of grimace passed in these altogether cursory conversations.

These students have never known a span of time that was not underscored with assignments, studying, and revisions. Holiday school work is ingrained and normalized like presents on Christmas morning. Academics are ever-present for these students, reliable like the Hong Kong’s summer humidity and rice with dinner.

And yet, when a once-struggling student begins to string together perfect score after perfect score, I am forced to pause and admire the adaptability, resilience, and fertility of a child’s mind. These local students are pushed from such a young age (three years old is considered an appropriate time to start a portfolio full of accolades) to such a high standard of education, success borders on the inevitable. In a place where trilingualism is the bare-minimum, a rite of passage to the up-and-coming generation, it is difficult to claim that the societal pressure isn’t “working.”

Is it incorrect for parents to want their children to lead a life in command of multiple languages? Of disciplined study habits?Incorrect or not, is it worth the trade-off for what us Westerners call “childhood?” The games, the lackadaisical afternoons, the carefree air that, at least in my youth, seemed so abundant?

In class the other day, one of my students came in with tears in his eyes and shoulders slumped in dismay. Here was a six year old who typically arrives boisterous and smiling, but now appeared to have taken a crass and cutting disparagement. He told me that, all day in his public school, his teacher berated him for not having his hair combed (this boy has short hair that falls loosely down to his ears with just the right amount of messiness that a kid should have—not quite disheveled, though not necessarily straightened with a ruler). He had forgotten his comb at his grandparents’ house; this was a not a viable excuse to his Chinese teacher. Holding a six-year-old to a hair standard seems past the point of excessive—will a neater comb-over result in higher test scores? Better language acquisition?—certain measures taken here seem Draconian.

I write this now in the Philippines in the Manila airport on layover before my Christmas trip to Bali, Indonesia. I’ve become comfortable setting up my portable keyboard and rolling up my sleeves just about anywhere now. Writing has become both my outlet and a source of joy, a pastime with which I use to pass the time. Like morning dew disappearing on a hot day, creative hours seem to evaporate without notice, succumbing under the heat of my rapture.

More and more I reach for my keyboard or journal in quiet moments, writing to engage in conversation with my consciousness. These words I carry with me on my travels and the written snapshots I incorporate along the way add flavor and character to each experience. Even the vapid and routine can brim with details awaiting the words to describe them— but I digress; time to board my flight.

Bali will be a much appreciated, miniature sabbatical after five months of teaching, learning, and laughing.

In short, I miss my kids already.