You may be wondering why I've titled this blog "Touring New Zealand on the Heart of Gold." This is a nod to all of you Douglas Adams fans out there who long for the opportunity to travel long distances and experience intrinsically weird but not entirely unexpected things. This is the best allusion I can think of when trying to explain my experiences here in New Zealand so far.
There are times when it seems like I've fallen back in time. If people in the States watch a film depicting Victorian England or some other society resembling it, we expect to see students in school uniforms that include skirts or shorts and clunky black shoes. Students stand when the Principle or other Head of Staff in the school entered the room. In these films the students always say "Thank you" at the end of the lesson as they run from the room to do some sort of wholesome activity like fishing at the creek or playing a modified version of cricket on the street outside of their house.
This isn't too far off from what I experienced when I first came to New Zealand. Granted New Zealand is a modern society and kids here are just as glued to their iPods as any other Western country, but things here smack of that which Americans only really experience through TV.
For starters, the majority of schools here have uniform policies that involve skirts and shorts and clunky black shoes, as well as polo shirts with matching sweaters to go over these in the winter. Students are meant to stand, and do so promptly, when the Principal or Headmaster or a Senior Management member enters the room. If you release a class with a compliment such as, "well done today, guys, see you tomorrow," you will always get a chorus of "thank you, Miss," in return. It isn't uncommon for junior high aged boys to play jump rope at school, or high school aged young men to play Four Square with a tennis ball. In fact, I have to practically drag my 16 year old students into home room every day because they always have a game going on outside of the classroom by the time I get there. Once they're in, though, it's back to the song and dance I know so well: "why where you absent yesterday, bring a note tomorrow and here's a notice that you need to take home for your parents to read."
The students I taught when first arriving in Wellington were generally very polite and referred to their teachers as either "Sir" or "Miss". At first I took quite a bit of offence at constantly having pre-teenagers wave their hands in the air and shouting "Miss? Miss?" What where they trying to do, hail a cab? Get a topper on their coffee? I would give these students attention but not after giving them some sort of lecture about giving people the courtesy of learning their name. After all, I had just learned 27 names that day. The least these students could do is to learn the names of one new teacher.
After noticing that none of the other teachers seemed bothered by this I asked if anyone else felt bothered by the fact that students didn't address them by their proper name. All of the teachers I spoke to seemed genuinely taken by surprise by this question. They always responded that the students always addressed them "with the appropriately polite and formal title of 'Miss' or 'Sir.'" Alarmed that I wasn't being treated politely they asked of the students were saying anything that they needed to know about. Now painfully aware of a cultural divide, I assured them that the kids were being just a polite with me as they were with permanent staff members. I explained that calling a teacher "Miss" in the States was a pretty rude thing and that American teachers expected their surnames to be used or, at the very least, a title and their last initial. Kiwi teachers are always surprised and interested in this difference between NZ and US schools.
The social formality of the schools here has been the biggest hurdle for me to get over. Not only have I had to stifle knee-jerk responses but I've had to alter the vocabulary that I use with students. Students respond much better "well done" than they do to "good job"; they smile more widely and tend to repeat the task/skill at a higher rate if given a "well done" at the end of an activity. I can't hold a grade over kids heads here because so much of their grade comes from an exit exam at the end of the year. If I want a student to take me, the lesson, or a punishment more seriously, however, all I have to do is tell them to tuck in their shirt or pull up their knee socks. Here, I have to utilise procedure to put an event or my words into a formal context. This may just be due the highly disciplined structure of the school I currently teach in. I'm fairly certain, though, that if I were to use the same trick at another school I would get the same response.
Recently I've taken to reading professional journals and trade books from the US to remind me of my roots. If I ever move back to the US I predict that I'll have some adjusting to do. Could you imagine what would happen if I told a kid to sit up straight as a way of re-establishing a formal tone in the classroom? I'd get a glowering stare and some retort along the lines of, "who died and made you Ms Marple?"
3 comments:
Hi Roni,
I enjoyed reading about some of the cultural differences that you are experiencing and observing.
I notice some cultural differences even teaching here at a midwestern U.S. liberal arts college. Maybe these differences are more generational than cultural. For example, my students here are very resistant to addressing me as Dr. Robertson. They really stubbornly persist in calling me Jemmie. I also notice here that the students feel very entitled. Interestingly, many students see things from the corporate perspective where they see themselves as customers and I am there to serve them. The problem I have with this is that students feel very entitled to question the curriculum and the methodology of the professors.
My colleagues from other institutions report this is a trend in higher education.
(Incidentally, I actually ask my students here at the college to sit up straight on a daily basis. I do so at times as a technique to help restore order in one of my unruly classes, but usually to remind students that posture is important for tone production both for instrumentalists and vocalists.)
I imagine you're right on the generational divide issue. Being the spring chickens that we are, I suppose we'll keep running across the casual remarks until the grey hairs start sprouting on our heads. That's what we get for being young people in our field. Here's hoping that the 'education as a consumer commodity' attitude doesn't bleed into the current teenage generation.
Interestingly enough, I actually got to use the "posture for breath" lessons I took as a trumpet student with one of my English classes yesterday. I had some very nervouse 15 year olds giving speeches. You know, shaky hands and speech tone, slouched shoulders, quiet voices, the whole bit. So I gave a quick rundown on how the vocal chords and diaphram work and how posture will fix a lot of volume and tone problems. Being the literal teenage boys that they are they appreciated the tip.
Heh heh. If my old horn prof Steven Bolstad could've seen me!
Do American kids even know who Miss Marple is?
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