Post by Lotus Eater on Nov 17, 2006 17:08:13 GMT 7
I am having a wonderful time being bemused by the hoops everyone is jumping through for the university evaluation process.
The machinery has spun into top gear these final weeks before the evaluation team arrives from Beijing. The teachers (apart from FTs) have had several weekends cancelled and are giving each other lessons all weekend and evaluating each others teaching. The classes that are on during the evaluation period have all been delivered 3 times so that the teachers have it pat, as do the students. All of the teachers and students have had to learn the history of the university - including the inscriptions Mao wrote especially for it. I edited the English version of the history - so I hope they don't actually ask me about it!!
The students have been instructed to stand as the teacher walks into the room - shades of early primary school! If students are late for class and a stranger asks them next week if they are on their way to class, they have been instructed to say - no, I am going to the library to study. So they have decided to basically stay in their dorms if they don't have to be anywhere - my students figured it was safer. All classes will be full as the students again have been instructed NOT to miss class.
Walls have been painted, floors are being washed, rubbish cleaned up for everywhere - at all hours of the day and night. (Class rooms still have window panes missing - but curtains have gone up against the windows to stop this from being seen!)
And the bit that is causing me the greatest mirth? Still the attempt to control the trees dropping leaves. The water trucks have been out day and night spraying with the firehoses, with little armies of sweepers behind them cleaning up. Today, going to class, I saw a group of women with brooms and rakes beating the smaller trees to make the leaves fall off. The water truck one is the bit that most of the students are talking about - because of the water shortages. They figure trees, leaves, autumn - everyone should know that it is Ok for the trees to drop leaves, and is not the administrations fault if the roads are messy with leaves. Let's not waste the precious water on this.
I totally agree with them, but it does give me the greatest bubble of mirth!
The machinery has spun into top gear these final weeks before the evaluation team arrives from Beijing. The teachers (apart from FTs) have had several weekends cancelled and are giving each other lessons all weekend and evaluating each others teaching. The classes that are on during the evaluation period have all been delivered 3 times so that the teachers have it pat, as do the students. All of the teachers and students have had to learn the history of the university - including the inscriptions Mao wrote especially for it. I edited the English version of the history - so I hope they don't actually ask me about it!!
The students have been instructed to stand as the teacher walks into the room - shades of early primary school! If students are late for class and a stranger asks them next week if they are on their way to class, they have been instructed to say - no, I am going to the library to study. So they have decided to basically stay in their dorms if they don't have to be anywhere - my students figured it was safer. All classes will be full as the students again have been instructed NOT to miss class.
Walls have been painted, floors are being washed, rubbish cleaned up for everywhere - at all hours of the day and night. (Class rooms still have window panes missing - but curtains have gone up against the windows to stop this from being seen!)
And the bit that is causing me the greatest mirth? Still the attempt to control the trees dropping leaves. The water trucks have been out day and night spraying with the firehoses, with little armies of sweepers behind them cleaning up. Today, going to class, I saw a group of women with brooms and rakes beating the smaller trees to make the leaves fall off. The water truck one is the bit that most of the students are talking about - because of the water shortages. They figure trees, leaves, autumn - everyone should know that it is Ok for the trees to drop leaves, and is not the administrations fault if the roads are messy with leaves. Let's not waste the precious water on this.
I totally agree with them, but it does give me the greatest bubble of mirth!
