I arrived in the classroom, ready to share my knowledge and experience with 76 students who would be my English literature class. Having taught in the US for 17 years, I have no doubt about my ability to hold their attention and to impress on them my admiration for the literature of my mother tongue.
I was shocked when the monitor shouted, "stand up!"The entire class rose as I entered the room and I was somewhat confused about how to get them to sit down again, but once the embarrassment was over, I quickly regained my calmness and admiration. I went back to my office with the rosy glow which came from a strong sense of achievement.
My students kept diaries. However, as I read them, the rosy glow was gradually replaced by a strong sense of sadness. The first diary said, "Our literature teacher didn't teach us anything today. Perhaps her next lecture will be better. "Greatly surprised, I read diary after diary, each expressing a similar theme. "Didn't I teach them anything？I described the entire Western philosophy (哲学) and laid the historical background for all the works we will study in class, "I complained. "How should they say I didn't teach them anything?"
It was a long term, and it gradually became clear that my ideas about education were not the same as those of my students. I thought a teacher's job was to raise interesting questions and provide enough background so that students could draw their own conclusions. My students thought a teacher's job was to provide exact information as directly and clearly as possible. What a difference!
However, I also learned a lot, and the experience with my Chinese students has made me a better American teacher, knowing how to teach in a different culture.
