My School: Initial Impressions and A General Overview

I haven’t done any blogging in the past month ostensibly because of a poor Internet connection.  That might have been a legit excuse three weeks ago when I was off to get a new router, but the truth is more that I’ve been lazy.  My VPN still doesn’t work well or consistently enough for me to put up pictures here – for some reason blogspot is banned in China – but at the very least I’ll try to get up to date with the information.

When I last wrote I’d recently gotten back to Hangzhou after a weekend in Beijing.  That was the third week of September, and although October wasn’t exactly a riveting month of excitement, there are lots of details I can fill you in on.

Let’s start off with my school.  As you know, I am working in Hangzhou, at a high school as a guidance counselor.  Specifically, I’m employed in the International Division of my high school, in which students pay upwards of 10 grand a year and study with the explicit goal of attending an international university after graduation.  It’s not a fully-fledged international school; the students also get credit for a Chinese high school diploma.  But many of the classes are in English, taught by both foreign and local teachers.  A private education company in California even accredits the AP coursework offered by the school (classes include AP Calculus, Physics, Economics, History, and English).

Our international department building, which is part of a much larger campus.

View from the 4th floor hallway; the halls are open air - nice for fall and
spring, but it still gets cold here!

View from the fifth floor, where my office is; the main campus is
across from the athletic field.

The hierarchy at our school is complicated, and I’m still figuring out the exact structure (I may never know all the ins and outs).  We at the international division are a part of the high school complex which includes a main campus of over 2,000 students as well as a Xinjiang Division for ethnic minority students from Western China.  I’ll fill you in more on that later, but for simplicity’s sake let’s focus on us for the moment.

The main campus has a principle who also oversees the international division, plus a party leader.  I’m not exactly sure what the party leader’s job is; making sure no one is badmouthing the government?  He seems pretty ordinary but I wouldn’t want to test his job description by yelling out “Down with the Communist Party!” in the hallway.  (disclaimer: to anyone who might be wondering, that is not a position I support!)

We also have an international division head, but to make matters more confusing she is somehow affiliated with a third party company.  I don’t know if she is actually employed directly by the school or the third party, or if we teachers are even connected to this entity.  All I have gleaned is that this third party helps run the international division; is it connected to the AP accreditation company in California? Your guess is as good as mine.

All this may sound intimidating, and I was worried that I was walking into an Office Space scenario with five different bosses.  But actually things have been relaxed, at least on my end.  The other full time teachers, particularly the AP teachers, seem to be scrutinized more than I am.  I communicate with the international division head, Sisley, frequently, but none of the other higher ups seem concerned with me.  I haven’t had anyone observe my class – I teach two sections of College Writing, each twice a week – whereas Justin, the new Physics teacher, has had three different people observe multiple classes.  That may be because he told students that they were free to sleep in class, as long as they didn't disturb others.  Again, I'll save that story for another time.

Aside from the College Writing Class, my main duties are related to counseling and college advising.  I’ve been helping students on their personal statements and essays for college applications, and a few have come to me asking about particular universities.  It can be tough getting a decent answer to the “Why do you want to attend our college” questions when the student is only applying because it is one of the best ranked schools he or she has a chance of getting into.  Many students’ writing is below what I’d consider adequate for high school seniors, but then again, so is the level of many American students.  Most of our kids will be sticking to subjects like business, engineering, and physics.  I just hope they don’t have to write too many essays at university!

11th grade students with Steve, the history teacher. I'll be surprised
 if any kids choose history as a major
(that's not a reflection of Steve's teaching abilities!)

I’ll give you more details about the college application process from the Chinese perspective – definitely a different ball game than back home – in another post.  It deserves its own post, or even two.  I’ll also update you on my fall vacation trip to Nanjing and Hefei, hopefully sooner rather than later.