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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Have you ever asked your Chinese students their future career choice?
I had idea's from time to time and still do
The story below shows determination however I just hope somebody will take the time ti guide her
I try to explains why education is so important to kids I meet but finding the right ways to say it is not always easy
Interested to read your thoughts
Luo Siqi, has been wandering around the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in a fake flight attendant outfit since July last year but only came to the attention of police last month, South China Morning Post reports.
Police officers questioned the girl after she was spotted at the airport wearing an imitation China Southern Airlines uniform and carrying documents about the carrier.
She was escorted to child welfare authorities twice last month but the teenager insists on returning to the airport.
"I am truly in love with the sky. Let me go to the airport," she said.
"I love blue sky and have always dreamed of flying. By doing this, I am a bit closer to my dream."
Ms Luo was reportedly abandoned by her biological parents as a child and has since been adopted and re-homed more than once.
The aviation junkie left her home in July last year to "take a look at the big city" according to reports.
She is not enrolled in school and currently lives in the nearby city of Luoding with her cousin, the relative of her adoptive father who now resides in a nursing home.
The teenager said she bought her flight attendant uniforms online.
"I once bought four suits at the same time, [to accommodate] four different seasons," she said
10 years 27 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
This story is tragic, but at the same time gotta like the girl for having a dream.
Very few students i have met are studying what they are interested in, or interested in what they are studying. These students are amongst the few who have a plan as to what they want to do after graduation. Most are there because their parents/family think it is a good career, regardless of the ability of their son/daughter. So to answer the question, what i hear most often is 'I don't know' when i ask what they will do after they graduate, or 'I want to be rich......" with no plan or idea. I refuse to answer the question 'what to you think i should do?'
Scandinavian:
not being a teacher I of course meet less students than you teacher-folk, but I have yet to meet any teenagers in China who did not simply follow the family order "my dad says blah blah is a good business" except a couple of young Uyghur students. They also spoke English at above Hong Kong level.
Most of the time what i hear is "business" or "businessman/woman". With very little idea of what kind of business they would like to be in.
Sometimes I have had students say "international trade" or "open my own business/restaurant"
They truly have no idea what they want to do after they complete their studies.
I have a notion that 99% of these students have no idea what career their studies could prepare them for.
I make it a point to ask all my friends this question. I get the same response as sorrel above. Not that the University prepares them for real life and a real career anyways. My wife went to a college for teachers (Normal University) for four years and they neglected to teach her how to actually teach! She had no idea how to teach a class upon graduation. Everything she has learned, she learned from me. That is a shame.
My hat off to the young girl in your story. Am I the only one who doesn't see it as sad? I wish even a small percentage of university students had the dreams and drive that she has.
I actually do ask a lot of my students this question and the answer always upsets me..it's usually along the lines of "I want to do what you do I want to see the world and travel...but I don't have the money and my mother would not allow me, or my husband..etc etc", or "But if I had money I would have to build a home for my family etc".
Perhaps I'm wrong in doing so, but I have not being given a coursebook/syllabus for my teaching so I pick and use my own material, and I try and show the students as many self-empowering pieces of work as possible, of travel and foraging and expanding one's horizons. The thought that these children/young adults will follow the same old regime that has been pre-set by their families (against their will) makes me despair, I just really hope they find it in them to break conventions and choose to lead whatever life they can dream up.
sorrel:
for many of the students I have met, any hope they have of following their OWN dream, even if it is something modest, is sucked out of them from an early age. Tradition is so strong here still. One student I taught who LIKED and was GOOD at her major had her dream of completing her studies abroad taken from her by her family who wanted her to get married as soon as possible. She tried to put a good face on it but was upset when she spoke about her friends who did travel.
Scandinavian:
I think, even if you do spark a dream, it will be killed by the fact that children always follow their parents, until the parents fit into the "old useless people category" (which is at a strangely early age in China)
I am not a teacher but the topic does come up from time to time at English corner on a Sunday morning and the reactions are pretty much as Sorrel and Slice have said. Ambition or the ability to think and have a life of your own choosing is squashed early on and they just accept being controlled by their parents and the system generally. The ones I do speak to who still have that spark of independence seem to know it is only a dream and the chances of it happening are next to nothing. Even my stepson, 25 years old, who went to university and had a first job working for a trading company has just changed jobs to a trainee insurance assessor could/would not take the job until his father approved it. I do meet quite a few students who have real potential if only they could be given the ability to act for themselves.
The textbook I was given here at my university had me ask a similar question to my students. It asked, What are your opinions on the Chinese education system? Most were negative which led me to ask the question how many of you like what your studying? Most answered "my parents chose it for me" This bothered as I chose my own path in College and I chose History which I knew going into the program my job options would be poor but I can honestly say I enjoyed all of my history classes and would not go back and change a thing. But then I remember that things are different here and in even in America I have American-Korean/Chinese who sort of still abide to this and all I can think of is I respect my parents but sometimes you really just have to tell them to "-----" off, especially when you get older and start leading your own life... but i don't see this every happening in China at least in my lifetime
Most of them say they're doing things they don't like.