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Q: Suicide season is here again
The Kids get there exam results today and the pressure to do well is building to a high level and some won't be able to cope.
As responsible adults we need to do what we can to help them understand a bad score is not the end of their life.
I've lost enough adult friends in resent years to PTSD and i have had rough of funerals .
Don't let it happen to these kids.
We need to talk about this as distasteful as it is and do something positive.
5 years 20 weeks ago in Health & Safety - China
I chastised a young female student (teen) once about her lack of effort regarding studies,,, she started crying !! Blew my mind! I was like,,, woooh! One of my first thoughts is what if she does what we always hear about china students doing!! Really scared me! That was a wake-up call for me,,,, just because we grew up where people really let you have it and we took it in stride,,,,, well, those days are over. So, I am like 'gentle guy' now when it comes to anything with students,,, I only point out the good in their work, or at least point out deficiencies in a nice way, and try to be understanding and all that,,, or if I feel really ticked-off, I have learned to just walk away and ignore. It just upsets me if I get angry with them and potentially drives them to some wacko behavior. So, anyway, I think we all see that now in China,,, heck, might be the whole world for all I know...
Stiggs:
I've had students who are obviously exhausted, semi functioning nervous wrecks.Their hair is going gray, and they're 11 years old.
There is just so much pressure on those kids. They go to school and have to deal with teachers who probably call them stupid and make them sit in the back of the classroom. They might not have the latest iphone and nike shoes so have no face and get called peasant by the richer kids. School sucks for them.
And then they go home and have their parents and two sets of grandparents telling them they're letting the family down because they aren't the top in their class and they should be working harder - so they're sent to their room to 'study' and no doubt random people will come in,point to a random page in a textbook and demand to know how well the poor kid has memorized it. And when the kid can't explain it to the peasant who couldn't understand it anyway they get yelled at - called useless, get a smack around the head to 'make him learn better' and told to stay up all night studying.
And then in the weekend they get sent to piano class at 7am, then a few hours of English class and maybe maths and homework to end the day and when the family is eating BBQ later and the kid just wants to play a game on his phone and unwind all the drunk uncles will ask him to put on a performance to show his piano and English skills and amuse them.
It's f***ing sad seeing a happy, bright kid get turned into a depressed, exhausted robot before he / she even hits puberty.
yes, if the gaokao scores are good, all the teachers will be in a good mood for bonuses coming, if not, students getting tough final exams before going home and piles of summer homework. I had a suicide at my high school 2 years ago. Parents bought him a house in grade 10, afraid they could not afford one later, pressure of expectations and his older sister helping to pay the mortgage was too much.
The rates are high but we don't know how high. The media here can't publish the numbers. Parents won't be saying anything because there is no help anyway. The economy and the tech sectors have come a long way, very fast, in this country. To bad the education system isn't given the same priority. But the social area remains far behind that of the rest of the world. This includes the education system.
Had a distressed kid talking to me today about a poor exam result .
Im not an English Teacher and im not their parent ...however I have this stupid conchance yapping in my head telling me to do more....but it doesn't tell me what.
So frustrating .
Stiggs:
Other than be someone for kids to vent to there's not a lot you really can do.
Nothing you can say is going to change the culture or the way things are done.
Heard from a couple of Chinese teachers at my school that there was a suicide last year. Not one word was said. Instead, the director took away the afternoon free time and started policies that made school hours 7am-9;30pm six days a week. The rational behind the decision was the students would be too busy to do anything else (like kill themselves). So far, these new posicies have caused almost all the teachers in the international department to leave. I don't see a few Chinese teachers that I talked with. People are leaving the school. And fuctard doesn't realize he's the problem.
For all their vaunted "5,000 year old culture" they really don't get it.
Stiggs:
A public school teacher I knew was in the situation where the kids she taught were exhausted from the long hours and then being up all night doing homework and their grades were suffering, as you'd expect.
So to 'fix' the grades the headmaster tried to do the same thing - increase the classroom hours so they'd finish at about 9pm and then presumably go home and still do the hours of pointless homework.
The only reason the idiot headmaster didn't get his way was because the teachers put their foot down and refused to work that late, said that they didn't feel safe walking home in the middle of the night and a lot of the parents told him to go f*** himself too.
I really think that is more we an do ...well in my case Me.
Getting the informatin out there that their Knowlage is fr infront of most western Kids.
and that a Electriction an a Plumber can make more mone tha a graduate student can.
even a Truck driver can make big Bucks i they wok in he big companies .
I always wanted to teach in China Earthmoving and Forkliftsto the Austalian standard and get them Australian Accreditatin but Money an life always gets in the way .
Stiggs:
The problem with that is China hasn't got to the stage where tradies are certified yet. Or if they are I sure as hell haven't seen any sign of it. If you need someone to fix your electrics you go to the guys standing on the corner with signs and ask who can do electrics and about ten will rush at you all saying 'no worries mate, that's easy'. And usually the cheapest guy gets the job and his work reflects the price you paid.
There's just no expectation of quality in China so certified tradies don't have a place yet.
philbravery:
Life is cheap in China ...pleanty more where they come from attitude lets the world sleep better at night I guess. What a shitty world we live in
Stiggs:
Yep, it's the way of the world, life sucks for most of the 7 billion people here.
It could be worse. Imagine being a dog in China. You'd be fed leftover noodles you can't digest occasionally, beaten by idiots and maybe end up somewhere like the Yulin dog festival where peasants blowtorch you, butcher you while you're still alive then eat you.
I chastised a young female student (teen) once about her lack of effort regarding studies,,, she started crying !! Blew my mind! I was like,,, woooh! One of my first thoughts is what if she does what we always hear about china students doing!! Really scared me! That was a wake-up call for me,,,, just because we grew up where people really let you have it and we took it in stride,,,,, well, those days are over. So, I am like 'gentle guy' now when it comes to anything with students,,, I only point out the good in their work, or at least point out deficiencies in a nice way, and try to be understanding and all that,,, or if I feel really ticked-off, I have learned to just walk away and ignore. It just upsets me if I get angry with them and potentially drives them to some wacko behavior. So, anyway, I think we all see that now in China,,, heck, might be the whole world for all I know...
Stiggs:
I've had students who are obviously exhausted, semi functioning nervous wrecks.Their hair is going gray, and they're 11 years old.
There is just so much pressure on those kids. They go to school and have to deal with teachers who probably call them stupid and make them sit in the back of the classroom. They might not have the latest iphone and nike shoes so have no face and get called peasant by the richer kids. School sucks for them.
And then they go home and have their parents and two sets of grandparents telling them they're letting the family down because they aren't the top in their class and they should be working harder - so they're sent to their room to 'study' and no doubt random people will come in,point to a random page in a textbook and demand to know how well the poor kid has memorized it. And when the kid can't explain it to the peasant who couldn't understand it anyway they get yelled at - called useless, get a smack around the head to 'make him learn better' and told to stay up all night studying.
And then in the weekend they get sent to piano class at 7am, then a few hours of English class and maybe maths and homework to end the day and when the family is eating BBQ later and the kid just wants to play a game on his phone and unwind all the drunk uncles will ask him to put on a performance to show his piano and English skills and amuse them.
It's f***ing sad seeing a happy, bright kid get turned into a depressed, exhausted robot before he / she even hits puberty.
