Jottings from the Granite Studio

Yeah, I’ve been remiss the last couple of months about writing. My bad. No excuses. Well…no good ones. Teaching. Research. Life. The fact that the PSB’s working definition of ‘undesirable foreigner’ seems to include those actively researching Chinese history. Whatever. Truth of the matter is that I blog as a hobby and a diversion, a rewarding one to be sure, but also by necessity second fiddle to the twin pillars of my chosen profession: research and teaching.

I don’t write much about my classes in this space. Generally speaking, I think it’s unfair to discuss students or ideas expressed in the confines of the classroom. I still do it, occasionally and obliquely, but it’s not really what this blog is for. Nevertheless, the truth is that after research, teaching takes up the bulk of my time. This past semester I taught two classes, one on 20th-century Chinese History and the other on Modern Chinese Philosophy. Both went rather well, to the credit of a great group of students more than their instructor.

(And yes, my neighbors, associates, and random strangers who ask what I do in Beijing are routinely amused/shocked/appalled that a laowai is teaching Chinese history and philosophy in China. No matter.)

Teaching history is what I do. It’s really all I’ve ever wanted to do, which sets me apart a bit from my colleagues and professors. It seems that most people I talk to within ‘the academy’ got into the gig to pursue their own research, and that is certainly a rewarding and noble goal, but many also see the teaching of undergraduates as a means to an end. Maybe, I’ve got it backwards. I love my research, don’t get me wrong, but what gets me up in the morning is the teaching–the lectures and discussions, the questions and the learning. And to be frank, I think I’m pretty decent at it. It always shocks me how some of my fellow grad students–from all different universities–seem to loathe teaching and actually look down upon the students. It’s an odd attitude given that the vast percentage of us (IF we’re lucky) will be getting teaching jobs. The pure research gigs so craved and sought after are few, for most of us it will be 2-3 courses a semester with research squeezed into summers and sabbaticals.

But here’s the thing…teaching is like sales. 1) If you don’t really love it, you’ll never be good at it, and 2) it’s not something you can learn how to love. You either do or you don’t. You have to absolutely love being in front of the students, truly respecting them for who they are, or else the class is going to bomb. We’ve all had teachers who didn’t want to be there and we all remember what those classes were like. Information is important, preparation is key, but it also helps if you have a dark, kinky streak of Bono somewhere in your veins that feeds off of being in front of a large group of people and getting them excited about whatever it is that you’re telling them. I’m not talking about ‘infotainment’ or tired cliches involving spoonfuls of sugar and the medicine that must be choked down…I’m talking about being genuinely excited about the material and truly jazzed about getting the opportunity to share it with the students and working through the day’s problems.

Yeah…sounds terribly corny, I know. But it is what it is. To be good, you need to love it, and if you don’t already love it, well than it’s time to start thinking about getting your real estate license and making actual money.

On that note, I signed on for another year here in Beijing, this time as a ‘visiting scholar’ attached to a program at one of the universities. In addition to teaching history and philosophy, I will receive sufficient time, funding, and support to hopefully finish the dissertation and see where the next step on this journey will take me.

I hear this town might be cleared out by August–a combination of visa problems and a whole crop of foreign experts whose contracts are tied to the Olympics–so be it. We’ll still be here into 2009. Hope you will be too.