Saturday was Teachers’ Day, but the learning environment in Taiwan has become worrying.
Charles Dickens wrote: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” This might well describe the situation in today’s classrooms.
First of all, it is the best of times because students do not have to rely on teachers to acquire knowledge thanks to rapid advances in learning software and resources. The Internet offers boundless potential. Students now have access to whatever they want to learn.
It is the worst of times because Generation Z has a passive learning attitude and prizes pragmatism. This has exhausted full-time and part-time teachers.
Part-time professors at private universities are paid a much lower hourly rate than their counterparts at public universities. There are part-time assistant professors who are only paid NT$630 (US$19.79) per hour for giving lessons at private universities, while the hourly rate for public university professors has been increased to NT$830. The higher education sector could be said to be implementing its own “one country, two systems” model.
Students in my class were shocked when they were told the hourly fee which private schools offer to part-time teachers. The pay is supposed to compensate teachers for preparing teaching materials, interacting with students, and preparing assignments and examinations. Teachers’ commute time should also be taken into account.
Yet the hourly rate is appalling as it can hardly compensate teachers for their commitment and effort.
Apart from the unfair pay, interactions between teachers and students cannot compare with those in the past. Nowadays, students are more self-aware. If they are not satisfied with their teacher, they can write online posts anonymously, take photos or videos secretly, which arguably raises privacy concerns, or express their discontent in negative teaching assessments.
Most teachers dare not voice their anger and grievances. The university management which upholds the “customer first” principle believes teachers are the ones who need to improve, not the students.
In this way, teaching and learning are similar to acting, with teachers in the role of salespeople, who aim to please, and students customers, who are to be pleased.
This is very different from the past. Nowadays, teachers not only have to protect themselves, but also have to learn “sales techniques” to sell knowledge to their “customers.”
Teachers who are passionate about teaching and have dreams they want to pursue in classrooms often in reality face expressionless and apathetic students who only pay attention to their phones.
Facing a declining birthrate, the Ministry of Education is promoting the “Flipped Classroom” model to guarantee students’ right to education. It should also aim to help educators and address the pressure they face in the higher-education system, which rewards only those who are good at doing research, but not those who are good at teaching.
Educators deserve a more dignified life.
Liu Wei-ting is a university assistant professor.
Translated by Fion Khan
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