Teachers baffled by "Post-90s" generation
By Guan Xiaomeng (Chinadaily.com.cn)Updated: 2007-04-24 18:10
When talking about his history teacher, Yang Yifei, a third-year senior high student put on an air of scorn. "He teaches what's in the textbooks word for word," Yang said.
The student, who is the top student in history at a well-known secondary school in Beijing continued claiming the teacher was not knowledgeable enough because he refused to answer students' questions about a historical drama on television and Kung fu novels.
Yang's opinions represent the generation born after the 1990s called "hou 90s", who are brought up on "fast-food culture" and the Internet. The generation gap between teachers and students range from language to attitudes.
Challenging the teachers' authority
"Perhaps the teacher thought my questions are beyond the textbooks, but I think if I have a question for the teacher, he should have the answer," Yang said.
However, his teacher is not the only one who feels his students disrespect him. Many students criticize their English teachers for their imperfect English pronunciation, while Geography teachers don't know much about the world outside of China. That's because the students have traveled abroad, but the teachers haven't.
 Students have a class with their cell phones confiscated and laid on the teacher's desk. |
"We have to pay tuition fees to go to school, so we should complain if we're not satisfied with our teachers," said Zhang Fan, a student of a private middle school, which charges 10,000 yuan for annual tuition.
Because of the market economy, children growing up in the 90s believe education is something they consume, and so it's their right to fire the teacher and get a better one if they want.
Zhang said a teacher was fired in her school last year because she spoke with a thick Hebei accent and students claimed they couldn't understand what she said.
"Challenging teachers was unimaginable when I went to school," says Zhang
Fan's mother. "Even if the teachers didn't teach well, we dared not critcize
them."
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