The 2009 Teaching Committee retreat
I was delighted to be the beneficiary of inclusion last weekend, when I was invited to attend the College Teaching Committee weekend meeting in Simao's tea hills. As you know I've been working for years to develop the College curriculum and extra-curricular activities for teaching majors - authentic teaching practice, teaching clubs, peer teaching, among other things - but have never been included in any meetings or discussions on the subject. Even with the formal establishment of the TDC as a working centre for training and research, there has been no acknowledgement to me of my role in that. I feel like a ghost. I felt like a ghost, until this weekend. We were driven by College bus to a beautiful hotel within the grounds of the Yinpangshan tea estate, East of Simao. I could smell the tea trees from my room and the glass-walled veranda on the second floor allowed one to see for many miles, over the hills towards Laos and Burma.
Another surprise for me was receiving an "Honour Certificate" for my co-teaching work and research with Hou Wanxia. We put a proposal together over two years ago and prepared an application and reports on the basis of our undergraduate teaching methodology course. A few other people's names are on the certificate (one of them cut out of this photo) who did absolutely nothing to support this work. In fact, one of them tried to sabotage it at every opportunity - criticising our student-centred methodology to other teachers and students, undermining the aims of the course to the students themselves and telling me it was "ridiculous" to teach anything other than oral English - apparently all that foreign teachers are qualified to do. She didn't flinch as she received the award and I wondered if she even saw the hypocracy of her actions, or of her snatching from Hou Wanxia an undeserved cut of the 2,000 yuan prize. This is the way it is. Leaders are respected for their ability to suck up to those that matter, not for their integrity or fairness. We don't matter, not to her anyway. I'll leave here and the injustice won't affect me any more. I am relieved, however, that Hou Wanxia's fabulous efforts are at least being recognised by the College leaders, if not by her colleagues.
On the evening of our arrival we played ping-pong and posed for photos among the tea bushes before dinner. The meal included several wild plant dishes and an apparently never-ending supply of red wine, olive wine, rice brandy and black rice liquor. The latter was my favourite and I was longing for all the other diners to come and toast me so that I had an excuse to drink. One doesn't really sip here. It's more a toast and down-in-one approach to drinking. Fortunately the Dean of Biology was into the sweet tipple so we just carried on toasting each other.
The alcohol was a good relaxant so everyone was primed for some wa nationality dancing round the campfire with these local girls. The evening was rounded off with me having a bit of a rap/street dancing session under the light of the dying embers with the wa girl in the middle. The other party-goers had left by then, or at least so I thought. Ma Li (art department friend) and Mr Sun (Chinese department, new comrade in arms) accompanied me back in a golf cart. It was a memorable evening and I awoke with the smell of wood smoke in my hair, as did the rest of the Teaching Committee.
The alcohol was a good relaxant so everyone was primed for some wa nationality dancing round the campfire with these local girls. The evening was rounded off with me having a bit of a rap/street dancing session under the light of the dying embers with the wa girl in the middle. The other party-goers had left by then, or at least so I thought. Ma Li (art department friend) and Mr Sun (Chinese department, new comrade in arms) accompanied me back in a golf cart. It was a memorable evening and I awoke with the smell of wood smoke in my hair, as did the rest of the Teaching Committee.
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