True Story 4.13
A misunderstanding with international teaching assistants
The setting for this story
Susan, a mathematics professor, describes the misunderstanding that arose when her department had four Chinese graduate students who also were serving as ITAs (international teaching assistants) .
A story of misaligned minds18
The other math faculty members and I were shocked to discover, well into the semester, that our ITAs from China, who were doing good enough jobs leading lecture breakout sessions, were failing to understand their advanced coursework. They had given no hint of their struggle. We do know that our advanced coursework is really tough going, so we emphasize at the start of each semester that we’re ready to assist. “Please, please,” we say, “do not fall behind! Just ask us for help!”
Susan’s question
How can it be that all four ITAs were floundering while we professors knew nothing about it?
Critique of story 4.13
The faculty members assumed that anyone who consciously wants to be helped will request help. Their assumption derives from Americans’ individualistic values, a key element of which is self-reliance (self-sufficiency), i.e., the presumption that each person is competent and strong. It is socially undesirable to be, or even appear to be, dependent on others, which reveals that one might be incompetent and/or weak. So unless we are in seriously deep trouble, we’re reluctant to ask others for assistance. (Could this be part of the explanation why some seniors are determined to remain in their own homes as long as possible?).
Americans’ typical stance toward others goes like this: I am self-reliant, so don’t worry about me. And I assume that you are self-reliant, so I won’t worry about you. I know that if I offer you help when you did not request it, I’m revealing that, at least at that moment, I believe you’re not self-reliant, which would be insulting. So unless you request my help, I won’t give you any.
If you or I encounter a stranger who seems distressed, we’re unlikely to offer help because that person remains able to request help. But if we see a stranger collapse in the street, most of us leap into action. Americans have a positive reputation as willing to help others. This discussion isn’t about that; it’s about the prompts that motivate us to act. In most cases, the person needing help must either (a) ask us for it or (b) clearly need help but not be capable of asking us for it. Their prior relationship with us – family, friend, acquaintance, total stranger – does not matter.
By pleading with their grad students to request help before they fall seriously behind, faculty members had tried to make it easier for all their students to overcome their fear of appearing dependent on professorial assistance to understand the seemingly impenetrable advanced math.
The Chinese ITAs actually were doing exactly what Americans do: portraying themselves as academically self-reliant. Consequently, the faculty assumed they were fine. Did the ITAs adopt American patterns of individualistic behavior? They did not. They were behaving according to Chinese communitarian norms. Here’s how that works.
It’s common for people guided by communitarian values, such as the Chinese, to give and receive help within their circles of relatives, daily coworkers, close friends, etc. In fact, their norm is that, within their closest relationships, help is offered without any request being made. Students in China actively support each other; they spontaneously form study groups to give and receive academic help. It’s likely that these four ITAs did exactly that.
But professors are neither relatives nor friends nor even peers. They are highly esteemed senior knowledge-transmitters. In the East Asian culture of the classroom, any suggestion that one’s professor failed to successfully transmit knowledge during class would cause that professor to “lose face,” to be embarrassed. Seeking help from one’s professor is believed to imply that “I need help, Mr. Professor, so it must be because your instruction was inadequate.” And in East Asia, if you cause someone else to lose face, you also lose face.
For thought
This story depicts an unusual cultural complication. Typically, one group’s observable behavior is unfamiliar to the other group; thus, it’s ignored or misinterpreted. In this case, however, the Chinese students’ observable behavior (publicly behaving as though they were understanding the math), appeared familiar to their professors and therefore was interpreted in familiar ways: The Chinese students are not requesting help so they must be OK. Unfortunately, that was a mindset misalignment that yielded the wrong conclusion – and seriously floundering ITAs.
Related stories
Stories 1.16 and 7.08 discuss differing cultural perspectives on students’ question-asking. See also, in Chapter 8, the section entitled “Students’ question-asking.”.
Go to Chapter 1 Quick-Links | Return to Chapter 4 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 7 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 10 Quick-Links
Endnotes:
18 Jenkins, 490–91, 497.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.