True Story 7.07
East Asian teacher mothers her American grad student
The setting for this story
While a martial arts student in China, 22-year-old Mark Salzman also studied Chinese literature, which introduced him to an unfamiliar teacher–student relationship. Here’s how Mark tells it.
A story of misaligned minds8
My literature instructor, Teacher Wei, was a teacher in the Chinese tradition, taking responsibility not only for my academic progress but also for my development as a person.
I explained that in America, children become adults around the time they leave for college, making decisions for themselves after that.
She was appalled. “Don’t your parents and teachers care about you? How can you possibly think you understand everything? You are only twenty-two years old, far from home! I am your teacher; if I don’t care about you, won’t you be lonely? I’m older than you and know better.”
Teacher Wei seemed to get such pleasure out of trying to straighten me out that I stopped resisting. I learned how to dress to stay comfortable throughout the year (in buildings without heat or air conditioning), how to prevent and treat common illness, how to behave toward teachers, students, strangers, and bureaucrats, how to save books from mildew and worms, and never to do anything to excess.
“Mark, you laugh a great deal during your lectures. Why?”
“Because, Teacher Wei, I am having fun.”
“I see. Laugh less. It seems odd that a man laughs so hard at his own jokes. People think you are a bit crazy, or perhaps choking.”
“Teacher Wei, do you think it is bad to laugh?”
“No, not at all. In fact, it is healthy to laugh. In Chinese we have a saying that if you laugh you will live long. But you shouldn’t laugh too much, or you will develop digestive problems.”
Mark’s question
What’ s behind Teacher Wei’s determination to mold me personally as well as academically?
Critique of story 7.07
The culture of schooling in East Asia is knowledge-focused, which means that during instruction teachers are determined to ensure that their academic knowledge is transmitted to their students. In many societies with knowledge-focused classrooms, something else is going on as well: Teachers also are determined, like Teacher Wei, to share with their students the superior wisdom they’ve gained by virtue of having lived longer than their students. Teachers try to further their students’ social and moral development, a role that most Americans view as largely or entirely parental. In societies where it’s expected that teachers will be their students’ social and moral guides, the term “second parents” is common.
This phenomenon is best understood as an education-based instance of a broader social pattern within many communitarian societies: senior–junior relationships. In these relationships, the junior (younger) member exchanges overt respect for the supportive guidance of the senior (older) member.9
Three facts are notable about the second-parent phenomenon. First, it equally characterizes both male and female teachers. Second, it applies not only to primary school teachers but also to teachers at higher levels; Salzman was a graduate student. Finally, the second-parent phenomenon is observable in many world regions. I first heard “second parent” spoken in Portuguese – segundo pai – when I lived in Portugal five decades ago.
For thought
Think of your own teachers and professors after the third grade. Did any of them relate to you like Teacher Wei? How did you react? To what factor did you attribute their parent-like tendency? If no teacher tried to “second parent” you, do you wish one or more of them had done so?
Related stories
Story 10.18 discusses a case in which a senior–junior relationship was desired by an Asian corporate long-term trainee in the U.S. but wasn’t tolerated by his American trainer.
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Endnotes:
8 Salzman, 36–37.
9 My private editor, Kay M. Jones, reminds me that the respect shown by the junior is conditional: If the senior demonstrates competence and caring, then the junior gives respect and loyalty in return.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.