We went to have lunch with one of Mei’s closest friends recently. There I met a lady who, after 2 years training in the early 80’s had been teaching English in high school.
I soon became aware that she really didn’t have all that good a standard of spoken English, although she was perfectly understandable to me. We talked for a while about her job, and very soon I had put any criticism back to the ill educated box it came from. She has to work from 07:30 to 19:00 every day, and doubtless sometimes puts in Saturdays as well. She deserves a gold medal for endurance.
Sitting round the lunch table in the flat, I could see that she was exhausted and lacking in any colour. At fifty years old, she was really just an empty shell.
It’s one of the reasons I stopped teaching English here. The students were so tired and lacking in recreation time that an English lesson in the evening or a Saturday was just about the last thing they needed or wanted. Despite this, I had some great lessons and students.
Today, we went to hospital to try and see one of the casualties of this all work no play culture. She is an English teacher in a Technical college that has just been turned into a university. I met her when she was moonlighting at a language school that I worked at for a short while, and unlike my previous subject she really can speak English. She had studied in Canterbury, England, for a year, a place I know very well as I used to live close by.
She had to go into hospital to get a lump removed, but when we got there today she had been discharged. I know she has been working very long hours for a very unsympathetic boss (bet it’s a man), and what with other things that have been going on her body is really feeling the strain. When we took her to lunch the other day she too was looking pretty rough.
Two ladies, two teachers, two sick people. Every time I pass a traffic cop I know the poor guy has a life expectancy of only 42. I just hope the insane pace of change in this country brings an end to the way these people are treated.
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