"Teacher, your game isn't fun at all."

said two girls in my class today.

I can't get over how funny things work in life. I was biking earlier this morning and thought to myself, "You know, I think I'm actually starting to enjoy teaching, in some small, strange way, despite all the struggles and the fact that I'm not a real 'teacher'." Then, as life would have it, during my last class, someone took a sledgehammer and hit my newfound revelation square in the face.

It was during one of my "peasant classes", one where the majority of the students are apathetic to the point where I now run the class in a really relaxed, let's just chat and have fun kind of way (mostly to keep my vitality going which is a rarity these days). Still most of the students don't pay attention, but I can have some small conversation with some of students. In the end, I decided to do a little game of practicing asking questions with some team competition involved. And then at the end, those two girls hit the jackpot.

And they didn't stop there. I only understood maybe 80% of their words, but I got almost 100% of their meaning, and then some. "Teacher we've done this before. You're too relaxed, calm, and easy going. You don't care about our class. That's why everyone's so loud and doesn't listen to you. You should care about us."

It doesn't matter whether their statement had weight to it or not. They had guts, I give them that. Two Chinese girls willing to speak their mind, finally. Of course, it doesn't change the fact that I was indignant, but at the same time, I couldn't deny that for their class, I actually didn't care a whole lot.

I didn't respond, and in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't. I could have defended myself with a flood of excuses. In fact, I don't know if I would call them excuses. They're almost facts that are so overbearing I could list them all and once again realize it's just impossible to run this class. I could have justified my position to anyone and be vindicated. But in the end, what would have defending myself done to change the situation of the class?

Nothing.

The girls would feel bad for bringing it up (or even more indignant), I would feel better about myself but still upset about the situation, and the class would just be the same next week. It always comes down to the students, and more than anyone, they always lose.

Regardless of how I felt about that moment, or the job in general, I'm beginning to realize how crucial a teacher's job is. It's easy to get lost in the bureaucracy of my job here. I'm not necessarily treated well, severely underpaid, the environment isn't conducive, the faculty don't seem to care, no one has any real suggestions, I could go on and on. And of course, when other people e-mail me to ask me about my perspective about this place, I give them my honest opinion as objectively as possible. Truthfully, I think losing foreign teachers for a year would really wake the administration up to the fact that they need to decide what they want this foreign English teacher program to be, that they need to provide some backbone if they don't want the foreign teachers to go crazy.

But that, in the end also harms the students. Everything always comes down to the students. It has to. There aren't many jobs where every little decision has a direct impact on someone's life. If I don't feel like planning because something ruined my mood, the students lose. If a previous class was rowdy and the following class I decided to do something ridiculous in revenge, the students lose.

I've never felt so much pressure to not focus on myself.