I can’t believe my first year of teaching is almost over. I just looked over the archives of my blog, re-reading every post about my students. So, how am I?

I’m left with a lot of heavy emotions. I want to say ‘mixed emotions’, but it isn’t mixed at all. It’s all similar. Frustration, anxiety, disappointment, exhaustion. Yes, there have been a few blossoms among my thorns, but for the most part I feel so confused about my place here and my influence on this large group of students.

I never imagined that my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer would involve teaching the kinds of people I ended up with: first year architectural and engineering students, mostly male, with an average age of twenty. A great majority of my students come from really wealthy homes. All of my students fared poorly on the national exams. Most of them dislike school, and have absolutely no desire to learn English.

I have tried my damnedest to whip up amusing lesson plans. I’ve tried to spark interest, to boost creativity and connect with my students on a level beyond textbooks and recitation. I’ve tried to form clubs and groups, tried to engage and befriend. What is the end result? I can’t say.

After my pre-service training, I envisioned myself teaching students who would become my friends. I imagined starting a cooking club, organizing an English corner, being invited to visit a student’s home in the countryside. This is often the reality for many volunteers serving in China, but it isn’t mine.

I try not to take it personally. They’re guys. They’re twenty-year-old men who have boy brains. They make fart noises when their friends have to speak in class. They pummel each other during the breaks, beating and punching. They hide their cellphones inside the desks and play ‘Bejeweled’ even after I’ve begged them to try to work together on whatever project we’re supposed to be doing. They talk and talk and talk and talk. In Chinese. To each other. And when I try to casually talk to them, they turn into quivering, red-faced children who can barely manage to answer “how are you?”.

I don’t want to drown in negativity, I know that’s hardly productive…but I also don’t want to hide the truth about my life here. I love China, I love Sichuan, and I truly do love my school and community. I even love my students. Still, every day I find myself wishing I were teaching students who cared a bit more and tried a bit harder.

Every day, I remind myself that my purpose here in China is not solely to teach. I’m here to be a face for my country—and honestly, I think I’m doing a stellar job! As a naturally shy person, it’s not easy to look strangers straight in the eye and smile at them…especially not when those strangers are cranky oldsters who look like they’re experiencing a bigfoot sighting. I’m doing my best to befriend my colleagues, and to show others that Americans can be good stewards and good friends.

There are some seriously major differences between me and the boys I teach. I can’t expect to magically transcend these things sheerly by cheerily expressing my desire to befriend them. I’ve had to do things I never imagined I’d do (like standing up to a boy much taller than myself and having to sternly say “Sit down. I’m not happy with you.” after he put another kid in a headlock.) I can’t relate to their world, because there are only small shreds that correlate with my own. I absolutely relish those moments when something silly happens in class that we can all laugh about together. I wish I didn’t have to teach these guys English at all. I wish there weren’t 50 of them per class, so I could pay more attention to each person and try to crack a little harder at the heavy shells they wear.

I want them to know how hard I’ve tried. I want them to know how badly I wish it could have been a different sort of school year. I want them to know that I don’t give a shit about their English grade. I care more about their ability to interact with people different from themselves (like me.) I care about their creativity and their desire to think.

My only hope is that I’ve planted some sort of dormant seed, and maybe ten years from now it can germinate and blossom into the idea that once they had a foreign teacher who cared deeply about them, who memorized all 350 Chinese names and faces, who tried to talk to them and always wanted to know “how are you?”.