
Chinese Education Startup Puts Western Teachers on Notice - jkuria
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-education-startup-puts-western-teachers-on-notice-11553160602
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spamizbad
Headline is a bit misleading. I thought this was going to be about disruption
but it's actually about a Chinese startup firing western teachers who talk
about topics considered "politically-sensitive" in China.

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mc32
I wouldn’t call if misleading, but certainly it’s one of those topics with
double meanings. It could be phrased less equivocally, I agree, but at the
same time it’s not misleading.

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Guzba
Nice equivocating at the end:

“No matter what nation you’re teaching in, there are going to be things that
we need to be thoughtful about,” he said. “Even in American classrooms, there
are things you cannot discuss.”

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Hydraulix989
I'm not even sure why these things (Taiwan, T. Square, etc.) come up during
English classes for kids in the first place?

Anyways, as a hired and paid employee of VIPkid, you are required to follow
their rules, like it or not. Otherwise, you can leave and teach somewhere
else.

As a western European-American who has spent time residing in various Asian
countries along the China<->anti-China political spectrum as well as both blue
and red parts of the US, I really don't see a problem with VIPkid prohibiting
discussion of culturally and politically sensitive issues in their classrooms.
That's just about respect.

If you feel so strongly/morally opposed to China's actions and history, VIPkid
is the wrong forum, even if you are seeking to effect change. After all, we
already are in the midst of another Cold War.

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fiblye
Every so often you’ll see people who think non-English-speaking countries are
left in the dark and unaware of the realities of the world, and it’s their
duty as an enlightened English speaker to show the kids the light.

Every year there’s someone who goes on a mission to talk about Tiananmen,
Nanjing, Taiwan, and other things. They don’t know that it isn’t that the kids
need to be educated about their past by westerners, but that the kids are
already exposed to that info but don’t care because they’re kids and just
don’t care about things like that. They’re only in English class to memorize a
few phrases to help confused tourists or prepare for a future in international
work.

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slaymaker1907
I think it is because even if legally ok, this company only exists due to
massive support from US citizens. Therefore, I think the natural expectation
is that this company needs to allow for some flexibility due to this not being
an exclusively Chinese venture.

Additionally, learning a language isn't just memorizing phrases but also
understanding the culture and values behind it. If you don't at the very least
understand the US/UK perspective on tyranny, it will be nearly impossible to
comprehend a lot of 20th century English literature. "Big brother" is a
relatively common phrase that I don't think is possible to explain in an
entirely Chinese government sanctioned way.

I'm not sure how relevant going over these issues specifically is for teaching
English, but in my experience Chinese culture is extremely different from
English culture and there are almost inevitably going to many conflicts.

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tiredyam
This is exactly the right answer. Big brother, surveillance state, police
state, etc. the list goes on and on.

This startup is for us citizens. Students should be taught English in the way
it’s spoken in the states; not some China-ok’d version. Taking a step back,
the whole idea of a Chinese company teaching English primarily for US citizens
is smelly to begin with. Sounds like all future students should stay away.

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mc32
I wouldn’t expect any different. People are under the impression that the CCP
isn’t the CCP anymore just because they allow government supervised private
enterprise via Capitalism eith Chinese Characteristics, as they put it.

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tomrod
Which capitalism and march towards ordered openness is mind-bending to many
compared to the way CCP used to operate.

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qwerty456127
Do real educated people who are not politicians even care about geopolitical
issues like that? Everybody knows PRC government theoretically (they don't go
there to actually enforce their laws anyway) considers Taiwan a part of PRC.
Every educated person in PRC knows they can't just buy a ticket and travel to
Taiwan easily. Everybody knows Taiwan is de-facto independent. So why does it
even matter to anybody how is it labelled on a map?

I also doubt many would know and care about Tiananmen Square if the PRC
government wouldn't be making such an epic performance out of the attempts to
hide it. It sounds like every single person in China has to know about it to
know they should never talk about it. It almost feels like they are
intentionally drawing so much attention to it just to hide something else they
actually don't speak about and nobody notices.

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thaumasiotes
> Every educated person in PRC knows they can't just buy a ticket and travel
> to Taiwan easily.

I'm pretty sure they _can_ just buy a ticket and travel to Taiwan easily, and
that they're aware of that.

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qwerty456127
And no kind of political police is going to become interested?

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tonypace
It's too common for it to be a meaningful data point. Taiwan was the biggest
destination for Chinese tours around 2015.

I have heard that having a degree from a Taiwanese university is somewhat
suspicious.

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qwerty456127
Interesting to know. Thanks.

If so, what other than lack of interest stops PRC citizens from learning about
the Tiananmen square "mystery" when they travel to Taiwan?

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thaumasiotes
Nothing. Why would you need more than lack of interest?

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qwerty456127
If there is no interest anyway, why make such a show out of hiding it?

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thaumasiotes
Put another way, "people vacationing in Taiwan" have no more than the
background level of interest in the Tiananmen Square Incident, and that level
is so low that it doesn't need to be suppressed.

Whereas people searching the internet for 6.4 or 天安门事件 can be expected to have
a much higher level of interest in 天安门事件, and need to be suppressed.

