I Had No Purpose!

As I write, I'm sitting in an oversized wicker chair at the front of a class of 52 lowered Chinese heads. The class is on the eighth floor of the pedagogical building, where I teach. Our building sits at the center of Jiaying's campus and has a pleasant view of the city and surrounding mountains.

The lowered heads are my American and British history students, who are taking their final exam. My other history class are in a room next door with my friend Nathan as MC.

On our tortuous but familiar walk up eight flights of stairs there were clear reminders of the challenge that lay ahead. Red cloth banners with white cut-out characters remind students to stay (or become) honest during finals. Pledges of honesty signed by each class also hang at the back of their home room. A newbie would assume that these things serve as some measure of warning or reinforcement for our students, and s/he would hope that the students would pay heed. But I'm no newbie. The warnings are really for the teachers.

When I had to remind some students to keep their eyes on their own papers, they responded with, "What do you mean?" or "But I had no purpose!" or simply dropped their heads and got back to work.