The findings and the extended discussion issues are placed in chapter four. The study tries to understand if the participants have any incidents of cultural adjustment in different schools or life in Kinmen. The research findings are introduced according to the three themes of the analysis of interview data. From the following presentation, it can be seen that the participants face more serious challenges of working adjustment. In working adjustment domain, the participants expressed their difficulties with tone of dissatisfaction and powerlessness. The way to interact with Kinmen natives or understanding how the natives handling things is another part that the participants are trying to learn. Positive experiences such as having nice landlords or living under safe public security were also truthfully presented. The researcher gave enough description by the participants to have readers understand the participants’ genuine feeling and ideas.
The part of discussions identified several critical issues in findings. The issues include glass ceiling effect in Kinmen schools and homesickness. Glass ceiling effect may in fact result in young teachers’ dissatisfaction and influence teachers’ desire of staying in Kinmen.
And separation with one’s boyfriend/ girlfriend can deepen the homesick of teachers from Taiwan.
Findings
Theme One: Working Adjustment
The difficulties which the teachers pointed out were hard to be solved because they are mostly related to something rooted in schools— Deans or principals are hard to challenge, time schedule will not be changed in short time, and specific demands for students are things that teachers need to cooperate schools to execution.
Organizational behavior
Organizational behavior investigates the impact that individuals or groups and have on
behavior within an organization. It is an interdisciplinary field that includes sociology, psychology, and communication (Robbins, 2004). The participants found elder teachers possess more substantial leadership and schools are lack of upward communication.
Leadership in school
Every public high school no matter in Taiwan or Kinmen, has a basic personnel framework consisting of a principal, homeroom teachers, teachers who also have administrative duty, subject teachers, and also few civil servants. A school is not like a for-profit organization in which employees’ payment or benefit is mainly decided by the company they belong to. Instead, public school teachers’ payment, year-end bonuses and other welfare are regulated and secured by national rules but not by principals, besides, a principal also holds teaching position meaning who is still a homeroom teacher or subject teacher in the case he/ she does not be a principal yet has not retired.
Under such circumstances, within an organization, public school teachers should have more equal rights than usual employees in companies. In meetings, teachers should have rights to speak and offer their suggestions as well as the principal or deans can do. In Kinmen, principals and deans are all elder natives. However, different from the ideal state, one participant called her principal as “the emperor.” And another participant described her experience of having meetings in school:
Whenever in a meeting, it’s always the principal having the final say, and teachers’ opinions are really just for references, and that’s why our meeting time is usually quick, because we tend not to raise ideas; we only have to sit there, listen, and finish the snacks or meals prepared for us.
Another participant said how detailed her principal can interfere with:
When we were teaching, the principal sometimes suddenly opened windows of the classrooms and directly blamed students for not letting the air circulated. Or he even stepped into the classroom and picked up some little litter. To me, and I know some other Taiwan colleagues; do
not appreciate the principal’s “enthusiasm.” I think he can tell teachers that he prefers windows to be open, or he can softly speak to the teachers to let us ask students pick trash up.
When the researcher discusses the above instances with another participant, she said,
“My principal and the academic dean have done similar things to my class, too. They would immediately demand what they want for the class despite the teacher was still in the process of teaching.”
The participants referred to their feeling as “not being respected” or even described the principals or deans’ such behavior as “rude.” They expressed the instances with voice of shock and unbelief, as if they have never be treated like this before, or as if they do not believe such class interruption should happen. From their description, it is obvious that the principals and deans may not know the fact that teachers expect more authority during class time. A participant mentioned, “Well, I guess maybe it’s because they grew up in a world of military control, so they feel no wrong with the management way of centralization.”
A participant shared her experience about teaching in Taiwan. She said,
In the two different schools I stayed as an intern teacher and a substitute teacher, people [staff in schools] fully respect teachers’ interaction with students in class and do not interfere in teachers’ classroom management unless the teacher does something unacceptable. The schools gave us more discretion than the school now I am working for.
Intern communication
Influenced by the climate that principals and deans have the greatest power in school, downward and lateral flows of communication are more common than upward communication. That means communication that flows from the principal/ deans to teachers and flows between teachers happen more often in schools. A participant talked about the actual situation during meetings lack of upward communications in her school.
It’s actually useless to speak out our opinions in meetings. Although they [deans or principal]
always ask, “Anybody has other questions or ideas?” but rarely there are teachers raising more words. At the beginning I felt it’s odd. But later I understood why. Teachers from Taiwan in fact are deemed to have no status to ‘challenge’ those heads as they are elders, so any new ideas different from the way people did would just be seen crazy, and no heads value those crazy ideas proposed by a young teacher from Taiwan. And why don’t other senior native teachers speak much? (…) from my observation, they tend to solve problems under the table, meetings are just routines, and that becomes a tacit understanding among teachers here. It’s a waste of time to me when meetings are only meaningless forms.
A participant shared similar story, too, about the common of lateral communication but rare upward one. The following contains the context and her reason.
We only complain about some unfair things with each other [other co-workers], because we know there’s nothing we can do about those things like no system of rotation between homeroom teachers and subject teachers. It’s not fair to make some teachers be homeroom teachers forever, while some can always be subject teachers. Schools in Taiwan, rotation has been done for years. But how dare we question this unreasonable phenomenon? Senior natives are like kings and queens; their status is unshakable in school. It’s actually the privilege the school reserve for them. So how can we say and change anything?
Upward communication is necessary when it concerns offering suggestions or opinions of changes. However, teachers from Taiwan have noticed some special organizational climate such as giving senior natives the best treatment is a must, or senior natives have the real power by schools’ allowance, so they have learned to talked some grievance only in private, and feel powerless to give chiefs some advice. A participant said, “one can be onto the blacklist if he/she has ever proposed any ‘rebellious’ suggestion in public.
Organizational Management
About teachers’ working hours in Kinmen, the participants said they have to begin daily
working early, have no time for resting during noon time, and need to attend many research-and-study programs for teachers on weekends. For schools’ positions, no match between job and its required specialty happens, which caused the participants who are responsible for things beyond their specialty a lot of pressure. The participants talked about the need to stress uniformity among students and schools prescribe right manners in many details.
Working hours
In Kinmen, senior high schools begin their early-reading activity at 7:00a.m., and junior high schools begin theirs at 7:15a.m. Homeroom teachers have to come to school by or before that time. There is no breaking time for junior high school homeroom teachers at noon, but senior high school ones can take a rest during noon time. Here is the statement of a participant from a junior high school.
I come to school around 6:45a.m to watch my students doing cleaning work of outside area.
Sometimes the road is full of leaves and litters, it’s impossible to clean our responsible area well if students don’t start working early, which means I have to be here early too. Without teacher’s watching, students may get lazy. Sometimes at thinking of my ex-colleagues in Taiwan don’t have to be in class until 7:30, I feel more homesick and also a little frustrated. I can’t imagine I have to wake up this early every day until their graduation. (…) but I guess after this grader’s graduation, I will still be a homeroom teacher.
After watching students cleaning outside area, homeroom teachers need to stay with their students during early-reading period to 7:45am, and then from 8:00am, the first period begins. Having taught for the morning time, homeroom teachers in the junior high schools still can’t take a rest during noon time (teachers in the senior high schools can), and the reason is described as below.
The most unbearable thing for my work I think is the everyday tiring noon time. Having lunch
is supposed to be a relaxing moment, but I have to supervise students’ lunch manners, from lining up nicely, wearing hats and masks for persons scooping dishes, starting eating together, eating quietly, to wiping plates and other hygiene problems. School has different teacher every day rank every class’ lunch behavior to have competition. Truly I can’t eat well under with all these work. The more tiring thing is that I need to supervise students cleaning classroom area after they finish their meals. Why don’t the schools arrange a particular period of time for cleaning as schools in Taiwan do? Watching outside cleaning area in the early morning and classroom cleaning area at noon time is really a great burden for homeroom teachers.
Another participant expressed her stress about noon time, too.
It’s such a hurry to finish so many things before 12:30pm. Every noon is like a battle to me. I am busy with keeping students’ order and hygienic manners, urging them to finish cleaning works after lunch. As soon as the bell rings at 12:30pm, all the classes should quickly turn from a busy status to a silent status— sleeping. The school requires everyone to sleep with their eyes closed! And homeroom teachers have to make sure they do it. It’s another battle to me to make all of them fall into sleep or pretend sleeping.
Some participants grumble about research-and-study programs often occupy their weekends, especially for small schools with few teachers. A participant said, “The Kinmen compulsory education advisory group holds lots of learning programs for us, and many of the courses are on weekends, I feel no rest on the following weekday if I go to the courses on weekend.”
Another participant from a rather small-sized school said,
In big schools, a teachers takes shifts of having courses, maybe once in couple months, but for teachers in small schools like me, we have to take courses designed for teacher at least once a month, and often more than once a month. Because the Kinmen compulsory education advisory group asks each school to have certain number of teachers join the programs, and there are only few teachers on the rotation list for my school, so it’s soon to take another turn of having
course for us. You see, (showing her pocket calendar to me) in this month, three weekends are taken by research-and-study programs, I really feel tired with that, but I dare not skip the courses as some elder teachers often do. They are immune from criticizing, which teachers like me are not.
Job content and teacher’s specialty
Kinmen Education Bureau does not allow substitute teachers to take administrative work, but only formal teachers can. That is different from Taiwan where substitute teachers can be directors. The result is that some positions that require teachers with certain specialty cannot find qualified people. The second best solution is to ask young formal teachers to do those administrative works no matter what are their specialties. No elder teachers accept to do work that may double their burden for doing job they are not good at.
In one school, two participants talked about their experience of taking administrative job that does not fit their specialty at all. One said, I was very unhappy before when being the director that has to be responsible for school’s information technology (IT) problems. They [the school] didn’t care I am a science teacher and totally not a computer person. They just needed someone to fill in the position.” The other participant who is a social studies teacher and now taking care of this job said similar thing, “When Internet disconnection problem happens in school, my phone keeps ringing all the time, teachers call me and ask me to fix the problem soon. Whenever this kind of thing happens, I want to dig a hole right away and hide myself in it, to avoid those crazy phone calls.” A participant in another school said, “In my school, the previous counseling director and the one now are not counseling education teachers. The counseling education teachers are all elder ones, they all refuse to take this responsibility and no one dare to settle this problem, so it’s always a teacher teaching other subject to do the work. ”
Rules in schools
Schools in Kinmen emphasize order and uniformity a lot. In morning assembly, early-reading period, lunch time, or nap time, students’ behaviors are all under scoring, and basing on these scores, schools announce and reward classes who are the winners. A participant said, “Every noon I have to supervise my class’ order and hygienic manner on scooping dishes. After they all sit in their seats with food in their plates, they will wait for me to say ‘start eating,’ so they can begin eating lunch all together. I didn’t come out with such idea; it’s the school’s rule. If I don’t obey such rule, my class’ grades on this item would be very low.”
A participant talked about her feeling about this kind of competition.
In Taiwan, schools also hold similar competition on order and tidiness, but the grading range doesn’t go as far as the school here. I mean, why do my class’ scores on assembly should be deducted when my students don’t wear exactly the same? They wore uniforms, weren’t they? If the weather is cold to some people but fine for some others, I think it shouldn’t be a problem if some students wear jackets and some don’t.
Another participant shared her thoughts about maintaining uniformity of nap time.
Nap time is for students, not for teachers. Apparently teachers can hardly fall into sleep, or we may not know if students do other things while we’re sleeping. School grades every class’
performance on that. But I don’t appreciate with this regulation. I think it should be the homeroom teachers’ power to allow students to do other silent things besides taking a nap. Few students don’t want to sleep at all and we need to force them to do so. Isn’t it a torture for both of the parties? The school I stayed in Taiwan, some students take a nap, some sit still with a peaceful mind in the back of the classroom, and some read by themselves, the school didn’t ask for uniformity for every class, and I prefer that way, it’s more natural and humane for both teachers and students.
When the researcher asked the participants about whether they still follow their schools’
regulation, their answer is yes. Why do their action different from their attitude? One said,
“Many senior teachers who have taught for dozens of years don’t find these rules strange, and they attach importance to competitions on order and tidiness. I would be seen as a freak if I weren’t one of them.”
Theme Two: Psychological Adjustment
Instead of naming “interaction adjustment” in this part, the researcher put the theme as psychological adjustment to contain broader information provided by the participants. The participants found the way to interact with Kinmen natives is much different from their interaction model they used to have. They have the stress of facing probing questions about personal things asked by natives, and they need to maintain image after work as students or people they know can be easily encountered on streets. The participants are frequently getting in touch with Kinmen natives though without deep conservation. And internet to them is a key to interact with friends or family in Taiwan. They also have interacting problem with people in Taiwan due to some stereotype about Kinmen their family or friends hold. The positive experience they shared is receiving social support from colleagues and family.
Interaction with Kinmen Natives
The participants find it is hard to protect some privacy as interacting with Kinmen natives. And they interact with natives often, but mostly for working only. They also have to pay attention to being very respectful to senior teachers.
Privacy issue
Kinmen natives tend to ask many questions about others’ personal issues, and that causes trouble to some participants. One of them said. “They seem like don’t know when to stop asking me questions about me. Where I live now, single or not, people I know in Kinmen, things like that. Not only colleagues keep asking this sort of questions, neighbors or
shopkeepers too. Are they really interested in me? I can feel they have no hostility, but I am just not used to it.”
Another participant said a pattern of those questions.
When they see a new face, they usually start the conversation with “Are you Kinmenese or Taiwanese?” and then they would ask like, “What do you do in here?” “Which school do you serve in?” “Are you a formal or substitute one?” “Do you know somebody in your school? He or she is an acquaintance to me.” “Where do you live now?” “Any plan about buying a house here?” They keep asking tons of questions to me in a short period of time. In fact, I don’t like to be deeply known by those I am not familiar with, but with those questions, it’s hard to hide something personal.
A participant talked about why she is not willing to talk about herself to others. She said,
A participant talked about why she is not willing to talk about herself to others. She said,