Characteristics of cell.

Submitted by jenny on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 06:15

 

  1. Low profile.  Do not advertise yourself!  You know what will happen if you put a sign on your door which says “English classes, every Tuesday night”.  Use the same level of caution you would use, were you dating somebody from your work-unit. 
  2. Secure—cannot be penetrated by turkeys.  Here, you may think I am being really silly, but what if a turkey really did “come out of the forest” and make trouble for you?  Or worse still, one of your shy students?  Everyone is forever trying to stuff their noses into other people’s affairs.  Most people who are shy, “so-so” and not very active when under the public gaze, might become bolder, express their opinions more assertively and work harder when learning English within the relative security of a cell.  Tell me, when you were dating someone in the early days of your courtship, how did you protect yourself from outsiders and critics?  Now, do likewise. 
  3. Motivated—to learn English (the end, not the means). Ask any good communists in a cell what they are fighting for and they will give you a quick and firm answer. They are motivated; they know the end towards which they strive; they know how to get there. A few will even know what comes next, and how to do it. They do not have a divided mind. Therefore, you must “do” and “be” likewise. To review: you are learning English as an end in itself, not as a means to an end. You wish to use it in all those domains of life that are of interest or useful to you.  (I am very aware that these two sentences are “paradoxical”, but it is my thinking.) You must make a “mission statement” that is suitable for you. The “bottom line” is that you need to be very motivated, and without a double mind.
  4. Committed to excellence. In a cell, with only you and one other person, you (ideally) have all the troubles of Section III removed from you. Now what? Give it your best! Both you and the other person you are working with need to be deadly serious about learning English. There may never be as good an opportunity for self-improvement as you have now. If you are not committed to excellence then you have not a cell, but a social club.
  5. Committed to talent (over “relationships” or self-interest). This is hard, but you must make it happen! Do not, I repeat, do not help your workmate’s 11-year-old son to “study English”, just for the sake of “relationship”! You are defeating a core concept of the cell. (Remember, you are running a revolution, not an after-school donut shop.) Likewise, do not choose people from your cell so as to feed your own interest (i.e., tutoring your boss’s son in hope of getting something in return). If the early communists had done that, there wouldn’t be a “New China” today. Instead, strive to develop, foster, encourage and build a person’s talent in English.  If this person is the child of the man who sweeps your streets at three in the morning, then so be it: do it.
  6. Committed to cell propagation.  This is why you have two students; when all is said and done, you can double yourself.  Anyone who enters the cell must be willing to pay back the good they received by helping others.  If someone comes who is merely looking for a “free lunch”, then don’t choose that person.  Therefore, evaluate candidates not only on their desire to learn English, but also on their willingness to share it. 
  7. Candidates are screened.  In the communist revolution, prospective cell members were screened to make sure they were not enemy spies.  This is not your problem; however, you do not want to take on a “dead-end” relationship.  You are about to invest many, many hours with this person, and you do not want all that work to have been in vain.  You also must make this decision alone—there is no committee standing behind you to tell you what to do. 
  8. Candidates are recruited.  Yes, that’s right…“recruited”—just like spies, basketball stars, or beauty models.  You are your own cell’s “talent scout”.  It is no longer society banging on your door asking you for English favors.  Rather, it is you, out there in society, looking, questing, fishing, sifting for someone who is suitable for joining your English-learning cell.  You are like a seagull or gannet flying low over the gray and rolling waves of the mid-Atlantic, looking for fish.  Somewhere out there in society, there is the person who you are looking for.  Remember these things:  Life will bring them to you; as for you, sift, evaluate, select.  You act alone—this means you are not in competition with other people for a limited asset.  You are looking for a “fellow revolutionary” to work with.  This is why “referrals” from other people, however well intentioned, are not acceptable: how can you be sure the referral is “pure”, free from compromising complications?  (On more than one occasion, I have had an old student “use” me, because he or she wanted to “build relationship” with someone else.)  This tells me that the “pull” of relationship is sometimes stronger than the ties of integrity.  You cannot afford losing your cell and its effectiveness to this problem.  Therefore, you must go out into the cold, and recruit alone. 
  9. Candidates are trustworthy.  This goes without saying.  A person in your “English-learning” cell is like a part of your body, and will most likely enter your home.  They will certainly enter your life.  Can they be trusted?  Now, in “modern” places like Shanghai, this may not be a problem, but in the more conservative parts of the country, if you have a fallout with your cell partner and they tell others in your neighborhood about it, the “turkeys” will come running—and quickly.  You don’t want this to happen.  Therefore, make sure the person you recruit is trustworthy. 
  10. Candidates are tested.  You know the trials and hardships you had to endure from the very moment you began to study English, and what it has cost you.  Now, ask yourself, how much has this candidate suffered?  Have they faced their own “Long March” and overcome, or are they just “wannabe’s” (want-to-be’s)?  You must be sure that the candidate has been tested, both in the “trial of hardship” as well as in the “trial of motivation”, so that you can feel confident that they will sincerely and completely study English with you. 
  11. Consistent meeting times.  You need to be intentional and consistent in your meetings.  Ideally, a daily routine of disciplined study would be best.  After all, that is why the monks at Shaolin Temple are so good in terms of the martial arts they do.  Most people cannot follow such a schedule; however, whether you train daily or weekly, be consistent. 
  12. Persistent effort—until success.  Clarify your goals, make concrete plans, and execute them until they are achieved.  Some problems will require a lot of effort before they are broken.  Some will break easily.  Others will not break; in these cases, perhaps it is best to isolate them and move on to other, easier challenges.  You push, until you get the result you want: it really helps if you are both motivated like this. 
  13. Complete effort—to the point of the student’s desired fluency.  We all know the road to Yan’An was not achieved because of “weekend walks”; on the contrary, it was very costly.  Likewise, you need to put out your entire effort on behalf of your two students, helping them on their way forward.  Now, you may ask, “What!  Do I have to help them pass TOEFL and go to America to be a student?!  That is impossible!”  This is not the goal: remember…English as an end, not as a means to an end.  They have their own responsibilities.  At this point, a review of Churchill’s wartime speeches is most instructive:  “What is our aim?  It is victory.”  This “cell work” is not about relationships, it is all about results, conquest of inertia and linguistic obstacles, and your student’s desired fluency.  This is a commitment to the “slow-burning” revolution, and such a revolution is only complete when you have replicated yourself in two other people—who are each capable of replicating themselves into two other people.  Thus one becomes two, becomes four, becomes eight, becomes sixteen…and so on.  Whether your two students are college students or street sweepers, or hotel fu wu yuan makes no difference whatsoever.  Just make sure they are suitable for the long walk together.  Finally, remember this: you have your own teacher, who is looking after you. 
  14. Long-term relationship—over a lifetime, or over a season.  It is hoped that you will maintain contact with your students for a long time after your “classroom” phase.  This could be more study, consulting, or some other creative option which you and your student could work out together (don’t look to me!).  In my life here as an English teacher, one of the greatest joys in an otherwise arid “landscape of the soul” is the contact I have with my old students—the really old ones.  This is where the “joy of the journey” is strong, and where everything starts to come together.  This is why it is so important to protect and preserve these students from outside interference!  Anyone who messes with your old student is very dangerous; they are the “mother of all turkeys”.  Finally, here are two points.  First: it has been my experience that “old students” are like stocks in an investment bank: some perform well, and others do not perform well; some show gratitude and later indifference, and others show indifference and later gratitude.  Over a period of time, they are often changing in terms of their attitudes towards you.  Do not worry about this form of “tolerable instability”—it is a normal part of a teacher’s life.  As long as it remains “cyclical”, don’t worry; if a longer-term trend appears, then worry.  You are, after all, running an English revolution cell, not a religious cult!  As for me, when one old student is being “difficult”, I go to another, and go on with the work of consulting—one way or another, “one person or another”.  In time, the difficult ones may come back.  Second: I am a foreign English teacher with many students, so to a certain extent I can “pick and choose”, or suffer the “ups and downs” of the “market”, as it were.  You, however, only have your two students, so your “tolerance for risk” is much, much higher.  Therefore, you need to choose, teach and nurture your two students carefully…very carefully! 
  15. Low budget.  There is no need to destroy yourself financially on behalf of your students.  If you lavish lots of money on your two students, they may become dependent on you—psychologically, emotionally, motivationally, and so on.  You do not want to foster “learned helplessness”!  The purpose of this revolution is to break such things—in the arena of “learning English, on the go, on your own, without a foreign helper”.  There is also another reason: if you build your students on the back of money-power, then a subtle, insidious form of evolution will take place—your students will become elitist.  That is, in an environment of money, only people with money can and will take part.  The less-rich people will be shut out, for lack of resources or because they are too proud or embarrassed.  This “English-in-a-cell” revolution is for all people, not just those with the money!  So, learn to be rich in creativity, give a little (in the form of books), force a certain measure of self-reliance on the part of your student, and don’t be afraid to venture out of your “comfort zone” and work with a promising and talented person—a worker, street-sweeper, or a child from the “floating population”.  The creative options are almost limitless. 
  16. No payback.  Let’s get this straight: you are going to go out there, to find and nurture two students, who will leave you; you may or may not be “recruited” yourself to be another person’s student (there are no guarantees); you may not find and cultivate an “equal” relationship with someone else, and if you do, you do not know how it will all work out.  There is no payback!  None.  Period.  Zero.  Zippo.  It is organizationally impossible, and (I feel) morally unacceptable.  So, why do it?  Why bother?  First:  consider the heroes of Yan’An.  Most died in war or of old age by the mid-1950’s, but we all enjoy the fruits of their giving.  They asked for no payback.  Lei Feng, Liu Hu Lan, and all the others were not fools, but down-payments—which we are all now cashing in on.  Second: when we operate in a “no payback” environment, the horizon of options and opportunities does not shrink and constrain you; on the contrary, it expands explosively—there are no limits.  In this world, there is no unemployment, no “xia gang”, no idleness.  Third: you are freed from the curse of reciprocity, of “hu xiang bang zhu”; you can give your students everything (as you see it and create it), and in turn they can give their students everything (as they see it and create it)—and so on and on…. The final, total product will be complete dedication, complete variety of cells, and complete distribution of “lifelong English” throughout every part of society, and all regions of the country.  Indeed, it “is in giving that we receive”. Let us do with these “English cells”, in small measure, what those heroes before did with their lives, a far greater measure! 
  17. “On the go.”  Hey!  Here we are now, about three-quarters of the way through this book, and no one has asked, “What does that phrase, ‘On the go.’ mean?  Tell us!”.  It is after all a part of the title.  O.K., here it is.  First: we live in a very mobile society.  Cell phones, the internet, the gradual erosion of “residence controls”, and many other factors are all re-shaping this society.  In time, many people will move from job to job; we will, in a sense, all be a part of the “floating population”.  Second: how do you care for your students when they—or you—move to a new location?  You cannot just “dump” them, and expect them to pick up the pieces.  Third: you must design your cell so that it is effective when you are static and in one place together (the same town), or when you are static but they are moving around and you two are therefore separated (in different parts of the country, or when you are both moving around—“on the go”.  The cell must be adaptable to effective use in a highly mobile society.  We will talk more about how to implement this concept later. 
  18. Fun and enjoyable.  One final note: This is not meant to be sad and miserable, something won and achieved “over your dead body”.  Even though most revolutions are carried out because of “hatred of the enemy”, or “sacrifice for the cause”, please enjoy yourself here!  It makes life more bearable, it makes you into a better teacher, and it makes an environment where the students learn more effectively.