Recently, a request from a tutor to a student was revealed on Weibo.
Image source: Weibo @PITD Asian Dr. Abuse Organization
Just after the blogger sent this submission, he also received a request from other students to delete the manuscript, on the grounds that “this kind of request is relatively normal in our major”, “it is easy to give Our school is smeared.”
Image source: Weibo @PITD Asian Dr. Abuse Organization
When my job becomes a “favor”
“Benevolence and power” is often a strategy used by leaders to subordinates – both to keep subordinates disciplined, and to make them grateful. But when such a term appears in a lecture PPT from a graduate tutor, it is somewhat inconsistent.
Especially when “students can come to me anytime to discuss” is something that is part of the instructor’s job. But compared to the “en” like painting a pie, the “wei” is detailed and detailed.
Neither En or Wei seems to be aimed at making the student become a dedicated, research-burning graduate student with no other options.
This is not an isolated case. In the opening lecture for graduate students of Shanghai Jiaotong University Institute of Chemistry that was circulated on the Internet, when teaching freshmen how to get along with their tutors, they taught everyone: “The teacher asks you to do chores, that is to value you”, “Don’t expect the tutor to give you too much guidance. “.
Netizens jokingly called such brainwashing courses “research classes”.
Photo source: Weibo A graduate student education conference in the School of Chemistry, Shanghai Jiaotong University
In the comment area, some readers also expressed the sadness of biochemical and environmental materials researchers – such regulations are almost unspoken rules that researchers silently abide by.
Image source: Weibo @PITD Asian Dr. Abuse Organization
The Silent Majority
According to Internet rumors, the content of such a PPT is not even a secret shot, but the content that the teacher publicly displayed when he gave a lecture at a foreign school.
In a 2009 survey of Chinese graduate students, mature graduate students are afraid of their teachers, especially their supervisors.
When subjects saw their mentor’s face, they slowed down their response to their own face, and there was no self-face dominance effect. And such fears are rarely or nonexistent among graduate students in European and American countries.
Image source: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Researchers say that a large part of the reason for this result is the concept of “respecting teachers and valuing Taoism” in our traditional culture, which has created a gap in the status of teachers and students.
A research paper on “Boundaries of Responsibilities and Flexible Spaces of Graduate Students and Tutors in Colleges and Universities” pointed out that under the current tutor system, conflicts between teacher-student relations and employment relations will inevitably breed: The appearance of this system is presented as a corporate performance appraisal, but the internal logic is a set of traditional Chinese ethical relations of respecting teachers and valuing Tao.
In other words, behind a set of mechanisms that pursue “fairness” and “efficiency” are two people who are essentially different in status.
Some graduate students under the tutor’s appraiser will simply and rudely throw out two words: “easy to use”. Some graduate students laugh at themselves that their enthusiasm for scientific research and effort is just a cheap labor—2,000 yuan can’t even hire a cleaner today, but it can recruit a graduate student who is willing to do experiments.
Of course we know that there are many gentle and kind tutors who are with their students as brothers and sisters and share weal and woe; or there are many upright tutors who may be a bit strict, but still Do not hesitate to help students in scientific research.
However, survivor bias is by no means a reason to cover up the darkness that breeds in dark corners; the efforts and sweat that researchers should put in themselves are by no means a reason for the dereliction of duty and oppression by mentors. .
We took a step forward when many researchers realized that this was wrong.
References:
[1] Hou Nan, Peng Jian, Yin Kui, et al. The Dark Side of Leaders’ Engaging with Power and Its Governance Mechanism——Based on the Perspective of Uncertainty Management [J]. Nankai Management Review, 2019, 22(6):11.
[2] Ma Y , Han S . Self-face advantage is modulated by social threat C Boss effect on self-face recognition[J]. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2009, 45( 4):1048-1051.
[3] Zuo Chongliang. The Responsibility Boundary and Flexible Space of Graduate Students and Tutors in Colleges and Universities [J]. Modern Education Science, 2021(5):6.
[4]Lu Yi, Li Ye. The relationship between graduate students’ fear of negative evaluation by supervisors and the implicit view of mentoring culture [J]. Psychological Science, 2015(2):47-48 .
[5] Chen Hongjie, Li Chengfeng, Shen Wenqin, et al. How do graduate students evaluate their supervisors and institutions?——Analysis of the results of the 2017 National Graduate Graduate Survey [J]. Graduate Education Research, 2019( 2):8.
[6] “Teacher Tells Me to Die”, Blue Letter Project, 2021.01