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Hello Layla! I enjoyed reading your post, especially since I just returned from an education conference in Jiangsu province a week ago. It was my first time in China and I enjoyed visiting very much. As an International Student Program Coordinator, I have many students from East Asia, so having a personal connection to my Chinese students’ homeland is important.
While we were treated very well as delegates, being put up in luxury hotels and served amazing food, I could not help but wonder what was behind the public face. We were shown a gorgeous school but it didn’t have students in it.
At another middle school, there were fifty-one students in one class but no classroom management issues.
There were many stories from the western delegates about the poverty that we weren’t shown. I noticed only a few women in leadership, and the ones we spoke to did not dream to become headmasters/ principals. I discovered a few vice-principals were actually connected to the leadership through marriage, and it caused me to wonder if this gave the ladies special status or preference. Would they have been promoted to such a position without the family connection? Your comment “female workers have no chance to get promoted… some of us have accepted this invisible “policy” after hopelessly waiting for many years” (Layla, 2018) makes me even more curious about the female vice-principals I met. Or perhaps it is different in the education realm in China. What do you think?
I also wonder if you will stay in Canada for the rest of your career or will you return to China? If you return, I wonder how you will manage re-entering the corporate world there after learning and experiencing reforms to the culture here, which has incorporated much more voice and choice? You wrote about waiting hopelessly for the gender bias to be dealt with, so I feel anxious for you as you grow in this MAEL program. Can you bring reform with you as you return to your home country? Reeves (2009) states “Deep and sustainable change … requires change in behavior among those who do not welcome the change” (p. 44). From your writing, “The common styles of conflict (Lepsinger, 2010) in my organization are avoiding concerning conflicts among staff from different departments, accommodating regarding the conflicts within one department, and compromising referring to the conflicts between managers of different departments” (Layla, 2018), it would seem the organizational system of your company would not yet be open to such change. I feel strongly to keep you in my prayers, as the passion igniting in you during your studies must be guarded. Sergiovanni (2007) writes “Workers are subordinate to the system and are expected to follow directions and procedures as prescribed by that system… professional by contrast, are superordinate to their work systems. Instead of the system using them, they use the system” (p. 74). As you grow in your professionalism, according to Sergiovanni (2007), you will be informed by guidelines and principles, not governed by them. Please take care as you walk carefully in your journey!
Blessings,
Stella
References:
Layla. (2018). Cooperation in a national company of China: Seems effective but conflicts lie underneath. Unpublished document. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs501/2018/11/12/cooperation-in-a-national-company-of-china-seems-effective-yet-conflicts-lie-underneath/
Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Levi, D. (2014). Group dynamics for teams. (4th edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Reeves, D. (2009). Leading change in your school: How to conquer myths, build commitment, and get results. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Sergiovanni, T. (2007). Rethinking leadership: a collection of articles. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.