Ruijie Zhao
Department of Humanities
Parkland College
Prior to August 2010, I had never taught developmental writing before, and I had little knowledge about community colleges before I was hired. I did not know what to expect and was very excited about the adventure. Some of my colleagues said, “Do not smile at your students before Thanksgiving.” It was hard for me to understand why an instructor should not be friendly to her beloved students. However, considering that I was in a new teaching environment and was inexperienced teaching developmental composition courses, I was careful, reminding myself not to be too friendly or too harsh. The first time I went to the class, I saw so many smiling friendly faces. When I was explaining my syllabus to the class, all students were listening attentively. They seemed like such dedicated and disciplined students, and I did not anticipate behavioral problems. I eventually smiled that first day.
The second meeting of the class, however, was a shock because students were so loud, and some of them laughed for unknown reasons. I tried to calm them down so that my voice could be heard, but I was not very successful. It did not take me long to realize that my softness the first class probably made them think they could do whatever they wanted in class. I was so horrified because they were not listening to me, not being respectful of my authority. At one point, some of them even challenged my authority in class by asking me irrelevant questions about China and Chinese culture. I was not sure whether their rebellion was triggered due to my gender, race, accent, or something else. I wanted my power back. I desperately wanted to reclaim my power and wanted the students to understand that the classroom was MY kingdom! I was so concerned that my authority as an instructor would be undermined by them and they would not follow my instructions. I attempted to generate strategies to cope with the power crisis in class. It was so ironic that a feminist teacher who intended to disrupt the traditional hierarchy between instructors and students would like to take her power back—so that students would listen to her, obey her, and be quiet. In the next sections, I intend to share how blogs created a space for genuine dialogues for me to understand the needs of developmental writers in community colleges and survive the power crisis.