Stuffing the duck

From a blog by a philosopher teaching in Taiwan:

Scouring through my Chinese-English dictionary a few days ago during a free period, I stumbled upon perhaps the most useful phrase a foreign teacher could know while trying to teach in Taiwan, or any other heavily Chinese setting. I was looking up the word 'fill in [a blank form]' (tiánbiǎo) and wanted to know how or when else to use tián ('fill'). Scanning down the options, my eyes stopped at the final, noticeably lengthy entry: tiányā. The first meaning is 'to overfeed and under-exercise ducks in order make their flesh more tender and sweet', presumably a technique used to create China's famous 'Peking duck' delights. The second meaning? 'To teach students any and all information needed to test (into a higher level or school).' In other words, to teach by 'stuffing the duck.'

Just as my buddy had his epiphany with luójí, so I had my epiphany with 'stuffing the duck'. No wonder my kids are unused to independent creative activites! No wonder my teaching is always at risk of being subjugated by students, parents and administrators to yield better grades on more tests! China's entire educational system -- as a matter of historical fact, even if my experience weren't probative enough -- is based on stuffing the duck! It is as if scales have fallen from my eyes, or as if The Matrix has finally been cracked and I can behold the real world, warts and all, in stark, numbing honesty. I am not a teacher.

I am here to stuff the duck.

Comments:

This explains so much.

This is why we can't keep our students happy: they don't want to learn, they just want to be stuffed. They would be happy to work at it, as long as they don't have to think.

This is why Chinese students kick our students' asses when taking standardized tests... we aren't stuffing the duck properly. This is what our masters want. They don't want students who can think; they want students who have been properly stuffed, so they can regurgitate it all onto a test paper.

That's all I can figure out any more.