Class Antagonism

There is something I've noticed in my move from Kejian to Shane, which is that there is a different sort of parent that sends their kid to Shane. I hesitate to say that this is due to class, but sometimes I think it is. Furthermore, there are a couple schools that Kejian Chinese teachers talk about in a certain way. Both of them are private schools, and both of them are pretty good private schools. One of them is a K-12 Catholic School called Sacred Heart and the other one is a junior high school Erxin.

Because Sacred Heart employs a lot of foreigners their students tend to speak English better than other kids that don't have access to foreigners as often. However, I think there is a certain amount of resentment because they will employ Polish people who don't speak English fluently but "look" the part. Also because they spend a lot of time around foreigners some teachers feel that Sacred Heart students are arrogant or disrespectful towards their teachers.

Erxin is seen as a prep school. Parents send their kids there because they want them to go to a really good university. So at least the people that I talked to feel that they don't teach their kids anything except how to take tests. Also, some people also feel that it makes some of the kids really proud.

Several times talking about one of these schools has ended with the comment, "These parents are really rich." which suggests, to me anyway, a kind of envy or at least antagonism between teachers and the rich parents of these students. Just some thoughts anyway.