Oh you're a teacher? OHHHHH you are a teacher at THAT school.

Telling someone in Shanghai that you are a teacher is like telling them you have airborne syphilis. Yep, your attractiveness meter just went way down and unless that person is also a teacher, or someone looking to improve their English, good luck making friends.


Perhaps being a teacher would be acceptable if you taught at one of those desirable high schools where they pay 30-40,000 USD a year.  My high school happens to be at the bottom of the totem pole, as I like to refer to it, as a half way home for abandoned kids.  Yes, some have reasonable excuses for attending JCID, after all international schools are expensive but for most of these children, they are at JCID because no one else wants them.

I believe I have said all of this before but I wanted to follow up with a recently created wikipedia page.  I am nearly 99% positive that this page was written by a particular student in my 12 grade math class. It is actualyl a bit impressive considering he was in ESL class a few years ago. I don't know why he's so angry, he did get the teachers to change his grades and got a week off of school to sit in the library to write college essays that eventually got him accepted at Syracuse. Sigh.  Well here's his work and since I received my last paycheck, I will include my own comments in red.

Shanghai Jincai High School International Division (上海进才中学国际部) is a school based in Pudong New Area of Shanghai, China, founded in 2003. It is the international department of Jincai High School. The school features two parallel curricula in Chinese and English. JINCAI HELL

Have recently graduated from high school in Shanghai and I just wanted to talk about how horrible my school was (Jincai High School International Division, or JCID) so that nobody else would go and screw their academic life.

Some General Info: It is an "international (bullfeces)" high school located in Pudong, Shanghai. It has 2 sections of Chinese and English from grade 1 to 12. The English Section follows the USA curriculum and the Chinese Section follows the Shanghai curriculum.

List of Messed up things about the school: 1- # don't care about your study AT ALL, # just want your lovely money. It's all Chinese administrators in the school who can barely speak english. If there is something serious # want to talk with the administration, FORGET IT! # are all Chinese minded. The school is administered all according to Chinese system and rules. Ok this stuff about the administration is completely correct but he has to understand, this has often worked in favor of the students.  If we held back students who were not academically capable, the first grade class would be huge and include 18 year olds! Also, the teachers really do care, we've made a lot of suggestions to the Chinese administration but those folks don't care.  Many of the administrators at the school are powerless to the Administrators at the local campus (which is actually a really great school!)

2- Chinese is the first language in the school. All the announcements, documents, notices and everything else is in Chinese, with little and incorrectly written English. # don't understand how they even call that place an "International School" Same reason they call it Albany International Airport my friend.  Invite one Japanese student and boom.  Perhaps regional school would be better.  I have some Korean students who told me their Chinese has improved a lot at this school.

3- There is "IB" World School signs everywhere in the school, where ever you go inside the building, you see the IB sign. That was one of the reason # chose this school, because # thought it was IB so it would help # to get in a good university. But guess what, later on in the middle of the academic year, # found out that they had the IB program only for the Middle School of THE CHINESE SECTION. So no matter what English Section grade # enter the school from, # don't get an IB diploma, nothing about IB. But it's so messed up that they put the IB sign even on transcripts, any other documents. EVEN # YOUR HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA. It's so retarded that they do that. As # mentioned before, this school just fools around with you, don't care about your study, and want that money in # pocket, THAT'S ALL. Dude, the Commies mastered propaganda.  Don't blame them if you are an idiot and fell for it.

4- The schools is not recognized in the academic community. It's not in the list of "International High Schools in Shanghai". It's so messed up that I had a few friends applied to some colleges in Canada and you know what those universities told them: "Sorry but we don't recognize your school, your application has been rejected". Attending this school would be at least 50% of the reason of your denial from the colleges you apply. HA. HA. HA. HA!

5- The School doesn't offer SAT. SAT isn't offered in China, but all the international high schools offer SAT for their students in their schools, BUT NOT IN JINCAI! If you want to go to States for university, you will probably need to take the SAT, and you will have to travel HongKong or Singapore to take the test, if YOU ATTEND THIS HELL SCHOOL. So then you all take a week off school and fly to Hong Kong to take the test.  I feel so bad for you.

6- The Teachers! They are friendly, all cool people, mostly from the States. But they are not experienced. Almost all of the teachers are recent college graduates. More than half of them are under 25 years of age. Every year, all the old teachers leave the school and the new ones come. So it's like they just come work in the school for fun, to do other stuff in Shanghai. So the education in Jincai isn't good either. You are dead on about this one, we are totally cool. Right, I am not an experienced teacher.  If I were, they'd pay me more.  If your parents really wanted you to have an experienced teacher they'd pay more too.  But guess what, they wanted you to learn English and I speak English damn well.

7- School Facilities! The campus sucks balls. It's tiny, doesn't even have a gym. There is nothing to during the class breaks on campus. If you like doing sports, if you are on a school team in your current school, NEVER EVER COME STUDY IN JINCAI. There isn't a single varsity team in there. Other than that, the art and music classrooms are horrible, no different than the regular classrooms. The cafeteria is extremely tiny. It gets so crowded during the lunch breaks that you can't even find fresh air to breath. It's so messed up that THEY PUT SOME OTHER SCHOOL'S PICTURES ON THE SCHOOL BROCHURES. HOW MESSED UP IS THAT??? They told me this lie about the gym too.  It's an auditorium/badmitton court.  The facilities are pretty good looking though.

Overall, this school is the LAST SCHOOL ON UNIVERSE that you would want to go. It's full of lies, full of messed up stuff happening and BORING. There is so much more to add to the list, but that all I can think right now.
SO DON"T EVER THINK OF GOING TO THAT SCHOOL, IF YOU RESPECT YOURSELF AND CARE ABOUT YOUR FUTURE...

BLAME CHINA, FOOL!