Download Robert Slater, Class of 2008

Robert Slater, Class of 2008
I am currently stationed in Shanghai, China teaching english to grade school students,
grades one, three, and four. I also teach an ESL (English as a Second Language) class in
the evenings for Chinese teachers who wish to improve upon their oral english
proficiency. I live here with Loren Massimino, my girlfriend and Trinity alumna (08’).
We are both fascinated by the culture and doing everything in our power to learn as much
Mandarin as possible.
The company that I work for is called BSK Academy and they are one of the leading
employers of foreigners teaching English in and around Shanghai. BSK Academy is
involved with a variety of education projects outside of ESL. One such project involves
working closely with the Maryland (my home state) state government and local Chinese
municipalities to help facilitate the establishment of an international graduate program
channeling students from the University of Baltimore Maryland, Towson University, and
Johns Hopkins University. If this project proves successful, I plan on enrolling and
pursuing a master’s degree in education.
Living in China has been one long field study. I did not educate myself on the cultural
intricacies of Chinese habitus because I wanted to get the full culture shock effect that I
had heard so much about from my various professors. Unfortunately, globalization reared
its ugly head. Shanghai is a far stretch from Papua New Guinea. Even so, I keep a written
diary of my accounts and more often than not I find myself in the role of the observer,
taking note of this custom or that practice. I wouldn’t go as far as to call the work
anthropological, but I think that my studies in anthropology have allowed a perspective
set in cultural relativism, giving way to an attitude that I employ everyday in my actions
and my writing. In other words, I’m not as obnoxious and intolerant as my fellow foreign
colleagues. Thank you Trinity!