Teacher posting disturbing moments

[suMMit]

A teacher I have been studying with for a couple months has been posting moments  about depression, anger towards relatives(quite explicit, in Chinese) , and even self-harm. I didn't notice this until a couple of weeks ago. She doesn't talk about any of this in class, but she's not the not the cheeriest of teachers.  We're not 'particularly' close, so I don't know how I could help. I was thinking about moving on because her internet connection, no matter whether we use zoom, wechat, skype, all awful.  Once I started seeing the moments posts I decided for sure not to continue with her, but I feel a little guilty about it. I don't know what help I could offer though. I wonder if I should say something to her, to the platform I book the classes on or just move on. 

[amytheorangutan]

Hmm if you are not that close to her my guess is you can ask her 您最近怎麼樣？還好嗎？我看過您的朋友圈有一點擔心。See what she says, I guess there must be other people closer to her that have seen that moment as well. I personally would not report it to the platform if I don’t know the platform policy and her that well. I think a lot of companies don’t really care about the well being of the people using their platform and only care about themselves so it could make situation worse for her if she then get kicked off the platform or penalised. 
 

I know asking those questions above probably won’t be that much help if her problem is serious but sometimes when you are really down it helps a little to know someone noticed and care enough to ask. 

[vellocet]

Privacy -> Set Privacy -> Chats Only. Problem solved.

 

I take it from the tone of the post you want to rush in like a white knight and fix her problems.  Ain't gonna happen.  Don't get involved.

 

Frankly I have made it a habit to set Chats Only to any business contacts.  Only friends can see my posts and I theirs.  I don't want to see my wife's dry cleaners or my computer repairman's posts, but I guess some people are just extremely curious.  

[Lu]

Given your relationship, I don't think you're in a position to really help her. Reporting it to the platform is more likely to harm her further than to get her help, so I wouldn't do that. You can just quietly leave and not say anything. That would be fine, you have no further obligations to your online teacher. But I agree with Amy that you could tell her that you're worried about her. Hopefully this will perhaps nudge her a little towards the realisation that she should seek help. Or perhaps it will do nothing at all, but it's about the most you can do.

 

And I'm sorry that you're in this position. It's an awful feeling to see someone hurt like this and be basically completely unable to do anything about it.

[suMMit]

On 4/20/2022 at 3:34 PM, vellocet said:

I take it from the tone of the post you want to rush in like a white knight and fix her problems.  Ain't gonna happen.  Don't get involved.

Nah, kinda the opposite. I just want to move to a different teacher, but I feel like I "should" say something.  And, I have no idea how important our lessons are to her, but I don't want to make her feel even worse by just disappearing after 2 months. However, I feel awkward saying anything to her. I could message her that work got busy so I'm taking break, adding :

 

On 4/20/2022 at 3:28 PM, amytheorangutan said:

Hmm if you are not that close to her my guess is you can ask her 您最近怎麼樣？還好嗎？我看過您的朋友圈有一點擔心。

 

[imron]

On 4/21/2022 at 1:20 AM, suMMit said:

I could message her that work got busy so I'm taking break

Why make up something when your initial reason (poor internet connections) is perfectly fine.

[vellocet]

If I was going through a rough time the last thing I would need is to lose students.  

[amytheorangutan]

I think I personally would go with the busy and taking a break excuse than the internet excuse even if it’s not the real reason. If she’s already frustrated with her life, hearing losing a student due to something on her side that she might not be able to change (internet in her area is bad or can’t afford better provider) might make it worse. If connection cuts off 3-4 times every lesson or you keep saying hello hello can you hear me every 5 mins I suspect she already know that this is affecting students.
 

Also if you are determined to leave no matter what you might run into another problem if you are giving her the internet excuse. She might say oh I will do this and that to make it better or change provider etc which then will make it awkward. 
 

 

 

[Lu]

On 4/21/2022 at 3:40 AM, imron said:

Why make up something when your initial reason (poor internet connections) is perfectly fine.

Politeness, letting her save face. And what Amy says, avoiding a scenario where she scrambles to fix the problem you mentioned and then you still leave and everyone feels worse.