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Javelin of Radiance
Joined: 01 Jul 2009
Posts: 707
Location: Sichuan
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 Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 3:45 am Post subject: |
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A fellow ESL teacher getting to know him better so as to make a better assessment? Assessment of what? On what criteria? Geez if psychiatry was only that easy. For all we know the guy's perfectly healthy and the poster reporting this has got it all wrong. Unless the guy's breaking the law through some kind of wierdass behaviour I can't see the employer getting involved either. Face it, lots of people in this business have a few bats in the belfry and still manage to function well enough.
Last edited by Javelin of Radiance on Tue Nov 27, 2012 3:50 am; edited 1 time in total |
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The Great Wall of Whiner
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Posts: 4885
Location: Blabbing
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 3:49 am Post subject: |
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How do you declare him schizophrenic? Are you a doctor?
Just saying... |
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GreatApe
Joined: 11 Apr 2012
Posts: 193
Location: Guangdong, PRC
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 6:15 am Post subject: |
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wonderingjoesmith wrote:
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| disorderly thinking and utterance |
In my experience, this is PAR FOR THE COURSE when talking about life in China! In fact, I'd be worried about any teacher who has worked in China for more than a holiday who has not been reduced to disorderly thinking, occasional mumbling, and even exclaiming "WTF!" out loud from time-to-time.
Repeatedly yelling "T.I.C!, T.I.C!, T.I.C!" while flapping your arms and pivoting in cirlces around the classroom on your left foot also works well sometimes. Then again, you never worked for my vice principal or our "Academic Coordinator." The former doesn't know anything about Educational Assessment and the latter doesn't know how to coordinate!
Seriously though, if the guy's having "delusions" as you said and if he's "paranoid" ... then he might really need help. I've known a few schizophrenics in my day, and I used to work closely with a guy at a restaurant in America who was schizophrenic. When he went off his meds all hell would break loose. It was not a pretty picture!
Maybe he's Bi-Polar. Maybe you caught him on a few bad days. Maybe he was hungover, or distraught for some reason or another. Maybe he's just stressed out ...
If he IS schizophrenic, chances are high that he already knows it. Personally, if I had a good working relationship with him I'd probably ask him outright in a non-threatening, "I'm-concerned-about-you" kind of way. (only YOU can evaluate if he trusts you or not and to what extent). If I did ask, it would be when he seemed 100% calm, cool and collected (read: "medicated") ... every schizophrenic I have known has been 100% up-front and honest about it when asked or when the discussion presented itself. It's not a sickness that necessarily lends itself to secrecy, particularly if you need to stay medicated daily and you're living in a foreign country.
The guy I worked with at the restaurant gave us his cousin's phone number when he first began working with us. We used it as an emergency contact number. My co-worker explained his condition and told us to give the cousin a call if he "started acting strangely" at work. Come to find out his med cycle would occasionally lapse for a three or four hour window once a month (we worked alternate-week, night and day shifts) and on those few days he would sometimes feel "odd."
Good Luck!
--GA |
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wonderingjoesmith
Joined: 19 Aug 2012
Posts: 397
Location: Guangzhou
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 3:47 am Post subject: |
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| The Great Wall of Whiner wrote: |
How do you declare him schizophrenic? Are you a doctor?
Just saying... |
No, I am far from a doctor. I haven't proclaimed him as a schizo, although I have suggested it, perhaps mistakenly, in the title. Sharing info on working with such people that possibly are shizos was my intention. How many such individuals would visit a doc? How many of them have choices to see a such a specialist in this country? Hell, it's not just this country but many other countries where we work. |
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wonderingjoesmith
Joined: 19 Aug 2012
Posts: 397
Location: Guangzhou
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 3:49 am Post subject: |
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| GreatApe wrote: |
wonderingjoesmith wrote:
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| disorderly thinking and utterance |
Maybe he's Bi-Polar. Maybe you caught him on a few bad days. Maybe he was hungover, or distraught for some reason or another. Maybe he's just stressed out ... |
Quite right! And, I've been wondering about it too. |
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kungfuman
Joined: 31 May 2012
Posts: 845
Location: Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| I'm crazy but both of me knows it |
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GreatApe
Joined: 11 Apr 2012
Posts: 193
Location: Guangdong, PRC
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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@ kungfuman 
One man's "crazy" is another man's "sanity."
--GA |
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5h09un
Joined: 01 Jul 2010
Posts: 99
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| Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 4:30 am Post subject: |
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| milkweedma wrote: |
Several posters have played this down but it sounds serious to me. The guy needs to be escorted home somehow before something serious happens to himself or others around him. Getting to know him better sounds like the best strategy as then a better assessment of him can be done and also getting the contact details of his family members can be done so that they can organise for him to go home.
China's the last place a mentally unstable person should be left alone in as the potential for tragedy or disappearance is higher because of the decrepit environment, language and cultural problems and inappropriate medical assessment and treatment options. |
he probably won't be sent home until he does something truly unforgivable. the last school i worked at held on to people who had serious mental problems for as long as they could. one guy was kicking in the doors of the rooms of other teachers and threatening them. this was the last straw in a long series of episodes for him, and the only reason why the school finally got rid of him was because the FTs got fed up and said that they'd contact the authorities and have them intervene if the school wouldn't do anything.
another guy started making death threats because he was angry at the school's management for some reason. instead of sending him home, they sent him to one of their schools in the countryside for several months before they brought him back to the city because they were having staffing problems here. he was finally forced to leave when he pulled out a knife at school.
you're right that china doesn't understand mental illness or how to deal with it. mental hospitals are often used as tools of political persecution like in the soviet union. the new york times and the new yorker have published a series of great articles about these problems.
but i think there's a much bigger underlying problem in cases like this. management cares about profit above all else, including the safety and well being of their students and staff. fewer foreign faces means less money. |
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wonderingjoesmith
Joined: 19 Aug 2012
Posts: 397
Location: Guangzhou
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| Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:11 am Post subject: |
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| 5h09un wrote: |
| ...the only reason why the school finally got rid of him was because the FTs got fed up and said that they'd contact the authorities and have them intervene if the school wouldn't do anything. |
Funny that in my school no local teachers or administrators care about my coworker's mental state but all foreign teachers worry so much. We're trying to be considerate (listening to his cr*p talks), as it's been suggested on this thread, but I really don't know how long we can go on before someone confronts him. Let's hope he'll kick the doors only. |
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