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Finally here, thoughts on my situation
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mysterytrain

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 366

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:08 pm Post subject:

asiannationmc wrote:

A happy life? I guess for you money is important due to the amount of time you spend on disclaiming the fact that your motivated by cash.

Sorry, what nonsense is this? I never said that money is not important to me, if you got that from any post I've made you should try reading more carefully.

Quote:

By the way, what do you have to break to me? Are you going to give me an inside tip as to the secret to life, or maybe spiritual advice as to how to obtain a chat board where all sit in lotus position and discuss tea lights and flower pots and how they can be made into a room heater.

The characterization is tellingly indicative of something, but it is something about you, not about me.

Quote:

The deterioration is caused by the high horse many posters sit on, lassos of smug comments thrown and the in ability to recognition that your little world is not the model of a perfect universe.

No high horse for you, eh? Nothing high-horsey about issuing proclamations about what constitutes appropriate priorities for any and every person teaching abroad, and what the standards (monetary or otherwise) should be. Your little world is not the model of a perfect universe either. Wink

water rat

Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:14 pm Post subject:

buravirgil wrote:

Low ratios are, of course, preferred and a perfectly reasonable advantage to tout. But asserting "smarter" kids are "easier" to teach with the conjecture of "anyone who has actually been in a classroom" is the sort of nonsense to which I first responded.

I suppose you might cast a poll, or whatever, but no educational theory you would fail to correctly summarize would so conclude. Doubling down on your assertion only provokes a conclusion that a lack of training might explain your perception and that not a lot of learning is taking place in either of the classes you cite.

ESL104 wrote:

Also kindly stop using long, complicated words to communicate stuff, when short simple ones will do the trick. It doesn't make you appear more intelligent - quite the opposite, in fact.

LOL, long complicated words? Like: 'advantage, conjecture and conclusion'? Or like 'classroom'? Very Happy

ESL104

Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:28 pm Post subject:

buravirgil wrote:

Unlike many vocations, teachers tend to use words precisely. But I'll try to indulge ya'.

No, what you're attempting to do is elevate your perceived intelligence. It does nothing of the sort - the truly intelligent are able to get their points across clearly using simple terms. It's not that I can't understand you - it just becomes tiresome for everyone to read. But whatever, you can keep using words like 'lexicon' when you could type 'words', 'obfuscate' when you could type 'cloud' or'blur' etc. Really makes no difference to me at all - just makes you look like a bit of an asshat with a dictionary rammed up your ass, but that is your choice.

Quote:

Had you responded to the OP in terms of X(school) = Y ¥ and 86'd commenting to job satisfaction or a waste of credentials, I would have scanned the posts as informative. But as you can read, a few experienced posters took issue with how casually you dismissed actual choices made by actual people. Your responses were as ungenerous, tone-deaf and logically specious.

Well using that logic you can't even say the guy who has a Physics PhD and 20 years of nuclear research experience, but who chooses to work the day shift at the local McDonalds because the manager is awesome and the staff there are really friendly is getting a 'bad deal'.

Your qualifications and experience do change what should be regarded as a 'good deal'. Taking a job that pays less than 2x the market rate for someone with your qualifications, but woah man we have so much free time and the job is like, oh so easy...that is a waste of a teaching qualification, since the same job with the same conditions is also avaliable to those who lack that qualification.

Quote:

Your posts read like a recruiter's attempt to "place" a teacher new to China's market with a "good fit". Nothing wrong with that, except you began to show a degree of ignorance that was, as I wrote, woeful and mildly offensive to educators not so, shall I say, mercenary in their analyses.

Oops..I drifted into a syntax less comprehensible than a text message, but I'll make no apology.

Well sorry to disappoint, but I'm not a recruiter.

And let's just be clear about one thing - hardly anyone on this board is a 'teacher'. You, me, and 95% of this forum are no more teachers than a guy who reads a few wikipedia articles on different antibiotics is a doctor. Unless you're home country certified you are been hired less for your teaching abilities, and far more because you have the correct passport and a white face. A real teacher back home would sit in one of our classrooms and cringe at the 'teaching methods' we employ.

The overwhelming majority of ESL instutions (and ESL teachers) don't really care if anyone learns anything in the classroom, and you'd have to be borderline unemployable to get fired from a position for 'bad teaching' alone. I'd suggest the job satisfaction for a real teacher would be greater in a place that actually values education, pays their teachers an international quality wage, and offers professional development opportunities.[/b]

mysterytrain

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 366

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:33 pm Post subject:

ESL104 wrote:

The fact of the matter is that salary is extremely important when it comes to defining whether a job is 'good' or not. Most people (myself included) would even say it is the 'most' important thing, by quite some distance. We're not running a charity here, and we go to work for money, not to sit there holding hands while singing kum by ya.

Again, with the subcultural stereotyping. Scared of something? Thanks for the pontificating proclamation about "what is most important in a job". Since "most people" agree with you (according to that unimpeachable source, you) I'm sure you feel very comfortable saying so. "We go to work for money"? Heigh-ho. Heigh-ho. Pity on those of us, though, who work for no other reason at all.

Quote:

Do you want to own a house? Want to be able to provide for a family? Want to retire someday rather than working until you die? Then money is massively important.

Hmm. I don't just WANT to own a house - I DO own a house. I don't just WANT to "be able to provide for a family", I DO provide for a family. I don't just WANT to retire someday, I WILL retire someday, probably in about ten more years (if I live that long). Seems like I'm doing a'ight without thinking that the highest salary possible is the be-all and end-all of working.

Quote:

I think in a discussion about whether a package is 'good', you have to take into account the OP's experience and qualifications. If a high school dropout with no experience whose only qualification was having a white face asked whether 11000rmb plus housing was a good deal, the responses would be much different than if a qualified and licenced teacher with many years of experience asked the same thing.

The OP asked whether he was on a good deal. For a man of his experience and qualifications, the answer is no. Trying to justify the pay with stuff like the low stress is simply a less extreme version of saying a guy on welfare back home has a 'good deal' because his 'job' comes with no stress, demands, or working hours at all!

I don't think I was 'looking down' on the OP.

Ehhm ... not looking down on him, just completely discounting the importance of his own stated priorities, and comparing his current choice of employment in China with "a guy on welfare back home". I'd hate to be the guy you really did look down on.

ESL104

Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:36 pm Post subject:

water rat wrote:

buravirgil wrote:

ESL104 wrote:

Also kindly stop using long, complicated words to communicate stuff, when short simple ones will do the trick. It doesn't make you appear more intelligent - quite the opposite, in fact.

LOL, long complicated words? Like: 'advantage, conjecture and conclusion'? Or like 'classroom'? Very Happy

No, using words like this:

Quote:

but no educational theory you would fail to correctly summarize would so conclude.

When you could instead say something like this

Quote:

but no educational theory would agree with your viewpoint.

Go on then, tell me how my sentence varies ever so slightly to the first, and that justifies all the excessive language. I know you're dying to.

ESL104

Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:54 pm Post subject:

mysterytrain wrote:

Go on, step outside your apartment and ask the first 20 people you see what is the most important aspect to a job. Guarantee over 10 will say salary.

Quote:

So, did the house just pop into your possession out of thin air? Do your family live off sunshine and long walks? Did your option of retiring just appear without you doing any work for it?

Or did all these things require money, and quite a lot of it in fact?

I assure you no westerner is buying a house, saving for retirement, and supporting their family on 11000rmb a month. You can do one of those things on that salary, but not all three.

Quote:

Well it's my opinion that his stated priorities are way off track. If he ever wants to return to real teaching at a real international school when he gets tired of living in China on 11000rmb, no prospective employer is going to be thrilled to see ESL public school experience. Makes it difficult to break back in. Not to mention the salary the OP is giving up is huge. This isn't like comparing a 11k+2500 housing allowance job at a public school, and then saying 'well, OP could be earning 15k at a training centre so he should be going for that'. No, we're talking about a much bigger difference.

11000+2500 for apartment = 13500*10 months pay = 135,000. Throw in 10000 for the flight and we'll call it 145,000rmb a year.

Compare that to:

25000+5000 for apartment = 30000*12 months pay = 360,000. Add 10000 for flight. 370,000rmb.

So we're talking about a difference of 225,000rmb a year! There's simply no way 'lower stress' is worth that amount of money.

litterascriptor

Joined: 17 Jan 2013
Posts: 360

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:56 pm Post subject:

For me it's location, followed by working hours, followed by lack of retarded management, followed by salary. Money is groovy, but living in a decent place, with a good apartment, and a boss who isn't a kook is better. I can always increase my earnings on the side. My main job though, needs to be as stress free as possible.

mysterytrain

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 366

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:59 pm Post subject:

direshark wrote:

But first, not everyone wants the same thing; otherwise everyone with a MA in TEFL would be in the Middle East and/or teaching kids and/or doing gobs of privates and etc etc.

Second, we shouldn't interpret that as meaning we should take to spitting on plebeians for being ignorant and whipping out our numbers so we can publicly confirm how much better we are. A couple threads ago a number of posters suggested for two pages that I should withhold my opinion on someone's contract because...my salary is about a few hundred kuai short of average university pay? I didn't appreciate the public insults, but my life here is and continues to be amazing regardless of what other people happen to be making.

Exactly. There are certainly many people who take up teaching ESL overseas simply and purely for economic purposes, but for many more of us the experience of life and other places and cultures is a huge part of the reason we make this choice. There are many who do this who have no particular interest nor aptitude, much less "passion" for teaching, but there are many of us who do have some combination of those qualities.

It is not a homogeneous experience which can be boiled down to numbers. It is a variety of experiences as diverse as the people who pursue them, each for his or her own reasons and with his or her own priorities and goals. Try holding hands in a circle and singing "kumbayah" to that.

No one here has made the statement that "money is not important". Rather, some of us have expressed the opinion that a narrow-minded focus on salary as "the most important thing" is unhelpful and inappropriate.

Now, let me guess: too many long words?

ESL104

Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 2:10 pm Post subject:

litterascriptor wrote:

For me it's location, followed by working hours, followed by lack of retarded management, followed by salary.

Money is groovy, but living in a decent place, with a good apartment, and a boss who isn't a kook is better.

I can always increase my earnings on the side. My main job though, needs to be as stress free as possible.

So if you could pick any location in the world you wanted, with a fantastic 12 classes a week schedule with no split shifts, great management...but the pay is 500rmb a month, you'd take it?

Thought not.

mysterytrain wrote:

Why would an interest in teaching and/or an interest in other cultures stop you from taking a high salary? The two pass each other by like ships in the night.

Quote:

It is not a homogeneous experience which can be boiled down to numbers. It is a variety of experiences as diverse as the people who pursue them, each for his or her own reasons and with his or her own priorities and goals. Try holding hands in a circle and singing "kumbayah" to that.

If someone's 'priorities' involve taking a job that pays less than half their market rate, I'd suggest those priorities need adjusting.

Quote:

Now, let me guess: too many long words?

Nah, that post was alright. Maybe in time you'll be able to communicate like everyone else on the internet!

Last edited by ESL104 on Wed Dec 10, 2014 2:12 pm; edited 2 times in total

mysterytrain

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 366

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 2:10 pm Post subject:

ESL104 wrote:

Go on, step outside your apartment and ask the first 20 people you see what is the most important aspect to a job. Guarantee over 10 will say salary.

So, did the house just pop into your possession out of thin air? Do your family live off sunshine and long walks? Did your option of retiring just appear without you doing any work for it?

Or did all these things require money, and quite a lot of it in fact?

I assure you no westerner is buying a house, saving for retirement, and supporting their family on 11000rmb a month. You can do one of those things on that salary, but not all three.

Well it's my opinion that his stated priorities are way off track. If he ever wants to return to real teaching at a real international school when he gets tired of living in China on 11000rmb, no prospective employer is going to be thrilled to see ESL public school experience. Makes it difficult to break back in. Not to mention the salary the OP is giving up is huge. This isn't like comparing a 11k+2500 housing allowance job at a public school, and then saying 'well, OP could be earning 15k at a training centre so he should be going for that'. No, we're talking about a much bigger difference.

11000+2500 for apartment = 13500*10 months pay = 135,000. Throw in 10000 for the flight and we'll call it 145,000rmb a year.

Compare that to:

25000+5000 for apartment = 30000*12 months pay = 360,000. Add 10000 for flight. 370,000rmb.

So we're talking about a difference of 225,000rmb a year! There's simply no way 'lower stress' is worth that amount of money.

My mama told me not to argue with people like you.

My mama was right about that one.

Yes ... it ... is ... logical ... . Laughing

buravirgil

Joined: 23 Jan 2014
Posts: 967
Location: Jiangxi Province, China

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 2:31 pm Post subject:

ESL104 wrote:

There's simply no way 'lower stress' is worth that amount of money.

Ok...maybe you don't understand qualitative and quantitative distinctions very well. Did you used to sell insurance?

ESL104

Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 108

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 4:41 pm Post subject:

Alien abductee wrote:

500 a month? Do you seriously believe anyone is doing this? Rolling Eyes

No. But if you wouldn't take that job (and I hope no one would) then it just proves that salary is ultimately the most important thing, since if everything else about the job is perfect, but the salary cannot support your lifestyle, you won't take the job, end of story.

Quote:

Try to get it through your skull for once that there are some people who place value on working less and enjoying life a little more. Most of us are capable of increasing our income if and when we choose. It's called having options and finding the right balance in life. One of the reasons I prefer to work less is to avoid coming across people with attitudes like yours.

'Enjoying' life generally costs money. I seriously doubt whether someone on 11000 a month is 'enjoying' life as much as someone on 25000, even if 11000 guy has an easy job with little expectation, and gets to clock out earlier some days due to his job not requiring office hours.

Yes you've got the ability to increase your total income if you like, but so does the guy at the international school on more than twice the salary of the guy at the public school. What exactly stops the international guy from doing private tutoring in the evenings and/or weekends and holidays? Except of course he's starting off a good 14000rmb a month ahead of the guy on 11000rmb, and that's a deficit that public school guy will never be able to pull back unless he fancies working 7 days a week (but then of course, life wouldn't be enjoyable).

Alien abductee

Joined: 08 Jun 2014
Posts: 527
Location: Kuala Lumpur

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 5:00 pm Post subject:

ESL104 wrote:

Alien abductee wrote:

500 a month? Do you seriously believe anyone is doing this? Rolling Eyes

Quote:

'Enjoying' life generally costs money. I seriously doubt whether someone on 11000 a month is 'enjoying' life as much as someone on 25000,

You just don't get it, do you? go back to counting your money, please.

ESL104 wrote:

litterascriptor wrote:

So if you could pick any location in the world you wanted, with a fantastic 12 classes a week schedule with no split shifts, great management...but the pay is 500rmb a month, you'd take it?

500 a month? Do you seriously believe anyone is doing this? Rolling Eyes

I'll try to explain this in the simplest terms possible: there are some people in the world who place value on working less and enjoying life a little more. Working as many hours as you want and earning a salary that meets your needs ≠ welfare or lifelong poverty. Most of us are capable of increasing our income if and when we choose. It's called having options and finding the right balance in life.

mysterytrain wrote:

No one here has made the statement that "money is not important". Rather, some of us have expressed the opinion that a narrow-minded focus on salary as "the most important thing" is unhelpful and inappropriate.

This quote sums it up nicely.

roadwalker

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 1750
Location: Ch

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 8:59 pm Post subject:

I also put money after the teaching job, atmosphere, location, colleagues and a few other things. I want to earn enough for my needs and a bit more for savings but that's sufficient. There are better jobs for making money than teaching English, and some of them don't require as much school. Is there a "win the Internet" contest going on that I don't know about?

litterascriptor

Joined: 17 Jan 2013
Posts: 360

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 11:01 pm Post subject:

Quote:

So if you could pick any location in the world you wanted, with a fantastic 12 classes a week schedule with no split shifts, great management...but the pay is 500rmb a month, you'd take it?

Depends on my savings. With enough money in the bank, sure I'd take it.

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