Job Discussion Forums

[A.K.A.T.D.N.]

Guess I came across as a little harsh with the kids, I'll admit that. I've been coming across as a little harsh on this board too, so hope you all disregard.

It makes me wonder about the place where I worked though, and whether or not it was all entirely my fault for getting fired. It was one of those jobs with a high turn-over rate, had subs left and right and couldn't find teachers to fill some classes at times. I took the job right away because I was low on money. It's usually got a daily advertisement in the paper on a regular basis.

Just the little things. We were't allowed to punish the kids, nor discipline them, even though there were about 20 per class and would just go wild the moment the Chinese teacher stepped out the door. The "resistants" didn't help either, even when they did come back in. I took this in stride by using effective classroom management techniques by having the students all move their chairs in rows to face the board, sometimes being quite abrupt with them since they often played bumper cars with them.

As for the routine, we had to punch in at 8:30 in the morning, for which we were fined 10NT per every minute we were late. But often times it was hard to find your punch card, seeing it was tucked in one little slot with 30 others(Mine often seemed to be shoved way in the back or somehow was always being moved around.)Next we had to teach morning excercise, or dance class, for 20 minutes, all of which was in Chinese. Then we had to prepare for a half-an hour, started work at 9:30. They wanted us to make a monthly lesson plan based on one book to share amongst five teachers. The lesson plan had to be done the next day, but we couldn't all use the only two computers available with printers. Then the supervisor scolded me for using the wrong printer, since the Chinese teachers had to pay for the paper and we were supposed to use the paper from our homeroom floor, a fact I wasn't told.

Upon leaving the building you had to sign out, be back at 2:00 and prepare for another half an hour. After finishing work, we had to stay for another half an hour and wait until 4:30. If you wanted to eat lunch you couldn't sit in the kitchen with the other Chinese teachers(I was told one foreigner was eating the food with his hands.) Another foreigner was fired for telling the supervisor one of the books was useless. Some of the "resistants" then started to complain to the supervisor because I used the wrong games. But you see the instructions for some of the games was completely in German, so I grabbed whatever looked familiar.

Who wouldn't want to make some order out of this chaos? I've experienced this many a time in Korea, so I figured it might be coming too. Matter-o-fact, I was thinking about looking for a new job the moment I stepped in the place. Then they fire me based on the explanation that "You're not the right teacher for us." I guess I didn't fit into their definition of a teacher, nor why I should've even been paid
to pretend I was actually teaching at all, and that without no books or materials to start with in the first place.

[Pop Fly]

I'll hire you. Please, please come work for me.