Job Discussion Forums

biffinbridge · Joined: 05 May 2003 Posts: 701 Location: Frank's Wild Years

Having spent the last 5 years of my career teaching in the Middle East I've come to the conclusion that a high proportion of teflers are absolutely bonkers.Of the 8 ,(formerly 9),teachers in my department 3 are certifiable and it was the same in Qatar at Q.P.,where several were forcibly removed from their flats having locked themselves in etc.One American lady was found eating grass outside the Oasis Hotel and stuck in the local loony bin for about 6 weeks.Alcoholism is rife as is drug use throughout much of the efl world.The number of really sad mid-forties cases you find in the Middle East is truly astonishing.Is efl a magnet for nutcases or does the itinerant lifestyle and everything that goes with it get to everyone in the end?

Gordon · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 5309 Location: Japan

I have to say, I haven't seen that in Japan, maybe Korea though. I find the places that offer the most money attracts the biggest "nuts", as you so eloquently put it.

sigmoid · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 1276

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Postal workers have to be the nuttiest out there. Not too many TEFLers that climb bell towers with an AK-47.

I think nuttery crosses every industry...

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 4:03 pm Post subject:

Depends a lot on your definition of nuts, as well as exactly where you are on the "EFL continuum."

My experience, previously in Europe and now in Ecuador, is that the short term, backpacker type teacher is often also a drinker and or drug user- but then, partying is one of the things people go travelling for. I have seen considerably less of this kind of thing amongst serious, qualified teachers.

But in terms of neurosis, many do seem to get under the weather from the long term, "out of culture" experience. I know that sometimes after a long day, I talk to myself, out loud, while walking down the street. I only do it to hear what English really sounds like. But I guess it looks crazy. (Don't tell me you guys never do this!)

I know a guy who spends his time thinking up bi-lingual puns, and a lovely woman, also an EFL veteran, who sometimes says she's a rabbit and likes to balance balloons on her nose. I know a large number of people who can no longer have a conversation without thinking how the structures they are using can be explained. I know a guy whose wallpaper is one, enormous phrasal verb chart. I know a teacher who writes letters to friends in IPA script. (You have to read it out loud...)

Does this mean that we're all crazy? I don't know, but amongst those people are some of the best teachers I've ever worked with.

Nuts and loving it,

Justin

ntropy · Joined: 11 Oct 2003 Posts: 671 Location: ghurba

Stark raving, I believe we are and the Middle East bunch have been the worst in my experience.

As for why, I think some enter the field because we have issues at home that we feel we can escape by going overseas. We won't admit the problem is within and we bring it with us; that we can't run away.

Because the Middle East can be so solitary and hard to integrate into life, combined with the alcohol problems that come from having it prohibited (people drink more!) these issues can worsen. Plus the fact that many ME teachers are older and have more time to perfect their neuroses.

No, I'm not tarring us all with this brush but I do feel there is a larger proportion of it in TEFL than I have seen in other careers I've been involved in.

Deconstructor · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 775 Location: Montreal

When I lived Korea, things slowly got out of control. I was living in a small town and was the only Westerner. While I did spend time with Koreans, I also spent a great deal of time with myself. The ideas in my head grew like hothouse flowers. There was no one there to contradict me no matter how harebrained my ideas were. So I began to live more in my head than out of it. Ironically I was out of my head.

I remember interpreting cartoon characters such as Wile E. Coyote. (I'm sure all of you guys just went HUH?!). I remember thinking on my way to work how Coyote represents the ultimate human condition, especially mine: He is naked under the sun and lives in a desert all alone. He has one raison d'etre: to catch the roadrunner, which represented human desire. Coyote would use all his scientific knowledge to catch the bird. I wondered how impotent science really was. It occurred to me that Coyote was an idealist and fell off a cliff only when he thought he was going to fall; and contrary to popular belief, Coyote did die whenever he fell. It just that he was reincarnated and thrown back to life: not a different life, but the same one. I came to believe that Coyote was faced with the eternal return as postulated by Nietzsche.

This is how I spent 404 days in Korea. Then I came back home and found myself in a rational insanity. As Pascal once said: Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

Most of the folks I've met in TEFL have been relatively 'normal' - whatever that may be. However, one teacher I worked with in Jakarta.... My God. He suffered from severe clinical paranoia and should have been back in his home country undergoing therapy.

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

distiller · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 249

I lived in an isolated village myself for over two years and it was great. I t gave me a chance to learn the local langauge and make friends who were not part of the expat community. I had tons of alone time but I spent it working out, reading and writing and I finished up being in the best shape of my life with quite a few short stories, poems and a novella to show for it. I rarely watched TV-it was great! I, however, am the type of person who could be locked in solitary confinment with a few books and be fine. You need to know yourself before jumping into situations.

I have seen way too many men in their 40s and 50s who are just burnt out divorcees though out to get Asian tail and cheap drinks and drugs to not call it at least a "trend" in this part of the world. I also have friends in that age group who are lifelong commited professions though so I wouldn't make any blanket statements.

merlin · Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:44 am Post subject:

I believe I've found the reason for this, or at least one reason.

Often when we travel and live unprotected by hotel staff or military bases we see things which disturb us. Quite often people who see themselves as fairly open-minded, liberal, understanding, cosmopolitan or basically just nice people get a real shock. This is so great a shock that we supress feelings of rage to the detriment of our long-term mental and emotional health.

For example, Mr. America Hater from B.F. Southern California is on a crowded bus in Asia and finds thoughts creeping into his mind about how genocide isn't such a bad idea after all. He immedately suppresses these thoughts because of course he was raised to see himslf as an enlighened Californian in a meltingpot new-age and racially tolerant culture. The more his true feelings are supressed the more he descends into disfunctionality until you get some of the characters on this forum we all know and despise.

Then there is the pursuit of money at the expense of all else which is a well-known theme in world literature. The midas touch makes everything buyable but unable to be enjoyed.

jaytee · Joined: 28 Sep 2004 Posts: 16 Location: China

Well I thought I was sane before reading this, now i'm not so sure.
What a bizarre thread...

distiller · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 249

I�m not so sure I am on board with Merlin�s bus service to genocide but I do agree that a lot of people who consider themselves �worldly� and/or �culturally sensitive� while back home watching National Geographic or going down to a funky Moroccan restaurant find that in reality other cultures present a real challenge and can at times be a pain in the arse. Different cultures have different ideas about waiting in line, personal space, labor relations, food, etc, etc and they are most likely very different from you own. Then there are language barriers which take time and effort to break down.

A lot of people do try to suppress their distaste for some of these things. It usually comes out eventually and can even lead to the types of attitudes we see on this forum at times. That is, people who live abroad somewhere and can�t stand the job they�ve got or the place they�re living. Obviously, you have to have a balanced perspective on things weighing good and bad and whatnot. We all need to bitch about things in our host country but if you go too far or do it too often then it�s more than an occasional healthy vent.

You also have to be honest with yourself. Are you the type of person who can enjoy doing this for an extended period of time or are you just trying to be a person who can enjoy doing this for an extended period of time because that�s the person you want yourself to be? If it�s not enjoyable and you are depressed and all that then there is nothing wrong with being a person who is just much more suited to life in their native country. In fact the vast majority of the world is made up of just those sorts of people.

tedkarma · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 2:58 am Post subject:

I've made some great friends, met some wonderful people teaching and working in five countries in Asia and Africa since 1989.

That said, I've also met quite a few nuts.

I would attribute the "nuts" to:

1. People who were having difficulty at home and ran away overseas to get away from their problems - only to find that THEY are their problem - and the problem came with them, - and

2. People who work in this business are not "normal". Normal people stay home, close to family, get a mortgage, drive an SUV and get two weeks vacation per year - then dash off for a couple days to Mexico or Spain for their "international exposure".

People who work and live overseas - in cultures quite different from their own - I think - are willing to push the envelope a bit in their lives. Some people thrive on it � others suffer from it.

Boy Wonder · Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 453 Location: Clacton on sea

Having worked in six different countries seems to me that the further away from home people live the nuttier and more bizarre they are!

For true nuttiness in EFL try Amit Gilboas book on EFL teachers losing the plot in Cambodia called " Off the rails in Phnom Penh".

EFL is an ideal career path for off the wall characters who can't or won't fit in to the role their own society creates for them.

I've worked in countless jobs in the UK where the staple conversation revolves around TV soap operas and the latest showbiz gossip.Some of the people you have to work with in these jobs possess characters as dynamic and interesting as a sheet of grey cardboard.

Personally although some of the more insane TEFLers I have come across can be a bit wearing I'd much rather share a staffroom with them than a load of people without a personality between them.