Job Discussion Forums

Midlothian Mapleheart · Joined: 26 May 2005 Posts: 623 Location: Elsewhere

Edited to remove offensive content.

Middy

Babala · Joined: 28 Jan 2005 Posts: 1303 Location: Henan

If a teacher only teaches adults, why would hating children make them any less of good teacher? I don't see what one has to do with the other.

clarrie · Joined: 05 Apr 2005 Posts: 75

I never teach children and I don't teach children because I'm not qualified to teach them and the reason I'm not qualified to teach them is I don't want to teach them!

If you're not qualified for the task it's going to mean a lot of hard work.

A boss of mine in China once asked me to teach a morning class, but would not specify the age group even after much probing. I told her I would not teach children for the reason above and she said no problem, just go along and have a look. Well I did and as I suspected it was a bunch of ankle biters with double pony tales asnd big smiles. They said good morning, I said good morning and then said good bye!

The boss on Monday asked me why I didn't stay - a little slow on the uptake! She tried to convince me they were 'lovely'. They may have been, but I don't teach kids.

Don't do it!

frigginhippie · Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Posts: 188 Location: over here

hesterprynne · Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 386

Once you do something like this once, you are sending the message that this is an acceptable rate of pay. For your sake and the sake of future teachers, don't accept the unacceptable!

YankeeDoodleDandy · Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 3:27 pm Post subject: A Favor

Tell them that you are tired of all your hard work during the semester and that you want to rest up. Tell them that you want to go shopping and buy some gifts for your relatives. Tell them that you want to spend as much time with your girlfriend before you go home. Your school and the English Training school may be partners. Your FAO realizes what a kind person you are and take advantage of you. The other foreign teacher what will their pay be? Apartment included? Flight home RT or one way for several weeks work? They won't tell you this and if you ask questions along this line , they will only think that you are in it for the money. I am not very good at dealing with their indirectness and to make matters worse, I am not very assertive, until I am pushed too far. Last summer I thought that I would be teaching part time for 100 RMB per hour and I only got paid 62 and a half RMB per hour because I was a friend ( ha ha ha ) and that we had discussed the possibility of me teaching there after my contract was over several months later. When I got paid in September, I questioned them on this and they said it was the going rate. Two weeks later they offered to pay 100 RMB per hour of teaching ( not 50 minutes ) and I did a 3 week oral class and I made 2500 RMB. They will screw you when they can. You can lose face or they can lose face. If you can have a win-win situation, that would be ideal. Best of luck.

Brian Caulfield · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 1247 Location: China

You learn this gig by teaching children. Anyways please don't do this work for less than 100rmb because you are just driving down the wages of all of us .

anthyp · Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 1320 Location: Chicago, IL USA

Happy ending, folks:

I declined my school's offer and offered to help them talk to one of the other foreigners in town. So we took him out for lunch and after we plied him with a few beers, he agreed to do it for 80 RMB. He's actually taking on the whole month of work, at 24 hours per week, so he'll end up making more than 7000 RMB. I had a moment of doubt (second thoughts?) as I was helping them type up the contract, but ...

Anyway, face saved, honor preserved, relationships fully intact -- another crises has been successfully resolved in the PRC. Bring on the summer!

tw · Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 3898

Volodiya · Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2005 10:12 am Post subject:

Now, that's what I call a happy ending! Amazing win-win for all concerned. FT gets job; other school gets badly needed teacher, supplied at the last minute; your school looks good by coming through for the other school; you look good by coming through for your school; you get "off the hook", in a most graceful and guanxi earning fashion.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

go_ABs · Joined: 08 Aug 2004 Posts: 507

Rog, interesting ideas.

Certainly I am with you when you say that no teacher should show a preference for one student over another, one gender over another, etc, IN THE CLASSROOM.

However, any expectation that a teacher would not harbour those sentiments is unrealistic. Of course the teacher will. But, as you say, that doesn't mean they will necessarily act on them in class.

This forum is not class. Anthyp is free to say that he hates teaching children, and we shouldn't assume from that that in class he'll snarl and bite the kiddies.

This forum is not public, anyway - really. Few posters use their real name. If he had said: "My name is Anthony Pettigrew from London UK, teaching and XYZ School in ABC Province, and I hate my students," then that would be a different story.

"Such an utterance is not becoming of a teacher!" I agree with you there. But - in my books - he's free to say it, without needing a spanking. And there are plenty of other posters saying more distateful things. Let's forget this minor comment and move on.

Brian Caulfield · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 1247 Location: China

tw
They do and have associations . I am in Shanxi and here everything is with the governments approval . Your basic wage is set by the government . Like what has been said before wages are coming down here . If you checked postings for work five years ago they paid 8,000 for teachers . Then kind hearted people started coming here and doing volunteer work . I see the salaries coming down from last year mainly because of low quality teachers retired people on pensions doing the job . Each job I have done here in China I have taught over 1000 students and you can't tell me they are not making money . We are a commodity here and like all commodities supply and demand rules .