Job Discussion Forums

[Mark Loyd]

Feel like this?

I HATE TEACHING ENGLISH

This is my last week of being a teacher, hopefully ever. I�ve been doing this for seven years, though the whole idea of teaching things to people is deeply flawed, in my opinion. Christ I'm bored. It's not as if I am working towards any definite goal in this job, anything achievable. As fast as I teach them English they forget it, or leave the course, or die off. A new generation comes, and all the weary work to start over again, like landing on a snake in Snakes and Ladders. And back we go to MOD EDIT "Where's the Post Office?"

"This is Bill and his friend Tony. Bill plays tennis." God, how soul-destroying. No matter how many students I teach, there are always more coming along to take their place. I feel like a gerbil in an exercise wheel. I would like to do something else for a bit, but what? Join the Foreign Legion? Breed rabbits? Open a pub? A degree in social sciences makes you radically unemployable, like a facial tattoo. Having spent all this time teaching it is probably too late to rehabilitate back into society. I thought about doing some kind of postgraduate course. Perhaps the academic life might suit me. I see myself at high table, passing the port as donnish jokes were tossed about. Then I would stun the company into silence with one of my Killer Facts.

But is it good to spend so much time in universities? In The Sleepers by Walt Whitman there is a phrase, "The sick-gray faces of onanists". Another four years in higher education and that would be me. In four years time I would emerge thin and pasty, blinking like a mole. I can see myself on my release day as I stand on the pavement, shabby and pathetic. I am hunched against the biting wind, and all my possessions are next to me in a battered suitcase. Laughed at by women and splashed by the passing trucks, Hutton cuts a pitiful figure.

All alone in the big city. A group of schoolgirls pass. They look at me in disgust, and cross the road. I raise my shabby head to stare at them and piss into my trousers. Trudging aimlessly through the cold streets. The city is a bewildering place. Faces without names, where are they going? People curse as I get in the way. They want to kick me.

I make my way to the Salvation Army van to get some soup. Make it last Hutton; there'll be no more Formal Dinners in your cardboard box. But who is this? A wheezing old man is scavenging from the bins. He takes a swig of Brasso and staggers towards me. No wonder he looks familiar- it's the Dean! He left college six months ago to take up a position with a merchant bank, but having spent his entire adult life in universities he was unable even to boil an egg, and now look at him.

I am not ruling out further education, you understand. Compared with another year of stinking verbs and "grammar games" it has a lot to recommend it. But I am aware of the risks.

[Hector_Lector]

Come and work here.

http://www.jacksonfive.com.tw/Students/Students.htm

[Golightly]

Mark, PM me if you want more of a lowdown on the wonderful world of FE.

[crashartist1]

Actually Mark you are wrong, if you have a tattoo on your face there are still a lot more jobs that you can then if you have a degree in one of the social sciences. Having a degree in Social Sciences you are too over-qualified for menial work and too under-qualified for anything else. If you have a tattoo on your face you can find any job rather easily as a food engineer, sanitation engineer or as a landscape engineer.

Oh the truth of that is too painful (mainly because social science guy will make less money then the other).

crashartist1

[Frizzie Lizzie]

Have you tried teacher training?

[ghost]

One feels sorry for you, as you obviously are worn out by the lack of intrinsic stimulation in your teaching endeavours.

Possible careers:

1. Entrepreneur (running your own business, whatever that may be).

2. Freelance Consultant - on Education, and other.

3. Journalism and freelance writing.

4. Immigration Consultant.

5. Travel courier.

6. A variety of other jobs, unrelated and related to the above.

It is never too late to start something.

Life is all about making choices.

Ghost in Taichung, Taiwan

[Mark Loyd]

Life is all about making choices, eh?

Is that avaiable stitiched on a tea towel or tea cosy?

[BERRY]

Check this out
http://www.helpyourselfstore.com/choices.htm

I'm just kidding, of course...

[BERRY]

Your angst reminds me of Davies in Pinter's The Caretaker

(postgrad studies = shoes)

[BERRY]

Alernatively Waiting for Godot might also fit...

" We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression that we exist?" (p.69).

[Otterman Ollie]

Actually I think Mark has made quite a valid statement ,I think if we were all a bit more honest with ourselves we would see that Mark's angst is not that far removed from our own at times .
The industry we are in makes heavy demands on us on a daily basis and every year we have to repeat what was done the previous ,wears you done a bit ,correction a lot . Like Mark I 've been round the block and sometimes I wonder for how much longer this can go on .
I find myself doing things that when I first started would have been unthinkable outside as well inside the classroom . I won't elaborate .
Needless to say as part of a large group of fellow educators I find it is possible to blend into the woodwork so you don't get noticed, in fact you become ignored to such an extent that nothing you offer in constructive comment is heeded or taken on board . All thats really required of you is this dumb obdience which is just about making the right noises in the right places and picking up the pay check each month if you can live with that then you can carry on indefintely.Personally like Mark I feel that those days may be numbered ,however I recognise that the lifestyle I enjoy here is down to my chosen "profession " .
In conclusion ,to Mark, those "dependents" of yours must be concerned if they know of your choice or are we the first to know about this what ever path you follow from here I wish you good luck the forum won't be quite the same without you .

[BERRY]

Ollie's " find myself doing things that when I first started would have been unthinkable outside as well inside the classroom . I won't elaborate" .
reminds me of the Brit in Saudi who recently... I won't elaborate either - It's probably just a coincidence...

[calsimsek]

This is going to get Marks Back up. Sorry!!!

I agree with Mark my job is at times a pain, I get through it by counting down the days to go before the hoildays start. (7 school days before the break and 104 school days before its all over in June)

Unlike most here I did have a life before this. I worked in company got good pay and did the company thing. Coming home at 8-9 in the evenings going off to dinner with co workers and clients going on inter state trips to meet clients. Staying in hotel rooms by yourself.

It was no bed of roses. Infact it was more of a pain than teaching.
In the end the life style I get because of the school and privet students means I learn to put up with the brain killing rot we have to do.

How long I can put up with it is the same point Mark makes. In the end we all reach that limit ourselfs.

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

And there's me thinking the piece was all about Hutton ...

Is this a well known 'nom de plume' for Mr Lloyd?

[BERRY]

Calsimsek : I don't believe a word of it

Mark 31 is still THE MAN! Mark rules OK