Job Discussion Forums

[7969]

[7969]

just to update, since the day i intentionally failed to show up for class, i've had two other classes cancelled in similar fashion to the first, students going out to do some sort of practical training. on both occasions, the school notified me well in advance of the cancellations. it appears that my strategy of fighting fire with fire has achieved the desired result.

7969

[clark.w.griswald]

7969 it seems to me that the school's response may be indicative of your value to the school. The fact that they didn't fire you suggests that you must be a good teacher and valued by the school. Possibly a lesser foreign devil would have found him or herself looking for a new job. Good on you for pushing the envelope and succeeding in creating a change.

[vikdk]

[jeffinflorida]

[Voldermort]

Well done 7. But I must say you are lucky it didn't all blow up in your face. I tried something similar in the past which ended up with undesired results. But then again I was working through an agency and teachers (for lack of a better word) were ten a penny.

Things are quite the opposite with my current school. There has only been one occasion where I went to class only to find them taking part in an examination. To be fair though, nobody in my office knew about this, including the Chinese staff. After that incident, all the times and dates of anything relating to a FT is marked up on the office wall.

The school also know that if I am not informed about changes at least 24 hours in advance, they have to find a replacement. FT's do have a life outside the school, and even though the schools would love it, I do not sit next to a phone hoping they have an extra/changed class for me.

[7969]

after reading all this, i hope noone got the impression that i just got angry and then told the school "i'm not showing up next week." at one point, after seeing noone in the class that day, then noticing the class wasnt even on the schedule for that classroom any longer i began to think it was cancelled permanently. it was the first cancellation due to student practical training, of which i knew nothing about.

you're right voldermort, it could have blown up in my face, but i think i handled it in a way that showed i was just trying to elicit a desired response from the school as opposed to just getting the school back for inconveniencing me. i'll never know but maybe they saw it the same way.

[kev7161]

I rarely have occasion to complain about my current school. Overall it's a pretty swell place to work.

HOWEVER,

Today and tomorrow is testing day at my school. I was well aware of the days last week and I was even told the schedule would be rearranged. Just let me know is what I told my co-teacher. Send me an email or something. NO BIG DEAL.

On Tuesdays (today), I have the first period class at 8:05AM. I showed up about 7:20 like I normally do and was told my first class would now be 3rd period due to the testing. "Why didn't you tell me yesterday?" I asked. She told me she didn't get the schedule until yesterday afternoon after I had already left. "Why not call me or text me or send me an email?" I asked. Her response? A shrug - - sort of telling me: "Oh well, you're here now. What are you going to do?" No apology or even the least bit of contrition. A shrug of the shoulders. Luckily (?) I have been fighting a throat infection for the past couple of weeks. I've been to the school clinic 3X, I bumped into the principal yesterday and mentioned I was going to the hospital in town after work (which I did) and my co-teacher knew how I've been feeling due to our many conversations about it. What am I going to do? I took the day off - - a sick day - - my first in almost 3 years. In reality, my throat is MUCh better today due to the stronger medicines I got at the hospital, but it will be nice to rest the throat for 24 hours and I'll be in top teaching condition once again tomorrow (when I know my teaching schedule, by the way).

[7969]

[vikdk]

[guruengerish]

The similarities between Chinese and Indonesian SNAFUs always amaze me. Reading here about cancelled classes and the teacher not being told, takes me back to a training and bonding (aka Teamwork) weekend I had planned for my Technical staff in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

I�d borrowed a projector - no VHS or DVD in those days - booked a training building in the hills, organised food, had films sent over from the Oz Embassy in Jakarta, even booked a 21-seater bus for the weekend, and we�re set to depart Friday evening.

Friday arrives, and a notice appears on all notice boards. �The army is organising physical training for all University staff. There will be no exceptions, and staff will be on the training grounds at 0600 Saturday morning.�

The staff are accepting of this instruction, and are very apologetic. Some are exempted, and offer to come with me and set everything up, which we do. At around 1pm on Saturday, various physical wrecks arrive and tumble out of cars and off motor-bikes and stagger inside. All available food and drink is consumed in a few minutes, and then they shuffle out, and collapse onto lounge chairs, beds, floors, and sleep for the next few hours.

We had a good dinner, and many stayed awake while a few training films were run, but it was an early night.

Deliberate? I don�t flatter myself that the army ran this to try and scuttle my program; It�s just the way they run things there. Maybe I should have invited the Vice-Chancellor, but I doubt it would have made any difference.

[tony lee]

[clarrie]

The mistake you made when all was going well and nothing had ever changed was to believe that you would be informed of any change; therefore my friend, the problem lies with you because 'you didn't ask'!

HAd this happen to me a few times when 'they' changed bus time schedules without notice and left me standing at pick-up points. Fortunately for me, prior to these incidents I had informed the school that, given that it was a so-called 'language school' with all teachers being able to communicate in English, if I was not informed of any change I refused to be held responsible.

The first time it happened came as a bit of a surprise and when I asked why I hadn't been informed of the change I was told that I knew about it - news to me! - and if I didn't it was because I didn't ask. Ahhh yes, the Chinese way of thinking! My response was to suggest that I should keep abrteast of what was going on and be totally informed by going around to various offices and people and asking if anything had been changed that I needed to know about. I did this for a few days and it drove them nuts and on the third day they were furious at being asked if anything had been changed or if there was anything I needed to know about. I don't think they really got the point of the whole exercise because I was left standing at pick-up popoints again, but I had no qualms about going back home to do my own thing. One time they rang me to tell me I had a class and that I needed to be at school. When I informed them that the bus did not arrive that morning they told me that I probably missed it (got there too late).

Anyway, if we don't play with their minds, who's going to!

[KarenB]

I think 7969 did the right thing, and there was nothing unprofessional about it. If one arrives at a class, there's no students there, and the class is not listed on the schedule, then one assumes the class has been cancelled, and there's no need to show up the following week.

Of course, obsessive-compulsive people such as myself would put a call in to the administration to find out what the deal was. However, the burden in this case is not on the teacher, but on the administration to contact the teacher, and 1) tell them about the temporary class cancellation, and 2) assure him that the following week the class would be held as usual.

I had a similar situation several years ago. I was working at my present school, but they had sub-contracted me (and another teacher) out a couple hours a week to a local high school (a guanxi thing). The high school was to pay us separately, once a month (the pay was ridiculous, I might add). Well, I had to travel to get there, and was regularly annoyed to find, upon my arrival, that 1) class had been cancelled and I had NOT been notified, or 2) the class had been moved to another location. Since I was never sure which was the case, I spent an inordinate amount of time wandering around a very large campus, trying to find my students. This went on for at least 2 months. The school never bothered to pay me either.

I told the supervising teacher at the high school that they needed to call me in advance when class was cancelled or changed, and that they needed to also pay me, including for the times in which I went there and class had been cancelled, due to my travel time (I also told the principal of my own school what was going on). Finally, around the end of October, I simply stopped going to class. Two weeks went by. I got a call. Are you coming to teach? Not until you pay me. Two more weeks went by. The supervising teacher showed up at my school, where I was out playing basketball. We sat down and had a chat. He gave me the money that was owed me (including for the days that were cancelled without notice -- in fact, he paid me extra). I told him that I would only continue to teach if the following requests were met:
1) Paid on time at end of each month
2) Have a student or teacher meet me at the entrance of the school to escort me to the class (since they were always changing locations)
3) Call me at least 1 hour in advance to advise of class cancellation

I also told him that I was too busy to teach any more that semester (which was true, as I had to organize a Christmas production at my own school). I was never contacted to teach the following semester. I guess they figured it was too much trouble to have to comply with a few very reasonable requests.

[Chris_Crossley]

In the nearly 4 1/2 years that I have been in Wuhan, I can still remember that one time when I came to class - and found that nobody was there. No big deal if this had been at the regular school that I was teaching at (in this case, EF English First), yet I was sub-contracted to teach two separate classes at Budweiser Wuhan, which just happened to be in the next district of the city and required a considerable amount of travelling time.

I had had an inkling that something was going to happen to that lower-level class (lower-intermediate level I would have classed it as) when students, who worked at the company, began turning up in lower numbers and their enthusiasm for English began to wane. The simple reason was that they had been "obliged" to do English classes. Being company employees being told what to do by their superiors, they felt that they had little choice but to comply. Given the choice, they would not have wanted to come to class, I could tell even from the first session.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I turned up at the lecture theatre half an hour before the class was due to start. By half an hour after the start time, I figured that the class had been cancelled. I complained to my boss the next day about this farcical state of affairs, and he told me later that nobody had told even him that Budweiser had decided to put an end to that class completely. However, he told me that I would be compensated for my time and trouble.

There was a higher-level class running concurrently, but that did continue until the students did their special end-of-course exam - and I got a case of Budweiser beer for my trouble!