Job Discussion Forums

[mandu]

the job Iam in now i have been in for nearly just over a year.I like my job and the people i work with
but somtimes the way the principle does things can be frustrating,or the way things are done are frustrating.

do you ever get frustrated in your job?,how often?

[Voldermort]

I get frustrated just about every day.

[mandu]

i understand this is china
why cant the people in charge at kindergartens or schools try different ways of doing things.
for eg communication,paying on time,letting staff know that they are doing a good job (chinese and western teachers),asking for things such as teachers guides to help with lessons(then you ask for them,the principle says no)

[Malsol]

Why doesn't the Pope try something different like say Christianity?

[7969]

[sttwo]

A person has to be very liberal about what s/he calls progress here.

It's a cinch that rote memorization hasn't been overly successful in language acquisition in the past so that is out.

I've found both China and Korea to be very difficult places to institute any change. Those in charge have an autocratic attitude as though the teachers were just soldiers to aggrandize their lofty positions. They will pay you lip service and nod their heads as if in acquiescence, but will usually end with, "We'll see how things turn out." and nothing will ever change or improve.

I've always found the failure to plan, the failure to ensure that those who have a need to know know in sufficient time, --those things will always drive me to distraction.

Everywhere I've worked could be muchimproved by aesthetic matters: copy machines and computers that work. printers that exist or work would be nice. Clean walls, unbroken furniture, calendars, wastebaskets, world maps to promote the world community, clocks in classrooms, bulletin boards. These things are too oftenlacking and they let the facilities fall apart with cracked windows, broken doors, broken knobs, etc.
They may lack chalk, board markers, copy paper, and chintz on those as though they weren't essential the task at hand. I've even been told I wrote too much on the board. Yeah, right.

They want us to use participative teaching methods but classroom layouts are for lecturers.

We do the best we can with the resources and time that we have.

[MrBeijingles]

I have been frustrated with my job lately. My dad came to visit me for a week so I took the week off but left a movie for my classes. Now I'm back and I missed my classes today because some friends from my American university needed help. So now, the school is really mad at me for missing all these classes.

[Yu]

What are your motivations for wanting things to change. Backwards has worked for the past 5000 years here, why because you feel a little uncomfortable should anything have to change.
Actually, I struggle with many of the same issues as you do, and I am also asking the question if a FTs job here is to try to change things or learn the Chinese way. Why is it that we as FTs feel so much resistance to the ways things are done in China? Perhaps because it is just so different from our way of doing things back home and we are so ethnocentric that we believe our way of doing things is so much better. We want China to conform to our ways, but the reality is I dont think that will ever happen.

[7969]

[Calories]

I get frustrated with certain classes because they are thick. I should get frustrated when my classes are canceld and no one bothers to tell me, but I actually don't mind at all; it's a nice suprise. I do get frustrated when I have no idea how many more weeks the semester is and when I ask I just get "oh don't worry we will tell you" Uh, ya, how about telling me now?!

[Babala]

mandu made a good point. I would just once like to hear from the boss that I do a good job. I have been at the same school for almost 3 years now, I always hear positive comments from the students but just once I would like the boss to acknowledge that.

[sttwo]

The classes are "thick" because they are programmed to be dullards. This is "harmonious" and very in keeping with a couple of thousand years of confusionist thought.

Semesters and academiic years can't be announced or planned in advance or :"the leaders" would diminish their authorities. Often times we blame our supervisors wrongfully here; it is "the leaders" who keep them in the dark and feed them fecal material so that they can keep their hold on them.

We must all await decress from"the leaders" and be joyful in glad in them. The fact that you don't have janitorial, teaching, heating, air-conditioning, police, safety, santitation, or any other coverage provided for is immaterial because "the leaders" know besrt.

This is a bad remake of "Brave New World" and Aldous Huxley would recoil in horror.

All of this is present tense thinking. It is the quintessential example of it. On about February 15th, 2004, Changchun Normal University's leaders decided that they would begin the new semester on February twenty-third rather than a week later when March had commenced. They notified sixteen thousand students of this change by various means. Doubtless differentials had to be paid, unbudgeted, to dining facility contractors, etc. NO PROBLEM! They are "the leaders".

One can earn a Master's in Any Kind of Management by simply observing how management is done here and NOT DOING that!

It's clear that you aren't expected to "have a plan", "a set of objectives", or "any desires". "The leaders" don't, so why should we?

[kev7161]

Is the "chinese way" better or worse than the somewhat typical "western
way"? I like the fact that generally my principal seems to think I know what I'm doing (even when I'm not so sure myself) and pretty much let's me run the show. When I have concerns beyond my control (like, will enough parents re-sign their kids for next year's experimental class - - enough for me to keep my job), he says, "Don't worry, that's our job to deal with parents, not yours!" Okay, cool.

But I've listed my frustrations here many times. I think the thing is that there are some routines in the "west" that have proven to work and to work well. Other things do not (violence and drugs in schools anyone?). It's too bad that so many schools won't even try to change. But maybe it's because, overall, the FT making the suggestion probably won't even be around the following year, so why make a drastic change (like telling you ahead of time when the schedule is to be changed) when that person won't even be around to enjoy the fruits of labor?

[Roger]

Well, guys and gals, you wouldn't be any happier in a western school because over there you would come under totally different forms of pressure! There is more monitoring, quality control, supervision, you have to do more administrative work, write reports, and your classes have to mesh with those of other teachers.
It's a total holiday here - in comparison. Having said this, I accept we face irksome issues and irritants. In my case it's the rickety computer system in our university (whole mornings off, sudden interruptions, unannounced blockages of certain websites), the chaotic management of any normal school and the fact that as FTs we are regarded as a "quantite negligeable" - we don't count, which is insulting when you are faced with deadlines and ultimata that our Chinese colleagues do not face.

But again, working in a western-run school ages you a lot faster - I assure you!

[Gorak]

In the West, workers are held much more accountable for their actions than FTs are in China (or Asia). That is, if FTs were to have the freedom or holidays on the job as Roger implies AND routinely break codes of ethics - they would be shown the door. In my experiences in Chinese universities, my employers have often taken such violations as cultural differences and not immediate cause for dismissal. In the old story of FTs unable to function in Western organizations/society able to function in Chinese organizations/society.

To FTs complaining about their Chinese Bosses - my question is exactly what do teachers do in the West when they are unhappy with their Bosses? They do not have Dave's to vent, so..... (there, the OP has the answer)