Job Discussion Forums

[Outsida]

[HunanForeignGuy]

[rexgardn]

Hello All,
I leave in late August to teach in what I hope will be an ethical and humane university setting. I want to thank all of you for your encouragement and the frankness of your suggestions and comments.

I regret that I must point out that some of the unfeeling judgments of the suffering of some teachers as dramatic is nothing new on this particular bulletin board. But some attention must be paid to the callousness of some posters presuming to judge the reality of some one else's pain by as in one example inventorying the victims' dvd collection .

Perhaps it is time for Dave to distinguish posters as recruiters, owners, managers and so on as having financial interests in protecting schools and employers and the rest, the teachers, students, and anyone simply interested in education.

But in the main I have learned to view the vicious jabs and ravings for what they are, the sad effusive pustulence of the lonely, unfit, and unbalanced for whom the Net has given both refuge and anonymity; and so I ignore them.

Yet some of the comments in this particular thread step over some kind of threshold and I want to go on the record with my sympathy to those teachers who suffered and to the families that mourn for them.

All vicitims are equal.

Sincerely Yours,

Rex

[vikdk]

outsida - are you now trying to tell us that your percieved standards of what are acceptable norms as far as working conditions for the FT are concerned, can be used as something that defines the quality of employment here - a kind of, I kan stick it out so it must be good logic

[vikdk]

[shuize]

[vikdk]

[frank d]

And to think this entire cacophonous calamity was borne from someone posting a legitimate article from the Associated Press about the plight of a rising number of foreign English teachers working in China!!! I can understand a certain percentage of ESL discussion issues yielding some nasty exchanges, but I didn�t dream this AP article would trigger such cynical swaggering.

The lack of empathy from some is troubling. If not these, I can�t imagine what circumstances would be required to produce such emotions� Makes you wonder how effective some of these folks are as teachers...?

I had no idea my ruggedness (or lack of) was the most essential element for working in China. All this time, I�ve been operating under the misguided notion that dedication to students and interest in effective teaching was paramount in the equation. Instead, it now seems to be almost solely about one�s true level of �manhood.� What a fool I�ve been!
Thanks for the boot-camp, �tough love� enlightenment!

[no_exit]

There are rougher places to work than China, but there are certainly cushier countries too. If anyone thinks power outages and cold weather are intolerable conditions then maybe China might not be the place for those people, don't you think? Afterall, these are conditions that the entire population has to put up with, not just FTs. I think a few people on this thread were simply trying to point out that while there are legitimate gripes with schools, the reporters for this article (not the teachers themselves, this article wasn't written by them!) chose to go for the "sensational" angle, and focused on things that they probably felt would tug on the heartstrings of their readers. For pete's sake, no one is suggesting you have to be Indiana Jones to work in China, however you do have to have a thicker skin than some who come here seem to have. Why should this even be up for debate?

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

I've just deleted or edited several postings on this thread.

I would suggest everyone refrain from personal insults or confrontational postings.

Otherwise, this thread will no longer be available and responsible parties will be sanctioned.

[shuize]

[cartago]

Honestly I do feel a lot of sympathy for teachers in a bad situation. I think most of us do. But without knowing more about the situation it does seem overly dramatic that they thought they would be held their against their will. And I never took an inventory of their DVD collection, I just mentioned that it seemed odd that they had over 200 DVDs and they complained about not having electricity. You need electricity to use a DVD player. If I took an inventory I might have said, hmmm they had a limited edition copy of White Chicks, the first season of Desperate Housewives, a copy of Beaches, the Indigo Girls live in Sydney, etc.

Perhaps they really were in danger, I don't know. I'm just giving my first impression after reading the article.

[cj750]

I think the important part of this story is that they felt intimidated...whether or not they had to endure hardships or not is illrelevent..not all pull runners because they don't want to work hard..

frank'd

[Outsida]

[vikdk]