Job Discussion Forums

[peterd]

Hello, I'm glad this forum is here. I've been roaming around here for awhile and sort of wondering about going back to China to teach again.
I hope this doesn't bore anyone, it might be kind of long.
In 1993 my girlfriend at the time went to Japan to teach. She recommended that I also go to asia to teach also, so I decided to look at teaching in China. I thought I was accepted to teach at a university in Harbin, but after not hearing from the school for awhile I decided to just buy a plane ticket to harbin and show up. This was back when we didn't have internet and communicating was pretty tough. So I figured that their faxes just weren't coming through. I was pretty stupid about everything, I pretty much went to be closer to my girlfriend and also because I thought it would be interesting . I had no idea how to teach english (and still don't), I had a b.s. degree in something unrelated to teaching. Basically I was very unprepared and ignorant of everything I was doing, but I packed up a few things and left.
After arriving at the college in Harbin I met the man I was corresponding with. He told me he gave the job to someone else and said he sent a fax stating this. I never got it though. I told him that I didn't have a return ticket back to the US and asked if he could help me find another job. The next day I signed a contract for a different college in Harbin.
Since I didn't know what I was doing, the start of my english teaching career went horribly. I felt like a moron and was scared to hell. I made it through the first semester and went to visit my girlfriend in Japan. I decided to go back to Harbin, pack my stuff up and ship it back to the US, travel in China a bit and then go back to Japan to look for work there. So, I decided to break my contract and not even tell them about it. In the contract it stated that if I did break my contract that I would have to pay them something (I think it might have been a couple thousand yuan or something like that). I did actually tell one of the chinese teachers about it and just told them that I couldn't take it anymore. The cold was incredible, (and I'm from Minnesota), I was able to visit with a couple of canadian and american english teachers from another college about once a week so that helped a bit. I pretty much just lost my mind and got out of there.
I never did teach in Japan, my girlfriend and I broke up. I ran out of money and came back to the US.
I've pretty much felt like crap about what I did to that college ever since. I feel bad that I gave the students, (who where so excited about a native english teacher coming to there school) an idiot who wanted to be a good teacher but didn't know how.
It was the most frightening and also the most exciting time of my life and I'd like to go back again sometime. What I would like to do is take a certificate course in tefl, there's a college a few hours away that has the course, and I'd like to go back to China and teach again. Hopefully more prepared and able to be better at it than I was before. A part of me wants to kind of make up for my poor performance and actually be a good english teacher so I can actually help the students, another part of me just really misses being there. Although, I'd probably not want to live in Harbin again.
So my question is: If I did want to go back to China to teach someday, would I be found out that I broke my contract in 1993? Will I ever be able to teach there again?
I'm also wondering if I should ever bring this incident out into the open if I ever to decide to try it again, or would you just forget about it and not let anyone know about it. I'm sort of thinking that I probably should tell prospective employers, I just hate the guilt, but then I may never get hired.
Sorry about the long post.
Thanks
Pete

[Joe C.]

By all means, tell them about what happened.

But just don't tell them about your time in the psychiatric ward.

[Peter]

Pangs of conscience......after 10 years!
1 Come to Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Guandong , even Shantou; you will sweat most of the time
2 Keep your mouth shut.
3 Have a new passport

[Egas]

Say what? You are worried about a contract you broke ten years ago? Do you know how many teachers break contracts in this country? And that is not to mention the schools! I'd say the odds that anyone has any record of that incident are about the same as those of a Kalahari bushman dying of heat stroke in the Harbin winter.

But you betta be careful. Maybe someone will recognise you on the streets of Shanghai and go straight to the police!

Do a tefl course. Teaching doesn't come naturally to everyone, but you can improve tremendously with application and determination to learn and improve. Hell, even I became a decent teacher!

[MartinK]

...

[peterd]

Hehehe, you guys are cool. Thanks for the comments and reassurance. Hopefully with some confidence I'll do better next time.

[Roger]

Thee must be a cadaver hidden in your cupboard if you have not forgiven yourself for this rash exit from China...
Apart from the FAo at that school, no one would even remember your name, mate!
And, it would be a miracle if that FAO was still sitting in that office pushing papers!
But in case you do remember what else you had done that left such a lasting deterring impression on you, you can still work out a suitable solution.

[MyTurnNow]

Roger's right. You should have NO problems; hell, you could probably go back to work for the same school again. C'mon back!

MT

[kimo]

[wanderlust1066]

What the hell are you worried about? The kitchen sinks on the mainland can't even organise a queueing system for themselves; how are they supposed to remember who did what some ten years ago......?

[MyTurnNow]