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flapjack

Hi, all. My first post. I recently taught a class (Taipei) where I asked the students to copy a few sentences, so I could assess the size and shape of their letters, capitalization, and spacing between words. My 3rd grader wasn't happy with the class so she got on her cell phone and called mommy, complaing the teacher made them write something. Mommy got on the internet web site for our school (20 minutes later) writing an open complaint, lambasting the teacher for forcing the students to write.

Gotta run to school now but will come back with more later. Any comments.
Cheers.

Dr_Zoidberg · Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:48 pm Post subject:

Repeat after me: I am not a teacher, I am not a teacher, I am not a teacher...

Seriously, that's harsh. Please keep us informed. I would be interested in knowing how your....ahem....school reacts to this.

dangerousapple · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 292

Good grief. That little princess is lucky she isn't in my school, because I would have called mommy in and lambasted her for teaching her daughter such poor social skills. How is your school handling it?

Toe Save · Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:20 am Post subject:

Good grief indeed. Here I am lambasting a potential student (haven't gotten the contract yet) for keeping her cell phone turned on in my class. She was about to walk out and I forced her to stay for the rest of the class.

She'll sign.

Sure glad I don't babysit kids anymore. I wouldn't lost it.

"Toe is losin' it", they'd all say.

flapjack · Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 4:29 am Post subject: just lucky i guess

The Chairman of the PTA and my supervisor are doing a good job explaining things to the parents. My chinese counter part, who teaches the language lab has helped a lot, too. This was my first complaint in 8 weeks on the new job. I have been in Taiwan for 5 years though and have come to expect this kind of thing. Actually 7 of the parents jumped onto the band wagon. The misunderstanding I guess comes from the chinese words for test, evaluation and assessment are more or less the same. The PTA hired me to teach conversation, this much is true, and they didnt see why I would do anything with writing. But as the first weeks passed I have doen assessments in reading and speaking as well, so this was just a part of the overall package of assessing the students abilities. The parents have decided to form a group to watch over and advise me on how thaey want me to teaach in their school, after all they are paying my salary. This is one of the great drawbacks of teaching here. English teaching has become a service job, which is largly controlled by parents. Ahem, do you want fries with that?

flapjack · Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 10:45 pm Post subject:

Finally, I would like to say that 92 percent of the parents haven't complained and almost all the kids are happy with the classes.

And on a brighter note one parent did write something nice in my defense on the same school website.

Thanks for your support,
Flapjack

Dr_Zoidberg · Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:42 am Post subject:

99% of the parents who don't complain means squat. It's that 1% who do that you have to watch out for.

flapjack · Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 5:48 am Post subject:

Thats affirmative. Usually they end up poisoning nthe minds of their kids against the teacher and their kids do the same at school with the students. However, I have confidence I will get through this little crisis. It's all part of the challenge here! Thanks again. things are beginning to settle down for now.