Job Discussion Forums

[WD40]

Bobbysue
Do not be put off by negative comments from those who would rather not be a supervisor - as you know it depends very much on personality, ability, competence and the willingness to remain objective. I have undertaken a variety of management roles throughout my career and not one of them did I regret. They made me grow as a teacher. It is easy to criticize managers for they are a punchball most of the time. You cannot satisfy everyone and if you decide to become friends with someone you are instantly accused of favouritism or creating a cliche.

Management is neither something to be feared or praised, it is merely a cog that turns other cogs. If you have a spanner(monkey wrench) you always have the chance of throwing it in!

I would recommend that you take the job based on all the comments made in this forum. Many of those who are giving their advice are long gone from the HCT set up and left for a variety of reasons. I suggest you take their opinion on board with a pinch and listen to your heart and follow your nose.

[globalnomad2]

Well, I realize my post, for example, was quite negative, but my opinion of HCT management is on balance negative. There were one or two supervisors who were really great at my HCT campus. But to say that management should be neither praised nor feared? I don't know...there are certainly good managers, indifferent ones, and terrible ones.

[globalnomad2]

By the way, bros from the hood--the word on the street is, HCT now wants to try for the New England Assoc. of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)! I kid you not. That's what I heard, anyway.

[sandy gallop]

[bje]

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

[BOBBYSUE]

thanks again everyone

it sounds like supervisors have their work cut out for them...hence the extra cash I suppose

Mind you, doesn't sound like they face too many problems that managers everywhere don't face (as VS rightly pointed out at the beginning)

I think I'm gonna go ahead and apply for a position, and if I get selected, I'll certainly remember all this advice.

In the meantime, I'll keep you posted on my progress

B

[Shakhbut]

Good luck BobbySue.
Just remember to leave your educational ideals at home, sorry, they won't be needed, thank you very much. Now crisis management, massaging bums onto seats en masse at a nanosecond's notice for unrelated matters, now that is highly prized.

[BOBBYSUE]

thanks guys

BTW, and going off topic a bit

it's possible to find quite a few stories about women being raped then prosecuted for adultery, and other stories about people falling foul of seemingly injust laws ....

Do you actually feel unsafe as a woman in any of the emirates? I am assuming it's no worse than any other country and that one shoud take the usual precautions...is that right?

Thanks

[veiledsentiments]

You will note that none of the women in these stories are Westerners. I would say that the danger is nearly zero for us.

What danger exists - and I would say that it is less than even a mid-sized American city - is to the poor women brought in as maids and other servant positions, normally from the sub-continent.

In Arabic, any unmarried person found to have been engaged in sex outside of marriage is considered guilty of 'adultery.' The word has a much different definition than that used in English. Again it is something that only seems to happen to the poor and powerless... and it is very rare. Most commonly it ends up in a punishment situation when a maid turns up pregnant.

Every country has unjust laws... think of those imprisoned for months and years in the US with no access to lawyers, whose only known crime was being brown-skinned and Muslim.

VS

[BOBBYSUE]

thanks vS

that's what i beleived at first, but then I found a couple of stories about westerners...a British air hostess and a Moroccan woman with French citizenship. But I guess it's the same or worse anywhere else.

B

[globalnomad2]

I don't think it's the same everywhere at all. Young western and Asian women in the Gulf face daily sexual harassment of various kinds to a much greater degree than the UK or USA, though the Netherlands and France give the groperboys and molest-men in the Gulf a run for their money. My wife, a young, very attractive Malaysian-Chinese (currently in the US) says she simply doesn't come across it in the States the way it is here. She spent 2 years in Saudi with me and about 5 years in the UAE. Every time she went out in Dubai, either alone or with her Chinese gf, it was the same old story. "How much?" is one gambit, but it runs the gamut. She got followed ALMOST EVERY DAY, for one thing. (She worked, and she could take care of herself, and later she said she'd never told me half the stuff because she knew I'd be upset and probably swallow my chalk.)

In Saudi they even touched her belly when she was pregnant. (They think that's really sexy there.) Here it's constant leering and attempted pickups. When she went to a Persian carpet store the guy there tried to give her a carpet as a gift. Yeah, that's great, but she got tired of it. A German friend of mine who visited here had the same thing. In fact, she made me aware of what women have to go through here every day. As a man, I never noticed or thought about it. (In the last 18 months while jogging in the popular jogging area in Ras al Khaimah, I've twice been approached by girls in abayas...well, they were just smiling and saying "How are you""...but that makes my day.) I just didn't realize how women have to deal with it every day. IN the UK and the US, it's obvious from what women tell me that it's much less prevalent. But to be fair, I do hear reports from beautiful Asian women that men are always trying lines on them in New York.

[veiledsentiments]

It used to be that the... err... less white your skin, the more likely to be bothered. At that time, all of the hookers were non-Western and worked very discreetly. With the fall of the USSR and the influx of Russian women who blatantly walked the streets, the playing field was leveled so to speak. Suddenly all women on the street were assumed to have a price.

Still... the danger is infinitesimal compared to the US or UK. What is higher is the continual staring and verbal come ons, which get old VERY fast. But also you learn to ignore them. It is all more tiresome than dangerous as long as one is using the common sense one would in any country. (like don't wander the street drunk at 3:00 in the morning... )

VS

[The_Prodiigy]

veiledsentiments said I saw very quickly of the TEFL trade, managing this gang is like herding cats except more aggravating

[BOBBYSUE]

well it does occur to me that each region has its customs for a reason.

with that in mind, I wonder whether it is possible/appropriate for westerners to wear local dress in the UAE? Could I wear a headscarf even though I am not a Muslim? Would it help?

On another note (and this more because of the heat than the stares!) would my husband be seen as a total buffoon if he wore arab or even indian dress?