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desultude
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 614
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 Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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| veiledsentiments wrote: |
| desultude wrote: |
| I know those people also- the ones who take their checks and don't worry about professionalism and pedagogy. I think they make us all look bad. Worse, they probably don't get a lot of joy and satisfaction from their work. If I have a pulse, I am going to care about the quality of my work. If others don't care- that is their problem. |
I don't think he is saying that they are not doing their job. You can do as he says - ignore the sturm and drang of management - and still give the students the best classes that you can teach. It is just recognizing the fact that one can likely not change the system... and after all, very few of us are training brain surgeons. 
VS |
Yeah, but it is a fine line. The students where I taught in Saudi got treated badly, and they depended on us to some degree to be advocates. Ignore the sturm and drang of management at your own expense. Try to leave the country when there is a family emergency and they haven't processed your visa. Try educating your children when they have no legal status.
The people I know who did "well" in the Kingdom were single, disengaged, and not very professional. It may not be that way all over the Kingdom, but I can only speak from my own experience. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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The example given was someone who had been there for 18-19 years... so he undoubtedly has the system down - both for dealing with mgmt and exit visas.
I protected myself by avoiding countries that limit your movement. It was a major factor of why I never went to Saudi... even though I had a very good offer from the IPA at one time.
VS |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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Dear desultude,
"It may not be that way all over the Kingdom, but I can only speak from my own experience."
It isn't - and I'm speaking from my own experience. I was single there, and I was married (twice.) I was very much engaged with my job; when I was coordinator, it was often a 14/7 job (but hey, there's really not all that much else to do at night and on weekends, anyway.) Moreover, my colleagues, with virtually no exceptions in my nineteen years there, were totally professional (and I managed to gull them into thinking that I was, too.  )
Regards,
John |
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desultude
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 614
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| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| johnslat wrote: |
Dear desultude,
"It may not be that way all over the Kingdom, but I can only speak from my own experience."
It isn't - and I'm speaking from my own experience. I was single there, and I was married (twice.) I was very much engaged with my job; when I was coordinator, it was often a 14/7 job (but hey, there's really not all that much else to do at night and on weekends, anyway.) Moreover, my colleagues, with virtually no exceptions in my nineteen years there, were totally professional (and I managed to gull them into thinking that I was, too. )
Regards,
John |
It probably wasn't so much luck on your part, but your leadership and a willingness on the part of your administration to allow leadership. I feel bad, truly, for people who have lost heart in teaching and are just doing it for a paycheck. It is sad, and mostly because no matter where you are, the paycheck is not relatively that good. If you have lost or want to sell your soul, go into financial advising to old people in the mid-west. You will make more money in less time. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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Dear desultude,
You know - back in my early days of teaching, I'd look around at some who'd been doing it for quite a while and wonder if that's what was in store for me - being "burnt-out," lacking any passion/motivation, just "going through the motions (the same, exact motions) year after year, and yearning for retirement.
Well, it hasn't happened yet, and, I suppose that after thirty-one years teaching, it's not going to happen. It hasn't ever gotten "old" for me; in fact, it just keeps getting better. I plan to never retire, and I hope I'll be able to keep on teaching till I die (while I'd like that to take place in the classroom, that's a little selfish - I imagine it might upset some of the students.)
I had surgery, a radical prostatectomy, on November 2nd, 2009; on November 11th, I was back in the classroom (which did not please my wife excessively - she insisted on driving me to and from school.)
I've said it before and here it is again:
If you love what you're doing, it isn't work - it's pleasure.
Regards,
John |
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desultude
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 614
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| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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Congratulations on your quick and life-affirming recovery!
In the end, you have to like you life. I couldn't like my life if I weren't living up to my own standards. And if I didn't love my students. |
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Cleopatra
Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago
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| Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| The people I know who did "well" in the Kingdom were single, disengaged, and not very professional. |
Well, I'm single, but I like to think I'm not 'disengaged' or unprofessional. And I also like to think I've done fairly well in the Kingdom.
The key to 'doing well' here is to have realistic expectations, and to learn to pick your battles very carefully. Of course, that's true everywhere, but here it's much more so. As VS and John have said, the reality of the situation is that we have very, very little influence over what goes on outside our classroom. In fact, we don't always have that much influence over what goes on inside our classrooms, due to management interference, badly designed curricula and - it has to be said - the students themselves. Accepting that is not being 'unprofessional' or 'selling your soul', it's coming to terms with reality. If that's a reality you'd rather not be a part of, fine - most of us 'longtimers' often wonder if we want to be a part of it too. It's not a case of 'not caring' it's a case of being realistic.
| Quote: |
| The students where I taught in Saudi got treated badly, and they depended on us to some degree to be advocates. |
You remind me so much of how I was in my early days in the Kingdom, before I grew old and cynical!! Seriously, let's not be too sentimental about our students. In private colleges - where you and I have worked - they have, almost without exception, very much more power to change and influence things than we will ever have. Besides, let's not forget that their expectations and priorities are also very different from ours. I know that PMU is lousy even by Saudi standards, but in many cases, what seems to us to be terribly inefficient or unfair practice is quite normal to our students. They are a part of this society too.
In any case, in my experience Saudi students - especially the ones in girls' private colleges - are not at all reluctant to complain if they feel the need. Very often the teacher is the subject of these complaints - she is too 'hard', the exam was 'unfair' and so on. For most of these girls, the priority is to have as easy a life as possible, with a minimum of homework and a teacher who all but tells them what will be in the exam. There are exceptions, of course, but in my many years in Kingdom, I have found this to be the norm. And that's fine. We can still do our job in the classroom as best we can, knowing the limitations of the system. It's just that we as teachers often have enough problems of our own without becoming 'advocates' for students who won't neccessarily appreciate our almost certainly futile efforts. |
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