Job Discussion Forums

[kungfuman]

So the vacation comes to a close - not that I am doing anything as it is 90F outside and I prefer to stay inside under the AC ( man the bill is gonna be high for August...)

The DOS's admin answered my text about when classes start with Monday but when I asked for my schedule she said " I dunno..."

So no schedule and only a few days before classes.

Anyone else have this issue?

It is slightly important to me to know when I need to show up to work.

[Javelin of Radiance]

I would just prepare as if I was working first thing Monday morning. If you get the info by Sunday night then you're ready to go. If no-one passes anything on to you before you go to bed Sunday, then come Monday just continue relaxing at home till someone finally does tell you. I don't know what kind of school you're at, sounds like a language mill as you mentioned a DOS, but at universities they often post teacher's timetables on the school website.

[kungfuman]

^ it's a pseudo international school doing k-12

[johntpartee]

[Non Sequitur]

[wangdaning]

Does your contract mention working weekends?

If it says no weekends don't respond to anything until Monday. I know many places students are returning on the 2nd or 3rd to re-register. I don't think that means your classes are starting on Monday though.

I am pretty sure I am wont starting teaching until after the October holiday. I do have a estimated breakdown of the first semester. Before the holiday will be orientations and placement exams.

[kungfuman]

My guess is I go into the office on Monday only to find out I don't have class till Tuesday

[Bud Powell]

"...at universities they often post teacher's timetables on the school website..."

I've never been that lucky. At one university, I stayed during the summer break. Before spring classes ended, we asked the FT liaison just what we'd be teaching in the fall but we got no response. NONE. It wasn't as if he couldn't tell us because he didn't have a full load of FTs. He just didn't care. He was in a position to tell us (at least) what we might be teaching.

I asked for a few textbooks to read in preparation for the next semester. Nope. No answer. I asked when fall classes would start. No answer.

So we had two months of screaming hot weather and little to do. On the Saturday before classes started, the FTs got a call at 5:00 pm to come to a campus eight miles away by city bus for a six o'clock evening meeting. The buses quit running at 6:30, and the other campus was so far out in the boonies that cabs were impossible to hail.

We get there. Where's the FT liaison? Forty-five minutes later, he comes straggling in and gives us our schedules and piles of books and a command to turn in a syllabus (actually a day-by-day, class-by-class lesson plan for each class ) by TUESDAY.

By that time, we had developed the CBSOD: the Chinese Blank Stare of Death. Nobody got upset. Nobody asked questions. We even sat through a "faculty meeting" with the CTs given in Chinese. We all promised to turn in the syllabus on Tuesday which shocked the guy silly.

Our schedules were a mess. We were scheduled for the same classes at the same time in the same rooms. One of my classes was scheduled to convene in a toilet. We didn't bother to tell the guy how messed up the schedules were. We just went on about our business until the students complained about it. He rewrote the schedules and managed to assign one guy six writing classes.

I was told to just find an unoccupied room to teach in instead of the toilet. Since that class was in a building about a half a kilometer away from the student's class immediately prior to mine, I moved the class to a room closer that was more convenient for the students. We kept changing the room so the FT liaison couldn't find us.

If you're in a university for the first time, become accustomed to not being told about schedules, schedule changes, moved classes, last-minute requests to give lectures, and to MC school Craptaculars on short notice.

WE developed a policy that we would not respond to any request unless it was made four days prior to change or event. Any time we needed to use special equipment or make a change, we were told that we had to make the request at least a week in advance. We didn't answer their phone calls after 5:00 pm during the week and never on Sunday nights.

When the school directress called (who was also the FAO) we always answered the phone and did our best to accommodate her. After awhile, they got the hint that we expected professionalism on their part as they expected it on our part.

Don't blow a gasket when there's a scr*w up. It's not worth the irritation. Just turn off your phone for the next few days. They'll get the message.

It's quite possible that the DOS or dean or the FT liaison really doesn't know anything. They have a tendency to just pass it down. Sometimes decisions are made at the last minute by someone who has never ever
even been to the school.

[wonderingjoesmith]

[kungfuman]

[wangdaning]

[johntpartee]

One of my classes in the United States was scheduled to be in a broom closet. Maybe not as bizarre as a lavatory, but....

Good thing I decided to check out the classroom facilities before the term began.

[BeijingBill]

[kungfuman]

[Miajiayou]

Consider yourself lucky. I asked my FAO if classes started on Monday (I've been at the same school for a few years and we don't always start on week 1). I got an "I'll tell you soon!"

That was a few days ago.