Job Discussion Forums

[sticksnstones]

I don't know what the criteria is for allowing people to post on here, but quite frankly, I am so tired of the misinformation and the insults heaped upon the teachers, administration and students of Sohar College. The posters who continually slam the college either have never been there, or were fired for misconduct. Without a doubt, Sohar College is the best place to teach in Oman. I have been teaching for a few years in Oman and I know that one could do much, much worse. We have a lot of very good teachers who are friendly and supportive of each other. Our department head is very relaxed and only asks that you do your job professionally. Our dean is very friendly and bends over backwards to support the teaching staff. I cannot vouch for the recruiters, and would just say that if it is in your contract, they must abide by it. Please stop attacking people just because you have nothing better to do with your life.

[Neil McBeath]

You are spitting into the wind on this one, unfortunately.

If you stay on Dave's for any length of time, you will find that the same dreadry old posters turn up time after time, chewing the cud of their pet grievances.

Dave's is not really a community of practice. It attracts posters, but some of them are almost immediately frightened off by the cyber-bullies who regard it as their personal domain. Others become bored by the circularity of the arguments, and the way in which the constant posters highjack intelligent debate with their irrelevant comments about the way things used to be.

Unfortunately, this means that obsessive compulsives tend to take over. Those of us with real jobs, real students and real concerns get pushed to the edge by those with bees in their bonnets and time on their hands.

[eha]

And, of course, 'real' doesn't always mean 'toeing the party line'. It sometimes means bringing up issues that may be difficult for some people to deal with--- but Neal is right: 'silencing' is not the way forward. In fact, for anyone who knows a bit of 20th history, it's usually the way backward. Discussion and debate are the civilized way to deal with difficult issues, not the kind of unhelpful undermining exclusion tactics that many people delude themselves are the 'educated' response to anything they don't like. Has anyone read 'Friendly Fascism'--- a brilliant account of false consciousness? I have to say that my experience of managerialism over the last thirty years bears out every criticism it makes.
As for Sohar College--- everyone should have a right to make public his/her own experience--- particularly unpleasant experience. If such advances in human rights hadn't been made, we'd all be still back in the Dark Ages, burning witches and justifying their inhumanity to anyone doesn't fit in with their idea of what's acceptable.