TEFLAsiaMan
Great post. I totally agree; good and bad can be very subjective. A job cooking fries at McDonalds is a crap job for a 40 year with an MBA and a family to feed but may be a good job for a 16 year old with no experience looking to pick up some spending money after school. It does little to assist other by sneering at the lower paying teaching jobs just because one has moved beyond that point in life. Teachers come here to Thailand with very different levels of expectation, skills, experience, and objectives; therefore it is really difficult to talk about teaching jobs in a general manner. My definition of a bad employer is one that lies, cheats, and steals from employees. I have had only one such experience myself, therefore the other 8 or ten teaching jobs (mostly part-time ones) I had were "good."
While there are many incidents of schools treating teachers poorly, if one looks at the majority of whining posts on this and other websites, one sees over and over and over again, the main problem is lack of cultural understanding. As we teachers are the ones living in the foreign country, the main burden rests on us, although schools that want to hire farangs need to have some understanding of western culture and sensitivity as well. Most complainants could be summed up as, the Thai are acting like Thais and the Filipinos are acting like Filipinos, and I don't like it, I especially don't like it when my bosses are not Caucasian. Our (western) culture drills into us the idea of our racial or at least cultural superiority from a young age. Our literature is filled with heroic stories of the white man going off to foreign lands to live lives of adventure and the "natives" are nothing but bit players in the life dramas of the white man. ESL teachers often come to Asia with the idea that they are some kind of Lawrence of Arabia, or Lord Jim. Unfortunately, the era of colonialism is over and the Asians are not always willing to relegate themselves to the role of supporting actor in the white man's drama. Remember that movie the beach shot here in Thailand a few years back? All the characters of importance were foreigners. Although the movie was set in Thailand, no Thais played any role of any importance. Typical western attitude towards Asians. Asia is growing economically, politically, and culturally. If one wants to work in Asia for an extended period of time, one must shed the colonial attitude and start to think of Thais, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and others as equals and not intellectually or culturally inferior beings, although still different. A white face and a liberal arts bachelor's degree from an obscure college with a low GPA does not mean you can run a school in Asia better than Asian business people. Many a teacher here has thought they could start up and run a school, the few that got beyond the talking stage have almost all failed.
So I think this site can provide a good service as a way for teachers to expose the liars and the cheats out there, I don't think there are as many as there used to be but there still are a few around. But if it turns out to be nothing but a forum to whine endlessly about the darkies not knowing there place in the world, it will attract the die hard believers of the "cause" but do nothing else. After all there is bigger and more famous forum devoted to constant racist attacks against Thais, Filipinos, Indians, and occasionally Americans. Is another site catering to this same group also needed?
I have to say the idea of "organizing" is where I have to disagree. I have never and never plan to be part of a union or other collective bargaining unit. I am a free-willed individual who can make my own way in life. I will stand on my own, thank you. I don't think it is possible with the transitory nature of most Farang teachers and even if it is possible, I still think it still is a really bad idea and obviously would not want to be a part of it.
Cheers
Topic: "Good" Schools in LOS? (Read 2178 times)