Topic: Sarasas Witaed Thonburi

[melilly]

 
I lasted four months at Sarasas Witead Thonburi.
Sarasas is a good place for some, and a bad place for others.
I knew it was bad gig going in, but I took the job anyway because I was broke and needed a place to live.
They call it a "bilingual" school. It's a big school, with big classes, and while there may be some teaching going on there's very little actual learning taking place. Just way too many students. At least half of the ones in my classes didn't have a clue what was going on. The other half, except for a few bright students, didn't even care. Probably not as bad as some of the government schools. But bad enough.
Too much politics, paperwork, and prevaricating for my taste. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's my own fault for having higher expectations, for wanting to have a full-time teaching job that I enjoyed.
The director/principal/prevaricator of my school likes to discipline westerners in strict Thai fashion. It was amazing, all the things that she did, all the things that happened.
The worst of them being:
1) I was asked to sign four contracts, something to do with the 3,000 baht salary increase I was promised after a 3-month probation that just never seemed to get approved. The starting date on the fourth and final contract, which included my salary increase, was changed from 26 March to 29 June WITHOUT my consent. I was never given an explanation, but it was supposed to be a one-year deal, and it probably had to do with having another teacher available for the next summer school session in April 2008;
2) I was told that I could no longer take any of my remaining sick days, and that I'd be fined for one or two day's salary if I missed work on certain days, like after a 4-day holiday;
3) I was billed was too much for water and electricity utilities;
There are many other reasons why I quit. Maybe it's just the Thai educational system, the way that the so-called bilingual and international schools do business in Thailand. Just way too much red tape, and way too little face-to-face teaching time.
I'm on to China, where a new job awaits. It sounds like a good one...at least on paper!
My Personal Sarasas Rating: 3 out of 10 Stars. Not a bad place to get your TEFL feet wet, but don't make it a career. A few decent, well-intentioned teachers, but the vast majority are losers and underachievers. Note: I may be a loser, but I'm certainly no underachiever!

[ben]

deleted re read it sorry

[Thighlander]

There have been numerous posts over the last few years about the Sarasas Schools.  Don't say you weren't warned.  You're post is very credible, and you take some of the responsibility yourself.  Maybe this school deserves to be back in The HOS.  It seems, they are up to their old tricks.  Avoid!

[hero]

The previous "Sarasas - All campuses" had to be locked eventually because it got bogged down with the serial rantings and ravings of a couple of opinionated posters.

I have already had to split off and move one such post on this thread to the Squared Circle, link: http://www.teflwatch.org/forum/index.php/topic,445.0.html

Any posts that don't do justice to the OP, which seems a fairly well-written critique of the school, will follow the same way.  Lets keep this thread up-to-date and relevant and not harp back to age old alleged injustices that are already well documented on this and other forums.

[retiredstillteaching]

Thanks melilly, whomever you may be, for making a courageous post about Sarasas, a post that calls attention to the fact that Sarasas is a notorious and nefarious place from its Day One and always will be, as the place shows no sign of changing its firm anti-farang attitudes and its nasty treatement of foreign teachers as a day in and day out matter of policy and practice.

[soidog]

Hi Melilly, I'm just wondering which is worse, Sarasas or Somtawin? I see that you once posted about them. I have some experience with Somtawin, I just want to know if Sarasas is worse or not?

[mirror man]

mr p /et al
you seem to be on a continuous loop of rants and raves once again .....as an ex- sarasas ektra teacher i would love to know of the other 5 victims of the cane , i never once heard of it (except from your posting )- i am  in contact with teachers still there ....and as you know juicy gossip like that would spread like wild fire ( strange no one knows of it !!!) methinks another figment of someones over-imagination or drug induced mind set against the school

[anyonefortennis]

as an ex- sarasas ektra teacher i would love to know of the other 5 victims of the cane , i never once heard of it (except from your posting )- i am  in contact with teachers still there ....and as you know juicy gossip like that would spread like wild fire ( strange no one knows of it !!!)

Hmmm, interesting..................any comment Namtok?

[melilly]

 
I've got an "insider" at Somtawin who still calls me from time to time. From what he tells me, it's still a somewhat hostile and unbearable environment. He tells me that the head wench is still a liar and that several of the teachers there are as volatile and unpredicable as ever. He tells me he can't wait to get out of there. But, he stays. It's a matter of personal choice when we raise our voices and stand up against the status quo and the people who run the show. I worked with a few teachers at Somtawin who knew and saw the truth of what the place really was, and to the best of my knowledge, still is. And the truth is this: for many of the teachers at Somtawin, at least during my brief (and perhaps, grief) time there, it wasn't a very nice place to work. There were way too many problems and not enough solutions. Granted, maybe I was part of the problem. Regardless, I got the heck out of Dodge.
I think Somtawin was a much worse place to work at than Sarasas.
Most of the staff at Sarasas Witead Thonburi aren't very happy with the situation there, either. There are daily complaints and axes to grind, from just about everyone. It's almost comical. The bottom line, at least for me, is that life is too short, and I've simply decided that I'm not going teach in these kinds of "toxic" environments. Again, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm asking for too much. Maybe I'm just a rebel without a cause. But this gives me a certain amount of freedom, because it also means I've decided not to take any crap from anyone unless I have to.
The trick, of course, is not having to!
My advice to any teachers who might be thinking of accepting jobs at either of the two schools I've posted about, is to proceed with good intentions but with both guns loaded, as you may have to blast your way out of there fast. At least, that's how I like to do it. Yeah, that's it. I'm the Clint Eastwood of Thailand TEFL jobs!

[Krungsri]

Interesting to see constant reference to Sarasas as a "place".  There are 19 Sarasas schools, 19 places, loosely overseen by a Board of Directors, each school having a fair amount of autonomy.  I work in one Sarasas school and ten years ago worked for one year in another.  However, I now  have no idea how things are in 17 of the 18 other schools - whether they are well managed, whether the teachers are diligent or competent or otherwise, whether I'd be happy there.  I expect they're a mixed bag of all sorts of things.  They're all Thai schools run with Thai expectations in mind, so you can form your own conclusions about that.

I do know of one Sarasas school other than my own that does a stirling job preparing young people for the workforce.  The foreign teachers are Burmese and Filipino and they are very competent, have very good English and are very dedicated to their students (who are not financially well off at all).  I believe from what I've seen that the Thai staff there are very dedicated too.  So that's one Sarasas "place" and it doesn't fit the image of "Sarasas" presented  by some posters here as an uncaring monolith. 
   
I thought Melilly was trying to be calm and reasonable in her/his posting about Sarasas Thonburi.  I know nothing more about the school than what s/he has said.  Melilly also probably knows nothing about Sarasas Rangsit.  I certainly don't.  Maybe he/she knows someone there.

If teachers with a grievance want to complain on this site about a Sarasas school let them do so, but it would be a mistake to assume they're all the same.  They vary depending on the location they're in and its socio-economic profile, the kind of school they are (Thai mainstream, bilingual, polytechnic, commercial, etc.), the standing of the school (new or well-established, etc.) the availability of good teachers and administrators, the physical environment, level of fees charged, and so on.  The one thing that they have in common is that they're all Thai schools.

[anyonefortennis]

  That's a good point, I freely admit I don't know anything about any of the schools and wrongly judge them all by name association

[RobRoy]

Thanks for posting the comment Krungsri...great point!

[melilly]

I lasted four months at Sarasas Witead Thonburi.

Most of the staff at Sarasas Witead Thonburi aren't very happy with the situation there, either.

Ah, it's so nice to be on holiday, so I can waste my time responding to the know-it-alls of the website forum world.
It's obvious I made it very clear which Sarasas I was posting about.
Yes, I did refer to "Sarasas" as a place, but I also made it quite clear which "place" I was referring to.
It's right there, in black and white: Sarasas Witead Thonburi.
Wasn't it clear that I was writing about my experience at that particular Sarasas campus?
Okay, so there may only be a few bad apples in the Sarasas juggernaut, but I never assumed anything about it.
I thought I was being quite calm and reasonable, and even humorous!
But it's always the same thing on these teacher forums: most posters have their own agendas, based on their personal beliefs and predjustices, and the ones that actually believe their own tripe rarely have a sense of humor!

[melilly]

prejudices
Darn, I hate it when I do the spell check after I post one!

[anyonefortennis]

Melilly,

I think he may have been referring posts by soidog, retiredstillteaching, hero and thighlander.