PsyGuy wrote:
> 2) Its pretty easy you go to the SA website:
> https://www.searchassociates.com/
> Click on "New Candidates" on the left hand bar, then click the
> "Lets get started" button in the middle of the screen, and when
> you get to step 2 it will ask you if you ant to apply as an
> "Intern" push that button, or you can just email Diana Kerry,
> shes the intern associate, her bio page and email link is here:
> https://www.searchassociates.com/associ ... ana-kerry/

She won't respond. I've got a group of ITs working on a website all about this, and Diana Kerry was one of the Search folks that was reached out to (repeatedly) and completely nonresponsive.

My anti-Search bias is pretty clear, but I'll recognize the other side of the coin that PsyGuy and some others have echoed: they have the database, like it or leave it, etc.

For me, Search is a nonresponsive exploiter making money off the backs (and fronts, in the case of non-intern-class) of ITs, and they don't deserve your patronage. For many others, they're an acceptable evil. For a few deluded souls, Search is actually a positive force in IE. It's all up to how you balance principles/convenience/FOMO (i.e. whether you're willing to say no to paying Search and/or feeding Search a hefty commission and risk having to work harder in your search or even miss out on an occasional opportunity).

@Malarazz

1) Get K&R insurance, but its pricey. I wouldnt worry about it though, youre not the target, your not a business executive or anything, youre just an IT and there really isnt any coin in it in taking and holding you for ransom.
Its reasonable that one of the upper tier or mid tier ISs either the BS or AS could be interested, since your background and credential, even with a lack of experience would be maths. Id negotiate for a 1 year contract so you can exit peacefully and with that reference move into an upper tier IS wherever you want, and you can pretty much stomach anything for a year.

The OSH hire in your scenario has a credential, otherwise they wouldnt, but there arent any expat LHs just kicking time on the ground in Venezuela, you go with a purpose, and when that purpose disappears, so do you. Venezuela is the place backpackers low on coin go to stretch out the summer. There isnt a pool of expat LH talent to really draw from.

2) Its pretty easy you go to the SA website:
https://www.searchassociates.com/
Click on "New Candidates" on the left hand bar, then click the "Lets get started" button in the middle of the screen, and when you get to step 2 it will ask you if you ant to apply as an "Intern" push that button, or you can just email Diana Kerry, shes the intern associate, her bio page and email link is here:
https://www.searchassociates.com/associ ... ana-kerry/

Intern positions (not to be confused with an intern class ITs) generally fall into two categories. Either they are at ISs with actually developed intern positions, which are rare, and usually found at upper tier ISs. They are generally limited to one and in rare instances 2 whole ISs positions which can vary by subject or in the second category they are little more than cheap labor for what would otherwise be a regular IT appointment.
The first category are generally standard IT appointments at the lowest step on the salary scale and typically include a full or partial OSH package (the difference is mainly that an intern appointment wont sponsor housing and other allowances for a family) meaning you will likely get the same flights, housing, insurance as a standard IT appointment. You might find that you dont get some minor benefits such as shipping or shopping, but youll get the major benefits. The other difference is that the IS will provide you soem form of mentoring and resourcing for a noob IT. The drawback, is that you may not be the TOR, but be a co-IT or a TA. In the latter category, the ISs that are just trying to get cheap labor, they are trying to get you cheap, so if they can offer less in the OSH package they will try to. Usually they try to cut benefits like one way flights, or no bonuses, etc.
The main difference is that you can get into better ISs as an Intern that wouldnt otherwise look at you. It depends what you do, if your an intern and your only co-IT (Co-Teaching) "rotating" or worst treated as a TA (Teaching Assistant) and if you stick with that on your resume and description, its going to be worth less than an intern who has their own classroom and is a TOR (Teacher of Record), but if intern is just an HR designation, than there is no reason to use the term intern on your resume at all, and you can just list it as teaching experience.
If your the TOR its the same as a regular appointment. An intern at a upper tier IS is better in terms of networking and opportunities than a regular appointment at a bottom tier IS. First, that intern appointment might turn into a regular appointment after your two years, assuming leadership likes you. Second, the reference from a upper tier IS, and just the entry on your resume is marketable, a recruiting IS might not even get to the point of what did you actually do until an interview, and at that point you can spin the experience to your advantage.

3) ES = English School, specifically "cram" schools and private language schools such as Hagwon and Eikaiwas. You get into the grey area of bilingual EAP (English for Academic Purposes) ISs/ESs. Basically the ESOL market.

SLL = School Leaving Level, the last phase that completes secondary education in a K12/KS (Key Stage), or K-12 in the UK NC (National Curriculum) that typically awards a certificate equivalent to a "Diploma". Typically in IE this includes IGCSE, A* levels (technically the Advance Certificate, compared to the General Certificate), AP (does actually have a diploma program organized by the College board, but any type of AS diploma) and the IB Baccalaureate (typically the Diploma program in IB). Less common is the French Baccalaureate from FSs, the Abitur from Swiss/German ISs and the European Baccalaureate from a handful of Euro-Schools. Finally, includes whatever the regional MOE (Ministry of Education) diploma is for a given location.

LH = Local Hire
OSH = OverSeas Hire

4) No, what I'm saying is if your in China, somewhere like Shanghai, or Guangzhou, or Beijing, that your in the right place, and all you have to do is wait until the right time. That could be anywhere from a day to a year or more and tha that some IS needs a maths IT and they dont have the time or the resources to recruit for one as an OSH, so even though your resume is lite, you could start at the IS tomorrow, and that availability beats experience in that scenario, because the IS you would be moving too just had their maths IT quit because the recruiter or leadership over sold the appointment. Your going to find this vacancy though recruitment channels that just wouldnt be available to someone who wasnt a local. Could be though a local ES, a community paper, maybe someone you drink with at a pub.

5) Depends how your recruited, where from and the tier of the IS. Upper tier ISs are going to follow the policy and if the policy says your recruited from outside Brazil youre an OSH than thats what you are. Lower tier ISs will generally try to get you the cheapest they can, so even if your recruited as an OSH, they may very well treat you as a LH no matter what the situation is.
The only real consistency is in the case of a premium repped candidate who is recruited at a fair. If youre a Chinese IT and you go to BKK or BOS, and another IS from China makes you an offer, th general understanding is you still get an OSH package.

6) Yes but they arent shooting for you. They are dodgy third tier ISs trying to get to ITs in October and November (which is early recruiting) before they get an accurate idea of their marketability before peak recruiting and fair season. Preying on ITs who dont understand anything about IE and really just want the stress and angst to go away. These ISs spin the approach with flattery, and playing on the ITs ego, and trying to make them feel special, and overselling the comp and the environment.

7) Its not hard, you want a large region, thats generally considered a hardship, and has a lot of ESs. Typically the large capital cities in those regions. China jumps out, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, the ME. China is probably the best candidate. Its huge, has a lot of demand, choice of three capital cities plus numerous secondary cities, many ISs alongside ESs. It takes a long time to get a visa, relative to other regions. You go to one of the many job boards (such as Daves ESL cafe), you get a job, you get a visa. You fly over there, get an apartment, start putting together secondary side hustles, some private students, meanwhile you keep your eyes and ears open for a local maths vacancy, you meet for an interview, they typically hire on the spot. You switch over your employer on your visa. Have a talk with the ES that originally hired you (you could even stay on at a reduced capacity if you like them).

www.filmon.com

This has all the UK freeview channels, all the French channels bar TF1, and a number of others too. It has apps for iPad and iPhone too, so really useful just now for the rugby ;-)

I am not trying to convince PG - his mind is made up.

However, I thought I'd summarise with 5 reasons why I am convinced the verdict is wrong. I will later describe the evidence that was cited by the judge in her reasons for the verdict.

I think this is important, because the idea of fellow international school teachers not throwing whatever support they can behind these innocent teachers makes my stomach churn.

None of what follows is conjecture - it was all presented in the court. Anything that I claim that the prosecution used as evidence was read out by the judge when she gave her verdict.

As you may know, the judge refused to let any of the media, human rights representatives and consular officials enter the court room. She also gagged anyone from commenting publicly on the case. So the only way we can know what evidence she heard is from what she read out at the end of the case (she took about 8 hours, counting breaks) or what the defence at the end of the case presented to the media.

Basically, from her speech/presentation, the world got to hear the complete prosecution case against the 2 men. There is nothing that happened in the court that was used to convict the 2 men that we do not know - the judge told us in her closing presentation.

Here, first, are my 5 reasons why I think the verdict was wrong.

1. The location of the alleged assaults was in a public space. At first, the police claimed publicly that the assaults took place in Bantleman's office and the faculty lounge. It then emerged that these spaces had glass walls and were in some of the busiest sections of the elementary school. According to the police, the assaults took place during the school day.

Later, the police tried to speak of there being a ‘secret room'; however, they were seen on CCTV camera being shown by one of the victims where the assault took place. Watch this clip – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaDvrPsqs-s

It would be impossible to commit multiple assaults in such a visible, high traffic, location during the school day.

Unless you want to believe that the police and the mother of one of the children mis-spoke and meant to say they took place in the so far undiscovered secret room.

In her summing up, the judge referred to a secret room, an office and a toilet (in the case of Tiong).

For the record, not one person who works in the space shown in the video were interviewed by the police. Testimony of those who work in that space during the trial was rejected by the court.

2. The police said the accused produced a ‘magic stone’ from the air and inserted it into the child so that the child would not feel pain when raped. This stone was never produced. Nor was any evidence given of any pills or tablets in existence that would anesthetize a child from the top of the legs to the stomach.

The judge accepted the existence of the magic stone as part of the teachers' modus operandi, stating that the stone was used exactly as I described - to anesthetize the victims. In this way, the men could rape the boys without the children making any noise.

3. The only medical examinations that found signs of abuse were at the Police Hospital in Jakarta. The child whose mother initiated the case was examined in 2 other facilities in Jakarta, as well as one in Singapore.

These places found no evidence of rape. Consider the physical damage that multiple rapes would do to 5-6 yr old boys.

The court rejected the medical evidence of all the hospitals bar the police hospital.

The court also rejected medical testimony that such rapes (one child was found by the court to have been raped by 5 cleaners and the 2 teachers over a period months) would cause extreme physical damage and possibly cause the death of a child - they would certainly prevent the child from returning to the classroom without showing any physical/emotional distress.

The judge did not explain why she rejected the other testimony, except to say that the Singaporean evidence was not permissible for use in an Indonesian court - this was despite the fact that it was certified by the High Court in Singapore and used in a defamation suit by the teachers against one of the mothers that the teachers won.

4. The boys attended school during and after the times of the alleged rapes (the police never specified an exact date for the rapes; rather, they said the rapes occurred over a period of many months). At no time during those months did the children show any physical or emotional distress or fear about being at school. They were captured on film and in images being happy and playful at school.

Testimony was given by the boys' teachers, as well as parents of their classmates, attesting to this. All of this evidence was ignored by the court. The judge offered no explanation for ignoring this evidence in her explanation to the court for the guilty verdict.

5. Peer reviewed expert psychologists (I think one was from Oxford University) were called by the school to talk about the best practice methods necessary to interview children about suspected sex abuse. A lot of these methods arose after the fiasco in the USA of the McMartin Trials in the 1980s when "suggestive questioning" by well-meaning counselors and psychologists led to children claiming they had been raped when in fact the rapes did not occur. The McMartin case has terrible parallels with the JIS case, right down to the existence of secret rooms.

This expert testimony was ignored by the court - when they were giving evidence, the judges questioned their expertise. When announcing her verdict, the judge did not explain why she did not accept their opinions.

However, she did accept the evidence from the local psychologists – including one who claimed that the fact that Bantleman only had sex with his wife once a week was a possible explanation for sodomising little boys. His ‘rationale’ was that normal men needed to have sex 2-3 times a week, and he would be seeking a ‘release’. The judge stated this when announcing her verdict.



To Mr DepTrai, welcome to the ISR Forum - I would suggest it is highly unlikely that the Canadian authorities will pursue Bantleman. Both the US and British embassies have publicly criticised the verdict. Although the Canadians have been silent, I would think that their prosecutors would only proceed if they had confidence in the evidence used to convict Bantleman.

This was the evidence. There is nothing else:

1. Three 5-6 yr old boys said they were assaulted. This is certainly the most credible evidence produced by the prosecution. However, the major problem with this evidence is that (1) the stories changed over time, including in the court room and in published witness statements (2) the methods used to interview the children did not follow the procedures currently used in the USA or Canada (or any nation that uses contemporary methods to interview suspected victims of child abuse).

In most jurisdictions, the testimony of children that young can not be used as evidence without corroborating evidence.

2. One piece of corroborating evidence was the medical testimony from the police hospital. As I outlined earlier, the mother who initiated the case against the teachers went first to two doctors in Jakarta who did not find evidence of rape. She then went to Singapore and got the same response. She got the diagnosis she was looking for at the police hospital (who also subsequently found the other 2 victims were raped. Surprise surprise.).

3. In Bantleman's office, the police found some rope and an orange sash. They claimed the rope and the sash were used to tie the victims up. This was the only physical evidence used against the 2 men.

The police did take a blender from Bantleman's office and a picture taken of the court room did show the blender being in the evidence box (with the sash and rope).

Here is an extract from the Sydney Morning Herald which might explain why the blender was presented in the court room. The journalist directly quotes from the witness statements in this extract (I do not know whether these exact words were used in court).

"One of the boys alleges that school principal, (I am removing the name) mixed a blue-coloured drink to drug the children, then videotaped sex attacks. XXXX has been questioned a number of times by police but has never been recategorised as a "suspect," remaining a "witness" only. One boy said in his statement that, when he refused to drink the blue drink, "the boss" (referring to Mr Bantleman), snapped his fingers and a magic stone appeared in his hand.

"The boss would get a magic stone that the boss would take from the sky," the boy said, according to the report of the witness statement. The stone would be inserted into the boy to anaesthetise him before he was raped."

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/bizarre-det ... 0hww3.html

Bantleman's defence was that he used the blender to make blueberry smoothies. However, the judge did not bring the blender up when she announced her verdict, preferring the explanation that the stone was used simply as a suppository being inserted into the childrens' buttocks.

It has been suggested that the judge ignored the blender because the prosecution did not want to pursue the Principal, who was a US citizen and female.

4. Bantleman only had sex with his wife once a week. The Indonesian psychologist saw this as a reason why he would rape little boys. This was used as evidence to prove Bantleman's guilt.

5. Is the 'magic stone' evidence? It was mentioned 4 times by the judge when she announced her verdict. Of course, an example of such a stone was never produced in the court as evidence.


Mr DepTrai - I suspect that when Bantleman returns to Canada (hopefully soon), he will be fine. Any prosecutor who tried to convict him on that evidence would not only be laughed out of court, but would also probably lose their job.

I was bemused to read PG's statement that the 2 men "were convicted by a seated jurist in a internationally recognised court of competent jurisdiction, not just "someone"?"

In reality, Indonesia is 'internationally recognised' for having an incompetent and corrupt judicial system. It took me a couple of minutes to find this. You can also find out more at https://www.transparency.org/

http://www.gallup.com/poll/157073/corru ... nesia.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/world ... d=all&_r=0
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/joko-wido ... mdawv.html

I did laugh out loud when I saw the reply to @pds86 post.

Here is the poem, written by Pastor Martin Niemöller about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis' rise to power.

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

This did become a rather long post and probably far too verbose for you English teachers out there - sorry about that.

Well done for getting to the end of it:)

Hey y'all! I am an international teacher working in Essen, Germany, and a two-year lurker of these forums. I've always enjoyed the questions and advice here and so I thought I'd throw two cents in for our area: Germany's Ruhrgebiet.

We have lots of great international schools here that are often recruiting. I have friends at many of the schools and I know quite a few are looking for teachers for next school year (2011-12). I thought I'd mention a couple that I have friends at and that I know are recruiting.

There is an amazing new international school in Essen called International School Ruhr (http://www.is-ruhr.de/eng/). It'll be in its second year, but the teachers who work there absolutely love it. The team is made up of highly experienced teachers and they rave about their boss, Sharon Sperry, who came out of retirement to develop the school. The support of the teachers is high and each is given substantial resources. They even received a very large grant from RWE to expand the upper level science program. I am not sure if they have posted anything yet, but I know they are looking for at least two sixth level teachers to expand the school.

Another great option is the International School of Düsseldorf (http://www.isdedu.de/). (And, yes, I know Düsseldorf isn't technically in the Ruhrgebiet but it's worth mentioning.) ISD is an incredibly competitive school to get into, both as a student and an employee. But they have been around for a long time and are considered one of the best international schools in Germany. They are currently looking for teachers and they go to most of the major job fairs (http://www.isdedu.de/faculty_and_staff_ ... ent_2.html). And, hey, Düsseldorf is considered to be the 6th best city in the whole world to live in (http://www.mercer.com/press-releases/qu ... ing_Tables).

We have a lot of other good schools in the area you should check out, but I must say, we're not perfect, and we have that one bad school: International School Heiligenhaus. I have never heard so many terrible stories about a school in my life. Last year, over 35 teachers left. Yeah, there were only 28 positions.... Check out the reviews here on ISR. They speak for themselves. If you are considering it or just interested in why it's so bad, I'd check out this website -- The Facts About International School Heiligenhaus: http://internationalschoolheiligenhaus.org/

If you are interested in coming to this area, we also have an amazing international English-speaking community (http://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/ind ... wforum=141). In our area, they do book clubs, a women's group, and meet and greets (normally at bars). There's even a fun bar in Kettwig-Essen that's run by a Brit and a Yank that does English comedy nights every once in a while.

The area is absolutely beautiful, Essen was last year's cultural capital of Europe, and there's tons of fun things to do. And for you Yanks, we have some of the best healthcare in the world!