Last straws

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zenteach
Posts: 50
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:29 am

Last straws

Post by zenteach »

When you have moved on from a school that was not necessarily aligned to your educational philosophy, what was the straw that broke the camel's back? In other words, what were either the tiny events, or larger event(s) that led to you deciding that the environment was no longer the right place for you?
fine dude
Posts: 651
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 7:12 pm
Location: SE Asia

Re: Last straws

Post by fine dude »

- Admin coming up with initiatives to build their CV and overloading teachers with meaningless paperwork.
- New teachers shouldering all responsibilities while 'older' folk gossiping over coffee.
- Discrimination in allocating housing and internal promotions.
Helen Back
Posts: 242
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2012 4:16 pm

Re: Last straws

Post by Helen Back »

I can definitely agree with fine dude on point 1, but ultimately we're thinking of moving on because our kids are getting older and we live in a small town with no public transport. Time to get back to the big smoke. This is the first school we will have left because of personal circumstances. We love the area and for the most part the school. The first first we worked at we left because of crazy students, the second we left because of crazy admin. This school? Life has just moved on and we need a change.
sid
Posts: 1392
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:44 am

Re: Last straws

Post by sid »

School ownership interfering in EVERY LITTLE THING.
But for most of my moves, there wasn't a straw, it was just time.
shadowjack
Posts: 2138
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Last straws

Post by shadowjack »

To echo sid, everything has an end time in international education. There is no forever. And the time is different for different people.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

response

Post by PsyGuy »

Coin, salaries were late, unexplained deductions and variations (one month the classroom budget was deducted from ITs pay, another a transaction fee for depositing salaries into bank accounts), but in that case the final straw was the property owner of the IS managed/leased apartment/flat asking for the rent because the IS hadnt paid at the beginning of the month or in the last 3 weeks.
I would otherwise agree with @Sid though, in most circumstances it was just time.
ChemEd
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 2015 5:10 pm

Re: Last straws

Post by ChemEd »

For me, it's wasn't the school at all. I loved it. However, I didn't feel like I was getting what I needed out of the city. It's a city of 2 million that lacks a metropolitan center and didn't fulfill me culturally. People are very friendly and yet, due to language barriers, little integration was able to happen. While the people I worked with were great, I needed social and cultural fulfillment beyond the expats that I worked with.
sid
Posts: 1392
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:44 am

Re: Last straws

Post by sid »

There's this complex interplay of many factors: the school, the job, lifestyle, culture, family, friends, the individual.... While they might have synched up to bring you to the school in the first place, over time they all change to one degree or another, until at some point the magic sync is no longer in place.
zenteach
Posts: 50
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:29 am

Re: Last straws

Post by zenteach »

Thank you for your thoughts everyone! Sid, I know what you mean. It is amazing to think how dramatically different and yet the same many of our lives will be as we either decide to move on or not.
Bookworm
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Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2019 10:35 pm

Re: Last straws

Post by Bookworm »

Pointless changes being made just to boost Admin's performance so they get that extra bonus. I worked at one T1 school where changes were made every year just for the sake of it, to keep us on our toes and to add some new initiative to the Director and Principle's performance review so they got another bonus. Such as moving from Managebac one year to Google Classroom for no other reason than it ticked a box to get more cash. Also, implementing an onerous self-journaling method of performance appraisal so you were effectively justifying your existence every single day. I moved to a mid T2 school, took a paycut, but my stress and worries dropped off the bottom of the chart and I was much happier knowing I wasn't being ridden to buy someone I loathed a bigger boat or a new Rolex.
PsyGuy
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Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Discussion

Post by PsyGuy »

I dont entirely agree with @Sid, being an IT and in IE involves a cycle of culture shock, and many ITs just keep spinning around the wheel, simply because they werent happy where they started in IE before entering it, and they likely wont be happy anywhere.
Heliotrope
Posts: 1167
Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 1:48 am

Re: Last straws

Post by Heliotrope »

At my first school, at times grades were fixed by admin, and that made me want to move on, although that was the only real issue with the school. If the city it was in had been nicer, I might have stayed a year longer, but ultimately I prefer to work at a perfect school rather than in the perfect city.

At another school the air pollution outdoors (and indoors without an air purifier) was just getting too severe. Going out for a jog would hurt your health rather than improve it. The school was decent, but nothing great, and the student population lacked severely in diversity.Also too many pointless meetings, but that's a problem a lot of schools have.

At my last school it was just time to move on. It was (and still is) a great school, but having been there many, many years, it was becoming very repetitive, despite some good quality PD and inspiring initiatives to improve the school further (at my first few school new initiatives would seldom be welcomed by staff though).

My current school seems perfect so far, a few years in. We also really like the city. We'll have to see if it stays that way, but I'm optimistic.
expatscot
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Jan 14, 2016 4:26 am

Re: Last straws

Post by expatscot »

I love the school I'm in, I quite like the city, but I know that in a couple of years I will have had enough and be ready and able to move on. My first school, the city and school were both tolerable but the novelty wore off very quickly!
IntlEducator
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Jul 22, 2017 4:31 pm

Re: Last straws

Post by IntlEducator »

Broken promises over pay, professional development, and teaching assignments had made me think about leaving from the moment I arrived.

The last straw, though, was the "resignation letters." When the school fired my friends, it used threats and manipulation to extract "resignation letters." Thus the school systematically slithered its way out of the severance pay legally required by law. When colleagues asked for extra personal days for a honeymoon or death in the family, the school demanded the employees to sign resignation letters with the month and year section empty so they could pull them out at a convenient moment.
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