Behind the scenes of the teaching industry

After working for schools in different countries, I met a lot of people who sometimes idolise their previous management. This could be their curriculum coordinator, principal or even year level coordinator.

The education industry has challenges like any other industry. There are a lot of secrets that people are not aware of, unless you are a teacher or in education. One of the biggest secrets in the education industry is the lack of ability or interest that teachers have in education. Having said that, there is a lot good, dedicated international school teachers. But for every dedicated teacher, you would have a handful who are there for the perks.

When I first entered the education industry, I had nothing to compare my experience with. Everything was new and I often accepted what I thought was an odd statement or behaviour as normal. After awhile, I started thinking that maybe I should have said something if I wasn’t okay with it. And I did. It was during my third year at an international school in Indonesia. We had a new curriculum coordinator who is very experienced in IB and knows how to speak to very young students. Trust me, the last one can be considered a rare find. I have worked with teachers who speak to children in the same way as they speak to their adult peers. They don’t lower their register or explain things in child friendly language. I have also worked with teachers who speak to their adult peers exactly the same way they speak to their young students. Being told during a teacher meeting that we all need to be ‘little risk takers’ is less than inspiring. it does however provide discussion material for the after meeting drinks

Anyway, back to the new IB coordinator. We had our first year level meeting to talk about the Central Idea (topic or theme) and how we were going to unpack it. My year level partner and I shared what we had done previously. We answered questions about how we wanted the lessons to look like that year. The coordinator listened to what was shared, and maintained eye contact mostly with my year level partner even when she wasn’t sharing. Normally I would let it slide, but not this time. I wanted the coordinator to acknowledge my presence in the room and look at me when I was speaking. It paid off and we had a good relationship afterwards. From time to time, I do wonder what would have happened if I had just accepted the situation.

Me standing up for what I think is right does happen occasionally but more often than not, I choose to keep quiet. I don’t want to be known as the teacher who challenges the management and seen as the trouble maker. I need a good reference for when I apply for my next job.

Now that I am in between jobs, I often look back and wonder if I should have responded to what was said and done and if I had, how would I have done it? What would the outcome be? I am also curious about how others would have reacted if they saw or heard what I have. Anyways, here are some examples of odd statements or behaviour I have heard and seen during my time as a teacher,

• “If you are not sure how to solve a problem or what to do next, I would say, It’s voice, choice and ownership.” This is another way of saying do whatever you want.
• The school chose to adopt the Common Core because it is easier for teachers to understand. This decision was made without asking the teacher and no training was given for teachers to understand the curriculum.
• “I don’t need to be in my classroom. I am giving my teaching assistant a real practice in teaching.”
• “Are you okay that I ended your parent meeting for you? We have a year level meeting now.”
• “I give all my low students to my teaching assistant.”
• “Mr K, Jane can’t spell, I think she is EAL.”
• “John can’t understand classroom instructions. Can you help him understand the concept of government?”
• Running off to the CEO because a homeroom teacher decided to move her student from a low ability group to a middle ability group.
• “You are on your own if you ran into trouble during lockdown,” said the CEO.
• Not giving student B a report card. The parents have submitted the withdrawal request. Her last day is a month before the end of the school year.
• “Oh, don’t bother with him. He is a lost cause,” said Mr B. (The student was standing next to him.)
• Halfway through the semester, the CEO said, “Make sure students whose parents have not paid the school fee in full don’t enter the school. If they do, call the police.”
• “If you don’t pay the school fee in full, I won’t let your daughter go home.” (Yes, this actually happen.)
• “I didn’t know he is a parent of one of our students until I slept with him.”
• “Children can play with plastic bottles, it is part of the Reggio learning.” The plastic bottles in questions were used to store cleaning chemicals and they haven’t been rinsed before children started playing with it.
• “Chef, can we have some more sandwiches please? Some of my students are still hungry.” Chef said, “sorry we don’t have any left until next week.”
• “I don’t need to know grammatical terms. I just Google it when the time comes.”
• “Parents enroll their children here because the way I run the school. Not because of the teachers.”
• “They can subatize groups of items up to 5 (recognise a sum without counting them individually) and read random numbers to 20 in Mandarin, so they must know how do that in English too.”
• “Can you show me what you have written for this semester’s report card?” (copied report card comments, changed names and gender, submitted as his/her own work). This is a teacher copying someone else’s report.
• “Let’s change our curriculum to IPC. It is easier than IB.” (Note: IPC and IB teach through inquiry. The difference between both is in the licensing.)

You would think that what was written above were made up. No, they are not. If you have any teacher friends, you should ask them if they have ever experienced anything like this.