I know a lot of schools in Taiwan are much worse than the one’s I’ve encountered, but I’m not satisfied with my current work situation, and I’m on the verge of telling my employer that I’m fed up and I’m going to leave 6 months early.
My contract doesn’t specify any fee for early contract cancellation, and simply states that my ARC will be cancelled.
The reason:
I’ve been in Taiwan for 2 1/2 years, my first school for 2 years, for which I completed both 1 year contracts without any issues, and my current school is at the 6 month mark, half way through my 1 year contract.
I enjoyed my time at the first school, and although I wasn’t totally impressed with the amount of order and management, it was an independently owned school, the owner was a nice guy, and I know a lot of people have had a lot~~~worse. Issues: Students generally disrespectful towards staff without consequences, students treated small school like a playground, racing around in circles and playing baseball indoors with wadded up paper and sticks, screaming their heads off. Also, Kindergarten.
Again, I didn’t even leave because of these issues, because for the most part I at least had control over my classes to where I was happy with the amount of order in my day to day work, because I was able to control it.
At my current job, I teach both adults and children (in separate classes). I do about 11 hours of adults classes and 11 hours of child classes per week. Sounds pretty light, right? Even if the kids classes suck, it shouldn’t be an issue, right? Unfortunately, I really don’t think I can take it anymore…
I love the adult classes, and if I could guarantee I wouldn’t have to teach another child class for the rest of my contract, I would not only happily fulfill it, but also hand over all of my ideas for new classes and lesson plans that I’ve been optimistically devising on the off chance I get an opportunity to open new classes of my own design.
But the kids classes… I work as a “guest speaker” for a half an hour per class, working under a Taiwanese teacher (there are 4 different ones) teaching lesson plans of their design. If those teachers were all competent, this wouldn’t be a problem… but they just aren’t. There is one teacher who works very hard, and I don’t feel bothered by that teacher in the least when she comes up to me before class with recommendations for how to teach, because I trust her judgement, and I know she is working hard to teach her class. The other teachers, a mix of well-intentioned incompetence and lazy incompetence. One was just simply rude (before leaving and being replaced with an equally incompetent teacher), lording over me as if she had a say in every little detail of how I taught while in her classroom. For example, when going over her lesson plan telling me that I need to look at the lesson plan fewer times per class (as if it were interrupting the class, which it wasn’t…) and occasionally interrupting my lecturing by yelling out “hurry up.” That, of course, really grinded my gears, and I thought once she was gone that I would at least be able to deal with the remaining 7 months of my contract. Granted, the other teachers obviously don’t really know what they’re doing, constantly yelling at the students and humiliating them simply for not knowing the answer to questions, without making real effort to teach, and constantly interrupting them anytime they really try, so that they have no hope whatsoever of actually answering the question without being interrupted and told the answer a half second after the question’s been asked, not to mention that if they can’t think of an answer right away they become nervous wrecks…
But what’s making it unbearable to the point where I’m wanting to walk out, is the fact that 3/4 teachers simply can’t control their students, and I’m not willing to be openly disrespected in the classroom, nor am I willing to accept that I shouldn’t be able to teach because other students are going to blatantly and disrespectfully constantly interrupt my class simply because they know that the teachers in charge (again, at my old school, for my own classes for which I was in charge we absolutely did not have this problem) won’t do anything about it. I can’t deal with the constant disrespect from students and an inability to teach students because I’m constantly struggling to keep order in a loosing battle in which I don’t have the control I need to make a difference; all I can do is yell for silence and look helplessly at the teacher who is supposed to be controlling them (because they are the only ones with the power to punish, report to the staff, etc) do absolutely nothing.
I’m not sure if I’m just venting or if there is some real advice I can get here?