Thanks everyone for your input. I am not currently teaching english in Taiwan. I will consider everyone’s opinion as well as legal issues before I make my decision. However, in my defense I must point out that
mod lang
made a reference to “queue jumping” in his post. Well, over in the global village thread this same person was refering to adult teaching jobs as “babe oppurtunities” and made a reference to young students as “little brats”. Is this the kind of attitude towards teaching that you get from “suffering” through all those years of university?
Well, even without a uni degree, Fred has mastered the art of taking quotes out of context.
I sort of agree with Stragbasher. The fact is that 90% of the jobs in this world any trained chimp can do. Fields like brain surgery and piloting airplanes are the exception. Yet in this day and age, you have to get some sort of bullshit degree to be qualified for anything above head dishwasher. You can’t even get a job driving a truck without taking a six-week course at Big Bubba’s CB Institute. Teachers, journalists, management, corporate executives, realtors, professional actors, politicians, lawyers, computer programmers, cartoonists, editors, chefs, gardeners, coaches, five-star generals, photographers, etc., get upset when someone blows the curtain away to reveal the facade that their ‘professionalism’ can be done by any amateur with gumption. So cut us some slack. If not for our protectionism any illiterate idiot would steal all our jobs for 1/4 of the price. If Taiwan allowed any unemployed bricklayer to legally teach English wages would drop to 80 NT an hour, the same they pay at McD’s. Yes this is a selfish way to look at it, but every profession in the world has to do this out of self-survival. A wave of several thousand new teachers to Taiwan means that Stragbasher and Mr. Jones lose their jobs, or at least take a several hundred NT paycut. Why do you think they have trade unions in the first place? It’s not about “questioning the value of something you feel is important”, it’s making sure I don’t wind up like those call-center operators whose jobs got farmed out to New Delhi coolies for 20 cents an hour.
Have you ever seen the movie, or read the book, Catch Me If You Can? That con guy showed up how any clever git with the audacity can pass himself off and successfully perform any number of jobs, like teaching Sociology at a major university for an entire semester, with none the wiser. The only jobs he couldn’t perform were as a surgeon and as a pilot - because those are two of the only 5% of the jobs in the world you have to be more than a trained chimp in a suit to perform.
IMHO, one thing a degree shows is that a person can chose a goal and achieve it. It also shows ones ability to deal with bureaucracy.
As for the fact anyone with enough tenacity can get a degree - this is true…just as it’s also true that the majority of people in the United States don’t have the tenacity to get a degree. (I believe the latest statistics show that around 25% of Americans (25-years-old or older) have a university degree.)
Just as my mother, and others of her day, argued that finishing high school was bllshit; many argue today that a university degree is bllshit. Well poor old mom has spent most of her life at back-breaking work while her cousin, with his bllshit high school diploma and bllshit university degree in business, owned the factory where she was working.
Of course there are exceptions, like Bill Gates, but just how many people expect to win the lottery of life???
Getting a four-year degree shows that you can at least do something and stick to it which is something that I guess the government would like to see after all the cowboy losers doing a few months and splitting without so much as a warning (I know, I took over the lease, and unknowingly, the overdue electric and water bills, of such a person). It’s tough to feel which kinds of people are decent teachers and will make trustworthy, ardent workers so they must feel that the best way to gauge this, without taking personal interviews and demos with the hundreds (?) of English teaching applicants that apply for a work permit every year is to judge this based on whether or not they were able to commit to comleting a university program. Sounds fair enough to me. Most of the people who enter tertiary education are interested in either improving their education or in using their education to further themselves.
[quote]I am wandering whether to go through your posts and pick out all of your spelling and grammar errors
But I won’t lower myself to your level.[/quote]
Wandering? Ah, wondering!
The point is that English teachers are supposed to be able to communicate in English. Feel free to go through my posts (but please don’t wander, it’s so directionless) and pick out the occasional error. We all make them, but I bet you won’t find the blatant disregard for the basics that I highlighted.
After you have completed this pointless task, go back through the posts submitted by all those who are uptight about how their degrees qualify them to teach english. Then look at the posts from those without degrees. I’ll bet you a month’s salary that those with degrees are not producing better english than those without. But they are (in some cases) proclaiming themselves to be better qualified to teach english. 'nuff said?
In my day we were the top few percentage. If one in four holds a degree then a degree-holder is hardly anyone special. Walk down the street in the USA (or the UK) and ask random strangers a bunch of random questions to determine the average level of intelligence and then ask yourself what ‘the top 25%’ really means. It means you can tie your own shoelaces, and sign your name without moving your lips. Maybe.
The last time I was in the USA I heard a very interesting discussion on National Public Radio (no snobby Brits involved) about education and salaries. According to the experts, a modern university graduate earns less in real terms than a high school graduate 40 years ago, but also knows less than a high school graduate 40 years ago.
Graduates today are snobs, and have to be to justify the expense they have accrued, but are no better (ie, useful to an employer) than a reasonably smart person with a good attitude to work. All a degree does is demonstrate to a potential employer (or government) that you are less likely to be a complete tosser than the guy who bailed out on Imani’s bills.
Of course, Billy Nojob who never studied anything or worked for a living may be a complete waste of space too - and statistically may be more likely to be a waste of space than Joe Degreed. If I were in the government’s shoes I would ask for some proof of worth too, but if you think that your piece of paper is really worth anything without proving yourself in the field then you’re fooling yourself. Worse, you’re demonstrating the kind of immaturity that gives good teachers a bad name.
[quote]All a degree does is demonstrate to a potential employer (or government) that you are less likely to be a complete tosser than the guy who bailed out on Imani’s bills.
[/quote]
I’m having computer probs so I didn’t go back to read Imani’s post, but is this really the implication? That a degree holder is somehow more honest or ethical than a non-degree holder? Surely not. :s
Mr. Jones, I presume your last post was tongue in cheek but if it wasn’t, you should think about learning how to spell and where to use apostrophes. And Stragbasher isn’t a reincarnation of Einstein but he is a psychic and regularly channels Strunk & White.
I am currently completing my masters degree and one of the subjects is Lifelong Learning. There are some theorist who claim that the new currency will be knowledge. That is that knowledge is power and in the future the more educated you are the power you will possess. By educated that means university, general life experience, college, Tafe, short courses etc. Perhaps the change in the requirements for work will mean that although more people will need them to be employed, they will also be more respected. That people who continue to grow and learn throughout their lives will be more valued than those who do not.
I earnt all of my degrees, I could care less if the person working next to me doesn’t have one as long as they are good at what they do. If they’re not they will be found out, as happened in my school recently. I respect people who have developed as people, who have knowledge, but that doesn’t mean they have to have a university degree. The stages of development including intelligence will determine someone’s suitability to teaching. So maybe the Taiwanese need to develop psychological testing for their teachers rather than degree qualified. It could weed out all those not suitable for teaching degree or not.
There are alot of people here trying to defend the supposed innate superiority of holding a degree in the English teaching field. I’m not one to put down degrees (I have one myself), but the only reason degrees are required for teaching English in Taiwan is to meet the ARC requirements set by the government. The only reason these requirements exist is to put western English teachers in a different category of visa than economic migrants from Sout-East Asia. If they didn’t do this, and put some sort of academic requirement in as well, the government here would be viewed as racist (not that they aren’t already).
And please the garbage about spelling and grammar in an internet post? Get real. The internet, email and the like are very strange genres, indeed. I’m posting a message, not submitting a dissertation.
Look. I even double checked my post for accuracy. :raspberry:
I heard the other day whilst moping around that some English teachers here have fake degrees. Is this true and a common occuence?
Surely officials can tell if someone applies for a job with a fake degree? And where the hell do you get a fake degree in Taiwan which is authentic. As far as I can tell from the wording on T-shirts and scooters, obtaining a fake degree in Taiwan would be pointless?? I can’t believe that people can get away with using a fake degree to find work here! It’s terrible!!
Anyone know where I can get one?
No…No…only joking, I’ve got one really. Real, that is.
Even back in 1995, when I applied for my last (teaching) job in Taiwan, they did check the authenticity of the degree. It was interesting because although I had graduated at that point, the school hadn’t yet printed up the diplomas (took them like 4 months) and of course I couldn’t be formally hired without the diploma…so I took my MA diploma, which was 99% similar (same school, and I’d seen real Ph.D. diplomas from there, too), a little work on the computer, a trip to 7-11, and…ta-da! a Ph.D. diploma. They faxed it to Houston and apparently it checked out…funny thing was, all the names of the Regents had changed, but no one figured that out. Basically I think they just contact the school in question and say, “Ever heard of Foreigner X”?
(I consider this an example of using a “visual aid”, not of forgery, as I did hold the credential in question. Today, of course, I’d use Powerpoint instead. )
Be glad that the MOE does the checking now…when I applied, another woman started work the same day I did, submitted the identical paperwork the same day I did, and she got her “tenure” dated three months before I did – meaning I lost an entire year of “tenure” based on the Taiwanese seniority system. The reason? She not ONLY let the personnel office submit her forms, she ALSO faxed her own diploma to the Taiwanese rep office nearest her school and used the “back door”. That has always annoyed me…had I continued in academe here, I would always be one year short (for example, you can get a sabbatical year [in theory] after seven years’ teaching, they use seniority to figure retirement, etc. etc.)
Surely the most obvious reason to not use a forged degree is the consequences.
If you are caught working illegally without a degree then you will no doubt get a slap on the wrists and be asked to leave the country in the worst case scenario.
Should you be caught working illegally on a forged certificate then you will be arrested, and possibly even jailed. Most jail terms here can be commuted by paying a hefty fine, and then you would be immediately deported. Bear in mind that the arrest could quite possibly be very public, and it is not unheard of to have handcuffed foreigners arrested for forged degrees having their faces splashed all across the TV news.
Go back to school and get your degree and then you will have earned the right to work in a job that requires a degree. If you don’t want to invest your time and money into acheiving a tertiary qualification, then find a job that doesn’t require this, but teaching English in Taiwan isn’t for you.
This is an interesting post. 99% of Mainland software is bogus. TW is better - only 90% bogus. A couple years ago, Time Magazine ran an article on Chinese systems for having other people take their standardized tests(SAT, etc) for them. People should not fake their degrees but Chinese are not in any position of authority to raise the subject.
It’s real easy to get them in the US. I’m sure they won’t charge you too much more to ship one overseas. Of course, they’re all from unaccredited schools. I think I read a CNN article somewhere that 30% of government employees in the US have fake dimplomas.
Legal issues aside, using a fake dipoloma gives foreigners a bad name…
This is an anonymous poll. Have you ever mis-represented yourself in Taiwan as having a university degree or credential that you do not have? For example, did you ever photocopy your name over a friend’s diploma or order an online diploma that got approved for a work visa??
I’m asking this because one of my friends got in trouble with the MOE in Taipei for having a fake degree (he had been ratted out by some people at school)…and he got OUT of trouble by going through stacks and stacks of degrees that had been approved and telling the Ministry which ones were fake. My friend said the final fakes stack was so high at the end of the day…higher than the real ones. Apparently the MOE did nothing because it would have been a mass expulsion of English teachers!! Some of the names of those diplomas were hilarious; The University of Canada, etc.
[quote=“Kick-Stand”]This is an anonymous poll. Have you ever mis-represented yourself in Taiwan as having a university degree or credential that you do not have? For example, did you ever photocopy your name over a friend’s diploma or order an online diploma that got approved for a work visa??
I’m asking this because one of my friends got in trouble with the MOE in Taipei for having a fake degree (he had been ratted out by some people at school)…and he got OUT of trouble by going through stacks and stacks of degrees that had been approved and telling the Ministry which ones were fake. My friend said the final fakes stack was so high at the end of the day…higher than the real ones. Apparently the MOE did nothing because it would have been a mass expulsion of English teachers!! Some of the names of those diplomas were hilarious; The University of Canada, etc.[/quote]
Sounds like your friend is full of shit. Don’t tell me you actually believe his story.
