Funnily enough . . .
HG
[quote=âChewycornsâ][quote=âSatellite TVâ]
Actually I would support them employing foreigners as teachers in Kindergartens, as long as they held the proper professional qualifictions such as a Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood or what ever it is you need to teach at that level.[/quote]
Exactly. :bravo: When people go to the doctor, they want to see a licensed physician. When people want their finances looked after, they go to a licensed accountant. Why not the same care for their most precious assetâtheir children and future heirs? You want people that have learned how to teach and that know educational psychology in some respects. Iâm not denying that people with no certification donât make good teachers. In many instances they do. However, for the very early formative years, I believe it is far more important that they be certified.[/quote]
And that they know how to speak the language their students speak, naturally.
They wonât do that because it would mean hiring professionals and adhering to the rule of law. There would be too much loss of control involved. Control that allows them to maintain the corrupt status quo.
Can you imagine what would happen if they put someone like, say Ironlady, in charge of designing a curriculum for pre-schools nationwide. She could come up with a relatively low cost program that would be available to children from all economic classes. Of course they would also ned to hire qualified applicants in supporting roles, both from in and outside the country.
They could have a reasonably fluent population in a generation. They thing is they DONâT WANT ONE.
When it is a police man or somebody from the FAP on a random check, they are just doing their job. Maybe they even have sympathy with the foreigner and donât really want to do what they have to do. When it is a foreigner ratting out another foreigner, it is a whole different matter.
You canât license something without first legalizing it.
It is important to remember in the discussion of this topic that I donât think many of the people here who say that they donât have any sympathy for people who get caught teaching illegally actually know the the guy who rattor in this story.
I, on the other hand, do and can tell you that he did not do it out of any sense of morality or because he was concerned about the welfare of the children. He did it because he himself was teaching there illegally, was fired, felt he was owed money (another risk of working illegally, if they owe you money and wonât give it, there isnât much you can do), and took pictures of other teachers working there so he would have a chip to bargain with. :raspberry:
In life there are risk. When you go out your door there is a risk that you may be mugged. When you eat something, there is a risk that it may have poison and you could die. When you get on your scooter, there is a risk that you may be hit by a car and killed.
I knew a guy who was killed riding a scooter here in Taichung. When he got on his scooter, he knew the risk. He even ran a red light. When I heard the news, I cried and cried 
. Maybe I shouldnât have felt so sad. After all he was at fault for the accident. He knew the risk! :no-no: Maybe we should all apply STVâs idea of turning in illegal teachers to the roads and also mow down all scooters who run red lights. After all, that is the chance you take when you do so.
I would also like to say I have known licensed teachers who worked illegally here. I can say that they were very conscientious, cared about their students, and worked hard. I have seen many of them on Sunday nights getting ready for their classes the next day. Yet, on this forum, they are being compared to pedophiles, drunk drivers, and drug dealers :fume: . I have also known some legal teachers who were absolute schmucks :aiyo: .
[quote=âMickâ]
I actually misread your name and thought it was anther poster âmallardâ who I think used reductio ad absurdum as a debating technique in the 911 thread to great effect, very funny stuff. Although I think some of the other posters took the posts at face value, .[/quote]
hah! an interesting theory but surely wrong. no one could be that dedicated or absurd. There was in particular a disturbing story about his uncle that i canât see making up.
[quote=âWhole Lotta Lottaâ][quote]But lets says itâs just a local doing their job inspecting Kindies and busting them and getting illegal teachers deported. Youâd have no problems with that? Because the Education Dept does do that from time to time.
[/quote]
When it is a police man or somebody from the FAP on a random check, they are just doing their job. Maybe they even have sympathy with the foreigner and donât really want to do what they have to do. When it is a foreigner ratting out another foreigner, it is a whole different matter.[/quote]
So if I was to take a job with the FAP youâd have no problems with that then. Thats good to know.
Please keep discussion of kindy laws to that thread, thanks.
I have heard some foreigners say they are rude to police officers when they pull them over. I am not. They are just doing their job and will be worse to the next foreigner, if you piss them off. I donât speak Chinese to them though
.
I had always thought that Ritalin was some kind of downer given to hyperactive kids. Looks like I was wrong.
These are the first two paragraphs of the article in the link; sounds like socially accepted meth:
Methylphenidate (MPH), which is manufactured under the brand name of Ritalin, is a stimulant. Ritalin produces pharmacological effects similar to those of cocaine and amphetamines, and it is prescribed to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHA), attention deficit disorder (ADD) and other conditions. Unlike other stimulants, however, MPH has not been produced by drug dealers in homemade labs, likely because it is an inexpensive, readily available medication with a prescription, even though it is a controlled substance.
A growing number of incidents of abuse have been associated with teens and young adults using MPH for its stimulant effects: appetite suppression, wakefulness, increased attentiveness, increased focus and euphoria. It is being used for appetite suppression in many teenagers; college students are taking advantage of its stimulant affects to help them stay focused and awake for those long nights of studying. The drug has street names such as âVitamin R,â âR-Ballâ and the âSmart Drug.â It is inexpensive to purchase from friends or dealers for anywhere from 50 cents and up to $5 per pill.
[quote=âBigJohnâ][quote=âsandmanâ]Well, isnât it YOU who keeps bringing up the âwe foreigners should stick togetherâ schtick? Maybe it was some other poster. If so, sorry. My point is that Taiwanese are FAR less foreign to me than Americans, so therefore Iâd be more inclined to stick together with Taiwanese than Americans â if I felt the need to âstick togetherâ with any particular nationality.
[quote]Why not have compassion for a stranger, if they are not really harming anyone?
[/quote]
But they ARE! If you happen agree with the governmentâs take that kiddies shouldnât be learning English. 
Who am I to believe? Government education experts or angry 20-something backpackers on their unique Asian sojourn?[/quote]
Thatâs funny. I never thought of you as one of those âI trust the governmentâ types. Kindy teachers hurting the kids. Yep, itâs a psycho bloodbath out there. I wonder why all those parents are so in love with their foreign kindy teachers, who are harming their children? Strange. Letâs ask the government.[/quote]
Amen, it is indeed a psycho bloodbath out there, but we donât seem to have the attention span to address the problem in a sustained way.
We seemed to come together as a community and focus on this growing problem back during the John Mark Karr Crisis. For those of you who werenât here or werenât following the news, John Mark Karr is the man who confessed to killing Jon Benet Ramsey. Mr. Karr came to Taiwan and almost got a job here.
For more information:
Had he had the time and opportunity to do so, he might have confessed to killing still more children. In all likelihood, Mr. Karr had very poor Chinese skills, so he might not have been able to understand news reports about recently murdered children. That being the case, he might well have taken to confessing to the murder of living children, which would have been worse, because it could have scarred those kids for life.
For more information:
Contemporaneously with the Crisis, someone in our community came up with a set of criteria for determining whether a foreigner was a danger to the children. The criteria were as follows:
If the person in question is
(1) over forty years of age;
(2) white;
(3) male;
(4) overweight;
(5) sweating profusely (i.e., âconstantly looks like theyâve just got out of a very hot bathâ);
(6) while teaching âcuteâ Asian kids;
then heâs probably a danger to the children.
For more insights:
Additionally, the Minister of Health has recently reported on statistical studies that show that single people have a greater tendency to suffer from mental illness than married people. So I submit that itâs an added warning sign if this over-forty, sweating, cute-Asian-kid-teaching white guy is also
(7) single.
For more detailed evidence:
taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ ⌠2003470148
But as the Who said, âThe sun shines, and people forget.â We forget, we ignore the problem, hoping it will go away, and it periodically comes back to haunt us. Letâs not get fooled again. Letâs set some real standards this time. I propose the following litmus test: Anyone having more than four of the above-designated characteristics should not be allowed to teach kids on this island. Full stop. (As luck would have it, Iâm off the hook: Iâm a single, white male, and Iâm over forty, but Iâm not overweight, I hardly ever sweat (and when I do, I donât sweat profusely), and the Asian kids I teach are not âcute.â)
Now of course, the above negativing standards donât foreclose the imposition of affirmative ones. For example, I find the ideas of sandman and some of the others very worthy, viz., that prospective teachers of children have at least a DELTA diploma (preferably, though, an M.A. in Applied Linguistics), at least a B.Ed. (preferably an M.Ed.), possess teacher certification in their home country, have at least an M.A. (preferably a Ph.D.) in either developmental or child psychology, and have attained at least an Intermediate (preferably Advanced) level of Chinese fluency on the HSK. I think these standards should be gradually introduced over, say, an eight-to-fifteen year period. That should have the added incidental benefit of eventually ridding us of the Young Backpacker Scourge, for the most part at least.
Additionally, police criminal-record checks can miss a spot or two, since they only cover, well, criminal records, so I propose that a thorough background check be conducted of all prospective teachers of children, on the order of the kind the U.S. military conducts prior to granting a Top Secret clearance.
We need to implement the above standards with all deliberate speed. Otherwise, as the global economy continues its collapse, we can look forward to more and more creepy middle-aged white men sweating all over the children, more and more footloose-and-fancy-free twenty-something backpackers gallivanting around and taking jobs away from real teachers, and more and more John Mark Karrs turning up on our shores and confessing to God knows what atrocities.
[quote=âaoogaâ]There is a case right now in Taichung where a teacher has been fired from his job, and had some pay docked. After trying many routes to solve the problem (including the CLA labor board), he was still without his money. He decided to open a lawsuit aginst the school for unlawful dismissal. (he refused to take on some extra work). When that failed he resorted to obtaining pictures of a new teacher he didnât know and using them in conjunction with his own picture to push the school to pay. The result, he was thanked for providing evidence of an english kindergarten being illegally taught by foriegners, let off for his own transgressions, the new guy deported and gone within days barred from returning for 3 years.
After talking to this person who has been in taiwan and has done that very job I was shocked to find out the he really thought that it was the proper thing to do. The new guy who was in love with his taiwanese girl, in a gigging rock band, living with his best friend after being years apart. heart broken, band split, friends wrenched apart. the guy is on the plane today to go and live jobless with his parents.
There are times when a guy can be really pissed at his school. But implicating a fellow foriegner! :fume: That really burns me up! (been here for 11 years never heard that one)We have a moral responsibility to think before we ruin lives. Sure the guys not off to the hangman or anything but the rat told me that he intentionally didnât give the guy a heads up because he thought it would help his case :fume:
Question: DOES THIS GUY HAVE THE RIGHT TO PULL THIS???[/quote]
THIS IS TAIWAN
[quote=âMazerâ]To confirm, yes the rat is the same guy who took his ex-girlfriend to court (Iâm not sure if itâs once or twice, but anyways) for the sole purpose of maintaining an illusion of relevance in her life, really.
He is a boil on the bum of Taichung, and seems to love doing this sort of thing to feed his sense of self-importance. I expect his antics will continue like this, until he pisses off the wrong person. Then with any luck heâll leave and Taiwan will be a better place for his passing.
[/quote]
I can only guess who it might be and I wonât say it out loud. Maybe it will be asked at the next quiz night at the Londoner for discussion.
[quote=âWhole Lotta Lottaâ][quote]
Whole Lotta Lotta wrote:
Quote:
But lets says itâs just a local doing their job inspecting Kindies and busting them and getting illegal teachers deported. Youâd have no problems with that? Because the Education Dept does do that from time to time.
When it is a police man or somebody from the FAP on a random check, they are just doing their job. Maybe they even have sympathy with the foreigner and donât really want to do what they have to do. When it is a foreigner ratting out another foreigner, it is a whole different matter.
So if I was to take a job with the FAP youâd have no problems with that then. Thats good to know.
[/quote]
I have heard some foreigners say they are rude to police officers when they pull them over. I am not. They are just doing their job and will be worse to the next foreigner, if you piss them off. I donât speak Chinese to them though
.[/quote]
Actually speaking Chinese and apologising is the best way, I have NEVER been fined on any of my illegal right-turns or illegal left turns where I got waved over or when I didnât bring my license with me (not something I do too often anyway, they were the usual soft spots for catching people). The cops usually have a little chat with me instead.
Great stuff, a pub quiz on how to rat out illegals⌠and who is doing what to who.
Should get some TV cameras in for that one.
I have an addendum to this whole story. It turns out the foreigner who did the turning in lost his lawsuit with his old school. It was also found out that he lied in court about the date the pictures were taken. The pictures were thrown out as evidence and the plaintiff may face deportation for lying in court :roflmao: . The deportee may receive an apology from the government and be allowed back in the country.
This just goes the perils of getting the law involved in anything here. Stay away from people into having to many things to do with the police and who take the litigious route to solve their problems. They will only make problems for themselves in the long run.
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
THAT Iâd like to see.
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
THAT Iâd like to see.[/quote]
The operative word her is may.
Even IF the government admits that it deported the guy based on false evidence (a big IF already), itâs unlikely that they would ever apologize publicly. And, after all, the guy WAS teaching kindy, which IS illegal, right? From the governmentâs perspective, they have absolutely nothing to apologize about.
The traditional Chinese legal system starts by assuming that all parties are lying. It is then the judgeâs responsibility to figure out what the truth is. So I suppose that the falsity or veracity of evidence wouldnât be as much of a concern as in other systems of law.