The Real Value of the Teaching Forum

I feel buxiban and restaurant criticisms are different though.

I read a thread on mexican food recently and everyone on the thread slammed Chilis. However, I went there this weekend and had some fairly decent food. No complaints. People will eat where they want to eat. And if they don’t like it, they won’t go back.

However, reading a second or third hand flaming thread about a buxiban is different in that a new teacher or an long timer may vary well chose NOT to even check it out, or answer the ad because of the thread.

I read this thread over the last few days with great interest. And I am glad that there is line being drawn.

This is very reasonable. In another thread related to this issue (and perhaps the reason this one started?), someone wrote in with a lot of third hand accounts and hear-say about some schools in Yilan. Posting warnings about schools with which you have no first-hand experience is not a fair thing to do. On the other hand, balance was achieved through posts from users like Bassman who rightly criticized the OP’s posts.

So the task before me is to pretend to be fair to management. I’m on the labor side of things, so that’s a tough gig. But here goes:

(Note: Before beginning, I should say that I’m only talking about threads where the name of the school is given.)

It looks as if there are two kinds of threads: one that begins with a query, and one that begins with an assertion. Of course, these can wind up mixed.

One problem with both kinds of threads is that people can use extremely conclusory language. In the query thread, the conclusory language can even assume an innocent form. For example, in answer to the question, “What do you think about XYZ School?” a poster can respond with, “You can do better,” without assigning reasons. In other words, the posters can harm the school’s rep by a number of small, relatively noncommittal cuts.

In the assertion-type thread, a poster can make the assertion that “such and so school/laoban is a %&@^^'(*,” which is extremely vague, subjective, and conclusory, and is a more or less pure appeal to the emotions. The poster can say that “such and so laoban/school is a thief/bunch of thieves,” and that’s not as vague as the prior example, but I would call that conclusory language. The poster can be more specific, with “such and so is a thief; he/she stole NT$17,000 from me,” and it’s still a little too conclusory because we don’t know what the poster means by theft, we don’t know the circumstances, etc.

Of course, people can make these same kinds of assertions in the query-type threads.

Hope you bear with me for two examples, just to show how some people try to deal with complaints of wrongdoing:

In US federal lawsuits, merely briefly reciting some facts and stating the law involved is usually good enough for a lawsuit, at least initially. That’s presumably because the lawyers are going to flesh the factual stuff out later, and the lawsuit may well fail in that “fleshing-out” process long before it reaches the point of setting a trial date.

On the other hand, in a suit in my home state’s courts, the suit doesn’t have to name the law involved, but it’s supposed to give a full account of the facts. So if you just write a fairly detailed description of the facts, you’re good to go, at least for a while. Then the lawyers (if your opponent wants to, which he/she often does) flesh out whether the facts you allege, taken as true, constitute a wrong, and again the lawsuit may fail in that process. If the suit makes it over that hurdle, you start into matters of proof, and in that process, the suit may fail without even being set for trial.

Bearing in mind that in any case, it’s hard to prove or disprove stuff on the 'net, I think that for Forumosa the latter method is better. In my opinion, the complaining poster (or in the query-type thread, the negatively-responding poster) should give particular facts, as particular as possible. I think particularity is important on the Internet because it’s one of the few ways we might be able to get some take on the soundness of the allegations. In my opinion, for the complaint to be sound, it should do two things: (1) allege an actual wrong, and (2) be believable. Particularity tends to provide some opportunity for people to say, “So what? Even if the school/laoban did those things, it’s not wrong.” It also tends to provide some opportunity to catch the poster in, uh, disingenuousness (don’t want to say “a lie”). If the complaint fails or is very weak on either score, in my opinion it’s not sound.

As to YC’s mention of notice and an opportunity to be heard, I thought of that, too, but hoo-boy! Part of me is thinking, “Let sleeping buxibans lie.” The other part is thinking, well, they deserve a chance to rebut.

Another thing to bear in mind (unless you disagree), is that negative allegations on an expat board mainly (in my opinion, almost exclusively) hurt the school’s rep among teachers, not among parents (unless the parents are bilingual posters/lurkers, or unless they’re expat parents). At least that’s my opinion. And that school is probably going to get a teacher from somewhere. I once experienced a school really and truly desperate for a teacher (I mean to the point of tears), but only once. (And if they were desperate for me, they were really and truly desperate :laughing: ) That hasn’t been my usual experience.

And that’s my too-much-information’s worth.

Edit: Sorry, I didn’t see this:

I didn’t know the grapevine was that effective. I stand corrected. So I vote (not that it makes any difference; this ain’t a democracy) for notice and an opportunity to be heard.

telling him presumes

  1. s/he wants to know
  2. s/he can do anything about it
  3. s/he cares enough about it

otherwise, you may be wasting your breathe…

I was asked by a prominent member of staff at a national uni. why they had trouble hiring professors for their English Center…

I told her…

  1. the money in other countries is better (much…!)
  2. other universities have active research programs and encourage research both careerwise and by financial incentives (not just salary promotions…)
  3. professors esp. of literature, linguistics, etc… aren’t fools… they want to work in an environment which befits their degrees/experience/publications/etc…

Taking a job at that school would have SURELY been a demotion for all but the least senior of the staff, i.e. those newly qualified. And yet, their CALL for applications stressed the word ‘experience.’

After I was done, I noticed that some where between point 1 and 2, her attention had drifted off… I don’t think she really ‘got’ what I was trying to tell her.

And she ASKED me to tell her…

Mmm… Moral of the story: Don’t waste your breathe unless you have a chance of success. At the very worst, you may find yourself out of a job…

Kenneth