Rant In Uber Minor

Another few days have passed and things seem to be settling down into a routine. It was interesting to see that the school got a mention on thaischoolwatch.com It seems that there are a few unhappy people out there who used to work here. I suppose that is only natural given some of the stories I heard before coming here and some of the things that I have seen.

There is certainly a lot of paperwork here compared to my last place. We have to
write weekly lesson plans for each class – 5 classes
write work done sheets
write a letter to parents weekly about what we will do in class next week

as well as that we have to create a hell of a lot of supplementary material because the book is so shit. Add that to the normal weekly meetings and the unannounced meetings and church services and after school meetings it does all mount.

There was a meeting last Friday after school with the high and mighty director who told everyone that she was there and all the school staff were there to help us in any way they could – unless of course you mean helping with paying for unnecessary extra documents the MOE wants or giving us some real discipline options in the staffroom or listening and actually acting to our suggestions and complaints about how to do things better or defending us from weird parents who want us removed because we insist little Somchai should be told not to drop his trousers in class or is constantly talking or running around or……..and deserves to be shouted at.

As far as I am aware we have yet to see someone shafted and fired – although we have had one person leave ( for reasons unknown ) but then it is still early days.

Its becoming a real pain walking to and from class now because our staffroom is in a totally different part of the school from where we teach, we need to actually need to leave the school and re-enter it across a road. If you have forgotten to bring your classroom key its a 5 minute dash across the way, up the lift and back again. And we arent allowed to have copies. Nope, that is against school policy aparently. We might sneek in after dark past the guards and steal a marker pen or something thats in the class. A spare key was actually taken off someone this week and got ranted at for his troubles.

Oh Well.

I have been listening to Bill Hicks this week and compared to his ranting, I am a complete and utter beginner. The man was a comic genius.