Why So Many Firings?

[phetaroi]

As I have been reading this forum for the past few months, it seems an ongoing theme is getting fired. Why are there so many firings of western teachers in Thailand?

[Loaded]

As I have been reading this forum for the past few months, it seems an ongoing theme is getting fired. Why are there so many firings of western teachers in Thailand?

Firings are quite rare, but people who get fired want advice, so they often find forums like this.

[Scott]

We've had an unusually high number of teachers dismissed this year. A few Western teachers and a number of non-Thai Asian teachers. I had been wondering the same thing, but thought it was an anomaly at our school.

A couple of things I noticed is that we had a higher number of applicants for teaching positions. I think this lead the administration to believe that they can 'get rid' of anyone they want because it's easy to replace them. We had several teachers let go during their probation. I can't say it was the wrong decision, but I wasn't sure it was the right decision. Overall, expectations have been higher, demands have been higher and tolerance has been less than in previous years.

I have had to put my foot down and be quite firm with them about treating people well. A very long time ago we got listed in the 'schools you don't recommend' thread. I occasionally call the admin in and show it to them and remind that if they aren't nice, everyone in the world will see them shamed and there's nothing that can be done about it!

[PeaceBlondie]

In the 'remote province' where I taught, they changed native speakers in the English dept at the first school annually - if they even stayed two months. Next school struggled to keep one teacher for over 2 years; he left in disgust. The commercial college hit a dry spell and couldn't keep folks long enough to fire us.

I know of teachers in BKK and in international schools who stay for many years, but they're good teachers and their administrators are half decent..

[Ijustwannateach]

In my experience, there is far more quitting than there is firing... I think there are a few threads here recently, but really not more than 4-5 people? And people who get fired do need more support, as Loaded says- legal, financial, moral, etc.

The general advice I would give people at bad schools is that you can't really change a school without power, and few foreigners have much power in schools. If your values mean you are on a collision course with management, plan your exit ahead of that time so that you are in a good position to move on.

To be fair, except at the most extremely evil and dysfunctional schools, most teachers get a lot of rope before administration hangs them- it's more about dislike of confrontation and a lack of culture of firing teachers among Thais (because they are civil servants) than it is about kindness- and if you get past the probation period (which unfortunately many schools use as a 'churn and burn' way to avoid paying teachers for vacations) it's very rare to be fired in most cases.

[phetaroi]

Okay, so it seems like you're all kind of saying that there are two main reasons for firing of western teachers:

1. Not good at teaching

2. At odds with Thai cultural values

Is that pretty much it?

[patklang]

Okay, so it seems like you're all kind of saying that there are two main reasons for firing of western teachers:

1. Not good at teaching

2. At odds with Thai cultural values

Is that pretty much it?

Well i didnt read that????

Seems a whole variety of reasons,just like most jobs in a foreign country

[Scott]

A good friend of mine recently starting working at a school. It has a regular Thai program, a mini-English program and a bilingual program. Prior to his starting work, they had fired all the foreign teachers, including quite a number of Western teachers, in the preceding 4 months. It was an absolute mess. Anybody that screwed up got canned, and basically everyone was screwing up because they were sent off to teach a myriad of subjects, prepare tests for classes they had never taught and issue grades.

Of course, the functioning level of new teachers was declining quickly because the only people applying were those who were completely unable to work anywhere else. It was a vicious circle. He has since been able to slow it down, but it was sad because the original teachers were quite good and they were experienced. What is left now are is a much less professional staff.

I've talked to him at length about what to do and the first thing I advised him is to make sure the owner doesn't know how many applicants you have. If they think there are a lot out there waiting for work, they can be pretty brutal.

I think he's going to get the program turned around, but it's sad to see someone have to work so hard and correcting unnecessary damage.

[Ijustwannateach]

Okay, so it seems like you're all kind of saying that there are two main reasons for firing of western teachers:

1. Not good at teaching

2. At odds with Thai cultural values

Is that pretty much it?

Well, with the first one, it does happen. Other reasons that can be traced to the fault of the teachers include the same things that happen to any other types of workers: they do stupid or criminal things, they are unstable and cause problems, etc., etc. Thai teachers, of course, do similar things in proportionately greater quantities (there are more Thai teachers) but are much more difficult to fire.

To the second one, no. It's not usually a matter of Thai culture; it's a matter of poor administration. Generally speaking, Thai schools don't get what we would regard as 'good' administration- partly because most schools are run as cash cows and personal fiefdoms by one person or faction or another.

Functional teachers often end up in conflict with dysfunctional administrations, especially when the teacher has as his goal 'education,' and the school administration- whichever part of it- has as its goal 'money.'

As an example, a single student that it would be obvious in most other contexts should be removed from a class, if not the whole school, because of the way his (usually) behaviour is preventing the other students in a class from learning. is left in the class. The teacher who is actually effective in controlling him will suddenly be fired because (as it turns out) that student's father is coincidentally paying for a new building.