Teaching English, ahem...."through" the medium of Philosophy

[Craig krup]

Basically you can't do a job that a Thai could do, so they aren't going to let you teach a subject unless it's in a foreign institution, correct? I've got a PhD in Politics/Political Philosophy, a Master of Education degree and a PGCE (but not a school one; a college one). I think, even at fifty, I'd need something to structure the day. It's all very well having hobbies, but I think human nature being what it is there's a lot to be said for having a job. I'm toying with the idea of doing the CELTA English course, but I'm not wildly keen on teaching basic English.

Is there any way they'd give you job formally teaching English in a higher education institution, but you were teaching it through a philosophy or social science curriculum? Bluntly - would anyone give you a disguised subject teaching job?

[zeichen]

Actually, if you have a PhD, then you could teach your subject at Thai universities. I know a few foreigners that have actually received their tenure and have the title of Associate and full Professor. A few that I know actually teach in Thai and a few others teach in English. I would contact different universities in the area that you live.

There are international programs at most universities now and anyone with a PhD can get a job. Each department needs to have a certain number of PhD's so they just fill the ranks. The pay is relatively low though and would make between 20-50k depending on the university and the position you take.

You are also more than qualified to teach at International schools. I would suggest looking into IB schools as you could either teach in their humanities section or TK. At international schools you will work slightly more but will earn at least 80-150k perhaps even more if you market yourself right. Go to the International school fairs they have in BKK. You make more money if not a local hire at most places, so put your home address and not local.

With your qualifications Why teach EFL? Don't bother with a CELTA it won't open any more doors nor will give you a better salary.

You should though brush up on the basic principles behind language learners and some obstacles they face. If you teach the same manner as you would to native speakers, they wouldn't absorb as much. So there are strategies and approaches that are more effective.

[SheungWan]

The question is what have you done with those qualifications the last 20-25 years?

[rijb]

Are you asking about content-based instruction?

[honu]

I've known a guy that teaches a design class at Chulalongkorn, one of the top two or three universities here.

He must have had at least a Masters to do that and prior teaching experience, so the question SheungWan asks seems the next most relevant concern: have you done teaching based on that education?

Even my son at first grade level took some basic classes in English, like Science taught in English language. It's a different thing, but the point of the example is the same: English based education is already routinely used to help teach English indirectly, not to hire someone to do something they're not hired to do, but because learning the subjects in a different language forces competency practice on them.

If you've worked in a different field than in teaching related to your original education for a couple of decades, which seems possible, that changes things. Of course you still might pull it off; if a university was looking to fill a position with similar qualifications they could potentially overlook thin work experience based on strong education background.

[Craig krup]

Actually, if you have a PhD, then you could teach your subject at Thai universities. I know a few foreigners that have actually received their tenure and have the title of Associate and full Professor. A few that I know actually teach in Thai and a few others teach in English. I would contact different universities in the area that you live.

There are international programs at most universities now and anyone with a PhD can get a job. Each department needs to have a certain number of PhD's so they just fill the ranks. The pay is relatively low though and would make between 20-50k depending on the university and the position you take.

You are also more than qualified to teach at International schools. I would suggest looking into IB schools as you could either teach in their humanities section or TK. At international schools you will work slightly more but will earn at least 80-150k perhaps even more if you market yourself right. Go to the International school fairs they have in BKK. You make more money if not a local hire at most places, so put your home address and not local.

With your qualifications Why teach EFL? Don't bother with a CELTA it won't open any more doors nor will give you a better salary.

You should though brush up on the basic principles behind language learners and some obstacles they face. If you teach the same manner as you would to native speakers, they wouldn't absorb as much. So there are strategies and approaches that are more effective.

Brilliant. Cheers. I've got a few publications, but not enough for a UK job and I'm too old anyway. I can get the one year retirement visa now, and my employer is offering dough for us to disappear. I can't stand too many more winters, and this Scottish independence obsession is pushing my fur against the grain. But I don't think I could fill every day with self-starting activities. Next week I'm going to create a few Kindle books which are basically "New International" versions of philosophical classics: Hobbes' Leviathan in plain prose, that kind of thing. This definitely now looks like a decent idea, because it might show the right kind of willing if there's a possibility of a higher education job. I'm not too worried about the money. I'm a cheap date, and anywhere outside of the tourist areas I think I'd struggle to spend 20,000B a month.

[Craig krup]

The question is what have you done with those qualifications the last 20-25 years?

Oh, I've been teaching for 25 years, 19 full time. It seems longer. I'm a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (which sounds good, if nothing else!) I'm starting to feel a bit more hopeful that the "take the money the college is offering and naff off somewhere warm" option is do-able. I'm a creature of habit. In a very short period of time I'd worked out that a studio flat south of Udon's Pho Si road, a membership of Your Fitness, a daily post-workout feed at the food court and a big walk around the park would suit me down to the ground. But I just think that looking at a serious block of time I'd have to add fifty hours of real "must do" activity into the mix or risk going mad.

Given the reduced cost of living, and given my employer's proposed pay-off, it would be three years before I was any worse off if I had a 40,000B job, and then I'd be within spitting distance of my private pension with a public sector pension five years after that.

If I take the pay-off dough I think I'll get the 60/90 day visa and have a good look around.

[Craig krup]

I've known a guy that teaches a design class at Chulalongkorn, one of the top two or three universities here.

He must have had at least a Masters to do that and prior teaching experience, so the question SheungWan asks seems the next most relevant concern: have you done teaching based on that education?

Even my son at first grade level took some basic classes in English, like Science taught in English language. It's a different thing, but the point of the example is the same: English based education is already routinely used to help teach English indirectly, not to hire someone to do something they're not hired to do, but because learning the subjects in a different language forces competency practice on them.

If you've worked in a different field than in teaching related to your original education for a couple of decades, which seems possible, that changes things. Of course you still might pull it off; if a university was looking to fill a position with similar qualifications they could potentially overlook thin work experience based on strong education background.

In my 19 years of FE I've actually taught quite a lot of International Foundation and similar students, so I think I might be able to swing this. I'd love a little teaching job to structure the day and to be able to spend September to May without a fleece.

[SheungWan]

The question is what have you done with those qualifications the last 20-25 years?

Oh, I've been teaching for 25 years, 19 full time. It seems longer. I'm a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (which sounds good, if nothing else!) I'm starting to feel a bit more hopeful that the "take the money the college is offering and naff off somewhere warm" option is do-able. I'm a creature of habit. In a very short period of time I'd worked out that a studio flat south of Udon's Pho Si road, a membership of Your Fitness, a daily post-workout feed at the food court and a big walk around the park would suit me down to the ground. But I just think that looking at a serious block of time I'd have to add fifty hours of real "must do" activity into the mix or risk going mad.

Given the reduced cost of living, and given my employer's proposed pay-off, it would be three years before I was any worse off if I had a 40,000B job, and then I'd be within spitting distance of my private pension with a public sector pension five years after that.

If I take the pay-off dough I think I'll get the 60/90 day visa and have a good look around.

If you are working in FE with a F/T job and that job is not at immediate risk from compulsory redundancy then I would advice against taking VR. You are too young to go outside. OK, if you have come into a big inheritance, maybe, but the security of a F/T job is not to be sniffed at. All the maybe stuff is lightweight and why exchange the hellhole of FE for the hellhole of a private college in Thailand earning peanuts. As it stands lets say you have contributed 20 years into your Teachers Pension scheme. And let's say you are earning £50k. At 20/80 of £50k you have a pension of £12.5K to look forward to if you wait to collect until you are 60. If you start collecting earlier then even that amount will be actuarily reduced. Public pension? And what do you think that's worth? As for the payout being offered to leave what is it? Less than one year's pay? Mmmmm... not sure this one will fly.

[Craig krup]

If you are working in FE with a F/T job and that job is not at immediate risk from compulsory redundancy then I would advice against taking VR. You are too young to go outside. OK, if you have come into a big inheritance, maybe, but the security of a F/T job is not to be sniffed at. All the maybe stuff is lightweight and why exchange the hellhole of FE for the hellhole of a private college in Thailand earning peanuts. As it stands lets say you have contributed 20 years into your Teachers Pension scheme. And let's say you are earning £50k. At 20/80 of £50k you have a pension of £12.5K to look forward to if you wait to collect until you are 60. If you start collecting earlier then even that amount will be actuarily reduced. Public pension? And what do you think that's worth? As for the payout being offered to leave what is it? Less than one year's pay? Mmmmm... not sure this one will fly.

It's a good point, but I've more years in the scheme and lower wages! That said, you're about right - 13k at sixty, and a lump sum. The thing is, though, there are a number of other considerations. The teachers' pension is based on your final salary or the best three inflation-adjusted years from the last ten. Because there have always been above inflation pay rises the second calculation has never mattered. But now people who quit are locking in 2009-11 as their best three years, because the public sector pay freeze means that for the first time in a long time "inflation adjusted" is better than final salary. They're also bringing in a new career average scheme which gives you 1/57ths at 65. I'm "partially protected", but soon any new pension I earn won't pay out until five years later. Then there's the whole stomach-churning nuisance of being in a sector that couldn't its collective backside with both hands and a map. I'm sick to the back teeth of managers who can't manage and "professionals" in qualification organisations (and similar) who couldn't earn a third of what they're earning in any other job, and who - in a very real sense - can barely read and write. I mean, they make the sounds when they read, but nothing seems to live as an idea in their heads. There's a chance that if you don't take the money you'll do something that might get you sacked anyway. My colleague, with 35 years service, took eleven grand and lived on his savings from 55 rather than continue. Another bloke went at 51 before the severances started - just left. I think folk have only a certain tolerance for real boneheaded mismanagement. You can fairly ask whether Thailand wouldn't be more irritating, but (right or wrong) I think a lot of my anger comes from, i) it being my country, and ii) the people involved ludicrously overpaid and (sometimes) knowing better.

Then again, you might be right.

[Craig krup]

If you are working in FE with a F/T job and that job is not at immediate risk from compulsory redundancy then I would advice against taking VR.

Just to give you an indication of how a*se-meltingly tedious the behaviour of people in the public sector is, we know that severance is going to be offered, and they've had the meeting and the terms are fixed. But they didn't send it before the holidays, so we'll come back, people will take it and all merry hell will ensue when it comes to covering the classes. Then there's the whole issue of how much money is lost, and could have been saved. If they knew who was leaving before the start of the academic year they can close and amalgamate classes, but they're going to allow the year to start and thus create hell in October, because they're too shiftless and disorganised to do anything else. There's a limit to how much of it you can take if you're bothered about anything or anyone but yourself. One of the things that worries me is that there's a sorting effect going on. They're actually retaining the very people you want to get rid of. My pal worked for Westland Helicopters and they offered severance. He always thought it was a terrible company, and loads of people took the severance. The problem was that it was the people who i) knew bad practice when they saw it, ii) were annoyed by bad practice and iii) knew they could get other jobs who took the money. Three months down the line they had to re-employ a lot of the people who had taken the severance, paying them consultancy money in some cases, because it turned out that the ones who wanted out - the "difficult" people that the incompetent line managers were happy to ditch - were actually the ones who were making the place run at all.

[honu]

Sounds like crunching the numbers related to retirement planning, and weighing risk factors related to that are as important as frustration with current work. Of course living in Thailand wouldn't be ideal either, although people tend to make it sound as if it's either just that, a paradise, or else a horror show.

Somehow it seems to make sense to spin it as a wonderful place that justifies all the trade-offs an expat has made to be here, until it reaches a tipping point and then it's the opposite. From the bit of implied background you should probably be able to sort through what the real pros and cons would be but it's a given that living a relatively isolated life as an outsider makes that list. There are other expats here, of course, and you would know some of them quickly, and have immediate commonality without actually having much in common, but therein lies some of the problem, having not being somewhere else in common as opposed to living where the initial starting point might get sorted way past that.

On the jobs end if a vacation for seeking work can be scheduled then you'd know the score with visits to a short list of better universities, which you could research and set up in advance. It seems likely some limited scope work would be possible but that limited scope pay would go along with that. It sounds like 40 to 50k baht per month would be plenty for a simple life, and maybe it would, but a lot of people have a different experience here, that 70 or 80 is better for a simple life that combines Thai and Western habits and some travel.

[optad]

I will chip in and firstly note you and the thread has packed a lot in comparatively few posts. To that extent, I will just comment on what seems most relevant to your circumstances.

Re. The money. Initially, you seemed to hedge as to whether it is or isn't an issue. It seems it is an issue and that should be where your priorities are. Job opportunities are here for you in Thailand but you should be interested those jobs for the right reasons or problems will develop down the track. Get the best out of you UK situation, max it out until you cannot or is just imprudent.

The job fit for you is tough. Mostly because you have no idea of what is potentially in the ofference for someone like yourself in Thailand and that is fair enough. Got to test the waters. My feeling is that Zeichan was right in that the best starting point would be something like TOK in an IB school or even their global politics DP subject. Perfect and stimualting and the kids love it.

I also think Zeichen is wrong re a short course like the CELTA . Especially so for someone like you. I understand you said you do not want to teach ESL but coming from a teaching background without innate sensitivities to ESL students it would really help. Zeichen and i have crossed swords on this before and his focus seems to be "opening doors " or career pathways for teachers abroad. I do not advocate the CELTA for that but it would serve someone like you well. And give you an affinity of what ahead if you view it through a non TEFL application.

Not doing so is no problem of course but i sense your expectations from Thai students in your field may be higher than you think. This can be problematic. If that were the case and a problem it it would not be their fault and the CELTA suddenly of more use than previously thought because you need to readjust. This will be very true in a typical university setting. The standards outside of the best three or four is deplorable.

Chula was mentioned earlier and it is at the highest end of candidates to teach in the university spectrum. I have worked with their debating teams over the years and the kids rock!! Operatic! Totally can tear issues apart with all the lexical and syntactical and philosophical skills imaginable. But it is unreal. You will never get these kids in an ordinary classroom, and certainly most universities have not got that calibre of student nor their desire to deal with philosophical or political triestes in any language. [iB TOK aside].

RIJB asked about your content fields intuitively. I think he sensed or wondered; can you fit or meet the needs of Thai students? Brings us back to IBDP/TOK classes as that is where the most vibrant discussions on philosophical and political thought in English will happen in Thailand. I couch it like this because without prior experience in ESL you will not 'know the learner' and the mistakes from there can be exponential.

Teaching should never be about the teacher. These days it is more exploratory or a partnership in finding new conclusions. Non international minded environments will find that idea difficult to understand.

Lastly bring your temperance.

Good luck

[SheungWan]

If you are working in FE with a F/T job and that job is not at immediate risk from compulsory redundancy then I would advice against taking VR. You are too young to go outside. OK, if you have come into a big inheritance, maybe, but the security of a F/T job is not to be sniffed at. All the maybe stuff is lightweight and why exchange the hellhole of FE for the hellhole of a private college in Thailand earning peanuts. As it stands lets say you have contributed 20 years into your Teachers Pension scheme. And let's say you are earning £50k. At 20/80 of £50k you have a pension of £12.5K to look forward to if you wait to collect until you are 60. If you start collecting earlier then even that amount will be actuarily reduced. Public pension? And what do you think that's worth? As for the payout being offered to leave what is it? Less than one year's pay? Mmmmm... not sure this one will fly.

It's a good point, but I've more years in the scheme and lower wages! That said, you're about right - 13k at sixty, and a lump sum. The thing is, though, there are a number of other considerations. The teachers' pension is based on your final salary or the best three inflation-adjusted years from the last ten. Because there have always been above inflation pay rises the second calculation has never mattered. But now people who quit are locking in 2009-11 as their best three years, because the public sector pay freeze means that for the first time in a long time "inflation adjusted" is better than final salary. They're also bringing in a new career average scheme which gives you 1/57ths at 65. I'm "partially protected", but soon any new pension I earn won't pay out until five years later. Then there's the whole stomach-churning nuisance of being in a sector that couldn't its collective backside with both hands and a map. I'm sick to the back teeth of managers who can't manage and "professionals" in qualification organisations (and similar) who couldn't earn a third of what they're earning in any other job, and who - in a very real sense - can barely read and write. I mean, they make the sounds when they read, but nothing seems to live as an idea in their heads. There's a chance that if you don't take the money you'll do something that might get you sacked anyway. My colleague, with 35 years service, took eleven grand and lived on his savings from 55 rather than continue. Another bloke went at 51 before the severances started - just left. I think folk have only a certain tolerance for real boneheaded mismanagement. You can fairly ask whether Thailand wouldn't be more irritating, but (right or wrong) I think a lot of my anger comes from, i) it being my country, and ii) the people involved ludicrously overpaid and (sometimes) knowing better.

Then again, you might be right.

I know how bad the experience of working in FE can be, but don't walk. At your age that would IMHO be a mistake and don't be tempted to follow those colleagues who have thrown in the towel. Two exceptions: one is if you are pretty sure that compulsories are following on from VR and therefore the VR offer is worth taking instead of compulsory pay-off. Second is if you have a better job lined up. By better I mean better pay and better career (if you are 50+ then this is probably too late for that). If neither of those are on offer then you hunker down and resist the siren calls of Thailand. Your target is 60. Then you can do what you want. In the meantime you emotionally detach yourself from the place (cut out participating in the gossip, go passive on the TU stuff and go home when your schedule is finished), do your job, make yourself useful and prepare for the future ie the future beyond teaching in FE. That may mean eg learning Thai and building up a war chest to go a wandering. But now, between 50 and 60 you are at your most vulnerable. Don't chuck it all in because you 'can't take it any more'. Stiff upper lip. And don't suddenly turn up in Thailand with peanuts, hoping to earn more peanuts and scraping around in some private language school barrel.

Edited July 6, 2015 by SheungWan

[Craig krup]

Re. The money. Initially, you seemed to hedge as to whether it is or isn't an issue. It seems it is an issue and that should be where your priorities are. Job opportunities are here for you in Thailand but you should be interested those jobs for the right reasons or problems will develop down the track. Get the best out of you UK situation, max it out until you cannot or is just imprudent.

I also think Zeichen is wrong re a short course like the CELTA . Especially so for someone like you.

Not doing so is no problem of course but i sense your expectations from Thai students in your field may be higher than you think. .....The standards outside of the best three or four is deplorable.

I've tried to reply a couple of times and after ten minutes typing "Add reply" results in a security certificate problem and an invitation to press the back button having lost everything you've typed. You'd almost think that this was a deliberate attempt to get you used to the problems you might experience in country!

The thing about money is that Prince was right - just when you think you've got more than enough......I think i'm okay, but maybe I'll get plastered and have triplets with some irresponsible female and end up paying three grand a month in school fees. It makes me sweat thinking about it. Maybe I'll get myself gelded.

I don't think I'd do CELTA because I genuinely thought it useful. I'd do it to say I'd done it. I'm surrounded by ESOL lecturers, and for most of them I'd say that hard work would kill them. The idea that I spend hundreds of hours every year preparing materials isn't part of their worldview. They photocopy from "the pack", hand it out, supervise noisy chaos and never seem to care that the same students come back year after year making no progress at all. I don't know if you've noticed it, or would agree, but a lot of ESOL lecturers don't seem to have interior lives. Try to get one of them to tell you a joke or an anecdote and get the stress in the right places: it's like the Stepford Wives with a tan and visas.

The point about low-quality students is an issue. Most 17-18 year old westerners shouldn't be using philosophy, politics and sociology to acquire reading, reasoning and writing skills. All you do is introduce a whole load of affective issues which stand in the way of them looking closely at what is written and what has been said. If someone gets to 18 and they haven't shown any interest in ideas then trying to fix their literacy through engineering an encounter with some of the most subtle ideas humans have ever had is like taking a 50 year old to Cambodia as their first venture out of Kilwinning. Robert Graves jacked in his post-WW1 sinecure in Egypt, with no other job to go to, when the absurdity of teaching the students basic English through the medium of university-level discourse finally became too much. He relates some of the "honours" essays in "Goodbye to all that" - worth reading. So - yes - a British uni feeder faculty in China or Malaysia might be a lot better, if I could swing it.

[Craig krup]

I know how bad the experience of working in FE can be, but don't walk. At your age that would IMHO be a mistake and don't be tempted to follow those colleagues who have thrown in the towel. Two exceptions: one is if you are pretty sure that compulsories are following on from VR and therefore the VR offer is worth taking instead of compulsory pay-off. Second is if you have a better job lined up. By better I mean better pay and better career (if you are 50+ then this is probably too late for that). If neither of those are on offer then you hunker down and resist the siren calls of Thailand. Your target is 60. Then you can do what you want. In the meantime you emotionally detach yourself from the place (cut out participating in the gossip, go passive on the TU stuff and go home when your schedule is finished), do your job, make yourself useful and prepare for the future ie the future beyond teaching in FE. That may mean eg learning Thai and building up a war chest to go a wandering. But now, between 50 and 60 you are at your most vulnerable. Don't chuck it all in because you 'can't take it any more'. Stiff upper lip. And don't suddenly turn up in Thailand with peanuts, hoping to earn more peanuts and scraping around in some private language school barrel.

I know what you're saying, but I'll never forget the Michael Douglas remark in "Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps". Prison taught Gordon Gekko something. Money is just a proxy for time. It's time that is valuable. We will die. People who leave teaching at 50 live longer. You can argue that they're a self-selected group who in some way know that they'll live longer, but a better explanation is that teaching slowly kills you. I shouldn't be over-dramatic, however. The schools are a hundred times worse, and my idiot of a boss left so if I compare the real stress compared to what it was five, ten or fifteen years ago it's nothing like as bad. I suppose I just have lower tolerance for what stress their is because I think I've got more options, and they start throwing money at me for doing nothing in 2025! Thank God I bought those past added years. I was the last person to avail himself of the opportunity when they withdrew it ten years ago - got in by days, and it turned out to be a much better deal than I had reason to expect. I also get access to my totally separate private pension in four and a half years, so if they give me some dough - isn't "some dough" a thing in a bowl with noodles? - I'd probably be okay. I just don't know if I could fill the days.

Nobody who left has said anything but "Thank God". They all say they've never regretted it, although you could argue they'd have to say that. I'm in at work right now just to use the gym. There's a new icon on my desktop which keeps a running total - in pounds and pence - of my print jobs. My colleague has come in to do some work and they've changed her password and locked her out of her machine. It doesn't take an awful lot to remind you of just how much you hate the behaviour of non-teachers. As one of my colleagues said, you can divide all the staff into two groups - those who have to confront the students on a sustained and daily basis, and those who don't. This is a really powerful idea. It's not juts teaching and non-teaching, it's actually being made to face the reality of the service.

After 25 years (PT then FT) of teaching there's just something about giving people something to read and then taking it to bits, or standing up and doing my "Look, Robin Williams has a philosophy PhD" skit, that really breaks the back of an otherwise too-long day. I'd probably want to do it if they didn't pay me. Happy is the man who's paid for his hobbies, if only there weren't so many utter strokers trying to interfere with the smooth functioning of my "hobby"

Edited July 10, 2015 by Craig krup

[SheungWan]

I know how bad the experience of working in FE can be, but don't walk. At your age that would IMHO be a mistake and don't be tempted to follow those colleagues who have thrown in the towel. Two exceptions: one is if you are pretty sure that compulsories are following on from VR and therefore the VR offer is worth taking instead of compulsory pay-off. Second is if you have a better job lined up. By better I mean better pay and better career (if you are 50+ then this is probably too late for that). If neither of those are on offer then you hunker down and resist the siren calls of Thailand. Your target is 60. Then you can do what you want. In the meantime you emotionally detach yourself from the place (cut out participating in the gossip, go passive on the TU stuff and go home when your schedule is finished), do your job, make yourself useful and prepare for the future ie the future beyond teaching in FE. That may mean eg learning Thai and building up a war chest to go a wandering. But now, between 50 and 60 you are at your most vulnerable. Don't chuck it all in because you 'can't take it any more'. Stiff upper lip. And don't suddenly turn up in Thailand with peanuts, hoping to earn more peanuts and scraping around in some private language school barrel.

I know what you're saying, but I'll never forget the Michael Douglas remark in "Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps". Prison taught Gordon Gekko something. Money is just a proxy for time. It's time that is valuable. We will die. People who leave teaching at 50 live longer. You can argue that they're a self-selected group who in some way know that they'll live longer, but a better explanation is that teaching slowly kills you. I shouldn't be over-dramatic, however. The schools are a hundred times worse, and my idiot of a boss left so if I compare the real stress compared to what it was five, ten or fifteen years ago it's nothing like as bad. I suppose I just have lower tolerance for what stress their is because I think I've got more options, and they start throwing money at me for doing nothing in 2025! Thank God I bought those past added years. I was the last person to avail himself of the opportunity when they withdrew it ten years ago - got in by days, and it turned out to be a much better deal than I had reason to expect. I also get access to my totally separate private pension in four and a half years, so if they give me some dough - isn't "some dough" a thing in a bowl with noodles? - I'd probably be okay. I just don't know if I could fill the days.

Nobody who left has said anything but "Thank God". They all say they've never regretted it, although you could argue they'd have to say that. I'm in at work right now just to use the gym. There's a new icon on my desktop which keeps a running total - in pounds and pence - of my print jobs. My colleague has come in to do some work and they've changed her password and locked her out of her machine. It doesn't take an awful lot to remind you of just how much you hate the behaviour of non-teachers. As one of my colleagues said, you can divide all the staff into two groups - those who have to confront the students on a sustained and daily basis, and those who don't. This is a really powerful idea. It's not juts teaching and non-teaching, it's actually being made to face the reality of the service.

After 25 years (PT then FT) of teaching there's just something about giving people something to read and then taking it to bits, or standing up and doing my "Look, Robin Williams has a philosophy PhD" skit, that really breaks the back of an otherwise too-long day. I'd probably want to do it if they didn't pay me. Happy is the man who's paid for his hobbies, if only there weren't so many utter strokers trying to interfere with the smooth functioning of my "hobby"

Don't get too philosophical. Follow the money. If you can line something up to replace then do it, otherwise no. As for the printer I do recall a colleague or two who used to virtually burn out the photocopying machines as they photocopied whole books and mountains of junk. Most FE managements will tell you (at least they would have done so in the past) that next to staff salaries it was the photocopying bill that blew them out of the water. What are you worrying about other colleagues stuff anyway. I told you not to . Hang on in there at least for the next 4.5 years before that pension kicks in. You could at least (instead of worrying about other colleague's issues spend those years working on a second income stream. Alternatively you will throw in your hand and be another burned out teacher looking for 'er a teaching job in Thailand. Up to you as they say. But don't forget FTM.