Hey, Mister!

We've been feeling a little bit like frogs in hot water recently. You know the old adage: place a frog into boiling water and it'll jump out; put the same frog in cold water and apply heat, you have a cooked frog.

Although I don't mean to belittle the experience of Jews in Nazi Germany by any means, I sometimes do feel like I know to some extent what they went through in the years leading up to the concentration camps. Hitler didn't just suddenly round up the jews and the gays and ship them off. His process was a very slow and dedicated method of stripping the jews of their rights and freedoms, one at a time. I suppose one must have thought, "Well, we can't go to the market on Tuesdays anymore. Well, what can you do? We still have the rest of the week." And on this note Hitler was able to suppress any uprising by doing it slowly and methodically.

My point is that schools here, and mine is the case in point, have a tendency to hook you into working for them, and then slowly and continuously pile on the work, contractual obligations and promises be damned, until it reaches a breaking point. I haven't had to suffer this so much recently as I work solely in the kindergarten, so my kids don't have as much homework and tests as the older kids do (but they DO get some homework, almost everyday. These are four and five year olds. With homework. It's sick).

Rob's getting the shit absolutely thrown at him: they are demanding nearly four hours of out of class work per week, unpaid, which includes creating homework and tests, marking the homework and tests, as well as writing daily personal records in each of their communication books that get sent home to the parents. The most recent disgrace is that, even if he spends several hours creating the tests and homework on the weekend, the boss can say that she doesn't like it, change anything she deems unfit, and then not pay him for the work because it wasn't good enough.

Oh, and they also wouldn't mind if he could teach them the material in the curriculum as well. Did I mention that his Chinese co-teacher quit suddenly a few weeks ago, and there hasn't been even a whisper of a replacement? That means he has the work of three people now, as the co-teachers usually do double the work of a normal person, for half the pay and double the hours. Did that make any sense? Basically we make six times what they do.

The administration are walking on thin ice treating Rob in this abusive manner. He's ready to pack up and go, and frankly if he loses his job today, they don't lose only him, I'll be right behind him, quitting on his heels. They may think they can afford to fuck with him, but the school is in dire straights recently and I know they'd be rather screwed if they lost two teachers mid-semester; the parents just wouldn't put up with it and the school would see many kids pulled. Thankfully, Rob has a meeting today with both of the directors of the school to see if he can't get something resolved. I think he's going to ask to either be paid for his time, no questions, or get out of creating the extra homework and tests, especially if they are going to claim veto power.

I just want to add that we are aware that "real" teachers in the west are overworked and underpaid and have all worlds of extra work that they are expected to do. However, I do believe that this is laid out in contracts, and is a known aspect of the job, so it doesn't come as a surprise to them when this happens. For us, we were hired for a job and they are slowly cooking us alive with these menial tasks and downright disrespectful and abusive behavior.

Will keep you posted.