Here are some letters that were sent among me, a friend of mine who was also a new English teacher hired by that company (I'll keep her anonymous since this is going to show up to a lot of people), and our "boss," Kristina. The reason I even use the label "boss" is because she was our ONLY contact when we were hired; she continued to be our only contact until further down the road when we finally knew who Esra was, the other source of so-called "help" that was part of the Doga Koleji administration.

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Here is the letter of resignation from my friend, sent to Kristina the day of or day after her arrival back here in the States:

As you have probably realized, I will no longer be working for Doga Koleji. I have never encountered a company that is so incompetent and cares so little for the people it employs. Doga does not deserve to call itself an educational institution, since as I have witnessed firsthand, there is little education of children that occurs. Rather than making use of the talents of your educated employees with college degrees, Doga is more concerned with the image it puts out, and pleasing the parents. It is appalling that parents who pay over 10,000 YTL to send their children to this joke of a "school" each year do not know that some of the people "teaching" their children do not even hold university degrees. It is saddening that the children attend a school called "nature school," and yet are strongly discouraged from going outdoors, and kept in a small, stuffy classroom for 8 hours a day. It is not effective education when children are shown cartoons several times a week (non-educational). It is not effective education when children are given stringent assessments when they are barely 5 years old. It is not effective education when teachers spend the majority of the day writing in parent communication notebooks about the children, rather than spend the time teaching their students.

Separate from my issues with the claims of Doga Koleji as an educational institution, I am simply appalled at the treatment of both "native speakers" and Turkish teachers that I have witnessed during my time working for Doga.

For me personally, Doga has managed to negatively color my experience in Turkey. Although I have tried to separate my Doga experience with my experience with Turkey and Turkish people, it still does not change that I spent thousands of dollars to fly across the world and was wholly disappointed by what I thought would be a promising school and teaching job. The Doga website and communications I had with Kristina Kolb before my arrival were entirely misleading. I would venture the website is an outright lie, as there is nothing I saw in the 6 weeks of teaching at Doga Koleji that relates to nature. Upon arrival, I was given no welcome, dropped in my apartment, given no guidance about the location of the apartment, how to get around Istanbul, or even how to go to the store and buy food. Beyond minimal assistance in buying a mobile phone, Kristina, representing Doga, offered no help in the difficult adjustment period when moving to a new country. Beyond taking us to Beykoz and briefly showing us a few lesson plans(which I never saw again and was left to develop my own lessons), she disappeared and ignored my reaching out for assistance. She actually lied to my face, telling me Sariyer campus would be 20 minutes away, and there would be a shuttle picking me up outside the apartment. These were both entirely untrue, as explained below. She also ignored my calls and knocking on her door when I did not know about my transportation to school that morning, and could not call, since the person driving me did not speak English. She was rude and yelled at me, all while being my only English speaking contact at Doga.

Doga violated multiple aspects of the contract I signed before coming to Turkey. I took the job on the conditions there would be round-trip transportation by a service bus from my residence to my school. I also took the job with the understanding that housing was provided. These were both complete lies. I still cannot believe Doga Koleji has the audacity to hire someone who is across the world, let them fly over on their own expenses, place the person in a conservative, working class neighborhood that is a suburb of Istanbul and far removed from the downtown part of the city, and then not have the transportation and adequate housing promised in the contract. In the first week of school, as a result of Doga, I ended up on the side of a highway in the dark, not speaking a word of Turkish, because there was no transportation provided by Doga back to my residence and I was told to get on the wrong public bus. I have risked my life each morning driving with a school employee who is unsafe and reckless in the car, and arrived earlier than my hours, because there was no service bus as promised in the contract. In the evening, I eventually realized I had two choices: to work longer hours than in my contract and wait until the teacher service bus leaves(sometimes not until after 6, then sit in traffic and arrive home at 8 or after, but still have to walk over 30 minutes on an unsafe road in the dark by myself) or fund my own transportation home and spend over an hour standing uncomfortably on a crowded public bus since there was no transportation directly to my residence. All of this I had to fight, figure out, and demand myself (with the help of a wonderful Turkish teacher as a translator.) There was absolutely no assistance from anyone in the Doga management(whatever that is).

Although I have many complaints about Doga and the conditions they placed me in, I have wasted enough time with this ridiculous excuse for a business, and will not list them all on paper, as it would take days. However, the housing was not adequate, as we have not had continuous hot water and no heat since arriving. When I informed Kristina, who I believed to be my contact at the school, she ignored me. Doga does not have any concern that it is over a 2 hour commute for me home from school, and has offered no help in searching for an apartment on the European side. Apart from Tulay, the kindegarten director and Ozge and other fellow Turkish teachers at Sariyer, no one at Doga has been at all supportive or helpful during my time here. I received no lesson plans, there is no organization in the company, I had to fight for my reimbursement of medical and transport costs, and also for my salary. Maybe in Turkey this is acceptable, but I was raised with the values that you treat others with respect, including your employees. It is a tragedy the way Doga treats the Turkish teachers they employee, overworking and forcing them into difficult conditions. When parents wonder why teachers look so unhappy, miserable, depressed, and stressed, I hope they see the connection that it is because Doga, their employer, does not have any care for their well-being and health and overworks them. This has a direct connection to the education of the children, as happy teachers make for happy children and a better chance of academic success. Doga obviously does not realize this connection, and until they do, they will continue to have a high turnover rate in teachers and in my view be a failing institution. The white couches, the sparkling clean floors, the classical music on the loudspeakers, the posters everywhere ofsmiling children on horses, all of this may convince people for awhile, but eventually I hope people will see the truth about this dishonest business. I do not know who is in charge at Doga, but as far as I can tell it is money. Doga should be embarrassed at how they operate with the aim of making money, not educating children. They are a disgusting business, and one I hope will not last, because of their disrespect, incompetency, and disregard for human rights.

I will inevitably now return to the U.S. with a negative impression of Doga, and although I know it is not the same for all educational institutations, Doga has caused me to be weary and skeptical. That is sad to me, as I have met many wonderful Turkish people and know that it is businesses like Doga and the reckless disregard for the rights of humans that cause people to be miserable, unhappy and frustrated. I hope that Doga discontinues this sick practice of hiring English speakers just as a publicity and image ploy for parents, rather than being interested in them actually teaching, and do not impose this fate on any other native English speakers in the future. I will certainly do everything in my power to be sure no one else ever spends the time, money and effort to work for Doga Koleji.

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Here is Kristina's response:

I don't want to go into a detailed reply about each one of your complaints. I am myself a foreigner living in Turkey and I have learned that there are cultural differences that one simply has to accept. Turkey has a very different culture, especially as far as education is concerned, and as much as I may disagree with it, as a foreigner I believe I have no right to criticize the culture of my host country in the way you did. If you cannot live with it, fine, leave, but we do have native speakers that have been with us for years and that are perfectly happy here, so I do not believe that it is entirely the school's fault if you could not adapt.
I was under the impression that we had hired mature adults and not that we would have to babysit our teachers.
As I explained repeatedly, sorting out transportation and taking care of accommodation issues is not my job, and even though I do not have a problem with helping out, I would consider that a personal favor and, thus, would expect to be treated with respect and asked appropriately. Despite the fact that you failed to do so, I did all that was in my power to solve problems.
Please note that your leaving does not hurt us or the school in general, but your students and the very people at school that you were praising.

We wish you all the best for your future.

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At first, I was planning on not speaking to Kristina at all after leaving; however, I couldn't resist sending her an email early this morning.

Kristina,

I just want to let you know that I'm shocked at your reply to __(other English teacher)___'s letter. You addressed absolutely nothing that she wrote about.

When I met you, I thought you were a relatively kind, friendly person who I could maybe make friends with during the year. I reached out to you at several points, and you didn't seem to want anything to do with me or the other English teachers, even the ones who lived in the same apartment unit as you.

The fact is, when I had a chest infection (as I understood from the school doctor) possibly due to my window never closing for six weeks straight, having no hot water, and no heating, it was not your fault and, according to you, not your responsibility. However, I had no idea who to talk to. I had talked to Esra and had no response, so I wanted to ask you if you had a suggestion for who else to ask for help -- we were getting desperate. When we knocked on your door, you were in there (we heard you), and then you answered us by texting me five minutes later. I'm sorry, but that's pretty low. You could have at the very least opened the door, looked us in the eye, and told us that it was not your responsibility. I find the way you responded to be wimpy and evasive, and after that moment, my respect for you lowered greatly.

Yes, we were in Turkey, in a different culture. None of us ever disregarded or disrespected the culture. Why would we have moved there intending to dedicate a year of our lives in the first place if we were not ready to accept the Turkish culture for what it is? For you to say that we were disrespectful of Turkey's culture and values was completely ridiculous. As for the educational system, I would say that it is specifically Doga Koleji with the faults that Kate listed.

This has nothing to do with you, but I'd like to share it as another reason I decided I shouldn't stay with the school: when I was switched over to Atasehir, this was the conversation (while I was at Acarkent):

Suhanden: Alia, come with me. There is a meeting for all native teachers right now at Asist.
Alia: Ok, are we going there right now then?
Suhanden: Yes, we will drive you there.

I get to Asist, am told to go inside, and go inside. There is Esra, by herself, and takes me into the conference room. I ask her where the other native teachers are; she says, "It's just you and me." Then, she tells me about switching me to Atasehir.

That whole thing just creeped me out. I was so weirded out that I would be told it was a meeting with "all native teachers" and that was the way to get me into a room with Esra to be told that I was being switched to the campus that I had heard so many negative things about. When I got to that campus, I was yelled at at one point for being in the 2-year-old room, when no one had told me anything about where I should go. I'm a very open-minded and easy-going person, and even for me, that was just way too much.

I'm not going to say where I am right now, just that I'm not coming back to Doga. There were some much worse things that drove me to the edge; I don't feel like listing them, since it won't do any good.