Positive comments such as yours are a breath of fresh air, Kevin. Although I have no particular interest in teaching children, I have worked a few summer camps in China that turned out to be rewarding experiences. I'm glad to know that your experience with a training center has been worthwhile over the long term and hope you enjoy your visit back to the States.

In addition, your well written post, free of embellishments, has shown that characterizing all training centers as "crap" is a huge stretch of embittered imagination. Thanks for keeping it honest.

I understand that a teacher was just dispatched from his department last week. He must be gleeful -- he takes pleasure in dispatching unsuspecting, innocent victims.

Who is gleeful? I, the angry, merciless academic director or the teacher who has recently left? If me, you bet your sweet ass I am happy this loser of a teacher left. The rest of the school is also gleeful as are the parents who had to endure his horrible teaching performance. I had noticed his students were rather despondent during the last month or so of his time here. Now those same students are also "gleeful", running around and playing and smiling like good little first graders should be doing!

but when the parents of this school, who pay RMB 60,000 a year in tuition so that their children can endure things like this, they revolted...they organised a parents' meeting and were they furious because even they have seen the pattern of his behavior.

Get your facts straight sir: The amount is about 40,000 rmb depending on whether or not the child will be boarded. It's only slightly more if this is the case. The school actually organized a parents' meeting after the loser teacher mentioned above abruptly departed to do some damage control. They have to when a teacher unprofessionally quits without notice. The school (with my help) quickly covered his classes in a 24 hour period with all the other professional teachers of the department pitching in to cover the classes until the end of June. Never an ideal situation, but at least now we know the kids are going to receive a PROPER education for their few remaining weeks/days of this semester.

By the way, just a quick update. The "furious" parents put a petition together and all but one signed it (can't please everybody you know) and then they submitted it to the school. In this petition they asked the school if I could please come back in September to teach their children when they move into 2nd grade. To say I was extremely flattered is an understatement. Nobody has ever done something so complimentary towards me before. Sure I've gotten token gifts and thank you cards and what-not as the years have gone by; certainly nice comments from parents as well, but nothing to this degree. Also by the way, in that petition, they also noted how displeased they were with the recently-departed teacher and how happy their children seem to suddenly be again now that they have all new interesting teachers who actually seem to know what they are doing!

The school has announced that the assistant academic director is taking a year's leave of absence and going home for "medical treatment". Apparently he will leave soon and return only next year...but from what I hear, he may be in for a big surprise when it comes time for his return.

The "school" has announced no such thing. As much as I am flattered by the parents' request as mentioned above, I chose several months ago (last school year as a matter of fact) that I would like a leave-of-absence (no medical treatment necessary - I get what I need in that regard right here in China). At that point, I had been in China for 5 years and now it's been 6 years, 4 of them at this same job. I'm not Chinese, I'm American and I've missed such simple things as my friends, my family, Christmas, visiting a book store or the public library (I'm a voracious reader), etc. Not only did the school agree but, to date, I have already signed a new contract for my eventual return in 2010 and they've already given me a year-long residence permit to make it easier for me to come and go during this time period. We've also agreed that, should we get another boorish teacher such as the one who just left us, they'll contact me and I'll come back earlier. We've agreed on salary increases, a retirement bonus, full-coverage health insurance, and a few other perks. Now, I will agree on one thing. This IS China and the rug could certainly be pulled out from under me while I'm gone. But it's not as if I don't have any other options. I am a well-trained, well-experienced teacher who can land a job in China or in the states at the drop of a hat. The superintendent of the previous school district where I was employed prior to coming to China, upon hearing of my return, has sent me emails hoping that I will just return to the states for good. Yeah, piss-poor teachers get these kinds of offers from both sides of the pond! (that was sarcasm by the way for those that don't get it)

I had actually missed this particular response by the man named "StephanieB" as the posts were coming fast and furious at one time. Just thought I'd set the record straight and, you know, stir the pot a little.

Dear Silverboy,

Thank you so much for your kind words and your assistance in fending off the bully.

Now, I am going to speak to several issues.

Currently, the bully plays down his role as only "assistant academic director" or something like that. He is the brains and the powerhouse of the section in which he is located. Teachers are hired and dispatched according to his will and his whims and he suffers no loss of modesty at all. In his opinion, his decisions are infalliable and he brooks no criticisms.

I am not the older man Yank that he purports me to be. I am another one of his many, many victims that he has chewed up and spit out, and I am surprised that he has forgotten..maybe there have been JUST THAT MANY.

Now, let's speak to the facts.

Abuse of Chinese Staff

There was a FAO in that school called Andy when I was there. This assistant academic director took great pleasure in screaming and shouting at this poor guy and reducing him to tears. We used to have pick up the pieces after this ogre finished demolishing him. Eventually, and rather rapidly, Andy left (but I was already gone by that time).

There is the boss of this assistant academic director a woman named __ who is currently in England. On her very, very first day in the school, this all powerfull assistant academic director engaged in a shouting match with her and reduced her to tears. Now she is intimidated and bullied by him.

These are just the most salient examples.

Abuse of FT's

Don't get in this assistant academic director's way or you will be chopped meat very quickly. He has the art of bullying practised to a fine science.

He criticized my non-American accent, made sexist and racist remarks that would have landed him in serious trouble in the United States, harrassed me, browbeat me, and the like.

But his specialities were something else :

terror-by-email.

Oh, he loves this. Both me and other teachers and many teachers that followed.

But the emails only arrived on off-hours on the week-ends, early Saturday or Sunday mornings, and they would be pages and pages long, telling you what kind of a crappy, incommensurate, untrained teacher you were and that essentially, he alone was God. And they start as soon as you join the school...not even a grace period. We are lowly, he is almighty. I should publish them all here so everyone can read them.

the observe your class 4-5 times a week to pick up your faults

I've been teaching in China three years and will continue to do so in Shanghai. I am professionally trained. I have never been the assistant manager of a pizza store.

When you join this assistant academic director's department, you will be "reviewed and audited and criticised" by him 4-5 times a week, week-in, week-out, and the crap that he writes is just inane, completely inane. In no serious institution of learning is a teacher observed 4-5 times a week, week in, week out.

He will trash you to the other teachers in the department and he loves to operate in a wolf-pack syndrome. He would gather them ALL together and they would descend upon my poor little class to find fault with me. He does have his little coteries -- it's the only way to survive in this gulag.

The Poor Children

I understand that a teacher was just dispatched from his department last week. He must be gleeful -- he takes pleasure in dispatching unsuspecting, innocent victims.

The turnover in his department is the worst in the school, and in the school it is already abnormally high -- abnormally, abnormally so. I was dispatched, one another well-qualified American lady ran for cover (and no, sir, she wasn't ill - it was the pretext to melt away), prior to that many master's degree and Ph.D. holders who had unknowingly fallen into his lair had also been dispatched.

Anyway, previously, he could always paint this on the teachers..but now there is a pattern for all to see. He is obviously threatened by talent and does not like to be shown up.

But as to the children, well, after he dispatched his latest victim last week, in a screaming, screaming, screaming fit in front of all of the other teachers (Get Out! Get Out Now! Get Out Or I Will Have You Removed!), something unusual happened.

The teacher he dispatched allowed himself to be dispatched...but when the parents of this school, who pay RMB 60,000 a year in tuition so that their children can endure things like this, they revolted...they organised a parents' meeting and were they furious because even they have seen the pattern of his behavior.

The School's Line

The school has announced that the assistant academic director is taking a year's leave of absence and going home for "medical treatment". Apparently he will leave soon and return only next year...but from what I hear, he may be in for a big surprise when it comes time for his return.

Thank you Silverboy for believing in me. I am in Mme S. de B. and I was indeed trashed and suffered a minor nervous breakdown because of this lout. And when I learned of his on-going tactics, I had to take the pen in hand. I had to.