Re: Aston

Ah, Midna, you've fallen into using one of the lowest "logical fallacies" = attacking the opponent. You've labeled me a "troll," a "loonie" (loony?) and "stupid," in which case, I can't possible be correct about anything because I'm an idiot attacking intelligent people like yourself for no good reason. However, since you're logical fallacy is inadmissible and incorrect, it just makes you look like a very shabby debater. On to your other "points"

Forgive me almighty troll, for I've made a few typos on a forum full of grammar/spelling Nazis.

It's not such a problem if you aren't deriding other people's intelligence, in which case yours is more likely to be challenged in turn. Grammar/spelling Nazis? That's a bit over-the-top, isn't it?

You still have yet to address why you're coming into a review topic about a specific thing and talking about very general things.

It's the underlying policies and philosophy that creature the surface trivia.

I also can't seem to picture your version of a well informed/educated person. You can easily find this site outside of China (before you ever set foot here). If these people really did exist they'd probably be scared off of private schools because of this site alone.

It sometimes seems that information we have should be known by everyone, but most teachers I know don't know about this site. I would also add that most teachers I know are reasonably intelligent and informed irrespective of where they work.

You're a looney if you think that these recruiters are good enough to trick anyone and everyone they encounter, regardless of how smart they (the future English teacher) are.

This is a "straw man" argument, and also an inadmissible logical fallacy (not to mention the other fallacy of attacking the opponent). You attribute a bogus argument to me and then defeat it in the hopes of defeating my real argument. It's not that they can trick "anyone and everyone they encounter," but that it's their job to lure in people, and they take advantage of people's trust and decency to lure in a lot of intelligent and well-intentioned teachers. Currently there is a lot more information on small cities that might be undesirable than there was even a few years ago.

Some months ago I received a lot of job offers and researched the cities as best I could. There were still some I could find scant little about, while others I could only find out about what crops were raised, what minerals were available, and luckily some studies about things like the particulate pollution level in the city in question. But a Google search might not turn up specific school reviews at all for most schools, and there might be very little for smaller cities as well.

So either you can prove my point by admitting you were stupid and got stuck at a bad school, or you can prove my point that you did enough research to avoid private schools. You can even say you made a dumb choice and later rectified it by actually researching the new place you'd be going to. Regardless, I win.

This isn't about winning or losing, but rather about informing would-be teachers about problem schools and general problems with private schools (in this thread). The rubric you've provided is too erroneous for me to engage. It's impossible that I am or ever was "stupid," for example.

How do you honestly compare moving to an unfamiliar country with getting into a taxi and going for a drive around the block?

You compared working for a private school in China to getting in a taxi in a bad neighborhood at 2 in the morning, or something along those lines. You're analogy was too extreme and I toned it down.

Well, according to your logic, if you worked for Aston, than you didn't do those extremely simple "things".

That's your "logic," or rather your unfounded conclusion. I know of a crap school that there's nothing you can find bad about on the internet, for example. The city is interesting and a tourist destination, but the school sucks. You'd really have a difficult time finding that out, and the recruiters wouldn't tell you, and current employees wouldn't tell you because you'd only get the email of a manager or someone else in an administrative or supportive position.

Aww, poor guy. According to my logic, I did the simple things and so I found a good Aston to work at. Which is where I work, not where I worked. Nice try though.

Well then, you have less than a quarter of the vacation I have, and you share your apartment, and you get half the bonus, and you teach little children with their parents watching you, and maybe you have to hand out fliers, and you pay for your own electricity and internet. And you're telling me that I'm a poor, stupid, loony troll?

Army recruiters do a MUCH better job taking advantage of people/tricking them. To use your own example against you, if someone told me I'd be making as much money as a doctor I'd think he was either lying to me, or being a doctor in China doesn't say much for your income.

Someone recruited you to think sharing an apartment and paying for your own utilities and a measly 1 week of paid vacation per term is a good deal! You didn't fall for the "doctor's pay" bit, but you fell for thinking you were getting a decent deal one way or another. You're like a person working at Burger King saying that people at worse Burger King restaurants are dupes. You're still at Burger King!

"By your own logic" you must be a well, I don't need to repeat your epithets.

But, if you're enjoying working at the branch you're at, than you've kind of lucked out. I wouldn't condemn others who didn't have such luck and got a pr!ck of a franchisee or a power-abusing foreign manager or a heavily polluted city or incompetence all around or a crappy apartment or whatever else can go wrong, in whichever combination.

My whole gripe with you is that you are calling other people "stupid" for falling into well-placed traps, and for being insufficiently diligently cynical. Meanwhile you are stewing in your own trap.

Good luck anyways with your kiddies.

Re: Aston

Midna wrote:

I guess that means something must have struck a cord with you. Hahaha. Well thanks for "countering" my post.

You probably mean "chord," and yes, but not the way you mean it. It struck me as wrongheaded, as does your response.

So you've had a/some bad experience(s)? Good for you! Hope you learned from it. Just don't knock every Aston out there.

I didn't say anything about my own experience with Aston or if I even had any, nor did I "knock" every branch of the chain school. I addressed a fundamental problem with the ideology underpinning private institutions such as Aston.

My post isn't "Aston is awesome". It's Aston *can be* awesome if you're not smart.

What? Obviously this isn't what you mean to say. Do you mean "awful" or what?

I feel bad for murder victims, but I also feel like it was a dumb idea to get into that car with a stranger at 2 am. So when someone complains and I say "Bummer, didn't you research this city at all" and they say no I just laugh and say "Well what did you expect."

In comparing working for Aston to getting in a car at 2 a.m. with a potential murderer, aren't YOU knocking the whole of Aston?

If this were a completely one sided thing I'd be with you. But it happens to the Chinese workers at school too..

Are you saying that if Aston takes advantage of foreign teachers AND Chinese teachers there are two sides? For there to be two sides, there would need to be something like the teachers taking advantage of the school, not just the school taking advantage of everyone. That's just showing how one sided it really is.

Jumping into another country without any real knowledge of who or what you're working for is a very bad idea.

Of course it is. But we're not arguing about that. We're arguing about how private schools take advantage of well-intentioned, educated and informed people who DID do their research.

I'll admit that most people aren't going to realize that it can be very dog eat dog with private schools here, but the simple things you can do to are in fact, so simple, that you should do them regardless of what company you're going to work for... if you want to have a fun time in China.

Well, according to your logic, if you worked for Aston, than you didn't do those extremely simple "things".

Your message, which I found offensive, is to blame teachers for being taken advantage of by private schools which have mastered the art of doing so. It's not getting into a stranger's car at 2:00 a.m., it's more like getting into taxi you've called for in the middle of the day. The reality is that many schools are far more tricky than would-be teachers would expect, and take advantage of the visa situation, as well as the difficulty of extricating oneself from their contracts without incurring serious financial loss to take advantage of honest people who come to China with good intentions.

I don't work for a private school and AM having fun working and living in China, for the record.

Re: Aston

Sorry Midna, I found your post a bit offensive and took it upon myself to counter a few of your statements.

Midna wrote: See that's what I don't understand about most of the foreigners here. Every (secondary) school has some kind of problem. This is China, not the US or any other country we may be used to living in. Things are done differently here, get over it!:

I dont think the issue is some kind of problem in each school, but rather, a host of flagrant problems that could easily have been avoided or are so foul that they ruin the whole deal. For example, if ones apartment is filthy and old with the cheapest furniture, which is also in various states of dis-repair and the AC or water heater doesnt work properly, and the toilet doesnt work right either, that kind of problem is a deal breaker. You cant be expected to live like a bum in a crack house. If, on top of that, you have to teach classes in McDonalds, and your boss tries to rip you off, and your manager is a tool, well, you have a completely unacceptable situation which you didnt sign up for. Teachers dont need to get over that, schools like Aston need to get over letting their franchisees pull that crap on the foreign teachers they recruit from overseas. In the end, its not that things are done differently here, but that private schools will treat teachers in a way thats just wrong anywhere, including in China.

Public schools should be better because they are run by the government and cant or shouldnt pull the ridiculous crap. The people who run it might be corrupt in some cases, but, they should have some inkling of what they are doing. To be the boss of a private school one merely needs to have enough money to buy a franchise. In a public school you dont have to share your apartment, you get way more vacation (can be @ three months at the university level), and a better bonus. So the problem isnt the country, but the businessmen, and foreign teachers here shouldnt be blamed for being ensnared into working in unacceptable and unhealthy working conditions by the clever marketing ploys of private schools like Aston.

New teachers will hear that they will earn more than a doctor does in China. Thats a typical lure, and new teachers will be defensive if you try to enlighten them on why that statement is so misleading and point out that they are not the richest people in the community because they cant afford a sedan with tinted windows on their salary and they arent living in those nice apartments over there, or over there. A doctor in China is not the same as in the West. Here it means something closer to Pharmacist, and only a Bachelors is required to practice. And even if one does make more money per hour than a local pharmacist with a shop the size of a small apartment, one doesnt get paid for doing lesson plans or grading homework or just sitting around, and one only works 20 hours a week compared to the doctors 40 or 60 plus perks and who knows what.

Similarly, youve gotta love Astons descriptions of the cities they send people to work in. They make the most polluted, dusty, industrial cities sound like exotic paradises. True that teachers shouldnt fall for that crap, but, some responsibility needs to go for those that are actually doing the manipulation and misrepresentation for personal gain at others expense.

Midna also wrote: I'm not defending the Chinese way. It sucks, and it's horrible. Hey, lets not attack all of China here. I dont think its in Confucianism to rip off unsuspecting foreigners. And lets not throw out the baby with the bath water. There are actually good teaching jobs in China. The problem being addressed is the excess of greed and corruption in private schools which is ultimately bad even for those perpetuating it. Everyone benefits from a better system, including the bosses, though some bosses arent mature enough to realize the benefits of owning a successful and well-respected school are greater than being able to treat educated foreign teachers like subservient wretches. Success can be better than lording over staff, and lording over staff guarantees only succeeding to the degree that an imbalanced economic system doesnt allow teachers and staff enough opportunities to flee such situations.

Midna wrote: Everyone who gets screwed over here pretty much gets screwed over for one of two reasons. The first one being the school is just total crap and uses the visa as leverage. Thats not one reason. Thats an encyclopedia of different reasons bound together, and you cant ask a teacher to get over it.

Midna wrote: A foreign manager at an Aston is technically an assistant to the Chinese manager. They're just there to make sure the foreigners are being taken care of. If you have a problem, you need to bring it up with a regional director. They'll get things done quick for the most part.

Technically its the foreign managers job to take it up with regional management, not the teachers. If one has an under-qualified foreign manager who lacks social skills he or she will resent if you go over his or her head. If the foreign manager IS the problem because of power-tripping or parking lot syndrome or some other excess of the ego, and you go over their head, than you are at war.

If you are talking about reporting your Chinese manager or the franchisee to regional management, you might be able to solve an egregious problem or two, but you will be held in contempt for perpetuity and they may try to blacklist you.

Midna wrote: The other is someone doesn't read their contract fully. Yes, they'll try and take advantage of you, but it's your own fault if you let them. You know you don't have to do stuff. You're adults and you can say no.

Theres truth in this, and yet, you cant blame someone if someone else does something wrong to them. Its not their fault if a manager or franchisee tries to take advantage of them in violation of their contract. Dont blame the victim. The teachers may be too overwhelmed by being in a new country where just getting food can be difficult, and they may be insecure about being thrust into being a full time teacher, and also since young adults are targeted for recruitment they may not have enough experience or confidence to stand up for themselves. They also might not have enough money to leave the situation, and may be afraid to make waves. The schools may in fact capitalize on this matrix. Also, since discrepancies revolving around contracts will show up right in the beginning, the teacher who wants to fight it will have to come into the new situation kicking and screaming. Not many are willing to do that.

Midna wrote: Like someone else said... from the sounds of it you guys would wanna close basically every school here. Not gonna happen. Even though these places aren't prefect, they're good at what they were designed for. An opportunity for people to earn a living in China while traveling.

I doubt the schools are designed to give people an opportunity to earn a living while traveling in China. Rather, they are designed to make money for their owners, and take advantage of people who WANT to earn a living while traveling in China. If you work for Aston you wont earn much of a living, and you wont have a lot of opportunities to travel in China unless you consider two weeks or three weeks in a year a lot of time. Youd be better off just flying in and traveling for a month and half and flying back home to a real salary if you wanted to travel.

The schools dont need to be shut down unless they are truly terrible, but there need to be serious repercussions for abuses of foreign and Chinese staff (who are often treated abominably while working for foreign owned schools in China), teachers salaries need to be raised, acceptable apartments offered, and there need to be reasonable bonuses and vacation packages.

In short, the loonies need to be reeled in, the excesses trimmed, and then what is sliding into being a scam that only benefits owners could be a beneficial situation for all involved. Schools like EF or Shane or Aston could be very good things with a little tweaking, but they can also go horribly wrong.

Re: Aston

Well, I can't object to anything Budwisner said. Of course the optimistic answer has to be the correct answer, unless we just want to embrace cultural and economic suicide. Whichever scenario favors students and teachers will also favor the business in the long run. Cutting corners on quality is always undercutting oneself as well.

I don't quite see Aston as the brand of school that competes in preparing students to ace exams or get into the better schools, however. I see it as just a place for students to get the training at oral English that foreigners (with proper TEFL training) can provide and which the public schools usually cannot. And it's mostly for the kiddies. They seem to be targeting ever younger students, while not putting much effort into their adult program at all.

I agree also that some people would like to be career teachers in private schools teaching intensive English to small groups of students. But not in the framework that currently predominates of the "shared housing," low salary, and two weeks of paid vacation in a year.

Re: Aston

Maybe there's a glass ceiling to the lucrative TEFL industry and short-term profits are all there really is to make, so a shrewd businessman would get as much as he could while the goings are good. And how could a chain school rely on the quality of teachers to uphold the business even if they were willing to pay top dollar for them? Who really wants to be a career English teacher for kiddies in China or elsewhere in Asia anyway? Most folks with anything going on would probably get out of it after a few years, at which point theyve experienced living overseas in exotic Asia, and theyve got what non-financial rewards theyre going to get from being a teacher/babysitter.

Given the reality of the situation, schools like Aston may just be taking the most direct and wise course. Theres no need to coddle more talented teachers when fresh recruits are queuing up for a chance to teach, and Aston has taken steps to insure that an average person without any serious personality disorders should be able to do a passable job of teaching using their structured curriculum, syllabus, and teaching materials.

On the other hand, schools like Aston have everything in place to change their course and provide a better quality of life for their teachers and hence better instruction for their students while still making a sound profit. They havent raised their teachers salaries in over four years, but the tuition for students has more than doubled in that time, which means theres a lot of profit to reallocate into teacher pay and benefits. The result would be a happier workforce and more satisfied students/customers, and the improvement in the quality of education Aston offers would help to sustain it a bit longer when the TEFL bubble bursts.

Two ways to make money here: strategies for maximal profit which sideline quality of teaching (like a fast food restaurant that starts serving crappy food assuming its not as important as their mascot, interior design, and advertising jingles); strategies for profit based on insuring and improving quality of teaching in conjunction with improved curriculum and having something to advertise in the first place other than a foreign carbon-based unit in front of a chalk board. Astons put too much money and effort into the packaging and is short shrifting the contents.

If I were on their board Id suggest investing more money into the teachers. Now Aston is like a ball team that pays its players squat, and thinks it doesnt matter if they lose every game as long as theyre out there in their positions in uniforms. But how can it not matter? Teaching is a service industry, and the service is in the class and its the most important thing.

Lastly, schools like Aston can offer a humanitarian service all around, providing needed English education and thus creating all sorts of opportunities for Chinese students, while also providing decent jobs and opportunities for squadrons of would be teachers. Instead, the teachers are overworked and come out of it breaking even, and the students get jokers for teachers. And all that needs to be done is tweaking a screw to fix the problem.

Re: Aston

Aston is a business first and a school last. In order to be more competitive with other winners such as EF and Kid's Castle and Shane they have created more gimmicks, more advertising, have put teachers in McDonalds and KFC to teach classes, and started outsourcing teachers. They've figured out how to maximize profits from teachers, while demanding more from them, and without ever giving raises or raising the base wage.

These strategies are good for short-term profits, but, every student knows that a school is only as good as the teacher in the classroom teaching the class. Aston relies on a perpetual tide of newbie teachers, preferably fresh out of college, to teach with their teacher's books, and doesn't place enough value on actual teaching to ever give a raise. They've made the decision that teachers are not as important as the system they teach in. Maybe they're right, but in the heat of the battle for students, they've made the decision to exploit teachers more, which helps to pay for more gimmicks, rather than treat teachers better and offer a better education.

They will also tacitly allow the franchisees to exploit the teachers they recruit from overseas.

Its time for schools like Aston to take a more long-term approach to offering superior education, rather than going the dark route of scams and cutting corners on teachers to maximize profits.

Aston has decided that there are no career options for teachers in their schools since they will never get a raise or better than slight benefits package. It's quite an interesting decision.

China doesnt need anymore Melamine, whether its in the milk or in the quality of English instruction theyre paying for.

But, Melamine pays as long as no one gets caught and no one can tell the difference. So, more power to Aston to make more money at the expense of teachers and students alike.

Re: Aston

Sadly, the corporate schools aren't necessarily much better, and are not themselves wholly above "screwing people over", either. The corporation is what made those rammy franchises possible in the first place, lads, and they're no less keen to do whatever will bring them a few more quid. Give this whole company a miss.