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Friday, October 14, 2005

Teachers Demands

This administrator of our institute deserves all the taboo words one can get and I am wondering as how so many people fall into this institute and register. Oh, I almost forgot that there are lots of ads here and there to “publicize” the institute.
I was in the middle of my teaching when he knocked at the door to get my permission to talk to the students about their” problems”. He came in as if I am not there, I mean, he could have asked for my permission to sit on my chair and in my place.Oh, I had almost forgotten that he is my boss too. A (Boss) B (my nagging mind)
A: I am Mr. X the head, and I am here to listen to your suggestions and complaints about the institute and your teacher.
B (Talking inside) you son of a gun! Why the hell you are getting the student’s complaints in front of ME? Wanna despise me in front of my students? What if they say something awful?
I am not a bit afraid of being criticized _ although I hate it a lot_ if it is fair and I have enough self-confidence about my teaching methodology and classroom management while I am teaching; the point was that he asked the students this question in front of ME which was a pain in the you know where.” Are you satisfied with you teacher, any complaints?”
The class goes to a stand by mood and suddenly one of them (grown ups) says:” Yes, of course we are.”
B:”Do they dare not to be satisfied with their teacher?” I said jokingly to the head and felt his heavy look over myself. Right there one of them said “We have to put up with him.”
I had a bad feeling, although he said it jokingly. I think my mindset is in the 1980s where no students dared to give such comments In front of his classmates, let alone in front of his teacher. Everything is changing so fast…
Even in public schools you can find “complaint box” where students can criticize their teachers and I don’t mind the Democracy at all and I truly believe that in order to advance a head we have to have a democratic society that interpellate even the presidents actions but the point is that there was an embezzlement in one of Iranian banks (an amount of 200,000,000 tomans(about 210,000 $) and the case is under “investigation”. This county is suffering from all kinds of corruption (from economical to cultural) now who is at fault?
Last but not least, I wished as we are more getting scrutinized ,the society’s conscience wakes up as well for the teachers demands which haven’t been fulfilled yet. After the teacher’s nationwide protest which was about 2 years ago, the government has promised to promote the teacher’s standard of living but you know, they are polluticians_ pollution and politicians make polluticians_ Once in a while, they put big headlines and I mean big ones on the newspaper to propagandize how they are doing a big job to “fulfill” teacher’s demands. Of all the shit they are talking about!!!
Sorry for beating around the bush _Not the real Bush of course_The words were popped up right in my head.
The students started talking about how inexperienced the previous teacher was and maybe they were right but, is it right to complain in front of another teacher and students? Couldn’t they have complained when the other teacher was present to defend his rights?
I said nothing, I didn’t want to start a quarrel in front of my students; not because I might have gotten fired but just because I wanted to save face in front of my students but I AM going to talk to him about this later on. He asked for 2 minutes but left there after about 15 minutes.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Frank -
Teachers are always under pressure no matter where they are. Here in Vancouver as we speak, they are walking off the job because of contract dispute with the government.
BTW, you have left a lot of space under your post. You can fix it by going back to it and put your cursor at the bottom of your post, then use "Backspace" on your keyboard to bring back the cursor all the way back to the end of your post. Then publish it again.
Cheers :)

11:06 AM  
Blogger Teacher Sol said...

These administrators sometimes must learn how to behave appropriately according to their role. I had the same problem with my principal last year, thank God he's gone! Was your administrator ever a teacher?

By the way, you changed the skin of your layout again, huh! It's as easy for you as changing your shirt *wink*...I better learn some HTML too.

3:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

when I teach I always want to have the pulse of the class. Every other month or so I give them an annonymous questionnaire on how the class is doing, what can we improve. what did U like and what U think can be improved. Asking the students to "talk" in front of everyone else is not exactly a useful thing. I agree with U: ur admin is definitely more for the "looks" of caring than for caring at all.

6:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Despite your boss's behavior being totally inappropriate, what's to say it would have been effective? It's almost as if he held your teaching review in your presence because he likes you so much; students who do not like your teaching style are highly unlikely to say so with you in the room.

However, I think an anonymous written evaluation would have been a more accurate way to gauge students' likes/dislikes of your teaching style.

9:38 AM  
Blogger Tarkhoon said...

Dear friend,
althought I don't have any teaching experience,I can understand u.What he has done is fundamentnally wrong.U know him well so it's better not to expect him to behave more politely and consideratelly as he really can't be better than what he is.
I don't know if u have ever tried tarjoman e hamzaman,it's a veritable institute.how about trying it?

5:36 AM  
Blogger Frank said...

Farzad:
That would be nice if you give me more info in regard to teachers in Canada.If teachers are under pressure every where,so why should I ever bother to try coming there?
Thank you for your advice about fixing the space :)

Teacher SOL:
In my college days,I had a part time job as a librarian in the university because I made friends with a lot of boys and girls and there was on access to the internet in the libraries and I had to swim in books in order to find one.


Me:
Thats a good job that you do .I should ask our administrator to do this instead of getting the students ideas in front of their teachers.;)
Teacher SOL:
Yes,he is a teacher as well but sometimes forget how to behave appropriately.
BTW, why dont you register in www.blogrolling.com?

Shiva:
I really liked this way of looking optimistically to the post and when I think of it it seems you have a point there;)

Nazzy:
Maybe I will try it but I gotta teach somewhere around my house;)

8:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Frank -
The teachers here are walking off the job because of class sizes.
Some of the classes in the public schools are going over 35 students above.
They are asking for smaller class size.
However, there are no problems what so ever when it comes to private schools.
Cheers :)

2:48 PM  

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