How Does Your School Treat its Maintenance People?

Coming from the West, International Educators believe in treating people with respect and fairness. From the floor sweeper and the ditch digger to the doctor and the CEO, Western cultures are built on the right to fair and equal treatment. If those rights are violated, we have access to legal recourse. No one is powerless.

International school owners, on the other hand, have been widely known to exploit “powerless” workers. I’m talking about grounds keepers, maids and cleaners, cafeteria workers, maintenance men, construction personnel, guards, drivers and the like. The very schools that shortchange teachers on housing, health insurance and shipping, for example, are generally the same schools mistreating local-hire workers, in many countries with little to no recourse in the case of unfair treatment.

If you’ve experienced a wealthy parent with an over-inflated sense of entitlement, you’re no stranger to the dichotomy of money/power vs. ‘lowly teacher’ status. Now, imagine yourself a grounds keeper up against a wealthy school owner with this same self-serving attitude. If you dared to speak up you’d soon find yourself out of a job, and no doubt unable to use your current employer for a reference. With a family to feed and bills to pay you’d never rock the boat if you were this grounds keeper.

Wages for school work-staff are set by the school owner or school board, depending on the ownership structure. But that’s just the half of it. The day-to-day mistreatment of workers is almost always at the hands of the Head of Maintenance, who himself will be a local-hire. Having a bit of power bestowed upon him (and it is always a “him) by the school owner, the Head of Maintenance can summarily deny time off for doctor appointments, ignore safety concerns, demand long hours, expect unrealistic deadlines and essentially treat his staff like serfs. A little power in a society in which he, too, is powerless, has gone to his head.

School owners who underpay workers, and Heads of Maintenance who mistreat workers are a sad commentary on mankind and something we as educators have a responsibility to change. As teachers, when we see inequities we can go straight to the top and expose these injustices. If we don’t get satisfaction there, we can look outside the school. A visit to the local labor office or newspaper office may be in store. But, looking the other way is surely not the answer.

ISR asks:  How does your school treat its Maintenance people? If you, as a teacher, see injustices, what recourse do you or your colleagues have? Do you have advice for those teachers who would like to see improvements in how their school treats the local hire workers? Please SHARE!

Where Will Love Take…or Leave You? (part 2)

A two-part Discussion Topic composed by an ISR member speaking from first-hand experience

After the Leap and Beyond

…If you find yourself falling in love with a host national overseas, you owe it to yourself to take the time to wonder about what might happen if you fall OUT of love.

If you’re not married, breaking up is simple. You each go your own way and nurse a broken heart. If you’re married, it’s more complicated. If you’re married with children, separating can become quite complex and one partner will be faced with challenges and issues that far exceed the scope of a divorce back home. Picture yourself in a court room in Indonesia for a custody hearing…

I’ve been there and done that. It was a nightmarish journey that left me with nothing. It was an experience that, as an overseas educator who has lived internationally 18 of the last 20 years, tainted my last three and a half years in said country. Faced with insurmountable odds, being pummeled by an incessantly biased farce to the point of provable family court corruption, and having lost $30,000, I threw in the towel. In the end, I had no choice, pushed to the brink of despair and hopelessness, I left my overseas home. Now alone, without my children, as a heavy-hearted, alienated, targeted father, I am focusing my energies on again getting settled in a new culture, a new nation.

I cannot fathom repatriation at this time, for I’d already been stripped of my identity as a parent and I couldn’t stand losing my identity as a traveler and expat. I must now rethink all that dating overseas entails, and where it will lead. I still have hope that horizons hold something rewarding—at least for matters of the heart, as I set out on this new international journey.

If you are hoping and expecting to date abroad, look further down the road, far past the excitement and romantic stages of dating, far past the various phases of long-term love and relationships, and consider your choices and what could happen if your relationship does not work out. Keep faith that mixed-culture relationships can and do work, yet always make your decisions with the realistic notion of what might happen if all fails—especially if children are in the mix.

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[The author, who has taught in Europe, Asia and Latin America, is a seasoned international school teacher, one who is now considering what countries lie ahead, sans family, while on a literary-minded sabbatical. The a fore-written articles are to bring light to such a topic.

[“I am setting out now to commence a detailed book on divorce and custody abroad, a difficult process that many have faced since travelers, migrants and expats first began falling in love internationally.  I’d love to hear of similar stories from overseas experiences.”]     

Where Will Love Take…or Leave You? (part 1)

A two-part Discussion Topic composed by an ISR member speaking from first-hand experience

Look Before You Leap...

If you’re a single international educator, living overseas and thinking about (or are already) dating a host national, you’ll be faced with some heartfelt discussions as you make the leap into a serious, perhaps permanent, relationship.

Dating in a foreign land can and will invite a slew of new issues, especially concerning your differences and how perspectives and cultural norms shape and guide your relationship. This is far more complex than you’ll encounter dating back home where both partners subscribe to the same cultural history with an intrinsic understanding of basic expectations. Not necessarily so between couples from two distinctly different cultures.

From birth, we’re bound by the norms of our culture. As mentioned, bi-cultural, bilingual partnerships are inevitably faced with some tough decisions:  Will you marry? If so, where? Back home (for you) or where you met? Where will you settle? Whose family will be seeing you more often?  Whose aging parents and family will benefit from you living close? Who will make the sacrifices regarding family/friends living a long flight away? Will both partners work? How about home and property purchases? And most importantly and consequential, what about starting a family?

With effort and mutual understanding, partners can overcome obstacles, discovering that love is love and we’re all human, regardless of customs and habits. Still, there are so many variables that make for a challenging course, it’s wise to consider what you are/are not willing to do for love before you get in over your head and your judgement becomes blurred.

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(ISR NOTE:  Stay tuned for Part 2 next week: After the Leap — The consequences of an overseas relationship that doesn’t work out

 

 

Tattoos & YOU @ International Schools

…Once considered the stamp of non-mainstream segments of society, tattoos have shed their negative stigma & now enjoy the esteemed position of body art.

…Spend an hour at the gym or the beach where exposed skin is the order of the day & it seems just about everyone is sporting tattoos, with some colorful masterpieces covering large amounts of body real estate.

…Short of inked faces/necks, tattoos in the workplace have become acceptable & commonplace in Western societies. That said, not all societies around the globe have the same evolved view of tattoos. Many still associate them with low-class society or undesirable elements (think: prison inmates) of their cultures. What does this mean for tattooed International Educators?

..ISR Asks: Are schools & parents in more traditional societies willing/able to look beyond their cultural norms to accept that tattoos no longer carry a negative connotation in the home country of their children’s teachers? Or will tattoos stigmatize such teachers as unacceptable influences, potentially costing them a teaching position in certain parts of the world?

Do you have personal experience to Share on this Topic?
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Tutoring Adventures Overseas

…Are you after a “one-on-one” teaching experience, a more family oriented relationship with students than is possible teaching in an International School classroom? If so, full-time tutoring could be your ticket to a rewarding overseas adventure.

An ISR member asks:

…Does anyone have experience working as a full-time tutor? I don’t mean the sort of tutoring where an International Educator moonlights in an IS for a bit more cash, or works with individual students after school hours. I’m talking about the sort of vacancy where you’re hired by a wealthy family to be their son’s or daughter’s full-time tutor.

These jobs seem more common in the Middle East, Russia, and a few of the richer Asian countries. Clearly salaries almost always seem substantially higher than what you could earn in an IS, even one that’s a first-tier school. Around 1250 a week seems to be the going rate, which could only be bettered by a very small percentage of schools out there.

Does anyone have any experience doing this? What sort of experience/education level do you need to have a chance at a position? Is it worth the money, or does being at the beck-and-call of a rich family make it too much of a grind?

I’m aware of websites like ‘Tutors International’ and ‘VIPKid’ that would allow me to stay home and tutor online. What I’m asking to hear about is experiences of actually going overseas to live with a family (or in my own apartment), and be the exclusive tutor for one or two kids. Anyone?”

Thanks in advance,

B.

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Au Revoir America — International Educator of Color Says Goodbye

…Belgium is my home of record. I’m bilingual, biliterate, Black, and currently teaching in a French International School in America. I’ll keep the whereabouts to myself.

…I’ve been at the Académie for more than 5 years and my life as teacher has been great. It’s important to note that our tuition is at the $20,000 mark. This means our parents are educated, affluent, traveled and interested in seeing their children become fluent French/English speakers who are not just accepting of, but appreciative of diversity.

…Outside school, life for me has become different from when I first got here. This is because I began to experience an uneasy feeling I hadn’t known before. These days, I see news-clips of vengeful policemen harassing black men and women for what has been called “the crime of walking or driving while black,” football players sanctioned for protesting police brutality towards Black people, White supremacists marching and chanting hate speech, racist politicians and a new president who if not encouraging discrimination, is doing nothing to stop it. Some religious leaders are even making disparaging remarks.

…I personally haven’t had problems and maybe I won’t, but the fact I feel uncomfortable, uneasy and even unwelcome has prompted me to submit my resignation and return to Belgium at the end of the school year. Maybe I’m paranoid? Maybe I’m over reacting? When I see a barking dog, I cross the street. In this case I’ll be crossing the ocean.

…I’m aware of International Schools across America that hire bilingual teachers from around the world to come and teach in their native language. I would very much like to know if other International Educators in America are experiencing the same feelings.

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The Elephant in the Room

…An ISR reader recently sent us this entertaining photo. He asked:  Would we invite teachers to compose their own conclusion to this scenario? Sounds like a fun break from the seriousness of recruiting, doesn’t it? So, here goes!

..We’ve been living in Malaysia for more than a year. Wednesdays are my short days at school and I usually try to head home a bit early to enjoy the house to myself, at least before Jane and the kids arrive home. On this day, though, someone had left the sliding glass doors wide open… 

 Bang!! A chair rebounding off the wooden floor drew my attention just as I was about to set foot inside. What the *@#!?  I struggled to make sense of  it all as, breathless, I snapped this photo and retreated. To my amazement, though, what happened next was the strangest thing of all… 

Please scroll down to complete the Scenario