CAse StuDIeS: EnGLiSH TEacHER KSm

Boy, you think that I'M down on English Teaching?  Well, check this guy out.  ENGLISH TEACHER KSM has a master's degree and has been working even longer than I have,  in the Middle East, Thailand and Prague.  He now thoroughly hates his life and wishes to spew some bile on the subject, so read on. 

Where have you taught, and for how long?

 

I am English Teacher KSm (anonymous please).  I started teaching/tutoring in Southern Texas in February of 1992.  By July of 1992, I was an overseas volunteer with an organization (for the next two years). I began my career with all the idealism of a 25-year-old.  Little did I know what was in for me.

 

As for where I have taught, I began my so-called career in Thailand with this prestigious volunteer organization.  My students were mostly unmotivated teenage bums too stupid to recognize the value of a free teacher and for that reason I took a job at a Learning Resource Center teaching engineers from a fortune-500 company.  That I found rewarding and more economically viable, so I stayed in the field.  When I went for my MA degree in  TESOL one year later, I had in mind to teach part-time at a state-school overseas (with housing benefits and such) AND then teaching Fortune-500 employees to make more money ($17 hour in pre-collapse Thailand, not bad at all!).  I thought it was a plan that could work.

 

Little did I know.  I was young and stupid and full of idealism.

What kind of qualifications do you have?

 

MA TEFL/TESL.  I really took this shit seriously.

What made you decide to get into teaching English?

 

I was full of idealism when I was 25 years old, reason why I went into a volunteer organization.  Now more than a decade later, that shit idealism life has kicked out of me.  For the past 6 years, I taught in Middle Eastern Country X because that area of the world has the best contracts in terms of benefits. 

 

To that country, I went in with an open mind as we are taught in our B***sh*t educational systems that we must show cultural sensitivity to others (whatever!).  Unfortunately, once I got to Country X, I had a rude awakening.  The people of that country hold westerners and people from different religions as inferior, barely superior to dogs.  Barely. 

 

Some of these people don't think twice it is wrong to burn embassies of "infidels" and heretics.

 

So...why did I stay in Country X?   

 

Money.  From 1998 - 2004, I was the best paid teacher of English in the world (or close to it).  From 2004 - 2005, my salary lost value with the fall of the US Dollar, and so I was no longer the best paid teacher in the world. It was time to move on.

 

I missed the salary perks, but was happy to leave the minions of management and that culture.

Which place have you liked the most and the least?

 

I am finding that students and teaching is pretty much a market-by-market thing and that every market has its ups and downs.  I like living in Europe, but its socialists policies would make me NEVER want to work here again.  Live here, yes. Work here, no.

 

The Middle East, I found solace in the internet.  I worked few hours but needed the break to recoup myself mentally because the job was so brain dead and full of rambunctious adults who behaved like undisciplined 14 year-olds.  I said to myself, then and there, that I would learn a skill so that I would never have to work for people like this again. 

 

I did just that.

 

I used my time wisely then.  I came to Europe to try to get a positive teaching experience.  I got my butt kicked instead.  I have reached bottom and am leaving the field. This was what I needed.  I have seen the future of ESL/EFL, and I am out.

 

Some times you need your ass to be kicked by life to get yourself in the right direction.

Where do you stand on the "fucking students" question?

 

Two conscenting adults, why not? 

 

What is this?  I have to be 'professional'?  IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEN SHOW ME THE MONEY.

Any particularly harrowing stories you'd like to share?

 

Too many.  What I find outstanding is that when I went first to Middle Easter Country X, salaries were high. 

 

Now, sit down, lay back, and get this:  salaries have gone DOWN, vacation time is LESS, and work hours are MORE.  And, when you factor the 90% depreciation of the US Dollar today as compared to when I went to the Persian Gulf a bit more than a decade ago, you really have to question y ourself WHY THE FUCK WE YOU DO THIS? 

 

It simply is not worth it.  Thank you Europe for kicking my butt.  Without you, I would still be a lemming.

What's your favorite way to kill ten minutes in class?

 

I always overprepare, so never had 10 minutes to kill.

What do you hope to do in the future?

 

We are in a commodities bull market.  I would like to learn a profession to milk this.  Becoming a stock broker, trader, futures trader appeals to me.  All this with other people's money, of course.

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