ARRRGH! (a rant, and a not very professional one, either!)
*WARNING: this is purely a rant and more for my own stress levels than for anyone to actually read! Feel free to skip it!*
I've worked in 7 diferent schools in the last 4 years, I worked out today. And I was thinking of this because I was trying to remember a single colleague I have had who has been as idiotic, irritating, immature and infuriating as one of my current colleagues. I've actually found myself comparing him to Pat, the 70 year old misogynistic alcoholic I had to share a flat and a staffroom with during my first stint in China. At least he had the excuse of an outback queensland upbringing, which we can only assume was very conservative, and his career in the army can't have helped. I don't know what this guy's excuse is. He's a young Brit, who has shown nothing but contempt for me since the day we met at training. He's an arrogant know-it-all who spent the first two weeks asking for class ideas as a morning greeting, then dismissing anything I came up with (on the spot before having woken up properly). He even said of one thing I suggested "oh I think those things (memory chains) are stupid, I never use them". Later that day I heard him get the same suggestion from another teacher (male, and the oldest and most experienced of the 4 of us - I'm second oldest and second most experienced) and his exact response was "oh yes, I should try that, it sounds good". Git. We also had a half hour long argument once (the last time we said anything but the barest necessities to each other) on whether or not you should introduce complete beginners to the past tense within the first 10 classroom hours. He couldn't believe there were any reasons for waiting until they had, oh, say, managed to produce a sentence of their own? Maybe if he had ever taught anywhere but NOVA (japanese method school that seems to prefer inexperienced teachers that they can indoctrinate in their own follow-the-dots teaching style) or outside japan, he would have some idea of what a "beginner" actually is. GRRR.
Anyway, this all boiled over today because of an altercation over the printer this morning. He left the room and the printer was printing a dozen copies of something, so I assumed it was a mistake and cancelled it and he returned and descended to the name-calling level, and it turned out he has run out of photocopying credit for the semester so now just prints class sets on the office printer which they are kind enough to let us use. I'm sure he's going to abuse the privelege and they'll decree that none of us can use it, and then where will we be!
So my stress levels were high pretty much all day, which hasn't helped the cold I think I'm getting. And I'm worried that now we have progressed from barely veiled contempt to open warfare, that he will do something stupid and horrible like tell the company tales about me, or steal my expensive tea, or something. Unbelievable.
*END RANT*
I've worked in 7 diferent schools in the last 4 years, I worked out today. And I was thinking of this because I was trying to remember a single colleague I have had who has been as idiotic, irritating, immature and infuriating as one of my current colleagues. I've actually found myself comparing him to Pat, the 70 year old misogynistic alcoholic I had to share a flat and a staffroom with during my first stint in China. At least he had the excuse of an outback queensland upbringing, which we can only assume was very conservative, and his career in the army can't have helped. I don't know what this guy's excuse is. He's a young Brit, who has shown nothing but contempt for me since the day we met at training. He's an arrogant know-it-all who spent the first two weeks asking for class ideas as a morning greeting, then dismissing anything I came up with (on the spot before having woken up properly). He even said of one thing I suggested "oh I think those things (memory chains) are stupid, I never use them". Later that day I heard him get the same suggestion from another teacher (male, and the oldest and most experienced of the 4 of us - I'm second oldest and second most experienced) and his exact response was "oh yes, I should try that, it sounds good". Git. We also had a half hour long argument once (the last time we said anything but the barest necessities to each other) on whether or not you should introduce complete beginners to the past tense within the first 10 classroom hours. He couldn't believe there were any reasons for waiting until they had, oh, say, managed to produce a sentence of their own? Maybe if he had ever taught anywhere but NOVA (japanese method school that seems to prefer inexperienced teachers that they can indoctrinate in their own follow-the-dots teaching style) or outside japan, he would have some idea of what a "beginner" actually is. GRRR.
Anyway, this all boiled over today because of an altercation over the printer this morning. He left the room and the printer was printing a dozen copies of something, so I assumed it was a mistake and cancelled it and he returned and descended to the name-calling level, and it turned out he has run out of photocopying credit for the semester so now just prints class sets on the office printer which they are kind enough to let us use. I'm sure he's going to abuse the privelege and they'll decree that none of us can use it, and then where will we be!
So my stress levels were high pretty much all day, which hasn't helped the cold I think I'm getting. And I'm worried that now we have progressed from barely veiled contempt to open warfare, that he will do something stupid and horrible like tell the company tales about me, or steal my expensive tea, or something. Unbelievable.
*END RANT*
posted by Kat at 8:40 pm
2 Comments:
Perhaps you should then introduce the beginner students to past modals in the following 10 hours of class time.
He sounds like an absolute git. Put laxatives in his morning coffee.
Hi Kate,
actually I loved your rant - rants are often the best blog reads. You colleague sounds appalling. I find with my tutoring as well that I always teach the second class in the week _much_ better than the first... hmm maybe this is why I always love one class much more than the other and its always the second class.
Nick :}
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