Moving On…errr, up?

The day I left for Tokyo I faxed this out to head office. (NOTE: NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY):

I feel it is time to express my displeasure in regards to my working relationship with NeedsSomeSex, my INSERT SCHOOL NAME HERE Japanese Teacher. I have gone out of my way to work together with NeedsSomeSex as the team of teachers we are supposed to be and I feel that this has not been reciprocated. NeedsSomeSex has consistently made me feel as though I am not welcome in the INSERT SCHOOL NAME HERE classroom. In recent months she has addressed concerns about my teaching style and has spoken a few times of the parent’s image of me, always in the negative. Each time I teach at the INSERT SCHOOL NAME HERE school of recent it appears as though there is always some type of complaint levied against me. Conversations with my supervisor further give credence to these complaints which can be isolated to this particular teacher. NeedsSomeSex has offered little constructive criticism and, for the most part, she has just criticized. She has even gone so far as to ask me to eliminate aspects of my lesson as it is tainting the “image” the parents have of me. One such recent example of this pertains to a student whom I had been having trouble with suddenly expressing his great enjoyment of my lesson to not only his parent but also to other parents. Whereas I see this as a great success, something I should be happy about, NeedsSomeSex has transformed it into a negative and has even suggested that I jettison the games that have made for some of my most successful lessons. Personally, I feel this is not her place and that she is attempting to get me to teach in her particular style and not my own. Her placement of my summer school materials on her pre-created classroom props as well as her demand that I keep her position of the tables up during my lessons that week further shows what seems to be an attempt to manipulate my lesson style. When it comes to the INSERT SCHOOL NAME HERE school I am made to feel as though I can do no right. I see the students leave with smiles on their faces, I see improvements in their lesson comprehension and I even have some students who don’t want to leave after the lesson is complete preferring to stay behind to play more games. All of this tells me that my lessons are enjoyable, adhere to company policies and that I am not doing as terrible a job as NeedsSomeSex appears to want to propagate. I have treated NeedsSomeSex with sincere respect, offered her many compliments on paper and in person and have tried to work with her via the Communication Notebook, conversation at staff meetings and telephone calls to strengthen our working relationship only to keep running into brick walls. Even this week, running into her in the INSERT SCHOOL NAME HERE classroom after finishing up an Office Day, NeedsSomeSex offered no hello or any sort of pleasantries usually expressed between coworkers. Instead she made a point to remind me, in a very condescending tone I have become used to with her, that this was not my teaching week once more making me feel as though I were an intruder in her classroom and not a member of her team. These constant complaints, her notes to me and her demeanor as a whole has not only been very stressful but also very counterproductive. I feel in many cases her treatment has been very unprofessional, as though she were working against me as opposed to with me. Whereas I feel the Japanese Teachers I work with do not have to like me, one cannot force such sentiment, I do feel we have to work together, be professional and helpful and also attempt to gel as a cohesive unit for our customers and students. I feel NeedsSomeSex has done the opposite of this with me and her attitude has been a great detriment. Furthermore, should she continue in this fashion I do not feel as though I can remain working with her. There is only so much negativity one can take. I am very frustrated at this point having tried so hard to build a solid bond that appears to be unwanted and has certainly not been returned. I really did not want to address these concerns formally in my own complaint but I feel that at this point there is very little more I can do.

As you can tell by the tone of this letter I have really had enough. For the last six months I have basically sat taking multiple complaints of varying nature from NeedsSomeSex (really, a little roll in the rice paddy for this woman would do her a great service) as well as another quibble or two from one of my other teachers that was orchestrated by her. For some unknown reason this woman has it out for me. It’s like I’m John Conner and she’s the Terminatrix. Like I’m Ferris and she’s Ed Rooney. Like I’m David Mann’s Plymouth Valiant and she’s a rusty tanker truck (What? Duel, people! It’s a Speilburg film. Oh, if it doesn’t sharks, aliens, rampaging T-rexes or persecuted Jews you’ve never heard of it!) If I’d done anything to merit such unyielding pursuit of my termination I might understand her apparent loathing of me but seeing as how I’ve been nothing but cordial and courteous to her to the point of going out of my way to win her over I’d say this gal just has a vendetta stuck up her ass that she simply has to shit out. Until now I have just stood and taken these complaints without defending myself publicly. This is very out of character for me. I guess I figured I could turn this all around but as the months rolled on I started to have my doubts. I’d voice my own issues to co-workers and my supervisor (all off the record) but it took a few scribbles of a pen to finally get me to put on the gloves. During summer school you may recall my mentioning that I’d overheard by means of a poorly covered telephone receiver that yet another issue had been brought up by this teacher. Having just come off the tiring summer school marathon I was feeling pretty good about my teaching ability. Two stories in particular stand out. There has been a very shy, one might say terrified, girl that has never joined a single lesson over the course of the six months that I have been teaching her. She has sat all the way at the back of the class stuffed into a corner against the wall. She hasn’t spoken a word. This girl could give Michael Meyer’s a run for his money. I had thought she was frightened of me which was strange as the rest of her siblings are great. I teach three others in her family, you see. I tried to gingerly coax her out of her shell but nothing worked and I would just let her be. Come summer school she was a different kid. She was still quiet but she came up to me to partake in the usually start of class motions of checking homework and the like, she answered questions and even joined in a game or two. Last week when it came to teaching regular lessons again she joined in again and even smiled once or twice. This was a big breakthrough for me as putting six months of work into this student had finally paid off. The second instance deal with what once to be one of my brattier kids. Now he wasn’t one of the worst of the lot, I’d call him a misdemeanor offender, but he wasn’t making the gig any easier. During my two days with him for summer school lessons he sat next to me. In fact, he made it a point to sit next to me. He was very attentive and I got the idea that he was vying for my attention over the other students. His parents are always late picking him up, it has become standard, and so I have play this game I devised as an after lesson unwinding game for late pick ups. The game combines tennis and soccer and has been a good method for bonding with the kids as I take off the teacher outfit. With this one kid this after class game transformed his behavior and during summer school he was the best kid in the class. Both of these instances gave me a sense of accomplishment but not everybody saw things this way. NeedsSomeSex would make a comment regarding the second student mentioned above. Upon visiting the classroom earlier last month I read in our communication notebook that the student “loved” me and had raved about me to the parents during pick-ups for her lessons. Great news, right? Oh, how wrong you are. With her scribbled revelation of this child’s adoration came a lecture on how I shouldn’t use certain games in my lesson as parents want things to be more educational and book based. Of course, this is a direct contrast to what I’d been told by one of the higher ups earlier this summer. It’s not like I am simply tossing a Monopoly board on the floor and saying “here, play this for an hour”. I add some educational content to all my games and said games are included to teach the lessons objectives in a manner more enjoyable to the kids. Within moments of reading this I was on the phone to my supervisor. This shit had gone on long enough. I read him the lines from the book and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. I explained that it was time to defend myself and pen my own complaint against this teacher. It’d been a long time coming. I outlined some of the points I wanted to make and he agreed with all of them only offering up the suggestion to just sleep on it before I made my choice to send it to the higher ups as maybe I’d changed my mind. I slept on it. I slept on it for four days. Nothing changed. It only took thirty minutes to get everything I wanted to say on paper. I’d been thinking about it long enough and now it poured out of me in a gush. Not wanting to hear anything about the complaint I waited until the day I was to leave for the Tokyo trip to FAX it off. I figured there’d be an earful for me when I got back but there was nothing. Not a word. I started to think that maybe the FAX didn’t go through or that I was being ignored, the latter really firing me up if it was true. What I didn’t know was that the FAX had set some wheels in motion that would change everything within a matter of weeks.

This week I was given my new schedule for the month of September and interestingly enough the school shared with NeedsMoreSex had been replaced by “cover” at another school. A teacher in our unit has just quit and people are needed to fill the void she left behind. I just found it suspicious that it happened to be this school and not any other. Now, during the month of August my supervisor and I spoke a few times on the prospects of moving me to another block of schools. I had my apprehensions about this but in after this recent incident I told him that if he saw no other solution to the problem then perhaps a move would be best for everyone. Now, I honestly didn’t believe they’d do it. Another teacher had requested a move because of issues with NeedsMoreSex and I had been told her head was on the chopping block. I figured they’d just as soon turn her into Marie Antoinette then shift me into a new unit of lessons. I didn’t realize how little regard the company had for their foreign staff. I really should have, though. I mean, complaints like “he touched a card with his foot” get me into reprimanding conversations with my superiors but three pages of what I considered to be a well written complaint from my side of things did not merit a single word? This week my supervisor (also soon to be leaving…dropping like flies here) paid a visit to one of my classrooms with two pieces of paper. “It’s done,” he said. “What’s done?” I replied. “Your move.” He slapped the papers onto the ground and told me that the “cover” was actually just a front until an official announcement was made. I had been given the departed teacher’s classrooms and I was to start in my new block of four the last week of September. A new teacher was being brought in to take over my unit. I was being moved. This was a mix of relief and frustration. Relief that I wouldn’t have to be dealing with NeedsMoreSex, that my work time had been cut down by nine hours, that I would not be running any Eliminators and all those kids that make my hours a living hell would be passed onto another poor sap. Frustration that this solution was more or less sweeping me under the rug. The Japanese Teacher was not to be disciplined for her behavior and probably would have no knowledge that a complaint had actually been made and this allows her to believe I’m being moved because of all those issues she rose and also gives her reason to think she can keep on doing this to teachers, picking and choosing until she finds somebody she deems worthy of her classroom. And what about those kids that took so long to open up? They now have to start over again with somebody new. It is a wonder some of these kids behave the way they do with a revolving door of teachers coming in and out of their lives each with different styles and techniques. Yes, this all seems to be a cop-out. For me, I have been told, the teacher leaving and the subsequent sniping of the unit were all a great stroke of luck. I work less, the Japanese Teachers I will now be working for really enjoy their foreign staff and my class sizes have been cut in half. For me it is as though I have been given a promotion. Yet I have to wonder about the students I will be leaving behind. Some of them I really enjoy teaching and I know they have a great time with me. Will they miss me? What about the kids that once gave me a hard time but I cracked the whip and they fell in line? Will they return to their misbehaving ways with a new teacher? Coworkers are telling me to not think about all that. I’m moving into an even more laid back position and I should be happy that I have been given a clean slate and whereas I cannot complain about stepping into something easier I just don’t like the rational behind the move. Everything starts over. New kids. New classes. New train schedules. New cities. Everything old is new again. I’ll miss some of those kids and I’m sure I’ll find other favorites. I guess this is something all teachers go through, although the shifts are usually less rapid. One batch of kids exits and another enters and new minds are waiting to be filled. At least my games will be fresh. Well NeedsMoreSex, I hope you’re happy! I’ve been ousted and though I have not been fired as you may have liked I am out of your hair. Let’s hope the next one in is more fitting of your approval.