If you are going to go along with the private sector is an abundance of schools both private and public that offer a wide range of course loads in the province but I would like to point out that some may not offer its employees fair treatment. One in particular that I had experience with, decided to take me on as a coach but then reneged on its offer by explaining that I had not fulfilled what their mandate was. I was in the process of adopting their measures. I was well aware of having to get acquainted with their curriculum and made a brave effort to adopt that but the school was well aware of my coming from another teaching environment.
In my mind they used that as a whip against me. The school had a good argument about my being more attentive on language structure and I did make that secondary to getting the student to communicate verbally but the school was still unhappy. Perhaps it was the parent who was unhappy because the student complained she was not getting the required course load. The school had gone through the motions of advising me of my shortcomings however they were too few and whatever advice I got did encourage me that I would be good enough material for their coaching.
What I was told by another advisor was that I was only being hopeful. On another occasion I was told that I was using texts that would not prepare the student for their curriculum. Those texts then should have been presented at the beginning of the course so that I would have been able to familiarize the student straight away with what they would have had to expect from an eventual course load. I did change over to the required texts and procedure to have made a change but was told it was too late.
In addition instead of having had a full three weeks of trial period, that was cut several days short because of a student absence and the fact that the dismissal decision was given midweek. In addition to these conditions, the pay was not given at the end of the month as promised but one had to wait until the first part of the next month because they checks needed to be signed by two people! I ask what business it was for me to know the workings of their payroll system when pay should have been provided on the established date.
In combination with these details I was given a student who had an attention deficit although I cannot say for sure that person was a special needs student. I came in as a tutor and was advised of the condition but the school should have known that I would not have been able to make that student any more attentive. Here was a person whose way of blanking out was medically related and there was difficulty in other courses to warrant academic coaching.
Still I got the student to pay attention as best as I could. Once I offered to continue, knowing that special attention was needed and I was told flatly I had to give up, that “the stakes were too high”. I should not have been given charge in the first place and I could have been kept on the school list for students that did not have such special needs.
In other words what I am pointing out is the mismanagement of the operation and a lack of proper treatment. Parents should be aware of the fact that if the instructor is not happy because of the poor work conditions or unneeded stress, it is likely their children are not going to get the education they need.
They should then keep their options open One gets the feeling that there are operations out there just wanting to push students through the system at any cost.
