A brilliant account of one teacher's experience of working in a college in Bangkok.
My experiences of working in a college in Bangkok (part 7)
Poor facilities and poor student attendance make teaching difficult.
Many of the students had taken out loans to come to this school. The loans could often be too much for their families to repay and they’d need to drop out for financial reasons, and end up leaving the school with no degree and a staggering pile of debt that their families would struggle to repay.
My experiences of working in a college in Bangkok (part 6)
Getting to school on the first day of term proves to be troublesome.
The van arrived in a stinky black mist of dust and diesel fumes. It wasn’t the shuttle bus I expected either. The beaten-up minivan was probably 20 years old. The school's name was embossed on its sliding door but with a couple of letters missing.
My experiences of working in a college in Bangkok (part 5)
Discovering things that weren't mentioned at the initial interview
Teaching staff were required to report to the school even when classes weren’t in session. I was dumbfounded by this. I couldn’t comprehend how a school would work like that. Didn’t they understand how tough teaching is?
My experiences of working in a college in Bangkok (part 4)
Settling in to my apartment and meeting my wacky teaching colleagues
The apartment had no windows, though a sliding glass door leading to a tiny balcony funneled in a trickle of sunlight. Worse than its size was its smell.
My experiences of working in a college in Bangkok (part 3)
Meeting the head honchos
Eventually the head of HR received me. She was a tiny lady about sixty years old, half-German, half-Thai and 100% mean. She launched into a tirade about the poor behavior of foreign teachers at the school and how awful so many of them were.
My experiences of working in a college in Bangkok (part 2)
The application process
The interview started with a stressed out looking middle-aged lady from HR asking me a few basic questions, probably just gauging whether or not I was sane, didn’t have a speech impediment, a thick regional accent or that I wasn’t too old or disabled
My experiences of working at a college in Bangkok (part 1)
Swapping Korea for Thailand
The job search was looking grim, and I figured I’d either return to Korea or perhaps look back into teaching in America, as the economic situation there had improved. Suddenly, lo and behold, a job ad graced my phone.
