Another door closed

The writing was on the walls, but I was told on December 11th, that I had failed my probation. This is odd because in previous meetings I was told the school would give me until the new term and more experience with the school before we make any decisions. When I asked what happened, I was simply told that upper management had decided. That's funny, how would upper management know anything about me if you didn't tell them. So in effect the principal was not honest with his original statement.

Any way, here is the letter I wrote in response:

My employment with your school was supposed to be by all accounts a special time in my career. Those that I discussed the school with locally gave the school high praise and told me I was lucky to be part of the school. I really looked forward to joining the staff at IAT. In the beginning I was a bit worried about the amount of time between the “approval of application” email, and the start date. Once the later email arrived I was excited to get started.

During the first day I was introduced to several people and given a limited tour of the school. Then during the first week or longer I did a lot of sitting around in my classroom waiting for details on what to do next. I asked nearly every day what to do, knowing that it’s not normal for a new employee to sit alone in room passing the hours away. I was constantly told what would happen later and sit and review the textbook CD. Being a teacher for seven years already I know the content of a textbook fairly well, each text varies of course but the raw content is the same. Later I asked to observe other teachers simply to do something else that would be more productive, I was given one teacher to observe for one period. The next day I asked the teachers directly and was invited in “at any time”.

The next week I started with my one class. I was not given any instruction other than the “required exercises”. Using the textbook section and CD I created my lessons in the same way I did in the US, I didn’t know any better. I created them in a way that would fill the given time allotment. It was when I first began to try to teach that I learned this was going to be a much different experience then I expected. These students are highly unmotivated, and needed a completely different form of instruction and teaching that I have never experienced before. I asked numerous times for assistance with this class and the only support I received was to be told “you need to be strict” or “you need to be firm”. Now I know the meaning of these words, but when I asked what this looks like in a classroom here at this school I was constantly told “I don’t know it just happens I don’t know what to do”. While I can understand this to one extent, it’s not very helpful in practice for this new teacher. What I needed was a set of strategies to work with these local boys, in a local school. I have no experience here in the GCC area, and needed help to reach these students.

As I expressed my experiences daily to the lead teacher, I was repeatedly told to tell them to stop talking. I of course had already tried telling them directly to stop talking, but that was not working. Later the lead teacher came to observe my class; of course while he was in the class the class was much quieter. A few days later he came again to observe my class for a whole period, and take notes which later I found to be a formal class observation. Then I was given a copy of this observation. There was a long list of items that were not satisfactory. When I asked if the same evaluation was used with other teacher I was told yes. Yet, one example that comes to mind right away was the use of the textbook during class. Not one teacher I observed had the students using the electronic textbook on their computers, but in my class I was marked down for this. Another was student wait time, my was the same or better than what I observed in other teacher’s classrooms. He also mentioned “team work”, firstly I hadn’t had a chance to add anything to the team and secondly the team constantly spoke in Arabic which they all know I don’t understand. This made team work very difficult. After reviewing this observation and comparing with the other teachers and what I saw with those considered being “successful”, it was clear that this observation was a directive of the upper management to build a case against me. Additionally, the class I was given was labeled by its other teachers as “awful”, “disrespectful”, “difficult”, and “the worst in the school”. I do wonder why a teacher brand new to the GCC and new to this system was given a class with known issues. I also learned later that this class was so bad that the school was considering dissolving the class and redistributing the students to other classes to split up the class.

During a meeting after teaching had ended for the term with the principal, lead teacher and myself we discussed classroom management in my class. The principal mentioned “calling it a day”, which I interpreted as him wanting to terminate my employment. At that time I argued that it was not fair to make that judgment this early on. As the discussion went on it was brought up that I hadn’t had significant observation time and mentoring. We discussed that I would stay on staff until term 2 where I would receive a full load of four classes, two 10^th grade and two 11^th grade. I agreed that this was a good idea and we would reevaluate a few weeks into the new term.

Since then National Day came and was a great time, I had a chance to experience UAE culture and have fun in the courtyard. I also had a chance to speak to a few students of mine one on one and they were very different students. I also had a chance to talk with other teachers from other departments. They too were also very nice and tried to offer help.

Going forward to this week each day has consisted of 90 minutes of test proctoring, and correcting tests.

I was shocked when I was called down to the office on 11-Dec to be told that I failed my probation and my contract would be terminated on 5-Jan. Shocked because during the meeting mentioned above we agreed that I would come back on 6-Jan to teach a full course load and reevaluate my performance then. When I asked why I was being terminated earlier than we agreed, I was not given a reason other than it was decided by upper management. I’m fully aware there is a chain of command as in any business, and the upper management was given information by the school to make this decision. Which doesn’t make sense, the person that agreed to allow me more time in the school would suggest to the upper management to discontinue my employment.

In the end I believe I could have learned to work with the students at IAT if I was given proper support. I was beginning to build a network of teacher friends at the school both in math and other subjects. I was also trying to slowly pick up some Arabic phases, and I was constantly joking around and teaching present staff better and more correct English. The 11^th grade classes were already told that I was going to be their teacher they were coming to me every now and then asking for help with their material, also confirming with me during exams just this week that they would get me next term. I’m saddened that I won’t get the chance to teach these students now. I’m also discontented that the principal either changed his mind or forgot our conversation that would have allowed me to continue employment with IAT.

I’ve never been employed in a system, education or otherwise, where such a strong decision was made based on the input of one observation or students’ complaints (which were determined by the AP to generally not be agreed to). I don’t personally think this is a proper way to evaluate an employee’s success with an institution. Everywhere I’ve ever worked employees are given more than one chance to prove their success with the institution. If problems arise the employees are given a chance to know exactly what those problems are and given specific directions on how to correct these problems.  This paragraph is not meant to tell you how to run your business, but just my experiences working in different places over the last 18 or so years.

Logistics:

·        I was told by HR that I was allowed up to 3 days without a doctor’s note to miss work without penalty. I was never given the correct phone number to call when I not attending school so it’s my hope that this email will serve the purpose of notifying that I am not going to be present all day on 13-Dec as I need to use this day to explore other employment.

·        All IAT property that was given to me is stored in small cabinet in the classroom that was to be mine. That being the laptop and iPad. The classroom key is also in that cabinet.

·        I trust that my salary will be paid as normal for the one month period from the date of notice (11^th December).

·        Any documents that need to be confirmed or transferred to me will need to take place In January as I have already planned a vacation trip before I knew about my termination.

I do wish the school and all the staff the very best of success in the future.

Enjoy your leave time to its very best. 

 --- That all being said, we'll see what happens on 6-Jan when I return to the school to get all the paperwork completed. This is not fair, and I'm sure if an argument is worth it or not. I don't see my job coming back, so I will need to figure out my next step. I really like Dubai, but the facts are if I'm not working I can't stay. It's that simple. I've applied many places back in the States too, so who knows. Sad that my international education experience it's working out.