Floored

Where are things at with me these days? That's a very good question. Here's a bit of the story:

Tuesday last week, I asked Aaron, our "principal" about what I would be teaching next year, for we were required to inform the school about our intentions for the upcoming year at the end of January. Seeing as I hadn't heard anything back from him yet, I figured that everything was going well--just like the rest of the staff.

So, Tuesday evening came, and after I asked Aaron about what I'd be teaching, he said that we would have to talk about that soon. As I was walking to me class to do some marking, Aaron caught up to me & asked if he could talk to me about next year. I said, sure.

"So, Daniel, I just want to let you know that during the time Peter & Sue [the school's owners] were in the States, they hired a Math & Science teacher for high school. They didn't tell me this until they got back [which was 3 days before this conversation] and I've been trying to convince them to keep you in those positions because I know that you've been doing a really good job, but I don't think it's going to happen. I mean, the teachers they hired have their Education degrees & are experienced, so..."

Now, this came to me as a mixed blessing--I didn't want to have to teach math again a second year, it being the bane of my existence--and I could cope with not being able to teach high school Science. So, I then asked Aaron what my options were for next year, since the school historically is always looking for staff at this tie of year, what with turnover & such.

At this, Aaron kind of stalled. "Well, uhh... Actually, Sue said that she doesn't even want to renew your contract. Now, I've been fighting and fighting for you for the past few days, but ever since I told her that I'm not coming back next year, she just seems to not even listen to what I have to say."

This totally floored me. "Did she give any reason as to why she decided not to renew my contract?" I asked.

“No, not really,” he replied. “She thinks you’re not a good teacher and that you can’t control your class, but I’ve told her that you’re our hardest-working teacher here, that you spend hours and hours preparing for your classes so that you can give the information to the students, and I know that you’ve made improvements in classroom management after I sat in and observed your class at the beginning of the term. But it seems that the more I try to convince her, the less she wants to listen…”

“Well then, would it be possible for us to meet with her so that I can get some sort of explanation as to why she’s made this decision? I mean, this totally seems to be coming out of nowhere.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said, “that would be a good idea. Though, don’t expect a good explanation; I don’t think that that’s going to be possible.”

“Oh, I know… I just would like to try and understand what’s going on.”

“Okay. I’ll set up a meeting with them tomorrow. When do you have your spares tomorrow?”

“In the morning; from 10:40 to lunch.”

“Alright. Let’s have the meeting then. How are you doing? Are you okay with all this?”

“I’m doing fine; I would just like to understand what the crap is going on.”

“Yeah. I can understand that. Well, okay. Do you have anything else that you’d like to say right now?”

“No. No, I think that’s about it for now until we can have that meeting.”

“Alright.”

So, that being done, I pretty much waited for the next day’s meeting, wondering what the crap was going on. Wednesday morning came, and I went to the staffroom, waiting for the meeting to begin. I saw Aaron in the office talking to Sue, and it looked like things weren’t going well. I wasn’t surprised when he came to me a few minutes later and said that the meeting wasn’t going to happen today. “I’ll try to get is set up for tomorrow.”

Tomorrow came, and in the morning, before school began, I ran into Peter in the hallway. He stopped me, looked left & right and then said in a hushed voice, “Now, I haven’t talked to anyone about this yet, but would you like to be librarian? I think you would be good for school.”

“Well, maybe. But aren’t there any teaching positions open?” I asked.

This question made Peter physically uncomfortable. He hesitated for a moment, motioned to speak, stopped and then said, “Librarian. Good position. We talk about it in meeting later.” He smiled awkwardly and then walked off.

Later that day, I again was sitting in the office during my spare waiting for our scheduled meeting to begin. Aaron came to me out from Peter & Sue’s office and said that it would be pointless for us to have the meeting today. He told me that Peter really wanted me back next year, but Sue didn’t & that they were arguing over this and that there wasn’t a resolution in sight. It had now been two days since I was told that my job was filled out from under me, with no apparent reason why. Knowing that this was probably a huge miscommunication, the fact that they were not willing to talk to me made me not only feel like garbage, but also it frustrated & demoralised me. “Aaron, I need to know what’s going on. I feel like I need to know as soon as possible, so I know what the heck I’m going to do. I don’t know… Right now, I feel like not going back to my classes & teaching until we have this meeting.”

“Yeah, that’s probably not a good idea.”

“I know. I know. I’m not going to do it; it’s just how I feel. Could we please get a time set for this meeting, so it can be over & done with?”

“Okay. I’ll go back and talk to them about it again, to see if we can figure something out.”

Aaron left and timidly entered into the owners’ office, reappearing several minutes later. “Neither of them are on the same page. All they are doing is arguing over this, but I made them promise to come to a decision so that we can meet tomorrow.”

“Okay. What time?”

“I don’t know. They couldn’t give me an answer on that, but I’ll call you as soon as we figure that out.”

“Okay.”

Friday, 9:10 am, the meeting finally is called. Aaron & I wait for almost an hour before everyone finally shows up. And the meeting went something like this:

Me: So, I was told by Mr. Aaron earlier on in the week that you were considering not renewing my contract. Could you tell me why?

Sue: Well, some students and some parents are concerned about your teaching. They think that you are not doing a good job.

Me: Well, then how come no one has told me about this before now? And if I weren’t doing a good job, then why are my class averages at a 62%—only 3% below the target average for a typical class in North America. I mean, my objective performance speaks for itself.

Sue: . You are not a good teacher. The students do not think you know how to talk to them.

Peter: That is not true. That is not true. Only a few students say that, and they are the students who do not like to do work. They are the ones who sit in class and do not try. The good students, the students who try say that he is a very good teacher. He works very hard. He prepares for his classes. The students say that he not only teaches them the information, but that he also tells them why things are that way.



Sue: (To me). I am the administrator of this school. It is my right to choose who comes back and who does not. Because this is my school, I have chosen not to hire you back.

Me: Could you give me a reason why? My classes’ averages speak for themselves and Peter is telling us that the students think I am a good teacher, except for a few who always complain & don’t try to learn. So, how come I am not being considered for next year.

Sue: I do not have to give an explanation.

Peter: But he doesn’t understand. He would like to know why. We are going to open up a new library—

Sue: No! He is always the good guy, the one everybody likes because he makes people happy. I always have to be the mean one. We are not hiring you back. You can talk to him as much as you like, but your answer from me will always be “No.”

Peter: Let me speak!

Sue: He always wants to make people happy. He never thinks—

Peter: Woman, I am the man; let me speak!



Peter: Would you like to be the librarian?

Me: Well, perhaps. Are there not any other teaching positions open?

Sue: No. There are no positions. Every teaching position has already been filled. Mr. Aaron was not supposed to tell the teachers that they were going to be hired back. I told him to say nothing until we got back from our trip to America. And then I would personally invite teachers. We have to say no to someone already because [one of the current teachers] is going to stay. We do not have enough positions available.

Peter: So, would you like to be the librarian?

Sue: You can talk to him as much as you want. I will not allow you to be the librarian.

Aaron: Peter and Sue, this is not fair to your teacher. He needs a decision made so that he can start planning about what he’s going to do in the future. It is obvious that the two of you are not in agreement, so I think that it would be useless for us to continue right now. Could we meet at a later date, when you have made a decision?

Peter: Yes. We will come to a decision. We will talk about it over the weekend—

Sue: Yes. There will be a decision. He will say yes; I will say no.

Peter: Woman! How about Monday? We will meet again on Monday.

Sue: He is not the administrator of this school. I am. It doesn’t matter what he says.

Me: Please, you two. I would encourage that you take time this weekend to think & to pray about this decision. I feel that I must remind you that this is not your school—you are stewards of this school, but it is God’s school and He is our Master. Remember that as you try to come to a decision this weekend.

Sue: Do you have anything else to say?

Everyone, severally: No.

Sue: Okay. (she walks out of the office).


Can you understand what happened in this meeting & what caused them to make the decision not to hire me back? Neither can I. It made no sense, and both Aaron & I left the meeting feeling more confused and more frustrated than before. Aaron apologised to me, saying that they had promised to him that they would have come to an agreement about this situation before the meeting began. That obviously was an empty promise, and it made me wonder if I should hold them to their word for an agreement on Monday’s meeting.

At this point in the week, all of the teaching staff knew—no one really knew how the information got out or spread, but everybody knew, so when Aaron & I walked out of the office & into the staffroom, everybody there was on the edge of their seats, waiting for the fallout. “So, what happened? What did they say?”

I sighed, “I don’t know. They didn’t really say anything. I wasn’t given a valid reason for being let go. Sue said that some student & parents “were concerned,” but then Peter told her that the majority of the class really appreciated what I was doing for them. So… I dunno. I really don’t know. Peter offered me a position as a librarian, but Sue flat-out rejected that option. I mean, she said that she was concerned about me teaching; then why would she be so dead-set against me being a librarian?”

Several teachers expressed frustration with the situation. They wondered if their own jobs were filled from underneath them & everybody was wondering if they would be hired back. “Heck, if they’re not going to hire you back because they think that you aren’t a good teacher, there’s no way that I should be hired back,” was a comment that I was told by several teachers throughout the day. Some teachers were so upset & frustrated that they expressed that they couldn’t handle the drama & the stress that this situation was putting on everybody. They were beginning to re-evaluate whether or not they would be returning for a second year.

Reports began to circulate that as many as 8 teachers may step down if Peter & Sue decided not to bring me back next year. Sue caught word of this and one of the teachers who was more relationally close to Peter & Sue asked to have a meeting with her on Sunday to talk about what was going on because, he said to me, “This whole situation is ripping their marriage apart.”

Sunday, Easter Sunday, there was a meeting without me between the administration (all levels) and this teacher to try & figure out what was going on. The meeting went likes so, I’m told: Sue broke down crying, not understanding why every teacher was wanting to leave & not understanding why the staff “hated” her so much. She told the people at that meeting that the reason why I wasn’t being hired back was because the Ministry of Education was now requiring that, in high school level courses, all teachers needed to graduate with their specialty in the subject that they would be teaching. Since I had a degree in Psychology & Drama, I was then not eligible to teach Science or Math. (I still wonder that if this is/were true, then why wasn’t it told to me at the beginning…. Part of me wonders if this was a convenient scapegoat). No explanation was made as to why I wasn’t offered a position in the lower grades, but apparently that wasn’t an issue. It did, however, come out that Sue’s decision-making process was based solely on inaccurate information gathered at the beginning of the year without investigating to see if any of the rumours she was hearing were true (or not).

The owners’ daughter piped up, “Well, my dream for the school is that one day it would have a world-class library, with everything organised, categorised and catalogued with a database on computer. We would need someone who has excellent organisational skills, who works hard & who is very good at computers. My father already offered that position, but I don’t know if he would be able to do it.”

The North Americans in the meeting all piped up & said that there was no one more qualified for the position than me, and Sue—perhaps—began to come around to what her husband was offering me.

I was called after the meeting by the teacher who arranged this meeting and was told that Sue wanted to offer the librarian position to me that night, as soon as possible. To be honest, I was feeling rather uncertain about this miraculous change of events. Was this offer genuine, or was it just a concession to avoid a mass exodus of teaching staff & to appease her husband all in one stroke? To this second, I still don’t know. All of this seems rather contrived, completely unreal and, for the most part, twisted and warped and “presented” in such a way as to cover up what actually is going on at the heart of the situation.

So, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I, to be honest, have been stretched & beaten & attacked and degraded because of this. I don’t trust my employers; I don’t trust their ability to communicate; I don’t trust their ability to be honest. Heck, if a wife cannot confer with her husband over a decision of staffing and if they cannot come to an agreement before the decisions are made (like not telling your husband that you are letting a teacher go that he wants to keep), then what confidence do I have that any further decisions or conflicts will be addressed appropriately? Should I come back & live in fear that my job may be in constant jeopardy? Or should I wipe everything under the rug & try to forget that any of this happened? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

I’ve asked of Aaron to see if he & the rest of the administration can draw up a contract or at least a job description / list of expectations for this librarian position, because already it seems that the vaguery of the job has room to be exploited. “You will have after-school requirements,” I’m being told, “and you will have to sub for teachers when they cannot come to class.” All of this I’m okay with, but I need to know what to expect from the position & I need to know exactly what “Librarian” means in the heads of my potential employers.

Why would I come back? Well, because of the potential to operate in a more relational capacity with staff & with students: to act more like a missionary & have more of a chance to elevate the spiritual environment on campus. I’d potentially have less after-hours requirements; I’d have more free time on weekends; I would have less stress (potentially) and more freedom to act & respond to what is going on around me instead of having to be relegated to my classroom for 18 hours a day as I plan, prep & grade the hardest material in the school for the school’s most difficult class to teach.



So, if you could pray, that would be awesome. Sorry that this is so epic in length; I just needed to get it out. I’d understand if you didn’t read the whole thing... ;)

Rounding Up

Well, I started trying to write an update to send out over two weeks ago, and it seems that time has gotten the better of me, as now I'm finding myself in March with less than 20 school days left before the academic year finishes.

February was an interesting month. Interesting, mostly, because I was quite sick for the majority of its four weeks. After going on that fishing trip with our student & his family (I'll get to that later on), I arrived back in Bangkok and that very next Monday, I awoke unable to speak. Talk about making high school instruction difficult! For the following two weeks, I found myself battling a severe cold &/or flu which had completely overrun my throat, decimating my helpless vocal chords. I've only ever once before lost my voice due to illness, but this was the first time where my occupation required the adequate functioning of such faculties.

Now, normally, you would assume that a teacher wouldn't be teaching in such a sickly / helpless condition, but GES & its severe lack of a substitute pool (especially those who feel confident enough to tackle high school math & chemistry) didn't afford the luxury. It definitely made teaching interesting—but thankfully I've managed to corral my students into a position of respect (man, was that a long process) and they were quite willing to sit there, listening to me scratch out broken sounds & whispers on the finer points of equilibrium reactions or statistical probability (depending on the class).

As for the fishing trip that the two Jonathans & I went on with our student... It was a great time. We slept outside on a houseboat without walls on the edge of a pristine lake in Canchanaburi province—west of Bangkok, close (100 km.) to the border with Burma. The scenery reminded me of home: there were tiny mountains encircling the lake, forests of trees that had almost all sluffed their leaves (winter here still experiences a 'fall' of sorts, though not due to lack of heat, but lack of water), and not a single sound save for the quiet lapping of gentle waves caressing the hull of our wooden island. It was peaceful; it was relaxing; it was a great time of bonding, even though not a single person caught a fish (our student, Pop, and his family were amazed at the lack of fish, making it sound like the typical excursion results in several impressive catches). There was talk about God, but there was no pressure—everybody was pleasant and relaxed. Except for at night. Apparently, Bangkok mosquitoes are a certain breed that pretty much sees me as a walking bag of poison—they rarely even attempt to land on me, but these mosquitoes... These ones were much more reminiscent of the Alberta & BC kind. Swarming and landing and eating and crawling and pestering all night. Think that DEET is an effective repellent? Well, it only keeps off the less determined mosquitoes. Those wonderful mosquito coils that usually send the bloodsuckers humming for the trees? Yeah, even with 5 of those coils fuming away over a night without so much as a sniff of wind, the crawling carnivores still ventured through to feed. The only respite was found under a few layers of blankets—and this while lying outside in a tropical country, whose nightly lows are about 28 degrees (I know, poor me, right?). I think that perhaps my cold/flu/whatever came on as a result of a lack of decent sleep that weekend... Probably a good guess.


Cool things to note:

1.) My students really have turned over a new leaf, both as a class AND individually. Soda, the drama queen thorn-in-my-side and bane-of-my-class has now, for some reason, become one of my most charming students. The only thing that I can really think of is one Friday evening during a session of informal worship & prayer that we (try to) have every week (it always happens, but numbers sometimes aren't bigger than 2), the evening turned towards a theme of spiritual intercession & more aggressive prayer, petitioning God to release students from spiritual bondage and oppression; opening eyes to see truth and spiritual identity. Ever since that night, it seems, Soda for sure, and perhaps a handful of other students in my class, have experienced a night-and-day transition in attitude.

2.) One chapel in mid-February had American Jonathan talk to the upper half of the school, comparing Buddhism & Christianity and trying to address the shortcomings of Buddhism as a 'complete' religion quite tactfully, while still without dancing around the topic. The students, who for the most part are Buddhist, all seemed to listen rather attentively & afterward, apparently half a dozen kids in Grade 7 decided to choose to pursue Christ (aka: Awesomeness!). The difficulty with Thai Christianity is preserving "fertile soil," as there is disgustingly intense social/familial pressure to remain true to Buddhist & Thai Animist traditions.

Apparently, one of my students in Grade 10 decided to become a Christian a few years ago, but when he went home and told his mother, she got so upset with him that she broke down crying and threatened to kill herself if he chose to follow Christ. What do you do in a situation like that? I mean, really—what do you do? I think (and really hope & pray) that he still believes on the inside, but he couldn't bear the sight & thought of his mother's distress and told her that he wouldn't be Christian any longer (though, he tends now to spend a lot of time over at the house of one of the Thai Christians in my class & hang out with their family, all of which believe... I really do hope for him).

3.) This past Friday, two different teachers on two different parts of the school campus were asked by two different Thai staff members about Christianity. This is practically unheard-of. The majority of our Thai staff, I'm led to believe, are Buddhist & just work for the school as a source of income. I've even heard reports from some students about Thai teachers trying to convert kids back to Buddhism in their Thai classes, but whether this is substantiated or not, I can't be sure. Anyways, these two teachers got to share the message of the Gospel to two adult Thais who came up & asked about what the message of the cross was all about. That is awesome.


4.) Another cool story is that in mid-February when there were those tornado storms in the Eastern US (perhaps you guys heard about them?), one of our teachers here was sent a text message from someone back home during his class, telling him that this person & her family were in the middle of a tornado storm, fearing for their lives. She asked this teacher through the text message to pray, and when the teacher read the text message, he talked to all of his students and told them the story. He asked them to all get together & pray, saying that God could do something all the way over there even though we were all over here—just through our prayers. The kids were dead-set & all started to pray fervently that the storm / tornado would go away & while they were praying, the teacher received another text message. The message said, "Did you guys pray or something, because all of the sudden the storm & the wind stopped completely, without so much even as a warning." The teacher, in turn, shared this message with his students. Amazing stories of the awesomeness of tangibly answered prayer. I love it.


Conclusion...

Twenty schooldays left. There's not much time to have with these kids for the rest of the year. Pray that our ministry would be as fervent, or maybe even more, than it was at the beginning of the year. Pray for teachers & staff who are making plans & decisions about what to do in the upcoming academic year—whether to stay or whether to go. Pray for the administration as they try to fill the vacancies that they're aware of. Pray to see if perhaps God may be calling you to come & join us in this not-so-conventional, but hopefully still fruitful ministry/outreach in the heart of what may be one of the most open to yet seemingly most uninterested people group as far as the message of the cross goes.



I'll say more in two weeks. Thanks for reading!