Deadend Street – EFL Coordinator
.
There
are losers who lose themselves - taking the wrong turn in their lives, missing
the right path that would have lead to their personal growth and happiness - and
then there are losers who, though not seeing the light, have enough social
skills to fool themselves into thinking that they are doing something important
for humanity. They attain a position of authority because no one has bothered
to check on their empty credentials. They end up denying the men, women, and
children they influence the chance to find their own light. The detours their
victims must take causes them reach their destination slower or sometimes not
at all; they die or get sick before they have the chance to complete their
journeys. Deadend Street is that kind of a loser; the kind of loser who makes
others to lose.
Let’s
go back to Deadend’s youth and figure him out. His youth somehow contributed to
his later miniscule failures in life. His misplaced confidence, for one, can’t
be traced to his college years; there weren’t many on his resume. It happened
to him earlier than college. His claim to fame is that he started using
computers when he was ten years old in New Zealand; he must have been one of
the first in his hamlet whose parents could afford to buy one. But the computer
skills he’s accumulated in twenty-five years since his first video game are few.
“I love computers,” he wrote on his page, and went on to name his favorite
movie sequels. This is from a person who is not only a “coordinator” but a “Computer
Engineered Language Learning (CELL)” expert. His students have more computer
knowledge than he himself. “They only had two colors twenty-two years ago,” he
wrote on his blog, and he fondly remembers both.
His
higher education consists of on-line courses at Simon Frazier University; an on-the-job-training.
His semester in San Francisco State was spent after his coordinator title was
bestowed upon him. He was hired at Shu-Shin high school five years after he
left New Zealand, a year after meeting his wife, a student in his bushiban. He
lied when he said he had lived in many other countries. She believed him; why
not?
In Taiwan now twelve years since leaving the
green pastures of New Zealand, seven years sitting in his office, eight years married,
someone might wonder how he kept getting a contract at Shu-Shin each year.
Perhaps they’d wonder if he was married to a daughter of a school board member
or if his dull persona made him safe to hire at a dull school; someone who
cared about children’s education might wonder. This writer wondered.
I
left Lowell two months ago to retire in Taiwan. Why Taiwan? Because my wife is
from Taiwan and I had no reason not to retire there. I like the food and the
willy-nilly street life. After twenty years, I kept my promise to retire in her
homeland. I think of myself as a real teacher and I’ve been told I teach
English to speakers of other languages rather well. I have a motive, too: The
world can be a better place to live in if governments and institutions helped
the people within their borders. Like Owen Caulfield, I want to catch students
from falling in the rye. That’s why, though I dreaded working another full-time
teaching position, I chose to apply for the full-time teaching position at
Shu-Shin High School.
The
position at Shu-Shin seemed like it was my manifest destiny. It was a high
school. It was teaching English to speakers of Mandarin. It was near my
apartment to ride there by bicycle, the technology students could use ethics to
accompany their skills. I had all the qualifications in the want ad: “Shu-Shin
High School (Taichung) seeks experienced/motivated teachers. Ideal candidates
will possess the following:
l University
degree + CELTA/TESOL
l Strong
work ethic/excellent lesson planning/assessment & materials design skills
l Open
mind for new teaching practices and willingness to develop professionally
l Communicative
language teaching background
l 2-3
years secondary (high) school experience
The
competitive package and three months paid holiday and bonus was really a bonus;
I would have taught there without it. And so I answered the want ad and wrote
an e-mail to Mr. Deadend Street:
“I am David
Emerson from Lowell, Massachusetts,
USA, where I was a public high school ESL teacher for
twenty-five years. I retired in October 2012 and moved to Taiwan with my wife.
I may be the person you want for the teaching position at Shu-Shin High School advertised in Dec. 2, 2012's Taipei Times. I
have a permanent resident card and live in the Beitun district of Taichung. I
am currently teaching children in a local bushiban, riding a bicycle, and
writing blogs and a textbook for the "Taiwan Community Curriculum"
based on a curriculum I wrote and used at Joe Ettor
High School where I was also faculty advisor for the Bread & Roses Social
Action Club. My Mandarin skills are a little rusty but I can get by. I lived in
Taiwan in 1979 and from 1984 to 1989 teaching college composition classes and
as EFL director at Dominican School in Taipei. If I could be of service to the
students at Shu-Shin, please let me know. I can be contacted at this e-mail
address or call me at home phone 0424364191 or cell phone 0989377020. Thank
you.”
He wrote back:
“Hello Emerson and thanks for your email. In order to move ahead with an application we require an
up to date resume as well as a cover letter. We're specifically looking at
candidates right now who have extensive experience at the secondary level in
Taiwan. As it stands, we've had a number of applications from such teachers
with MA's in in (sic) TESOL or Applied Linguistics. If I am to move ahead with
your application I'll need these ASAP as we're currently scheduling interviews.
If you're unsuccessful on this round of applications I'm
sure you would have a competitive application for Semester 1 2013/2014.
Regards, Deadend Street”
I hadn’t even
been invited to an interview, yet, and this man was preparing me for being “…unsuccessful
on this round of application.” In fact he changed the job qualifications from “…2-3
years secondary (high) school experience” to “…candidates
who have extensive experience at the secondary level in Taiwan.” I do have
seven years TESOL experience teaching and writing curriculum in secondary
schools in Taiwan and I had told him so. He had the gall to warn me, “…[they've]
had a number of applications from such teachers with MA's in in (sic) TESOL or
Applied Linguistics” and, “…[he'll] need [an up to date resume as well as a
cover letter] ASAP as [he's] currently scheduling interviews.”
Immediately, I
e-mailed him my resume, cover letter, photo of me with the student club I
advised, and a link to a website with a curriculum I used in some of my
classes, just to show that I had “…an open mind for new teaching practices,” as
he requested in the want ad.
But Deadend Street was
in a bind in early December at Shu-Shin
High School. One of his teachers had told him she’d be leaving to get a
teaching position in another school. What was he going to do? “At least finish
this term and enter the grades,” he urged her, not wanting to pull himself away
from his trophy desk to substitute for her, or worse: have to explain why
another teacher he hired was leaving the school so soon. There were six weeks
left before final exams and the Lunar New Year holiday and sixty students in
each of three classes to enter grades for. “What a headache,” he said. He would
have to stand in front of the raw sparse classroom,
the size of a mess hall, and teach! No. He had to find a replacement for her.
The
administration didn’t read English and wouldn’t see the ad he paid for in the
Taipei Times but they knew another teacher was leaving; Deadend had to tell
them. That’s what coordinators do. So Mr. Lu, a stalwart of the school, a
former student, would put his research project on hold, and finish the classes.
Mr. Street could then concentrate on finding a new teacher for the spring term.
And so the
opportunity had risen in his life to put things straight and really do
something for his students and humanity.
“Thank you for responding
to my offer to teach,” I wrote back, biting the bullet of his put-down reply. “Here
is my resume and a photo of me with the Bread & Roses Club I facilitated at
Joe Ettor High School in Lowell. My MA
is in education and Asian Studies. I would gladly show you my complete
credentials and portfolio at my interview with you. In addition to teaching ESL
in Ettor for twenty-one years, In Taiwan, I taught secondary
levels as the ESL Coordinator at Dominican School for three years, In addition,
I wrote the curriculum for Joy Children's English Center as well as
establishing my own after school center. I taught at Fu-Jen and Tamkang
University full time and part time at Culture College.”
“I believe,” I went on, “that
high school language programs should be relevant for students understanding and
improving the world and people's living conditions. The students studying
technology in your school will need a philosophy which the Taiwan Community and
Bread & Roses Curriculums would foster. Google "David Emerson: Bread
& Roses" to see Sweatfree Communities website and a curriculum I would
modify for use with high school students here in Taiwan. Please contact me if I
can be of service. Thank you,” is what I wrote.
But zebras do not change their stripes and this zebra from
New Zealandwas no exception. I would have been the perfect choice to replace
the native English speaking teacher who had to leave. After all, I had all the
qualifications Deadend Street required, except for one, and a big one it was: I
am more qualified to do Deadend’s job than he. That was too much for his ego to
bear.
So I wait, not holding my breath, while Deadend sits in his office and wonders perhaps if I will annoy
him and expose his deficiencies. Not for a moment does he plan on giving me a
proper response and acknowledge receipt of my resume and cover letter. A
response or a nod to my qualification would be out of the question. His only
concern now would be to manufacture the other candidates he so boldly said were
waiting in the wing to teach TESOL at Shu-Shin High School.
Yes, the students
would suffer, as students suffer all over Taiwan, in private and public
schools, in bushibans, but they would never know what they were missing. A loser
from New Zealand had led his flock astray and would, forever more, flock
himself.
