06-02-2015, 10:12 PM
I spent 4 years as an academic coordinator of a private English school in Brazil. It was a family run business started by an excellent pedagogical mind, but unfortunately none of her 3 daughters got her same skill in teaching or administration. Both teachers and sales consultants were treated like crap, and at the beginning of each semester it wasn't a question among the coordinators of if we were going to lose teachers in the middle of the semester (quite an inconvenience) but a question of when and how many. The sales consultant situation was a rotating door. It all led to extraordinarily low morale all around.
I guess I was lucky in the fact that it was a school in that I could honestly say that I was working more for my students and the few dedicated teachers that I was training and working with. That, coupled with the fact that I was the coordinator of a school where the administrators didn't visit, made life a lot easier.
By the end of my time there I had a whole little pep talk that I'd give to the team that was something about knowing how we all know the administration sucks, but we can't do a thing about that so let's focus on what we can change and that was the experience for students and colleagues.
And then I bailed and moved back to the USA once I couldn't take it anymore.
But it was a rather dynamic school setting. I have absolutely no idea how the same could be captured in an office setting with taxes.
I guess I was lucky in the fact that it was a school in that I could honestly say that I was working more for my students and the few dedicated teachers that I was training and working with. That, coupled with the fact that I was the coordinator of a school where the administrators didn't visit, made life a lot easier.
By the end of my time there I had a whole little pep talk that I'd give to the team that was something about knowing how we all know the administration sucks, but we can't do a thing about that so let's focus on what we can change and that was the experience for students and colleagues.
And then I bailed and moved back to the USA once I couldn't take it anymore.
But it was a rather dynamic school setting. I have absolutely no idea how the same could be captured in an office setting with taxes.
