recanted

[sid]

recanted

[Cheery Littlebottom]

I agree.
I find the forum is a little more balanced, but the paid side is definitely what I would term "tabloid."
Anonymity can be a double edged sword.

[auntiesocial]

Agree with both posts above. What I would add is that I find it fairly easy to spot the teachers with axes to grind in the reviews, and therefore feel as though I can filter out a lot of the noise. The generic and systemic criticisms tend to be more believable than the personal sob stories. Additionally, there are some reviewers who expertly describe contexts and issues that seem instantly familiar; I certainly pay attention to those.

If nothing else, some of reviews are hilariously entertaining. My favourite is the Albanian International School, where the first reviewer speaks as though she's been subject to medieval torture, only to correct it with a glowing review and a casual mention that she's been recently been promoted to head teacher.

[Cheery Littlebottom]

Hear hear. The review I treasure the most is one for Jakarta International School. A breathtakingly disloyal person posted (in full) an internal memo by the admin which outlined necessary changes to the school's health coverage. I read the memo, thinking what a satisfactory process had been undertaken, and what clear explanations had been given. It made me consider the good reputation of the school to be well-founded, rather than the opposite. The poster ended up looking like a spoilt, back-stabbing brat!

[Vermontvet]

There's going to be some venting going on at this forum. Grains of salt must be taken. While teachers need to take postings here with a grain of salt perhaps school administrators take what other school administrators have to say about teachers with a grain of salt. I hope they do. I have first had experience of a school administrator creating problems for another teacher because of conflicts outside the school of a social nature. And that school administrator fabricated lies.
Principals and school directors and human and will lie just as easily as CEOs, presidents, prime ministers, etc. But as one poster at this forum said, which I agree, to the effect, that given enough postings on a particular school and how they're written we can start to get some idea of that school.
It's the same with sites reviewing doctors and restaurants I find. Given enough reviews I would say you can get an accurate picture of what it going on.

[eion_padraig]

In light of Sid's decision to delete his post I am respectfully deleting mine. Again, I think a lot of what he has to say is helpful, though I disagreed with this particular post.

[wrldtrvlr123]

"I have felt for quite some time that the ISR reviews, articles and forums have a strong bias against schools, against administrators, and in favor of teachers. Everything else being equal, it will be easily accepted here that the school (any school) did something wrong, that an administrator (any administrator) is self-serving and vicious, and that all teachers are innocent lambs answering to a higher calling for the good of children (all children) everywhere.
Which is all well and good."

I don't totally disagree about the site in general, but then again it is a site for teachers. I would venture to guess that most of the admin only sites that you are privy to generally give contributing admins the benefit of the doubt in those cases where teacher misdeeds are being bandied about.

All that being said, I do think that the forum and the comments sections of the ISR blogs/articles are generally fairly balanced or at least have many teachers ready to jump on a poster that presents a far-fetched or insanely one-sided, over-personalized point of view/experience.

[Overhere]

Having watched the carnage unfold as two successive crappy, vengeful administrators worked to destroy the careers of friends, I couldn't disagree with the OP comments more.

Having said that, the reviews on this site are no more or less reliable than the reviews I get for hotels, or cars or snowblowers and I always get advice from more than one source. The critical thinking comes in to play when reading the reviews, looking for trends and discarding the outliers. If someone were to base their entire search on the information found on this site then they probably get what they deserve.

[grdwdgrrrl]

No union no advocacy. We are at the mercy of the schools and the admin and the owners. It's only fair that we have this forum to air our issues. Seriously, teachers are really vulnerable. Right now, as we sign our new contract, what avenue to we have if we don't agree to all of their terms? Things are changed, slightly, but changed. Salary raise does not keep up with local pricing but, how can we address this? We can only negotiate so much and then it still makes no difference. You may say, leave. Sure, sounds easy. Vote with your feet. But, we have kids, we feel settled. We want to be overseas but that shouldn't mean that we put up with any more unfair treatment than anyone else. So, we make compromises and suck it up and move on or stay. Such is the life.

[shadowjack]

Sid,

you do have a point. However, ISR is set up for teachers to share their experiences. Whenever I am looking at schools I come to ISR to check. BUT...I also bring a large salt shaker too! I think I am pretty good at spotting the admin "gems" among the regular reviews, and from ISR I KNOW there are some directors I would never in a million years work for.

At the same time, having been overseas for a long time now (who knew when we first went overseas that this would be the case!), I also work my contacts, and I can read between the lines. There are some people out there who are sort of clueless of how things work, and they are also writing reviews. It is apparent to me (and I am sure to others) that some teachers just have unrealistic expectations about what their school will and will not do for them.

In the end, like all else, Caveat Emptor.

[sid]

recanted

[higgsboson]

Sid is the resident lapdog so no surprise he is concerned for the poor owners.
The bottom line is juts that - its a bottom line industry and I have yet to work for a school I trust.
As far as admin, just varying degrees of bad.

[newboygirl]

The bottom line is that, and it is unfortunate, most international schools are not honest and forthright in their dealings with teachers, if they were we would not need a website like this. The problem is that the balance of power is so heavily weighted towards admin that teachers have no way to speak the truth about some of the illegal and underhanded things that schools are doing without putting their references in jeopardy. If you do not want to risk not getting a job at hte next fair then you are bound to be quiet and put up with your contract being changed or not honored or many other breaches of contract that we are all so familiar with.

I have worked at schools where admin was good but due to bad owners or greedy business managers or lack of experience they end up changing things that they normally should not be and know better.

I will never feel sorry for school owners or admin because something negative has been written about them personally or their school because usually there is a grain of truth to it and sometimes it is much bigger than a grain.

My last point is without this website, can you imagine what schools would be trying to get away with as there is no governing body to oversee fair and just treatment of employees and good admin practices. Truthfully all of you must admit you are very thankful that you have this site or at some point you would have ended up at an international school you just could not stay your contract. Knowledge is power.