Dear Dr. Spilchuk and ISR,<\/p>\n
I would like to make a comment about the director of the Al Bayan School who is criticizing this site:<\/p>\n
– Where was he when Kathryn was being victimized in Kuwait for doing her job for the school where he was the director?<\/p>\n
– Why didn’t he stick up for her and stick by her when she wasn’t allowed to leave the country, to show his solidarity and maybe offer some protection (I bet he had a nice vacation instead)?<\/p>\n
– What kind of an administrator has so little loyalty to his staff that he won’t stick by them in a time of need and possible danger in a foreign country?<\/p>\n
It is hardly surprising that someone with so little integrity would criticize others exercising free speech (or free writing!) and expect them to put themselves at serious risk when he certainly didn’t have the guts for either! I guess the money he’s being paid (and it better be a lot!) and his ‘exalted’ position went to his head (unfortunately, like many other heads of schools), caused him to sell his soul and seems to exonerate him from acting like a decent human being in general. Any such person should be keeping his head low in shame instead of sending stupid, unconstructive criticisms to your wonderful site.<\/p>\n
Keep up the good work and thanks for all you’re doing for us international teachers, especially in warning us off Kuwait and similar schools elsewhere. Thanks for opening our eyes and giving us a voice, even if it has to be an anonymous one.<\/p>\n
\n
Dear Dr. Spilchuk,<\/p>\n
Please don’t give way to Dr. Bryan McCauly guilt induction. This is a teachers web site: by the international teachers, for the international teachers, in the international teachers’ best interest. The internet is the ‘equalizer’. When schools treat international teachers poorly, it gets reported for all to see. This man is embarrassed, caught and now tries to ‘hook through guilt’ to cover up the mistakes that have happened in international teaching for many, many years if not decades. Wake up schools!! It’s time the tables got reversed!!<\/p>\n
\n
Dear Dr. Spilchuk<\/p>\n
From this director’s response it is quite obvious as to why he wants people’s privacy breached. He quotes “so that individuals with different views, or who can speak from legitimate personal experience, can set the record straight with your contributors in open dialogue.”<\/p>\n
You don’t need to know peoples names to do this. That’s why its a review website and forum. People simply wish to express their views or facts without fear of retaliation. So many Directors are like this. All teachers need to know about where they ay be going next especially if there are any issues, embellished or not. We are professional enough to make our own decisions andfilter out the over the top stuf when we see it. On the other hand his board may be instructing him to say those things, to find the people or he gets fired himself. Also the administration of the ISR would be quite capable of sorting
\nthrough the rubbish from the good posts that get sent in.<\/p>\n
\n
Dear Dr. Spilchuk<\/p>\n
I would like to respond to Brian McCauley’s letter as well. I have worked at al-Bayan for a few years now, I can confidently say that this letter was written out of fear and guilt. Why does Brian need to know the names of those people expressing their views? Are they any less valid because someone feels they need anonymity?<\/p>\n
Amongst the teachers at this school, it is well-known that Brian stayed for only a handful of days once Katherine Phillips was detained. He then headed to Thailand. He is in no responsible for getting Katherine out of Kuwait. Everyone knew that it would have to be Kuwaitis to get her out. It did make some sense for him to leave, after all, Brian is not Kuwaiti and has no wasta. Any attempt he would have made would have fallen on deaf ears. However, even if he knew this, the act of staying would have likely comforted Katherine and other teachers by demonstrating his support.<\/p>\n
His letter reeks of someone who is worried about freedom of speech damaging the school’s reputation and likely making his own job harder when he finds he can’t hire teachers anymore. But when something like Katherine’s situation happens, is it not justified that the school’s reputation be damaged? This was the consequence of allowing powerful, rich parents to dictate to the school.<\/p>\n
Administrators at Bayan frequently side with parents over teachers, and we are bullied by parents if we try to give low marks or failures. And if a failure is actually given, it tends to be overturned by the wasta-riddled Board of Governors. There are students in the high school who cannot perform basic addition, who read at a Grade 5 level, and cannot tell time. These students will receive a diploma. This is the reality of teaching at al-Bayan, and even if a name was put on a letter saying this, it would not change these facts.<\/p>\n
Brian McCauley is out of touch with what really goes on in classrooms at the school he “directs.” He’s very good at sitting in his office, making appearances at functions and making meaningless speeches. But is he in any position to comment accurately on Katherine or the reality at al-Bayan? No. He’s not living in it.<\/p>\n
I will not be publishing my name on this letter for obvious reasons. I have a career to protect and I cannot trust Brian to remain as objective as he wants everyone else to be.<\/p>\n
\n
Dear Al-Bayan Teacher,<\/span><\/p>\nI wish you God-speed in the coming years as an International professional and teacher. If you ever need me\/ISR, you need only communicate with me again. I will remember you., have no doubt! Fear in schools crosses borders for teachers. What a shame that is. We are here to tell your stories and to ensure that teachers are not silenced by fear. ISR is all about giving teachers voices. I will speak openly for you. I am no longer afraid.<\/span><\/p>\nFeel the love<\/span>
\nBarbara<\/span><\/p>\n
\nDear Barbara,<\/p>\n
After reading Dr. McCauly’s letter to you, I had several thoughts.<\/p>\n
1. It seems that he has not successfully disputed any of the facts involved in the tragic case of the teacher who was not allowed to leave Kuwait.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk’s reply) There is no doubt that Brian McCauly did not dispute what, from all accounts outside of his letters to me, are the general facts of the case regarding Katherine Phillips. In fact, he did not even touch upon her case and that, in and of itself, raises cause for concern with me.<\/span><\/p>\n2. A responsible head administrator would have resigned before allowing a teacher to be illegally “detained” in country — it’s important to show support those who work hard for you — and to also show the in country politicians that the school has integrity and that teachers will be supported as long as they are following school policy and the laws of the country.<\/p>\n
(Dr Spilchuk) I would have done under similar circumstances. I resigned and left my post in Kuwait immediately when a staff member appeared to me to be discriminated against. This was, by comparison, a far less serious situation, albeit one I could not and would not condone.<\/span><\/p>\n3. A tip-off as to Dr. McCauly’s relationship with teachers, in general, is his use of “my teachers.” They are not his teachers. They are the teachers with whom he works.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) Too right, Teachers are their own persons. No one in administration has ownership of teachers; nor can another person speak for them. I should like to visit your\/their school some day. I suspect I would find a distinctly different tone in the culture you, the rest of your administration, the teachers, the students, the parents and the community are building.<\/span><\/p>\nI did suggest in a subsequent email to Brian that it was time for him to consider returning to the classroom to revisit that special place so that he could, once again, remember what teaching was all about. My suggestion was somewhat below the belt, but as a continued teaching professional, in or out of schools, and a specialist in leadership, I felt it was worth the suggestion.<\/span><\/p>\n4. It seems as though Dr. McCauly would have preferred that you totally ignore the situation of the teacher who was illegally detained. I have the impression that he was not upset by her detention and I believe that if you did not bring public awareness of her detention, she might still be stuck in Kuwait.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) You are, no doubt, correct in your assumptions. “He who protesteth too strongly” and all of that…<\/span><\/p>\nThank you for continuing to provide a voice for people who work with children and teachers worldwide. If Dr. McCauly is right in his opinion that these kinds of problems occur in other parts of the world too — then all the more reason to have a forum such as the one that you have created.<\/p>\n
Sincerely yours,
\n(teacher, principal, and teacher educator – 37 years)<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk)You are most welcome, although a thank you is not warranted. I have lived in situations where upper administration feels they can “violate’ the sanctity of the ‘in-classroom place”. The principalship is where it is truly at in administration, not at the Director level. Principals, to my way of thinking, should be the Aoki master-teachers who can cross borders into classroom with teachers and children. When they or other school administrators forget to do this, that is the most serious violation of what it is to be a teaching professional.<\/span><\/p>\nI would have liked to be in one of the school where you led!<\/span><\/p>\nFair winds,<\/p>\n
Barbara<\/p>\n
\nDear Dr. Spilchuk:<\/p>\n
I like the knowledge that my name need not be published when I make a comment about a school in the ISR forum, should I choose to do so. Objective, evaluative assessment of a school\u2019s pros and cons\u2014while resisting the urge to make inflammatory ad hominem comments\u2014is a valuable tool for teachers looking to teach abroad, and one should be able to contribute without fear of reprisal.
\nI do, however, view a column, letter, or editorial in a different light. Generally, in reputable publications, these articles are published to shed some new or expert light on a given topic and are rarely published anonymously. Publications which seek to be reliable sources of information should be no different, and should only publish substantiated, informed opinion about our profession. In other words, they should not rely upon or seek out \u201cdid you hear\u2026\u201d or \u201cwell, you didn\u2019t hear it from me\u201d or \u201cdon\u2019t tell that it was me who told you\u2026\u201d commentary.<\/p>\n
In our classrooms we treat such talk as gossip, and discourage it wholesale. However, I am at times amazed and discouraged by the freedom with which adults in our profession preach one principle in their classrooms and yet feel free to abandon those same ideals in their personal lives. I realize that people are primarily accountable for themselves, and that gossips and bickerers exist in every profession. But I must confess that I do expect more from those who profess to be representatives of a given profession, and I am disappointed at how one-sided this whole Kuwait debate has become on the ISR web site.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s just move on, shall we? I expect ISR to keep on top of potentially dangerous situations, to be sure, but surely we must have something better to report three months after \u201cthe situation.\u201d Kuwait is just one small country on the international-teaching circuit, and the longer we spend allowing anonymous \u201cexperts\u201d to vent, the more ISR looks as though it is actively profiting from uninformed gossip, rather than accurately representing the many excellent teachers and schools who use the web site for what it is intended.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Brent van Staalduinen (Kuwait)<\/p>\n
\nDear Brent<\/span><\/p>\nI would surely like to move on…in fact we are in the process of setting up a whole new area of exploration in India with the private schooling system there. There is another issue that has come up about a school in Turkey. As well, I have had long term communication with a top international teacher recruiting agency officer. This recruiter has written a letter for publication that is quite important. I would like to get those stories out to our reading public.<\/span><\/p>\nThe problem is that the ISR membership has focused upon Kuwait, perhaps because there are so many stories being disclosed as a result of the Katherine Phillips situation. For whatever reason, my job is to respond to the letters that come to me. I cannot, nor can the editor ISR, say to teachers, “Well, we’ve had about enough from your part of the world! Sorry.” The Kuwait problem is beginning to run from one school to the next. That is of serious concern to us at ISR. We have been working with the editor of the Arab Times to try to resolve the situation from that angle. Perhaps as a person on the scene, you can give us some assistance from your perspective.<\/span><\/p>\nAll the best<\/span>
\nBarbara<\/span><\/p>\n
\nDear Dr. Spilchuk,<\/p>\n
Dr. McCauley\u2019s response comes quite late. If he was so disgusted with ISR\u2019s tactics, it seemed he would have spoken up during Katherine’s\u2019 ordeal or long before the Katherine incident for that matter. The mere fact that he wants teachers to denote their identities in order to get blackballed from schools across the world, tells me one thing: in light that he may have started as a teacher, he has quite frankly forgotten where he came from. Anyone with complete scruples knows teachers band together to get things done. This is a part of unionization. Why would one alienate themselves by disclosing personal info that would keep them from employment? Journalists from all walks of life have anonymous sources. ISR is no different.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) You are quite right, Elizabeth Anonymous. I am most concerned that Dr. McCauley chose not to refer to Katherine’s ordeal in his letter. His positioning was quite self-serving from my limited knowledge of the situation. I have no intention of stopping teachers’ voices from being heard!<\/span><\/p>\nAs Elliott (in Belenky et al., 1986, p. 3) says:<\/span><\/p>\nIf we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life,<\/span>
\nit would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat,<\/span>
\nand we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.<\/span>
\nI want to hear the squirrel\u2019s heart beat<\/span><\/p>\nI wonder what else I can do but live my life out by using a caring and compassionate voice and listening ear when I hear \u2018the squirrel’s heart beat\u2019 within international teachers\u2019 stories of terror, anger and fright.<\/span><\/p>\nYou are the first ISR reader to know that I will be bringing Katherine’s story to the public forefront of International Education at the conference noted below. It is my sincere hope that Katherine will join me there.<\/span><\/p>\nParis International Conference On Education, Economy & Society<\/span>
\nNovotel Paris Tour Eiffel, 17-19 July 2008<\/span><\/p>\n
\nI am quite upset at Dr. McCauley\u2019s response. I have met him personally and all this did was solidify my opinion of him even more. The mere fact that he would send such nonsense baffles my mind. Furthermore, there were teachers that he hired personally to come to Kuwait that were employed at the sister school, which has loads of problems. Dr. McCauley was of no assistance to them, especially, when the guidance counselor was fired illegally and shuffled through the night out of Kuwait. Other teachers contacted him about the administration and policies that were being implemented that violated their contract that he had given them. He didn\u2019t speak up then, so why would he speak up to defend teachers now. The blatant disrespect that FAWSEC and his administration showed to Katherine is asinine.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) Absolutely agreed…and I understand the disrespect is continuing!<\/span><\/p>\nEvery teacher in the world has positive & negative experiences within their schools. Giving your identity does not give weight to a person\u2019s opinion or not. In unionized states, when votes are taken, the Union does not say a person\u2019s name voted this way therefore we are proceeding with a strike or whatever the case may be. They have its\u2019 members vote and present the information. If they didn\u2019t teachers would be placed on lists that would make them un-hirable.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) This will be the second of my teacher stories to be highlighted in Paris! You are a very astute person!<\/span><\/p>\nBeing a teacher in Kuwait, I have come to a realization. It has become evident that since all of these schools are for profit, teachers\u2019\/students\u2019 best interests are not at the forefront. We all know the phrase, \u201cA school can not be run like a business.\u201d Private companies should not be in the business of running schools. Research has proved this theory\/technique to be flawed to say the least!!!!!!!!<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Anonymous<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) Ahhhh – but you and all teachers have a powerful voice spoken together, and ISR and I will continue to ensure that it is heard worldwide!<\/span><\/p>\n“Whatever God’s dream about man may be, it seems certain it cannot come true unless man cooperates.” -Stella Terrill Mann”<\/span><\/p>\nAll the best and do take care<\/span><\/p>\nBarbara<\/span><\/p>\n
\nDear Dr. Spilchuk,<\/p>\n
My intention in writing to ISR is to address the validity of the content on the web site and offer my opinion about living and teaching in Kuwait.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) There is no ‘validity’; there are only stories, beliefs and feelings of teachers at stake. You are searching for quantitative measures; we are a qualitative organization.<\/span><\/p>\n(Please note that at no time do I name names or write about individuals in a derogatory or in an offensive manner. In addition, I have not harmed any animals in creating this post.)<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk)This is good.<\/span><\/p>\nThe statement on the International schools review homepage reads, \u201cTeachers keeping each other informed. A more accurate assertion about the web site\u2019s function might read, \u201cTeachers informing teachers of their personal beliefs or judgments that are not founded on proof or certainty\u201d.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) Schools are about people. People are about personal beliefs. We all make judgments. You are making a judgment in your letter. It is not right or wrong; it simply is….<\/span><\/p>\nLet\u2019s face it, the ISR is simply a glorified proprietary blog marketed toward international educators.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) If ISR were being ‘marketed’, we would not all be volunteers. Since we are all volunteers, the ‘market’ value of ISR is negligible. This is a red herring.<\/span><\/p>\nThe material on the web site contains dated entries written by a number of contributors (which are largely anonyms) who want to express their opinions and experiences. (Dr. Spilchuk) Absolutely!<\/p>\n
It would be a mistake to assume that all of the content written on this on-line forum to be completely accurate.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) Who is to say which side of a story is ‘accurate’?<\/span><\/p>\nAs Wheatley (1999) said at the 8th International Conference on Thinking, ” When we ask people to tell us their story, we start with the assumption that no two stories will be the same. We agree with the understanding that no two people see the world the same”…<\/span><\/p>\nUnlike a reputable form of media the ISR is largely unchecked and is not accountable to any form of external accreditation or peer review. Cases similar to Katherine Phillips aside, how can anyone take the opinions expressed on this web site too seriously?<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) How many Katherines do you need?<\/span><\/p>\nPeople have opinions. Their opinions are based upon their stories. Their stories are important and valid research information. Life is not quantified in education. It is qualitative, and, as such, each individual teacher’s story is important within the contextualized framework of international education. There are no absolutes. There are only people with emotions connected to their thoughts about education. This is what ISR supports, presents and scaffolds within our editorials.<\/span><\/p>\nMaybe it is time for the ISR to publish a disclaimer on their site. It could read, \u201cYes even teachers exaggerate, embellish and lie\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) From each teacher’s perspective, their story is what it is. Who are you or who am I to say that it is exaggerated, embellished or a lie? I have not lived the experience of every teacher who writes to ISR. Have you?<\/span><\/p>\nThat is not to say that some of the information on the web site is not valuable but one must view this data through a critical lens and discern for themselves what opinions are useful.<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) Methodologically, stories are not data. They are simply stories. The stories are temporal and personal and cannot be classified, quantified or categorized.<\/span><\/p>\nAt the best of times the web site allows teachers to access information about living and working at international schools around the world. Conversely, slanderous and inaccurate content on the web site has fueled sweeping generalizations and damaged ISR\u2019s credibility. Without going into specifics, I do not see how personally attacking our colleagues in a public forum serves any positive purpose. I can appreciate the value of critically assessing organizations but to fail recognize the merit in mocking and belittling other educators.<\/p>\n
Regards,<\/p>\n
Geoff<\/p>\n
(Dr. Spilchuk) Not the intent in publishing individual teachers’ retellings. You are looking, again, for quantitative measure and we are qualitative in nature.<\/span><\/p>\nThank you for sharing. Perspectives are simply that – this is your perspective and your story. Other teachers have other perspectives and other stories. We recognize and value all input.<\/span><\/p>\nAll the Best,<\/span><\/p>\nDr. Barbara Spilchuk<\/span>
\nISR online teacher advisor<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>
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