Induction

Not the school handbook

Here are a few things that you might need and expect when you start work at a new school:

1. Your teaching allotment (what subjects, year levels you will teach)
2. Your timetable
3. The school's rules
4. The structure of the school's management with useful tips about who do you as a classroom teacher contact in various situations (discipline, welfare, curricular, administrative)
5. Perhaps a school handbook with helpful stuff about how and when you get paid, leave conditions, your responsibilities, etc.
6. The curriculum for the subjects you are teaching, or at least some resources
7. An office or at least a desk in an office.

In the first week of my new job, I have received only 1 or 2 of these essentials and I only got them in the past couple days.   

The new school has been surprisingly disorganized, chaotic and lacking clear leadership, especially in terms of new teacher induction.  In an organizational move straight out of the "how to not manage a school" playbook, we were told that we needed to produce a year's worth of planning for each of our subjects, with no idea of what the students can do (in terms of English skills, especially) or what they've done previously.  As the only English speaking geography teacher (more on this absurdity soon), this meant that I would have to produce 5 of these yearly plans in roughly a day and a half.   Needless to say, I hummed and hawed about this task before concluding that it was perhaps one of the most stupid tasks ever put to me in my brief educational career (which is saying something).  Even worse, we learnt today that they will dock you 3% of your pay for not doing this (which isn't in the contract that I signed).   I dutifully went about scouring the web for possible resources and curricula, before sketching out 3 years of comprehensive geography for the middle years based on curricula from Ontario and Victoria.  And then, just this afternoon, I was called into a meeting where the school's geography year plans for all levels were handed to me like a sack of potatoes.  "Oh yes, sorry, here they are after all.".  

One of the absolute worst things about teaching is its administrative minutae in the form of endless and relatively pointless meetings that teachers are subjected to on a weekly, fortnightly or (if they're lucky) monthly basis.  In the past week, I've had to sit through 2 of these meetings which have lasted between 2 to 3 hours each and have consisted of probably about 90% Mongolian, a language that I do not understand beyond "hello," "ok" and "thank you" yet.  In the meeting this morning, we were lectured at about personal appearances, the results of past years' cohorts, the Mongolian Teachers' Code of Ethics ("don't take bribes"), our future use of water bottles, the election of a committee whose purpose I did not gather, the introduction of a Mongolian civics class and how much you can be fined for being late to class or missing future meetings (7000 tugrics or maybe $5.50).  The meeting started at 9 and went straight through without a break (or any perfunctory snacks or jugs of water on the table) to lunch.  

Next month, I might take the fine.