Frustrated.........

Where's my artful paragraphing gone?

 

There are some very good schools who will do a Skype interview if you are the person they want. Not usual but to assert that all schools that interview via Skype are third rate is a bit rich.
However, if the school specifically states the conditions of interview on their website in such no-nonsense terms then I'm afraid travelling there or to London is your only option if you really want the job I guess.

 

I too find this to be false. I know of several excellent schools that conduct Skype interviews and find them just as successful as face to face interviews. Someone I know who does these has in a few cases discarded people because they would slurp coca-cola during the interview, or were sitting in a t-shirt and two-day old stubble.

 

I must say that this thread has been most refreshing! Also have to say to the OP though that this is, after all, the life that you have chosen. By and large most Heads want to meet those that they may be outlaying a lot of cash on. Myself and Mrs Perce have spent a lot of lolly in years gone by to fly to places where we thought we wanted to be. Indeed one of which we didn't, but thats another story.
Part of this is self belief, if you think you are good enough go for the job, if not then perhaps fly to a job fair where there may be more to chose from, and if you have no confidence at all in your ability to get another job stay where you are....

MM keep up the good work, I like it when the forum has a bit of bite!



Perce

 

Application completed - however I have to say that there are 2 factors that make things more difficult.
1. My current employers give lousy holidays. The easter is only 10 days long and that is my only opportunity to get back to the UK to be interviewed as half term here is only 5 days long (inc weekend - we get Wed, Thurs, Fri & then the weekend) and as Easter is late April this year the school is probably hoping to get this all signed & sealed before then.
2. If I get a direct flight I am 13 hours from Heathrow. Obviously Indirect flights would be cheaper but longer. Would you be on top form for an interview having flown 4800 miles, for 13 hours - with your body clock being completely out of whack!
Thanks for all the advice (which I didn't even ask for if you re-read the original post) and the reminder of how unpleasant and unhelpful some TES posters are. I'll buy myself an old fashioned diary for future venting I think!
Many thanks to all humans who posted!

 

The phrase I used was "<u>only </u>do Skype." Surely you'd agree that those who don't go to London and / or fairs are those that should be avoided.
Indeed, I mentioned that we will do Skype, but only as last resort.

 

I think my joke wass better than yours. Besides, there's many people around who prefer your first option. If oen makes a decision to obtain something they know they canmot afford the up keep, surely theyare to blame. The RSPCA would certainly prefer people to avoid getting into that situation in the first place.
As the OP is now suggesting I'm not human (quite immature, but not surprising as he's has a tendancy to puff & whine needlessly and wants the world to feel sorry for him, even though he is one of the world's property developers / speculators) for putting a different point of view forward, he nows comes across as someone who only wants to hear what he wants to hear to the exclusion of all else. Smallmindedness has no place in education, I hope you haven't been teaching, or expect to teach, in an IB school, where one is challenged to view the world from alternate perspectives. I suggest he consider carefully the post he's considering flying to; if he's not open minded enough he shouldn't bother, but merely go back to state schools in the UK...Interview Q: "Why did you go to the Caribean?" Answer guaranteed not to get you the job: "To save enough money to pay off my mortgage!"

 

Maybe some schools who settle job interviews via Skype are not truthworthy but teachers should also not be fooled about job fairs as not all schools which attend then are trust worthy. I've seen quite a few dodgy /Mickey Mouse school at COIS!

 

In reference to the point about attendance at a fair not't automatically equating to good school, no-one is suggesting that was the case. Simple logic: If A leads to B, doesn't mean B leads to A.
All good schools (ignoring US / Austrailain schools) will interview in UK and / or attend fairs. That is not the same as saying all schools that interview in london and / or attend fairs is good.

Membership of CIS isn't normally equated with Mickey Mouse schools. CIS may not be perfect, but I'd trust a CIS schools above the dodgy now defunct WES (We may all have liked Mrs T, but the organisation was a shambles). There are equally good affiliations,COBIS, FOBISSEA, etc. However, no affiliation can ever be fool proof. It is the lack of affilaitions, unless the school is brand new, that would concern me. Mickey Moused Schools will tend to forgoe affiliations, or go for the 'pay your money get the logo' memberships such as NAAS.

 

If I were a cynical person, I might also suggest that many administrators of 'good' schools should be astute enough to be able to employ the right candidate from a video interview equally as well as from a 'live' interview. So I wonder why they don't?
I must say MM, that I hope you are speaking in jest (but even then it is in poor taste in my opinion), when you cast aspersions on the area in which people live or have bought property in the UK. It makes you sound like an ignorant, boorish snob although I'm sure that couldn't be the case. I love Liverpool by the way and I love Geordies.

 

Of course I jest. I almost moved to Hull many years ago. However, having be born and brought up too close to Scouseland, I'm deadly serious on my views on the Liverpool!

 

I had a blast Liverpool and Newcastle but then I also enjoyed Middlesbrough and I haven't heard one other person say a good thing about it. Was Cupid clouding my vision I wonder? Anyways, as a non-Brit, give me the north any day any how.

 

It's strange, not to mention a little interesting, how different people's perceptions of the same person differ. The OP doesn't strike me as being immature or of being whiny. He seems to have a thorney issue with which he needs to engage, and has ventured on to this forum in order to vent his frustration, seek a little advice and perhaps gain a little reassurance.
It would appear that you are not the poster to offer such assisstance.
What he does come across as, is a poster slightly annoyed, frustrated and perplexed with the persona created by some posters on this forum. Personas that appear designed mereley to vex and irritate.
Now, before you leap to accusations of small(closed)mindedness, immaturity and whinning, showering emoticons haphazardly as you type, think! How many posters respond to your threads purely to tell you what rubbish you spout and how repellent you are? I would never stoop to such callow depths myself, but, if you read the threads that you post on, a theme becomes quickly apparent.
Now, if this is your aim, then fine, pray continue in the knowledge of a job well done! I salute your imagination, you tenacity and your large mindedness.
However, if this is you, I mean really you, may I suggest a moment of reflection!

 

You're so hurtful. You have been so mean to me. I'm only trying to help. Sob sob ....
Some posters spend too much time on personal attacks; they keep forgetting the task in hand. Discussion. Sometimes (hell of a lot of times) people are initially bemused / offended by my comments. I challenge people. The long term is that it promotes far more worthwhile discussion than if we were all pandering to some yoof who feels sorry enough for himself to want to tell the world.
I don't care in slightest when someone gets on their high horse and makes personal attacks; I have enough confidence in my own knowldge, experience, intelligence and track record to know that whilst I'm not perfect, I always make a positive impact on those places I've worked in. I've taken failing students and changed them into scholarship students many times over.
The X-Factor / britains Got No Talent culture of today has lot to be sorry for, as it detracts from real talent and by slight of hand disguises the real issues.Today's yoof, and nowadays that includes the twenty to thirty yr olds, want everything on a plate and cannot stand when criticism is thrown at them.
Status Quo - a bad idea in music and philosophy!

 

Should it be? Can it be?
Let's park elsewhere the major philosophical/psychological question whether there is such a thing as the 'real' you or me, or whether 'personality' is a protean reality determined not entirely by the subject him/herself but just as much by the varied constructions of others.
Into the TOK folder with that - and I merely ask whether it is not valid to come here and play around a bit, dress up as someone else, try out some different voices, be that person you aren't allowed to be in the office, the classroom, the kitchen, the bedroom.
Now I'm not saying this forum is fantasy land, and certainly when I give advice in my limited areas of expertise I do so sincerely, and there is nothing of the 'pose' about my authentic loathing for Boca Juniors, Manchester United and Barcelona...
BUT you and I and MisterMaker are all entitled to make uo a bit of a 'persona' on here - one very distinguished poster even appears on the TES 'transgendered'.
People who know me in real life would find that SMT Dude, like some narrator of an autobiographical novel, is 'based on' but not 'a perfect fit for' the real life author.
Other posters have opted for a completely different persona.
Let's deconstruct the gentleman's nickname - he's Mister Maker, a Maker of a Mister, he has made humself a (new, different) Mister for this forum.
It is clear that the delightful MM, a force of nature, a joy to read and a UNESCO International Cultural Heritage Treasure, has created himself in 'negative image'. On here, he is surly, aggressive, cocksure, disdainful and cares not a jot what lesser folk may think of him. He masquerades as a hard-bitten older headmaster type, scoffing at the fluffy 'yoofs' of a degenerate age.
In his real life, I am prepared to bet, he is one of those younger head teachers whose eyes fill with empathetic tears when you bring him your problems - he gives your hand an affectionate squeeze, and tells you that he will do his utmost to help. He wants above all that his staff room should radiate peace and love into the community, as the most important lessons the youngsters can learn. He would like to be seen as the benevolent father of that community, basking in the loyal affection of each of its members. He finds life fruitfully complex, can see and share everyone's points of view, and thus has difficulty making bold executive decisions. His staff call him 'The Old Softie'.
This naturally causes him some tensions which he resolves by writng harsh, bleak frightening works of fiction and by inventing an alter ego for this forum.
I think we should respect and enjoy that, both in the case of MM and of other contributers here.
sincerely,
Nancy Dudette

 

un abrazo

 

It is difficult to know how to respond to such a post, MisterMaker, as I suspect that you must be taking the micky somewhat. In that, I find it difficult to believe that anyone could write something of such apparently breathtaking hypocrisy, something so lacking in self awareness, and not have their tongue firmly in their cheek.

However, I shall respond as if you meant every word you typed.

Your very first post on this thread was one that was infused with an uncomfortable meanness of spirit, and was one which ended with a pesonal attack on the OP. It would seem an hypocrisy of the first order, therefore, to castigate other posters for making personal attacks. Similarly, the condescending attitude you appear to adopt whilst doing so, would seem misplaced.
Justyfying your rudeness by appeals to the virtues of honesty and encouraging debate is smoke and mirrors. Many threads are about discussion, this one was not. This thread was about advice and reassurance, and has been hijacked by both of us for the purposes of this 'discussion'. (My apologies for that, OP).
Your casual dismissal of anybody under the age of 40 (is that the magic line in the sand?) smacks of lazy lazy thinking of the worst kind. Would it be wrong of me to suggest that such contemt for the young is fairly typlical of those who have been too long in the game? Their experience undermind by the jaded cynical attitude they have come to adopt. Of course it would! It would be the repeating of a tired stereotype, and beneath me as an argument to justify my position on anything.
I agree with you over Status Quo. My Dad, however, would disagree, and as a man of advanced years, his opinion (to follow your argument to its natural conclusion) would carry more weight than either of ours.

 

Agreed.

MM, however, would appear to wish to butter both sides of his bread. Having the persona of a mean spirited half wit, whilst justifying that position by evidencing his real life persona as a kindly Superhead.
Pick a 'you', any 'you'!

 

Exactly! Puts me to shame banging on at such length when you have summed it up in five words.
That's the post-post-modern way - and nobody is further up to the last minute than MM.
Today I'm being my avatar again - Dmitri Dmitryevich Shostakovich - but haven't decided yet whether in 'desperate gloom' mode 'or 'forced jollity' mode.

 

You're not really ignoring me, if you're popping into other threads warning posters of how touchy new contributers are. Unless, i'm being overly sensitive and some other new poster has been taking you to task. Which, lets face it, is entirely possible.