Today; I discovered that one of my colleagues is the subject of an official disciplinary report submitted by the same group of students whom I have the misfortune to be teaching.
The students are complaining that this man is keeping them much longer than the allocated time and subsequently they are late for the following class. This issue is so important to them that they have submitted an official complaint to the dean of the college. It could be very serious for this person; maybe he might even be fired (people here have lost their jobs for less).
I really don't like this person however; hate springs to mind.
He latched onto me when I first arrived here, offering to drive me to work every day etc etc. However it soon became clear that his favours were not exactly without sacrifice on my part.
I am naive; I admit it freely. I have come from quite an innocent English middle class environment.
Although I have lived in several countries I have never met someone like this man, whom we shall call, Dr Gonads (not his real name unfortunately). For a whole year, he drove me to work, always late of course, and often not turning up at all. He was very very insistent about this matter.
One day, a friend of mine, a fellow european, with a wonderfully French persona (unusual for a Bulgarian! - okay he's French), asked me how I get to work.
When I replied that this person, Dr G was taking me each day; his face literally changed shade. "Be very careful" he advised me, because, "Arab people do not do something for nothing". Instantly I realised something, in all my naivety!
Dr Gonads and I were sharing a course; yet it seemed that I was doing almost everything on the course. All the work was by my effort while he was seemingly only doing the obviously more important work of driving and photocopying!
He would take my work frequently under the guise of just "checking for mistakes",
- painfully crafted assessment rubrics, lecture notes, student guides and numerous ideas and reports, and somehow while under his possession, his name would magically appear on the document (always before mine strangely)
Then, I would see him the very next day, emerging from the office of the dean of the college, clutching familiar looking papers, with the audacity to inform me that he had shown the dean what we had done and what we were doing next. Of course in my naivety, I actually did believe at the time that he was mentioning me in his discussions with the boss. Stupid I know.
When you spend a lot of time with someone, you notice when they offer inconsistencies in their stories. The fact that one is a liar does not stay hidden for long in such situations. As a liar though this guy was dreadful. For God's sake, at least you should remember what you lied about and not offer a completely different porky every five minutes. It's crazy!
That was not all, many other pretty awful things happened because of this person. Where I was inextricably tied to him, thus all his mistakes stuck to me as well. He kept me close.
So close in fact that we even sat together in lectures, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, students presenting, and me filling in the assessment rubric (he never actually managed to complete his copy though)
Many things happened by his fault,
- he would not turn for his lectures, and as I had turned up I had to improvise and deliver the lectures myself,
- he started arguments with both staff and students which somehow I was pulled into, and
- him trying to get me to lie about the success of the new teaching methodology that he was using (which was obviously failing).
The "teaching methodology", which he claimed was being used in some of the top universities in the world, was in fact of his own design. It consisted of him giving a topic to students which they later presented to the class. This meant that he had to do as little work as possible. Perhaps that was the main idea.
It may seem reasonable, however to make students present on subjects like this. Unfortunately these students, for the most part, had a very poor command of English and thus made numerous glaring mistakes in their presentations. Copying and pasting internet articles and then painfully attempting to read the words back to the class was a commonplace practice.
I had tried to revise and improve the method but it was quite fundamentally flawed.
I had wanted to tell the dean of this, but when I made this suggestion to Dr G, he threatened me, "that this method is mine and his; but if it fails I will be blamed more than him".
I asked how I would be blamed more than him, to which he answered, "because everything was working until you arrived".
In fact it was not working. He had run his method in a very slapdash manner and covered the failings with numerous lies. He had kept the students happy by awarding 90-100% for all! All I had done was to try and address and report those failings, so apparently it my fault because those failing were not there until I had arrived. Blimey. It was a terrible situation.
Anyway, eventually, we had a huge and public argument. He went again to the boss and told him more lies; that I had said and that. Poor innocent little chap he is. I could almost shed a tear for him (ahem perhaps not)
This term we have been working separately in the same course but not involved with one another in any way. As a result of his ineptitude, it seems have got him into trouble at last. Despite this I feel sorry for him to some degree. I don't know why really.
It is pretty shameful that here, the power to hire and fire foreign staff seemingly lies with two. Firstly the president of the university, and secondly with the students!
Student power gone mad!
I agree that students should have a right to address their concerns about certain lecturers. I personally had some appalling lecturers in my university while studying.
However, frequently here, academic staff have been fired for giving students bad marks; or for refusing to add marks for the sons and daughters of local bigwigs, or like I am doing now, pushing the students to work hard. Tough working in the wild east.
Perhaps I'd better look for another job. Any offers?
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