Hello Shecky,
As a current teacher in DR in the Santiago region, I can only speak about the experience I have "suffered" so far. I say suffered, because I walked into this position with my eyes half closed because I had such high expectations and now I am having my confidence as an educated professional beat down very hard.
*I will prefer not to mention any names, but I can tell you this: if the schools in the capital are anything like this one (and it's a private school), you will very quickly find yourself EXTREMELY frustrated with the administration and possibly students with parents with teachers who you will work with. Already I am strongly considering leaving because of all the issues I've been unfortunate to encounter while there so far. I am really disheartened to say that after an incident that occurred today, I already accept that my short-teaching career may end unexpectedly sooner.
1) I would like to save you any grief right now so you don't find out the hard way, if that is the case. I quickly found out that when I'm told something by one person, in the administrative manner, then it is quickly shot down by another. Ex: I was told that we were free to change the criteria for grading students and so I did, because in the states, we do not grade on absences or behavior directly. However, my grading policy has come under fire and I have been told that it is "not the correct way" At this time, I have been waiting over 2 weeks for SOME kind of clarification from the main director but it has not come. I really want to know if it's a Dominican Republic country policy to grade the students ALL the same way, but nobody has been able to verify this. I'm almost about ready to call the Ministry of Education to ask. I tried my very best to grade the students in the most objective way I was able, but still I am receiving backlash due to disagreements among administration. I did not set out to fail the students at all. I very much want them to learn. But as you know, there will ALWAYS be students who are simply unmotivated to do any of the work, no matter how much you encourage them. There is nothing I can do when a student simply does not do ANYTHING in the class, or outside it.
**Direct parental communication is discouraged because you have to proceed through the proper channels of reporting and even if there is a meeting that is set up, you might not even have the opportunity to know or personally meet with the parents.
2) In the school I work with, there is an extreme undertone of "Let's all coddle the students so no one gets their feelings hurt". I try to remain as objective as possible, but when you are told that "Your students need to pass your class", with an open-hanging threat, then you are supposed to make sure they pass. I refuse to boost their grades falsely, so to make myself feel better, I give them what I call "floating" grades, things like, "10 points if you can show my notes in class right now" or "I'll give an extra credit point or 2 for participation if you all work really hard in the class". I hate doing this because it is in NO way truly reflecting their work effort.
*I am also not sure if this is a country-wide policy, but in my school, NO student was allowed to "fail" the first marking period. Even though I had a small number of students fail, I had to still give them a passing grade, as mandated by the head administrator. I tried to encourage all students to complete the homework as well as study for the quizzes, but I can't help them if they simply don't do the work. I even gave all students my email (which isn't really done here) so they could contact me at home after school. I give my lunch hour to sit outside for students who have questions, unlike most of the teachers who keep that hour for themselves. I try to have unofficial conferences there as well. I can't do much more than that.
3) I haven't really used the textbooks much because A, there are NOT NEARLY enough of them and I have been told especially this school year that they are still waiting on the books to arrive. This school year, it has been almost 2 months since they have told me this. I can very easily order used textbooks from Amazon and have them shipped in for cheap, but that's a no go for now. I have students who, if I assign homework or a quiz, I have to give alternative assignments for constantly because they don't have any textbook to work from.
If I give pop-quizzes and quizzes in general, the students complain to the administration because "They weren't aware that they had to study". Well, for one, I give a pop-quiz if I suspect students aren't reading the assign homework material, and two, to do a quick check to see if they are understanding what I went over in class. I have actually heard this direct statement from a student, "It's not fair that we have to take our textbooks home, why do we always have to study if you aren't giving a quiz?"
4) When I had major incidents with classroom management with a couple students, I hate sending them out of the classroom unless it's absolutely necessary. I have however, have had to do this several times. I made sure to write up the proper report, but nothing has really been done. I have been told over and over "It's the teacher's responsibility to manage the classroom first and foremost". Yes, I understand that, but when a student blatantly disrespects me and calls me a racist, not once, not twice, but several times, and disrupts the class because of it, then I have no choice because I cannot allow the other students to see that he or she is going to treat me in this respect AND get away with it. I still wrote up the proper reports, but nothing has been done to reprimand the student. Mind you, I work with older students, so this is should definitely be taken care of right away.
I apparently have not been able to "adapt" to the Dominican way of education. I was educated to teach in the U.S. and therefore, to my understanding, WILL NOT teach in the same manner as Dominican teachers because we have not received the same education. I will use what I have learned and practiced teaching from techniques in the U.S. It was my understanding that if I was hired mainly because "I am an educated teaching professional from the U.S." then I of course would teach as if I were in the states. I gave a project in the first marking period, and I would say about 90% of the students plagiarized half to almost the entire project. So I graded them accordingly and gave them a strong lecture about how I will not let this fly in my classroom EVER. In retrospect, this has reflected badly on me. I gave my reasons for each student grade, and had I expected that they would have done this in the first place, I would have planned for extra time at the end of the marking period so I could assign them an alternative assignment to make up the project grade. That was a major error on my part, because in the U.S., I have never encountered anything like that. I didn't think I would have any reason to worry.
If you do end up taking a position teaching down here, I would strongly suggest you ask the administration outright what are their goals and expectations for their teachers. I also urge you to make sure you get everything in writing (policies, your contract, all rules for the grading policies, absences, etc) so that you have everything on record. Make sure to document each and every little thing, because especially if you have a student who's parent is also a teacher, you can bet your ass that they will be on top of you and how you grade their child all the time. If they don't like what you are doing, then you will most likely receive complaints against you.
Nevertheless, your experience could be completely different. I really hope that it is. I hope that not all private schools are as unprofessional as this one has been in my experience. Don't get me wrong--I would LOVE to stay with this school if I didn't have all these issues happening. I enjoy teaching, and I really enjoy the kids. It's NOT the kids fault in no way that I am saying all this. I am not so much disappointed that I would leave the teaching field forever, because I know that the schools where I live will NEVER treat a teacher like this. I truly felt that I had found a great establishment to work for. I really felt that I was making progress with about 95% of my students.
I am certain that there are much better schools that this one. I am ashamed to say I never looked past their face value when I was first hired and should have asked more in-depth questions. The government says they are trying to overhaul the education so it can be up to par with the U.S., which is great, but when you have administration telling you to be their little puppet because they have to make sure they look good in the eyes of the public, it's not worth it. The stress that I have gone through for this school is something I hope you will never encounter here. It doesn't matter what you think, say, or do. What they say goes and that is final because it's all just a business down here. Good Luck.
