After 6 years of working at DMLIS,
I have finally been able to make a pathway for myself to get out suitably. I found myself in a situation where it was pragmatic for me to be in Dalian, LiaoNing (PRC). I therefore held my employment at DMLIS (Dalian Maple Leaf International School) for a number of years where I was privy to some fairly shocking and surprising things. Being in a relationship with a local who I married and had my first born with, it was not an easy decision to stay here (for myself-I made it work for my family), but this year has been the straw that broke "the camel's back"-my back.
After relentless requests for changes and improvements around the school but never seeing changes made-I decided that enough is enough and I am mentally and physically better off elsewhere. The school is stepping away from BC's TRB which is also not surprising as the quality of education there is seemingly diminishing as time goes on.
To teachers heading that way for work-consider this your fair warning. I have been there a number of years needed to get out for a number of reasons. You will find that people who have been there for a long time have made it home and for others they are quickly trying to make it as much a home as they can because of the fact that they feel they "have no place else to go and would rather not work as a teacher than go back," to their country of origin.
This school is one I have worked at for five years and unfortunately I had established a comfortable life. Its unfortunate because its not difficult for me to get comfortable and situated, but when I am-I don't like moving around anymore (especially because I have a family now). However being at this school (particularly just with this company-possibly campus), it has gotten so uncomfortable in such a short period of time.
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This isn't actually the first time that I had experienced this-it has been consistent in EVERY year that there was copious amounts of teaching assignments or timetables for teachers/students. My first yer and first block actually teaching was handed out at the beginning of the day and as I went to collect my key (as the room was locked) I was told to come back after my first teaching block which was actually in a different classroom (no key needed). My students were waiting at the classroom right as the bell rang and I was running to get a key. I was informed there was no key for that room-the room in fact didn't exist. I was then instructed to patiently wait as they look into the issue (they being the secretary as the administration was busy-dealing with the other issues like my own). I went upstairs to go to the classroom and collect my students where I realized that the classroom was actually a legitimate storage closet. No, one had a key for this room as it was lost and left unused. I returned to request the key and further details to my situation. I was again told to come back after they review the list of available classrooms and work out a solution to the problem. I walked on with my students and completed introductions with my students. Nearing the end of the day I was tired of "waiting" and situated my class in a random empty classroom, completed introductions and ended the day. the end of the day I recieved an apology and a room key-top floor of the building with the math classrooms-no room for me on the English classroom floor. Needless to say I spent a lot of time making that "my classroom and being up there on my own-a lot. but I guess that's a whole other experience in itself.
Fig. 1-"First day of school?" Pearson Powerschool Gradebook Web Tool, screen-shot on the first day of classes.
This is the first day of school? No? Look in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and you can see this is actually the Sunday @3:50pm(before the Monday-first day of classes).
I have heard administration blame the previous administration for their round-about antics of a chicken with its head cut-off. It goes without saying that it doesn't matter what state it was left in-but what are you going to do to fix it?
There are some administrators who I respect for trying to fix a broken system, and others who I loathe for simply playing into their own ego's. I have yet to seen DMLIS stay consistent with a policy consecutively in regards to course selection and student placement over a span of two years. (2019-2018)
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As time goes on, its interesting you know, the way that teachers in this profession are interested and willing to go to a bar that is called "1%" Bar and known to be associated with an international band of criminals, known as "The Red Devils". But hey, the school doesn't mind, its only immoral if there is photographic evidence of the students who may also be there. Teachers have ended up on social media passed out on the couch in which students inquired with the teacher about the state they were in during the picture. (2019)
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A teacher had reportedly "Sold" Dalian Maple Leaf Moose merchandise (shirts) in my first year as a teacher and laughed when the money collected ended up going "no where"/"somewhere" depending on the variation of the story you hear/heard. This was an experienced teacher who admittedly told their students that the money was put towards other funds in the Maple Leaf School. The teacher never clarified if the money was returned to the students when probed by colleagues. (2015)
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A teacher with PTSD (who had admitted to have a cognitive disorder was placed in a classroom with students after repeatedly admitting to being too tired and stressed out to work with students of the male gender as she felt "unsafe" and "uncomfortable" with her students in the class. The teacher was able to stay at DMLIS for the length of their contract and was not known to have been accommodated, but actually scrutinized by colleagues and staff members for her antics in the office and classroom. (2016-2018)
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When it comes to textbooks some schools are shelling out contract after contract in search of an original and effective peiece of literature for mediocre teachers to reference and avoid lesson planning of their own. That's a bit of a shoot at teachers and staff leadership BTW. Nonetheless, I am sharing this "Maple Leaf Grade 12 English" Textbook that is "original" and abiding by the copyright laws of the its contents are actually under. Wait. If students are buying these books-are they following copyright laws? The simple answer is "No." and the easy answer is-after making these pieces of garbage, let's just not hand them out to students or teachers. It was funny/super depressing to see hundreds of these books floating around from storage room to storage room until they finally made their way into the trash cansof the teachers who "needed to collect them". How much did the school pay someone to copy and paste resource after resource from school resource archives and the internet you ask? about 5000$ CAD-not a bad little stipened. How much were students paying per book (supposed to pay)-numbers seem to be guessed between 100-300 RMB. There was never an official mention of anything in regards to the book because the system coordinator (Ashley Gastonguay who played a huge role in this book's development), basically had it swept under the carpet to make way for "The NEW BC Curriculum"-which resulted in a new set of course development and textbook development projects.
Fig.2-This is the book after I tore out about all of the plagiarized/copyright material; I didn't take a before picture but its quite disproportionate in regards to original resources vs. infrgined copyright resources
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As a future father I made a mistake and was reprimanded for it. I was booking a return flight to Canada for my wife (who was pregnant and myself. I needed to get my wife home ASAP for the holiday as she was flipping out about when the flight would be and when the point of no flying was going to be versus when we were taking off. I requested an official audience with my principal who blatantly ignored my email-didn't follow up and then left the campus for about a whole week. afterwards I tried following up a couple times but was told it was not a good time for a number of reasons. I finally caught the principal in teh hallway during an exam day and said 'I want to take a formal leave of absence for our final "NON-CONTACT"/"HALF"/Contract Day' I was told we would have a follow-up and I said I can't I need to leave the next day for (yes, I gave a BS reason as this principal was basically saying people couldn't leave the last day-no matter what), preparing my new apartment for the next year-ya he said yes to that, but not to catching a flight. After taking off and returning he beat around the bush and inquired about my absence on the last day. Knowing full well the school knows when my tickets are booked I was waiting for him to just say "well you did take an official leave of absence, but no-I appaarently didn't" as I needed to fill in "official paperwork" which at that time didn't exist and surprinsgly, hey-now it does...(2017-2019)
Part of the reason the hammer was dropped on me in teh prevviously stated situaiton was because of this "TOC misconduct". I had gotten ill and battled it out as best as I could for the week as I couldn't just take sick days before the holiday. Needless to say, a new father sick and flight booked for a trip that was seemingly one of the best trips I have ever taken as well as one the most regretable decisions (depending on how I look at it), was held against me because of "how it looks" and administration took it upon themsevles to reprimand myself and two fellow travellers who I made arragnements to meet with on vacation, for being sick the day before the holiday-call it what you will but the tickets were booked for after the day had ended and on top of that, the principal called it "a snow day" which meant the day even ended much earlier than usual-staff was offically let go and sent home. (2017-2018)
The next year, it was interesting that the staff was once again let go early the day before their holiday because "we thought it would be nice to have an early day and many people need to reach flights out for their holiday". (2018-2019)
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Racial discrimination for marketing purposes to parents of potential students and their parents. This is not the first time that this was actually verbalized in the workplace. A department head had actually mentioned that they heard parents getting worked up about the few caucasian teachers they have working in the English department at time (without "disruptive"/hard to understand accents as well).
They are paying this teacher something like 70K+ a year...yet they can't copy and paste...its going really well teaching online...to say the least. Instead of offering specialized professional development for teachers (there are a lot of them who have this difficulty), the school forces the training upon the teacher's Head of Department to take care and guide them through technical training which (in my experience as the teacher came to me asking me for help-after getting help from their head of department), is extremely daunting, overwhelming and difficult for the HOD to do in the first place due to the lack of English communication skills the teachers have.
The school is offering a "pension plan", here are the details-its a real "steal" if you ask me!
The school's response's to the COVID-19 fiasco...this was terribly handled at first by our school administration and SLOWLY got better, but still with teachers who felt concerned and uninformed on the process because the school didn't want to unveil anything that would deter the staff from returning early and thus disrupting the potential start date for DMLIS....as well as other campuses to reopen.
I have finally been able to make a pathway for myself to get out suitably. I found myself in a situation where it was pragmatic for me to be in Dalian, LiaoNing (PRC). I therefore held my employment at DMLIS (Dalian Maple Leaf International School) for a number of years where I was privy to some fairly shocking and surprising things. Being in a relationship with a local who I married and had my first born with, it was not an easy decision to stay here (for myself-I made it work for my family), but this year has been the straw that broke "the camel's back"-my back.
After relentless requests for changes and improvements around the school but never seeing changes made-I decided that enough is enough and I am mentally and physically better off elsewhere. The school is stepping away from BC's TRB which is also not surprising as the quality of education there is seemingly diminishing as time goes on.
To teachers heading that way for work-consider this your fair warning. I have been there a number of years needed to get out for a number of reasons. You will find that people who have been there for a long time have made it home and for others they are quickly trying to make it as much a home as they can because of the fact that they feel they "have no place else to go and would rather not work as a teacher than go back," to their country of origin.
This school is one I have worked at for five years and unfortunately I had established a comfortable life. Its unfortunate because its not difficult for me to get comfortable and situated, but when I am-I don't like moving around anymore (especially because I have a family now). However being at this school (particularly just with this company-possibly campus), it has gotten so uncomfortable in such a short period of time.
_________________________________________________________________________________
This isn't actually the first time that I had experienced this-it has been consistent in EVERY year that there was copious amounts of teaching assignments or timetables for teachers/students. My first yer and first block actually teaching was handed out at the beginning of the day and as I went to collect my key (as the room was locked) I was told to come back after my first teaching block which was actually in a different classroom (no key needed). My students were waiting at the classroom right as the bell rang and I was running to get a key. I was informed there was no key for that room-the room in fact didn't exist. I was then instructed to patiently wait as they look into the issue (they being the secretary as the administration was busy-dealing with the other issues like my own). I went upstairs to go to the classroom and collect my students where I realized that the classroom was actually a legitimate storage closet. No, one had a key for this room as it was lost and left unused. I returned to request the key and further details to my situation. I was again told to come back after they review the list of available classrooms and work out a solution to the problem. I walked on with my students and completed introductions with my students. Nearing the end of the day I was tired of "waiting" and situated my class in a random empty classroom, completed introductions and ended the day. the end of the day I recieved an apology and a room key-top floor of the building with the math classrooms-no room for me on the English classroom floor. Needless to say I spent a lot of time making that "my classroom and being up there on my own-a lot. but I guess that's a whole other experience in itself.
Fig. 1-"First day of school?" Pearson Powerschool Gradebook Web Tool, screen-shot on the first day of classes.
This is the first day of school? No? Look in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and you can see this is actually the Sunday @3:50pm(before the Monday-first day of classes).
I have heard administration blame the previous administration for their round-about antics of a chicken with its head cut-off. It goes without saying that it doesn't matter what state it was left in-but what are you going to do to fix it?
There are some administrators who I respect for trying to fix a broken system, and others who I loathe for simply playing into their own ego's. I have yet to seen DMLIS stay consistent with a policy consecutively in regards to course selection and student placement over a span of two years. (2019-2018)
_________________________________________________________________________________
As time goes on, its interesting you know, the way that teachers in this profession are interested and willing to go to a bar that is called "1%" Bar and known to be associated with an international band of criminals, known as "The Red Devils". But hey, the school doesn't mind, its only immoral if there is photographic evidence of the students who may also be there. Teachers have ended up on social media passed out on the couch in which students inquired with the teacher about the state they were in during the picture. (2019)
_________________________________________________________________________________
A teacher had reportedly "Sold" Dalian Maple Leaf Moose merchandise (shirts) in my first year as a teacher and laughed when the money collected ended up going "no where"/"somewhere" depending on the variation of the story you hear/heard. This was an experienced teacher who admittedly told their students that the money was put towards other funds in the Maple Leaf School. The teacher never clarified if the money was returned to the students when probed by colleagues. (2015)
_________________________________________________________________________________
A teacher with PTSD (who had admitted to have a cognitive disorder was placed in a classroom with students after repeatedly admitting to being too tired and stressed out to work with students of the male gender as she felt "unsafe" and "uncomfortable" with her students in the class. The teacher was able to stay at DMLIS for the length of their contract and was not known to have been accommodated, but actually scrutinized by colleagues and staff members for her antics in the office and classroom. (2016-2018)
_________________________________________________________________________________
When it comes to textbooks some schools are shelling out contract after contract in search of an original and effective peiece of literature for mediocre teachers to reference and avoid lesson planning of their own. That's a bit of a shoot at teachers and staff leadership BTW. Nonetheless, I am sharing this "Maple Leaf Grade 12 English" Textbook that is "original" and abiding by the copyright laws of the its contents are actually under. Wait. If students are buying these books-are they following copyright laws? The simple answer is "No." and the easy answer is-after making these pieces of garbage, let's just not hand them out to students or teachers. It was funny/super depressing to see hundreds of these books floating around from storage room to storage room until they finally made their way into the trash cansof the teachers who "needed to collect them". How much did the school pay someone to copy and paste resource after resource from school resource archives and the internet you ask? about 5000$ CAD-not a bad little stipened. How much were students paying per book (supposed to pay)-numbers seem to be guessed between 100-300 RMB. There was never an official mention of anything in regards to the book because the system coordinator (Ashley Gastonguay who played a huge role in this book's development), basically had it swept under the carpet to make way for "The NEW BC Curriculum"-which resulted in a new set of course development and textbook development projects.
(Here is the book and some of the resources I shot photos of before tossing my copy)
Fig.2-This is the book after I tore out about all of the plagiarized/copyright material; I didn't take a before picture but its quite disproportionate in regards to original resources vs. infrgined copyright resources
________________________________________________________________________________
As a future father I made a mistake and was reprimanded for it. I was booking a return flight to Canada for my wife (who was pregnant and myself. I needed to get my wife home ASAP for the holiday as she was flipping out about when the flight would be and when the point of no flying was going to be versus when we were taking off. I requested an official audience with my principal who blatantly ignored my email-didn't follow up and then left the campus for about a whole week. afterwards I tried following up a couple times but was told it was not a good time for a number of reasons. I finally caught the principal in teh hallway during an exam day and said 'I want to take a formal leave of absence for our final "NON-CONTACT"/"HALF"/Contract Day' I was told we would have a follow-up and I said I can't I need to leave the next day for (yes, I gave a BS reason as this principal was basically saying people couldn't leave the last day-no matter what), preparing my new apartment for the next year-ya he said yes to that, but not to catching a flight. After taking off and returning he beat around the bush and inquired about my absence on the last day. Knowing full well the school knows when my tickets are booked I was waiting for him to just say "well you did take an official leave of absence, but no-I appaarently didn't" as I needed to fill in "official paperwork" which at that time didn't exist and surprinsgly, hey-now it does...(2017-2019)
Part of the reason the hammer was dropped on me in teh prevviously stated situaiton was because of this "TOC misconduct". I had gotten ill and battled it out as best as I could for the week as I couldn't just take sick days before the holiday. Needless to say, a new father sick and flight booked for a trip that was seemingly one of the best trips I have ever taken as well as one the most regretable decisions (depending on how I look at it), was held against me because of "how it looks" and administration took it upon themsevles to reprimand myself and two fellow travellers who I made arragnements to meet with on vacation, for being sick the day before the holiday-call it what you will but the tickets were booked for after the day had ended and on top of that, the principal called it "a snow day" which meant the day even ended much earlier than usual-staff was offically let go and sent home. (2017-2018)
The next year, it was interesting that the staff was once again let go early the day before their holiday because "we thought it would be nice to have an early day and many people need to reach flights out for their holiday". (2018-2019)
_________________________________________________________________________________
Racial discrimination for marketing purposes to parents of potential students and their parents. This is not the first time that this was actually verbalized in the workplace. A department head had actually mentioned that they heard parents getting worked up about the few caucasian teachers they have working in the English department at time (without "disruptive"/hard to understand accents as well).
Fig.2 "uhhh excuse me?" Email between myself and a secretary in the school's Main Office.
(2019-2020)
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(2019-2020)
_________________________________________________________________________________The school is offering a "pension plan", here are the details-its a real "steal" if you ask me!
(2019-2020)
_________________________________________________________________________________The school's response's to the COVID-19 fiasco...this was terribly handled at first by our school administration and SLOWLY got better, but still with teachers who felt concerned and uninformed on the process because the school didn't want to unveil anything that would deter the staff from returning early and thus disrupting the potential start date for DMLIS....as well as other campuses to reopen.
(2019-2020)
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MLIS has a bad history of being entitled to more than it is. There are many examples of this throughout their history, but none quite as shocking as this one. The school system was issued a halt on reopening due to the Coronavirus. Even if other schools were opening (as per government mandate), MLIS would still need to notify and inform the local educational authorities of such potential actions-more so propose a reopen date and obtain permission. The long and short of this MLIS experience was that the school issued official reopening statements and inquiries to parents/students of the high school before the school was set to reopen as per government mandate.
Fig.3 Received notice from MLIS Head Office Memo in circulation notifying the actions taken by their high school in Yancheng (PRC).
(2019-2020)
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Amidst the Coronavirus outbreak (at first call for state of emergency in China nearing), the Principal Ryan Waurynchuk took his family to Thailand after travel had began to be discouraged by the PRC as well as other countries. The actions of the Principal were sent as a "matter of fact in nature" trying to persuade teachers and staff to not worry or "panic" which is understandable. However, to then return and expect to walk back into a school of 2000 plus students/staff-is a little silly I feel. Teachers, staff and the Superintendent had reported (next day), that this is a state of emergency and the school is considering a new opening date.
(2019-2020)
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"I appreciate the questions and answers, but some of them still don’t address the concerns we have. If a students only needs “a signed certificate of isolation “ how are we sure they are not lying? Also students will be traveling here to Dalian from wherever they are, what happens if they get sick on their way here? The latest case in Dalian was brought from outside the country and according to official reports, tested negative twice for a fever, although he has the virus. So I don’t feel comfortable with testing fever 5 times a day if that might not prove that they are sick. What other measures will be put in place? And what about a person who shows no symptoms but has the virus, how could this be addressed?"
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The school took the reopening quite nonchalantly as it left copious gaps in their reopening plan that (even after holding a meeting to clarify the "details") were still left unanswered. Its difficult to believe that the timelines of information being fed to school staff is not a strategy to increase complacency with the school's wishes. A teacher re-voiced concerns after they were ignored/disregarded as answerable by the senior administration.
Sent by a teacher as mass email to all campus staff:
(2019-2020)
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In my last year in the Sr. English Dept. teaching Grade 11 students, Maple Leaf's Global Curriculum goes public with pirated resources that are not only "prated" but also "faintly racist". The icing on the cake for the resource was that one of the options was not even in English. Online learning wasn't the worst thing that could have ever happened to ML.
(2019-2020)
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The school forgot to remind teachers to report temperatures for the whole week during the COVID-19 outbreak as the school prepares to open. The school here is referring to the Monday-Friday of April 20-24th 2020.
(2019-2020)
(2019-2020)
In my last year in the Sr. English Dept. teaching Grade 11 students, Maple Leaf's Global Curriculum goes public with pirated resources that are not only "prated" but also "faintly racist". The icing on the cake for the resource was that one of the options was not even in English. Online learning wasn't the worst thing that could have ever happened to ML.
(2019-2020)
_________________________________________________________________________________
The school forgot to remind teachers to report temperatures for the whole week during the COVID-19 outbreak as the school prepares to open. The school here is referring to the Monday-Friday of April 20-24th 2020.
(2019-2020)
(2019-2020)
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