Shane On You

Some people (the intelligent minority) will know that the title is a deliberate error. Others will think I don't know how to spell the word 'shame'. This story is for the former category. The others, let it pass because you will more than likely not understand it...

I got my wings at Avis today, in the shape of a red Chico, and then flew along the N2 towards Cape Town, picked up my AAA Certificate and paraphernalia, and then headed to Shane Global Village.
I know, it is a strange sounding name. It is situated behind the Portswood Hotel.
There was no parking in the nearby lot so I had to risk wheel clamping while I was being interviewed.

Mick Riggs interviewed me. I suspect the stage was set for male posturing and other ego nonsense, since a blonde women observed (training) the interview. I thought when I left home having not shaved that it was probably not going to swallow (go down - that explanation is for Mick, who might not otherwise have understood since it might not be exact enough) well if I was going to be interviewed by another male.

Too true. The first portent of disaster emerged when Mick said there would be no time outside of class hours and homework for anything else. No emotional problems, nothing. Now get this. I am 33 years old. I've been to school and university. I'm signing up and paying for a course. I've spoken to a friend who has completed it. All this is old news, how hard, how long, how much. Nevertheless I listened to it all again, got the impression he thought I was in over my head, didn't appreciate the seriousness of the commitment, and was just someone lacking in ability. I still went ahead, thinking my interest and enthusiasm would be enough to just get through the interview.
He just seemed to continue digging at me, as though he wanted a subscription to Mick's World View of English The Celta Way. I would have preferred just to hear about The Celta Way, not have it colored in and over the lines with his private blue and thumb prints. Just give me the original and let me work my way through it. Don't prep me, test me, prod and poke me. I'm a mature and fairly intelligent human being actually. I actually went to university. Actually.

When he finally finished his oration, he impressed upon me that would be no time for any extracurricular activities. I understood what he meant, that one had to focus and get down to business. But I nevertheless asked a rhetorical question. I asked whether there would be time to at least train for an hour a day.
He spluttered, he shook his head, absolutely not, and again went into more detail about what the course entailed. Now alarm bells were ringing. Who is this bozo?

Finally, when there was a chance, and thinking none of what he was saying made sense, I asked: "So you're saying, on a daily basis, for an entire month, I won't have time to go to gym to train for an hour?"
This stopped the momentum, and he acknowledged that he didn't understand what I was saying. "What do you mean, going to a gym?" He said he thought I meant training for the AAA school. (Earlier in the interview I handed him a Diploma, dated2000 , from the AAA School of Advertising).

One thing a teacher needs to be able to do is listen, especially on those occasions when a student asks questions, or volunteers information. But this is even more particularly pertinent when both parties are agreeing (as a matter of principle)on how important it is to listen in an educational context (but even in any communication)! How many exclamation marks do I need here?

Mick Riggs. How shall I describe you? British. But more than that. More than that he is not relaxed, and looking for things to fuss about. Difficult, and self promoting.
He began by saying it is his job to decide whether I will be able to do the course, and also whether the course is something that will suit my purposes. Since I was present for the interview, obviously I had modestly answered both questions for myself, and now it was merely the formality of him doing the same on my behalf.
He was exceedingly slow on the uptake. He is, I feel, the sort of person that you eventually want to approach (if he ever stops talking) and whisper in his ear (so only he can hear: I am much more intelligent than you are.) The thing is, I can't do that because I am just not that arrogant. people are, after all, talented in many different ways. I'm just saying the thought popped into my head because I was feeling increasingly pestered and irritated and felt time was awasting with all the verbal diarrhea being spilled in that room.

I'm laying it down here, in writing, not out of arrogance, but as a strategic move. I won't pretend I think this website has a huge audience, but it starts somewhere, one person telling one other person and I hope to spread the word and have the internet do the rest. Spread the word that someone at the helm of this school near the Waterfront is a big fat...well...someone who can throw a ball. We'll get to that word at the very end. First, more venting.

Basically this British fella was interviewing me and testing my ability (but basically metering it off his own). One of his questions went like this:
A________ smoker.
Well, what is the answer? I thought about that one for a moment, thinking to myself, But I don't smoke.... to categorize senses into past present continuous and other forms and categories.
Then he suggested the word he was thinking of...He said, "It starts with an 'h'". Maybe this is the ultimate test of English ability, but I spoke to a friend of mine who is to be hired at Saint Michael's as an English teacher, and after a similarly long pause she finally said, "A habitual smoker." No, the answer (Mick's answer) is: A heavy smoker.

Then he asked me what I thought of the importance of terminology and I replied, by means of an analogy. Nevermind that he didn't allow me to complete the analogy (in other words, didn't let me even finish, wouldn't listen), he interrupted with his own analogy, basically suggesting his was better. At that moment I interrupted him, by way of cautioning him in his approach, and said, "Are you arguing with an analogy I've made...?" The question is simply asking, "If I choose to suggest something, do you think it's reasonable that you can disagree with the colors and tones that I choose?" Like saying: Wow you look lovely today. No, rather say, You look beautiful. It's totally arbitrary. That's like: if I am an artist, and a stranger comes along and pulls out his own crayons and draws all over it. And we were simply having a conversation.

I believe some teachers suffer from Mini Me Syndrome. They teach in order to validate themselves in the classroom (since the real world won't). I have been averse to teaching for this reason. I don't want my world to just be this microcosmic place where toddlers think I am a superhero, but in the outside world it is back to Clark Kent. I think schools (as well as churches) need real men, real women, functional people, teaching. Not losers and outcasts.
This is why I was surprised to see a pissing contest erupt on the subject of grammar, and in the presence of the lady, Mick had to be right, insisted on being right, and when I simply suggested that we have different opinions, he seemed to feel that he must show me to be the fool, the stupid one, and not simply having a right to a different opinion. That lacks understanding, and frankly, intelligence, tact and skill in conducting an interview.

That (saying I am stupid and lacking in ability to do this course) may have worked, especially since I apparently scored 0 on the grammar section of the pre-interview questionnaire, and the fact that he said any student of mine would know the answers to the questions I couldn't answer. And how would I feel about that.

As I say, that view might have worked, except for these interesting insights:
1) I was assisted in filling in the questionnaire, in particular the unassailable grammar section (past present continuous, present perfect etc) by a friend who is a qualified, Oxford trained, English teacher.
2) A friend of mine studied the CELTA course at exactly the same school whose first language is Afrikaans, and frankly, my English is a notch or two above his. How do I know this? One, I edited part of his magazine for him.
3) I have actually gotten a distinction in English at university, and you know, one of the subjects when you do English at university level, amongst others, is grammar.
4) This course can be undertaken by matriculants. I have an Economics degree and a postgraduate diploma, in marketing, plus 3 years teaching experience.
5) His reasoning at the end was that he felt I wouldn't be able to do the course, and that it wasn't suitable for me. The actual reason he turned down my application wasn't because I lack the ability. And he knows, because I explained my needs, the relevance the course has for my work as a teacher in Korea or elsewhere. Maybe he felt I am a disagreeable person. Funny, I could say that about his style of giving an interview. Maybe he should not ask for someone's opinion, and then trash it. At the end of the day, the interview was all about emotional responsiveness, but in a dominating fetch-the-ball and let's-see-if-you-do-it-right scenario. That's not a credible way to assess ability.

What is certainly true is Riggs expects you to roll over, sit, fetch the bone, on his instructions, and more particularly, to his exact specifications (aka expectations)even though he preaches a formula of elicit information from a student. That may be a technique, but according to his guidelines it becomes insufferable and self defeating.

The problem when you elicit information is that the response you get might not be the response you expected, especially from a student that is at a higher level than you suppose, possibly even at a higher level than the person doing the eliciting.

After he asked the '________ smoker' (starts with a H) question, I should have retorted with this one:
_______ and vigor?
Hmmmmm? Starts with V.
Vim and vigor.
Or this one:
_______ and Ash.
Hmmmmm? Starts with S.
Sackcloth
Expressions at least promote a moral lesson and have a limited number of responses. There are an unlimited number of adjectives to describe nouns. This just seems to me to be someone in a teaching position, with some limited power, who has let it go to his head.

One statement he made, which seemed totally out of place, was this one: "Teaching is a very lonely profession, because you find yourself alone surrounded by people who don't know what you know."
That is his world but it's certainly not mine. I drove away from the interview sad that I would not meet some of the colorful and lively students I met at the door, but glad that I hadn't rolled over and play fetch to Mick's endless word tossing. There's a great British word that describes disagreeable people, who like tossing their name, and the name of their school away.