Are you talking about Sophia at the top of Teakdoor? They tend to red you if you mention her

Seems the time to mention 3 "teachers" that have come and gone.

I'll start things of with "The Giant". As the name implies, this dude was bloody massive. He was a bit suspect from the start, turning up to the interview in traditional Thai dress. Amazingly he got the job, thankfully this wasn't to last as it would soon transpire the goon was off his rocker and 5 years overstay. Anyhoo, boss lady asks me to show him around town which is when it started to go pear shaped. The Giant announces that he will be hosting his own welcome party before heading off to find a bar. Alas, nobody showed apart from the half Thai English teacher who was subjected to a racist tirade. Next day I'm sitting minding my own business at the local Issan food hut when I notice The Giant thundering down the road, and boy oh boy, he looks mighty p**sed off. He starts screaming that he is going to get everyone fired, tries to bar fine the chicken sellers teenage daughter and then disappears into his apartment. Well, there's a colorful character I think to myself and think nothing of it.

Monday comes around and the school is in chaos as The Giant got on campus bombed out of his tree and proposed to a Thai teacher and insinuated that some of the children would make great bar girls when they are younger to the parents. Rather shocked I go to the office and think that is the last we will see of him. But that would be wishing too much, wouldn't it?! Instead the prat hangs around for a week, in that time he managed to: threaten my friends physically, get run over by the local tuktuk, get in a fight with a noodle vendor, evicted and thankfully deported. Oh, and guess what? He claimed to be a connected secret agent! Are these people born or do they just congeal?

Even then, it has to be explained to them.

I'm starting to think teaching might be my calling.

  I'm starting to think I may be over qualified !

Back in the year 2000 I was getting by as a low level TEFLer, it gave me a visa & work permit and paid the bills, it wasn't really the life for me though.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against TEFLers, for the ones who take it seriously it is a rewarding job.
My problem was that I am a Brummie and our accent and vocab doesn't really match the school's curriculums (We should teach 'Good morning, how are you today?' and 'not Oroit, ow'm yer gooing, yam oroit?').

Anyway, I digress.
During this time I was working with SiamPolee and some of the BS that we used to hear from the other teachers in the farang staff room was nothing short of comical.

Examples:

The guy who said that he was the manager of a major hyper market (IIRC it was a Fine Fare supermarket) it turns out that the guy was a shelf stacker and he had left England under dodgy circumstances, kids were involved but not for teaching/learning reasons.

Plenty of ancient teachers who informed us that 'I only do this for the kids or for something to do, I don't need the money (yeah, right).

The best one was the American guy who insisted that he was one of New York's top lawyers (that's a solicitor or barrister to the educated amongst us) and he gave it all up to escape the rat race and help the impoverished and less fortunate children of Thailand.
The fact that he was teaching children from rich families, on the outskirts of the capital city didn't make any difference to our superhero.


In my short TEFLing career I have met many good and dedicated teachers, who I would happily hand my children to in order to educate them.
These are the teachers who really do care about what their calling in life is and the end produce of their labours.

However, I have also met many who in normal circumstances would be classed as the dregs of society.
Teachers who turn up without lesson plans, wearing the same clothes as they were wearing to KSR last night, stinking of ciggies & ale, escorted to the school gates with a trollop picked up from Nana, unshaven and ultimately having to set the lesson up 'on the spot' are not in my opinion 'teachers'.
These dregs are a danger to our children's education and should be taken outside and given a good old fashioned 6-packing.