The TEFL blogs/ TEFL schools culture clash
As is my role as the navelgazer of TEFL, having had to take a close look at the battleground that is the teflnet recently has made me wonder whether something deeper is going on. Do I hear “class war” as an explanation? I’m never one to rule that out, but my theory is that, as is often the case with these arguments that go on forever, we are actually talking two different languages.
As me and Sandy have been doing more than our fair share of trying to see the TEFL capitalists’ point of view recently, let’s see if I can’t try and explain our particular (and peculiar) culture and viewpoint to them:
- If you are a successful businessman who heads a large company, for many people that is enough to make you the enemy. and there is nothing you can do to change their minds. For example, how many people have admitted they were wrong about Bill Gates’s evil empire just because he has turned into Mother Theresa? That’s right- none! It could be due to a philosophy of class war or other political reasons, it could be bitterness, but it’s usually a version of the tall poppy syndrome. I personally think that the tall poppy syndrome is healthy, and while it suggests an abandonment of logic it’s no worse than the ‘rich and successful = good’ culture of the rest of the world
- It doesn’t matter if you have the best idea in the world, someone will always be against it, sometimes just for the hell of it. If you don’t believe me, try listening to an interview on the Today programme on BBC or a parliamentary debate. That is how humans test their ideas the most important factor in how we have reached the level of “civilisation” we have now. Blogs and (especially) forums are the most obvious signs of that, but it has been so since the first person scoffed at the idea of a wheel.
-Rumour mongering, love of scandal, conspiracy theories and ,believing the worst about people are also things that are never going to disappear however much you protest. They also serve a psychological need, especially amongst people who feel skint, powerless, lonely, homesick, like they took a wrong turn in their life etc etc (try and guess what group of people I am trying to describe if you can…). Like it or not, TEFL celebrities will especially attract all of the above.
- People need to vent. Coming at them with logic will only make them angrier
-Trying to reason with someone who is irrationally angry or even a bit nuts is always a bad idea. Unless you are trying to provoke them, they are always best ignored
- These sites are our teachers’ room. Having a manager in the teachers’ room, even one who tries their best to help, will mean stressed and unhappy teachers. The same thing goes for school drinks-a good manager will make sure that they teachers get a chance to have a drink and whinge without any bosses present.
- We would love to be able to hire a private detective, phone an investigative journalist, ask our union to go on strike, write to the relevant government authority, call the police or call our lawyer every time we hear about a problem. That is rarely an option, so we go on the internet
-For us, libel law is a maximum limit or theoretical ideal at which we should aim, and certainly not some kind of minimum standard- just in the same way as some people see a speed limit as a maximum, most people see it as a vague guide and some people see it as a personal challenge. If a blogger or forum poster hasn’t libelled someone, i.e. they have been careful to stay within the law, what more can you ask? Giving an opinion( rather than making up or passing on false facts) can never be libel
-Even if people don’t stick to those standards, if the result is to make people who are thinking “Cool! I can live in Thailand for free!’ take a pause for thought, that is a good thing. Another good things include schools being scared of messing up in case they get bad publicity. If you don’t believe in good things like this happening for the wrong reasons or through the influence of less than perfect people, try looking at the personal life of Bill Clinton.
- You live by the Internet, you die by the Internet
- It’s our Internet, not yours, so there! Hopefully your money and power is some consolation.
I hope these little recent exchanges have increased mutual understanding, but I have severe doubts. I tend to agree with Douglas Adams that a babel fish, i.e. people who can never understand each other even when speaking the same language, will invariably produce more conflict than harmony. So my proposal is, let’s try to ignore each other as often as possible, shall we? Here are some practical ways we can do so:
- If anyone ever writes anything that is “obviously” not true about you, it is “obvious” and therefore does not need pointing out. If you point something like that out to your prospective clients, that means you think they are too stupid to work it out for themselves.
- Try the Bill Gates test. Would he respond if someone made claims about his sex life? I think not.
- Try and think what impression a CEO who responds to every accusation on every blog is going to give. Here are some possibilities- fragile ego, too much time on their hands (e.g. because they have been forced to take a back seat role by their business associates), control freak, trying to hide something. Here are some positive possibilities- no, couldn’t think of any
- If you think something that is written is going to make people think twice about choosing your company but probably choose your company anyway, it might be worth thinking twice before taking action that could have a worse effect than that
- If you can’t stand the thought of losing even one customer due to something that is written on the internet, you need a sense of perspective and/ or medication, and no one should let you near a keyboard before you have one or both of them
I understand perfectly that the above is one sided, but like I said, that is how debate works
June 26th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Alex – Very insightful and doubtless born from personal experience of the “knockers”.
Some of the points you make about the legitimacy of overreacting to negative criticism have set me thinking…
I’m referring to your comment to a post on my blog, in which I mention deleting a set of posts concerning a bad experience I had in my first DoS job. You commented that it was just a rant and that’s what blogs are for.
I’m beginning to think you are right and I was wrong to delete those posts for fear of ruffling a few feathers. I might repost them. Being new to blogging, it’s sometimes hard to know whether or not to whinge about negative experiences – especially when others point out that your own view of things may not be shared by everyone.
Mike Long (a thoughtful blogger)
June 26th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Well Alex, you are probably right. You certainly make some excellent points. But you probably have never had the following experience:
You get an Email from someone who only days before was excited about joining one of your programs. Suddenly they are filled with doubt and are requesting a refund. When you ask why they send you a link to a blog or discussion board and you are surprised to see several posts calling your course crap and you a criminal.
After really looking into it, you realize that three posts seem to be from the same guy you failed last month, but he uses three different usernames to make it sound like his single grudge is actually a group. And the next few are from three completely anonymous people making vague claims about how “everyone” knows your company is a scam.
It then takes you several hours to convince your distressed customer that there really isn’t anything to worry about.
So forgive me if I seem like some kind of a control freak. You just might do the same if you had ever actually been in my shoes…
June 26th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Right on the money, Alex, though I will say that in Thailand, even opinions can land you in jail for defamation. I know a certain TEFL course provider/employer who tried to have several teachers jailed for talking negatively about him on an internet forum.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Bruce
That is exactly the situation that I describe above, but I think it would be better if they looked at the available information carefully before booking with you (if that is what they wanted to do), rather than booking without even doing an internet search.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Alex,
I like your opinion piece above on how the public views successful entrepreneurs, and how those businessmen have to deal with public opinion presented as factual views. I agree with most of your points on why high-profile multinational company captains have a hard time. People doubt their credibility because of their success, there are critics of new innovations and personalities attracted to drama or just want to vent, especially when there’s a “manager in the room” as you say. I think it is indeed often the Tall Poppy Syndrome. If it isn’t, then sincere complaints should be addressed and disputes solved through their proper channels.
But if I may add two points that I think are missed here. One is the fact that the public generally holds such individuals to higher standards then they would to themselves. Some make complaints where resolutions have been attempted from every angle, and still not deemed acceptable (see the case study on Brandon Fike for example: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=62460). Others expect a company and the staff in it to be perfect and faultless.
Another important point here is the manner information is presented. The Internet is a whole new forum and a little like the wild west. And it can be unfair to both the public and business owners.
Civilized populations have realized that with informative access to the general public, they can either do great damage or have great control. Look back at the propaganda of the Nazi’s, or literature that formed political arenas, or even modern-day public articles that have destroyed careers.
That is why we have laws in most societies about what people can print in magazines, journals, newspapers, books. Because as much as we need to honor the “freedom of speech” right that posters shout about, we also need to honor the rights of privacy, as well as protection from attacks, fraudulence, defamation and general societal “scare-mongering”.
The Internet is a new technology for finding and presenting information publicly. Laws on protection of citizens have not been created yet. Not everyone can print anything in other mediums and journalists are accountable for differing between facts and opinions, and backing up their facts. This is not true for our new public information medium – the internet.
Yet, we are so conditioned in our society to feel protected by public information dissemination that we tend to just accept what is written in public as truth. Most people nowadays use the internet for information and accept de facto what they see. Public misinformation cannot only damage organizations and individuals, but lead readers to beliefs and acts that are unacceptable. In the extreme this could be the rave of suicide or pregnancy pacts we’ve been reading about. In the less extreme, it allows individuals to attack where normally it would be illegal for them to do so.
So I would like to make a strong claim to anyone to: please question before accepting anything posted by one commentator on the Internet, especially if the website is a blog site. What you read on those sites are not necessary true, and you should realize this when there is only one side of the story printed – the blog site owner’s. If you really want to determine if the information presented is truthful, email the organization and ask how they dealt with the complaints that have been posted. Ask for facts and witnesses to back up the poster and the responses, then make up your mind.
I would like to post a warning to potential readers that seek information, that some writers have aggressive and vengeful personalities and post misinformation – not to inform – but as a way to strike out at what they feel was an unresolved personal incident. Please check anything you read with the company involved for “both sides of the story”. There are a few “bad apples” out there that wish to confuse the public.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Mike
To summarize, your point seems to be that you shouldn’t believe bloggers because they have an agenda, but you should believe the people who own the businesses. To which my reply is- who has (even) more to gain from twisting the truth out of those two? Next you will be telling us that if we want the truth we should first go to the PR man.
June 28th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Hi Alex,
I don’t say you shouldn’t believe bloggers. I’m saying the public NEEDS to question the information in them and check it with other sources (like where the complaint, information, etc. comes from).
I state that readers need to beware that bloggers sometimes post on their sites only their one-sided opinions – where the information is muddled by personal feelings. And they present these feelings as facts to the public. Whereas in other mediums we do not have that. When you read the paper you know the editorials contain stronger languaage because they are opinion pieces (and those writers must still use facts or be held accountable). This is not true of blog sites and many readers tend to unconsciously accept what is written for public view as truthful.
Also, I’d add that you should be able to trust a business that makes a claim. Because if the claim is untrue then that buusiness can be held accountable to public protection agents such as Better Business Bureaus, ministries, laws, etc.
In the case of TEFL Intenational for example, some bloggers have made outrageous and untruthful claims. For example, they have claimed our Special Thai Program is a scam, we threaten and force our clients into activities (such as on-line feedback), or we publish false information (such as references and citations). All of these are false accusations that can easily be disproved. If we were dealing with traditional mediums, the business could show them as untruths and ask the writers to publish the truth so as to not mislead the public. But with blog sites, businesses that prove and ask those bloggers to not mislead publics are ignored. The blog owner has freedom to post up only what he sees fit – that which may be supporting personal agendas – agendas where the goal is to meslea dthe public. He owns and is not accountable for whatever is written.
Finally, should you go to a PR man for the truth? Most certainly! Anyone who works in PR as a career or who studied it in higher education will tell you that is what PR is about. Providing publics with the truth and if the truth reveals that a company is in the wrong, PR works with other departments to resolve complaints and improve quality of the business’ operations.
I reiterate. If anyone has a complaint regarding the services offered by TEFL International, then contact me at mikef@teflintl.com and I will help resolve it. But considering the amount of clients TEFL Int’l serves annually, the ratio of happy clients to complaints is extremly high. I believe there are less than 10 complaints to the BBB made with us in the last decade – all of which were considered resolved.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:02 am
This is the kind of thing that makes me depressed about the chances of us ever understanding each other:
“Finally, should you go to a PR man for the truth? Most certainly!”
In my world, that could only be a joke, but after trying very hard to comprehend I really don’t think it is supposed to be…
July 10th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I should perhaps also point out that the word “worst” was not in the post before I edited it either, and neither were any synonyms of it or insinuations that it was so. The entry is about 3 organisations and/ or people who I felt stood out by the fact that I had seen enough evidence on them to make a judgement without having met them. I am reserving judgement on whether I have changed my mind or not until after interview part 2 and comments, because otherwise it takes away much of the point of that process of weighing up all the evidence.
April 6th, 2009 at 4:05 am
While Alex has written a vigorous defense of free speech and the power to handle criticism with poise and reply in a rational manner, I’d like to note that this issue extends far beyond TEFL.
England and Canada both recently decided to block “controversial” leaders – and elected officials of western democratic countries – from visiting because government officials the visitors (George Galloway -, Gert Wilders) would provoke too much debate. What is this nonsense? Shouldn’t we allow people to hear dissenting voices in TEFL, on the internet, and in our papers?
Check out this excellent column from Christopher (God is not Great) Hitchens from Slate on this same issue:
http://www.slate.com/id/2214939/
As international educators and writers, we should be on the side of information, freedom, and choice. Let’s avoid the censorship, including self-censorship, temptation.