Acknowledge Me...Please?

 I've had a recent surge of administrative issues at my school, mostly to do with my mentor seemingly having forgotten it was her job to mentor me. Basically, I was under the impression that if I had a question, I asked her, and if there was something I needed to do, she would tell me. Considering that every time I asked her for help she would conveniently forget I had asked her until I gave up, and that the only thing she would ever tell me to do is make lists of all the activities I do, I thought that teaching 16 periods per week, running the English Language Society meetings, publishing a monthly English newsletter, running weekly English contests, hosting a weekly English Day with games and activities, posting a monthly English Bulletin Board, and teaching a weekly yoga class was more than satisfactory.

As I've worked hard every day that I've been here on these activities and lesson plans, I have just figured that the administration's lack of appreciation and acknowledgment of my efforts was just a cultural thing, and I didn't let it bother me. I was having fun, the kids loved me, so what did it matter if the administration didn't care? They're not why I'm here. But, the past month has brought on a whole mess of issues that I could no longer ignore. I started being criticized for almost everything I did... 

"Why don't you teach from the textbook?"

-Well, my job is NOT to teach from the textbook.

"Why are you late every day?"

-I only come late on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I don't have class until the afternoon and I was TOLD by the principal that this was ok.

"Why aren't you at assembly?"

-Not only do I come to assembly but I make announcements at assembly three times per week!

"Why haven't you started any activities yet?"

-I have started MANY activities (and then I proceed to list them off).

Being asked these questions every day, answering them every day, and being stared at afterward with the same look of confusion and disapproval was starting to ware on me. Not to mention the cultural remarks that under normal circumstances I can deal with, but with the added criticism were driving me mad (eg "Why do you laugh so loud?" or "Why do you eat rice with a fork?").

I have been utterly confused about why all of a sudden the administration had no idea what I was doing, and seemed to not believe me when I told them. None of the other ETAs seemed to be having this problem. In fact, from what I hear, I have been doing a lot more activities than many of the ETAs, especially the Imtiaz kids who aren't given time to do many activities. SO WHAT WAS GOING ON??

Well, today, I was eating lunch with my foster mom, Kak Zam ("Sister Zam"), who is also the vice principal. Now, I absolutely LOVE her, and she has always been one of the kindest people to me here, so I don't include her when I say "administration." So as we are eating, she asks me if I could type up a list of my activities so that she can present it to the State Education Department on Thursday for an ETA  meeting. I had just done this for my mentor, and assumed that she had already given it to Kak Zam and the principal. So, very calmly, I told her I had done it and that I'm sure my mentor would give it to her soon. Kak Zam said that she'd like to see it, so I brought over my laptop and showed her the document- a 3-page matrix detailing what activities I'd done, which ones I planned to do, a description of each one, and an estimated cost.

"We had no idea you were doing any of this!"

-What?

"We thought that you just came here and taught classes."

-But what about the activities proposal I gave my mentor in January, and all of the activity reports she's had me write up for you? What about the newsletters I've done? What about my announcements at assembly? Surely you figured that I wasn't just saying things, that I was actually following through...

"We never received any proposals or reports. No one every gave us a copy of the newsletter."

Basically, I thought my mentor was actually doing what she said she was doing, and passing on all of my work to the administration. I don't know what they made of my announcements at assembly, but apparently they had no idea I was doing any work. I am partly relieved that maybe the critical abuse will stop now, but I am pretty frustrated. You'd think that any professional administration would apologize to me and immediately switch me to another mentor, but instead they told me just to go to another English teacher as my de-facto mentor, because they didn't want to confront my mentor and "deal with her," as they said. So, now, I must pretend that my current mentor is still my mentor, when in fact my official mentor will be someone else.

They also said that the English Teachers and I were supposed to be having frequent meetings, led by my mentor, in which a different teacher would be assigned to each of my activities as a point person for me to go to. This was the first I'd ever heard of this. I had been going to my mentor as the point person for everything, and she was just as helpful as a second bellybutton. I figured I was in it alone, which would have been fine with me save for all the criticism I was getting.

I didn't get an apology or anything, but I'm hoping that I will no longer get the evil eye. The most hopeful aspect of the day was that after this meeting in which we discovered my mentor's delinquency, Kak Zam turned to me and said, "Thank you." This is the first time I've heard those words in weeks, so that felt pretty good. We'll see how things pan out.

Thanks for listening.