Another Sad Reminder
I hate to speak ill of anyone or any organization, and my dislike of my time in the “Aloha State” has been thoroughly documented here over the years, but a recent annoyance has brought back to me the very reason I left that wretched island “paradise.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. Hawaii is a beautiful place, for the most part, and the weather is the very best in the entire world. Nothing comes close to it. But the people, ohhhh, the PEOPLE!! They make it the hell it truly was for me, and the hell that it truly “IZ” for so many people there.
To be diplomatic, I will not name the school at which I taught for my five-year tenure in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Y’all can figure it out somehow anyway, if you are Internet savvy.
What set me off this time? I wrote a nice note to the students, faculty, and staff of the school sending them my well-wishes at this difficult time, which is the tragic event of the earthquake and tsunami of March 10, 2011.
You see, I have taught a ton of students from Japan, and I have a lot of friends and even family who still live in Hawaii, and by dint of marriage, Japan as well. In writing that message on that particular site, I was hoping to share a bit of kindness, the type of “aloha” that people in difficult times need and appreciate.
And the person who administers the page on FaceBook deleted it from the wall.
So I wrote it again, and it was deleted again.
When I taught there, I personally witnessed the lack of competence and professionalism on the part of the administrative staff as well as the teaching staff, and this went on for YEARS.
Things were said to me in a way that would get a person fired in a heartbeat here on “da mainland,” but there, no one batted an eye. People who, bless their hearts, were near functionally retarded were employed as teachers there, and students paid a boatload for the privilege. At one point, we were told that we were not even real teachers and could be replaced within minutes if we rocked the boat.
In the end, I came to loathe where I worked and for whom I worked. It was the system and those who perpetuated it, and the undercurrents of racism—often becoming blatant—that finally drove me over the edge. The students were unwitting victims, and I tried to make them my reason for getting up every day and subjecting myself to the gross and blatantly unprofessional joke that place embodied, perpetuated, and even praised.
I feel I had a form of PTSD after I left, and it has taken years to get over the damage it did to my psyche—and I mean the entire state! For a while I thought I was over it, and I still believe that, but I have been reminded once again that where I worked for five years was and is just as petty, unprofessional, fake, and evil as it ever was.
Aloha indeed!
Now, don’t get me wrong. Hawaii is a beautiful place, for the most part, and the weather is the very best in the entire world. Nothing comes close to it. But the people, ohhhh, the PEOPLE!! They make it the hell it truly was for me, and the hell that it truly “IZ” for so many people there.
To be diplomatic, I will not name the school at which I taught for my five-year tenure in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Y’all can figure it out somehow anyway, if you are Internet savvy.
What set me off this time? I wrote a nice note to the students, faculty, and staff of the school sending them my well-wishes at this difficult time, which is the tragic event of the earthquake and tsunami of March 10, 2011.
You see, I have taught a ton of students from Japan, and I have a lot of friends and even family who still live in Hawaii, and by dint of marriage, Japan as well. In writing that message on that particular site, I was hoping to share a bit of kindness, the type of “aloha” that people in difficult times need and appreciate.
And the person who administers the page on FaceBook deleted it from the wall.
So I wrote it again, and it was deleted again.
When I taught there, I personally witnessed the lack of competence and professionalism on the part of the administrative staff as well as the teaching staff, and this went on for YEARS.
Things were said to me in a way that would get a person fired in a heartbeat here on “da mainland,” but there, no one batted an eye. People who, bless their hearts, were near functionally retarded were employed as teachers there, and students paid a boatload for the privilege. At one point, we were told that we were not even real teachers and could be replaced within minutes if we rocked the boat.
In the end, I came to loathe where I worked and for whom I worked. It was the system and those who perpetuated it, and the undercurrents of racism—often becoming blatant—that finally drove me over the edge. The students were unwitting victims, and I tried to make them my reason for getting up every day and subjecting myself to the gross and blatantly unprofessional joke that place embodied, perpetuated, and even praised.
I feel I had a form of PTSD after I left, and it has taken years to get over the damage it did to my psyche—and I mean the entire state! For a while I thought I was over it, and I still believe that, but I have been reminded once again that where I worked for five years was and is just as petty, unprofessional, fake, and evil as it ever was.
Aloha indeed!
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