Should I stay or should I go?
I need some advice from impartial people so I am posting this here.
I am from the USA and have been in Ankara, Turkey since August 2007. I am here on a teacher exchange program. I am teaching at a private high school here. A Turkish teacher from the school here is taking my place back in the US, where I teach ESL at a public high school. The exchange program is just for the 2007-08 school year and we will return to our own jobs in the fall.
To make a long story as short as possible, I am miserable teaching here. The students at this private school are horrible. They are by far the worst I have ever encountered in my 13 years of teaching. I cannot teach, but am just a babysitter, and a very ineffective one at that. To make matters worse, I have a horrendous schedule. I teach 25 hours a week, 5 different levels, and 10 different classes of students. Although most of the other English teachers at the school here have about as many teaching hours, nobody teaches as many levels or classes of students as I do. I guess they wanted as many students as possible to "benefit" from a native speaker.
Back in early November, I had tearfully told my department chair here how unhappy I am. She said she would think about what could be done to help me. I have discussed my problems with her at least twice more since our initial conversation. Well, nothing was ever done. I had thought she would set up a meeting with the principal to discuss my issues, but no.
I had also talked with S., the person in charge at the exchange program's office here about my terrible schedule back in September, and she said I would get used to it. Then a few weeks later in October, when I went to the office again to pick up some reimbursement money, I was hoping to discuss my problems with S. but she left as soon as I came. (She had known I was coming that day, by the way.) Then on December 14, I went to the office again to participate in interviewing the Turkish candidates for next year's exchange program. I told S. everything and how I was thinking about terminating the exchange and going home. She said that she would arrange a meeting with my department chair and principal to discuss all the problems and see about getting my teaching load reduced for the second term. Well, five weeks have passed and still no meeting has been held.
This past Thursday was really the breaking point for me. I'm ashamed to admit that one class got me so upset that I cried in front of them. In thirteen years of teaching, students have never made me cry in front of them before. I went home Thursday afternoon and cried some more, and stayed home Friday and cried even more. I think I've been having a nervous breakdown! And I'm ashamed to go back to school next week after crying in front of students there.
Since I have not received the support I need from either the school or the exchange program's office here in Turkey, I have been contemplating terminating the exchange, since the first semester here is just about over, and returning to my job and home in the US. Thursday night I contacted the exchange program's office in the US and they told me to think it over this weekend and be sure it's really what I want to do. Since it is an exchange, my exchange partner in the US would most likely have to return here, and I'm almost positive she won't want to do that. I had set up things very well for her at the American school, finding many people to support her. Unfortunately she did not reciprocate for me here.
I also want to stress that homesickness is not the issue. I have lived abroad before, both studying in France and also volunteering in sub-Saharan Africa for two years. I like Turkey well enough, but the teaching conditions here are awful.
I'm normally not a quitter, but I really am overwhelmed and don't know if staying here through June would be good for my mental health when I have been feeling so miserable ever since I started teaching here.
The one benefit of finshing the exchange and staying here through June would be saving some money. I get paid my US salary from my home school. But here I do not have to pay rent, as the school provides me with a (not very nice) apartment and they take care of utilities too, except phone and Internet. My exchange partner is living in my apartment in the States, and we had agreed to split the rent for it and she pays the utilities there. I'm definitely not spending as much in Turkey as I would at home, and have been paying off my credit card debt. I'm almost finished with that and would be able to save up some money during the last few months here. But, the question I ask myself, is saving up some moeny worth the crap I have to deal with here and what it's doing to my mental health?
Thank you so much for reading this. I wanted the opinions of people who don't have a personal interest in either keeping me here or having me come home.