An entire school may loose its reputation because of one teacher's opinion or lack of acceptance of a foreign country. Worse yet, a school chain may loose its reputation, do to the neglect or lack of responsibility towards a foreign teacher. On the other hand a qualified and dedicated teacher may loose his future career because of situations outside of his control. A teacher may have a pressing situation to leave early due to a family emergency or may encounter a medical problem, thus angering the school to the point of placing the name of the individual on a blacklist website or worse yet, making a call to immigration.



The fact of the matter, these blacklists are unregulated and ungoverned. A school may post a teacher out of anger or distrust; a teacher may post a school out of vengeance and hatred. Both parties do not realize that the situation bubbles to the point where professionalism is lost and ultimately prejudice takes over. Ultimately this situation hurts the entire ESL community.





The regulation of teachers or schools is just like anything else, there must be a third party that examines both sides without prejudice. Schools need a chance to redeem them selves or open under new management; teachers need a chance to explain the entire situation in English to a party unrelated to the situation.





Unfortunately, our ESL field is located outside of our native country and lack of funding is the bitter truth. Blacklists are currently an unavoidable reality.



Teachers: When searching for a job, use the blacklists as guidance, but do not brush off the school without hearing the other side first, give them a call. Just because the school you are applying to is not on the list does not makes it good either. When encountering a bad situation do not make it worse by blacklisting out of pure vengeance, wait until you depart the country and write a precise account. Be careful with the school name, you may inadvertently be bad mouthing a larger chain of schools, further, in some countries, it may be against the law to blacklist the name of the school.





Schools: Try to understand the situation of the instructor, you do not own his/her life just because they signed a contract. Is the problem you are having with the teacher a personal problem or a lack of professionalism in the classroom? Remember, it is also illegal to publish the teacher's passport number or to withhold degrees or other documents from the teacher.