instructors vs teachers

Hi,

After some 35 years working in industry, I started at a Further
Education College as a part-time (3 days per week) ICT Key skills
instructor about nine months ago. I have about 100 students in 8 tutor
groups varying in size from 8 to 23 students.

All the students (aged 16 - 18) are studying vocational courses (e.g.,
Carpentry) - so there lies 1 problem - seeing the relevance of ICT.

I started work in the middle of October - some 6 weeks after the term
started and I spent 3 days shadowing another instructor - who had
completed a year in the job. Then the following week, I was flying
solo.

There was just me and a class of 23 childcare students whose primary
concerns were:-

* To ensure they were recorded on the register - this was to qualify
for the £28 weekly EMA payment they regarded as their right.
* To spend as much time as possible surfing the internet - especially
the chat rooms.
* To send as many texts on their mobiles as possible.
* To ensure they had exactly the right song on their iPods/MP3 players
selected.

Which then left me to:-
* get as many PCs working as possible
* To try and present a lesson.

I could spend ages describing the loutish behaviour, the obscene
language --- but I'm sure I'm not the only one with these problems.

Over the past 9 months I've been solely responsible for these groups
and I've been expected to do what I feel requires a trained teacher to
do and I've had no training.

I've now crossed some form of Rubicon by notifying my manager that I
will not undertake a classroom observation, because I applied for a
job as an instructor and I'm being judged as a teacher.

I came to this conclusion by comparing my actual duties with the job
description for this position.

It's as if I applied for a job as a flight attendant and I'm expected
to fly the plane from my first day.

Does anybody know what the difference between a teacher/lecturer and
an instructor is? In my college it seems to be that lecturers get
£4000 pa extra salary plus 12 days extra annual leave.

.

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