Worst Decision of my Life

I enjoyed my first several weeks with ACLE and the host families were amazing. The little kids are super adorable and will fall in love with you immediately. Orientation was great and I felt quite prepared. However, I started having issues with the other tutors early on. I got along with most of them, but every once in a while you WILL get a tutor who will think his/her opinion and teaching style is superior to all other tutors. I only had one other tutor like this in my entire summer, but the other tutors, including me, did not feel like we were able to give the best week to the kids. It is difficult to work with domineering individuals with big personalities, but that does occasionally happen in this job.

During one of my camps, I was placed with a few other tutors who, for some reason or another, hated people of my nationality (I was the only one from my country there, as was the case in most camps). Starting before the first day, I was already subjected to the worst stereotypes of people from my country. The other tutors would use some pretty offensive words to describe me, my country, and my people but then tack on the obligatory "no offense," as if that made it okay.

It got to the point where the other tutors were shouting at me in front of the kids. This was often because they would plan afternoon activities differently than what we discussed and I, not knowing of the changes, would somehow manage to screw it all up. I do not want to get into the details but just know that I was both verbally and physically intimidated. In no way is it ever proper for another tutor to become physical with a coworker, especially the way these people handled me. It was dehumanizing and embarrassing. I don't believe that this was an issue with me, because the rest of my camps went perfectly. I was usually sent off with other people who were just like me. For some reason, I just landed with a couple of people with very strong prejudices.

Of course, as other reviews have said, ACLE does not take complaints very well. I think that they have gotten better than they have been in the past, but there is still no proper support structure for tutors having my kind of experience. To be honest, I could go way deeper into all of the issues I had with this group. I don't have to over exaggerate because what happened to me was completely and totally inappropriate and unprofessional.