Job Discussion Forums

[chimchim]

Although I never have worked for a chain school, I am curious as to why many people on this forum try to dissuade other people from working at a chain school. I assume they are talking about schools such as Hess, Kojen, Happy Marian, Kid Castle, etc.
I understand that chain schools are good for new teachers because they provide lesson plans and are pretty good at getting the necessary paperwork.
I wonder why many people tell other teachers that have many years experience not to work for chain schools. Have I missed a discussion about this? I don't plan on working for a chain school only because I am happy where I am at now and will be leaving the teaching profession next year.
I am just curious as to what the problems are at chain schools?

[clark.w.griswald]

Yours is a very good question and one that I have never seen answered on this forum.

I personally think that chain schools are a good option for teachers who are new to Taiwan, who don't have any experience, or who want lots of hours in blocks and with all materials provided.

At chain schools you pretty much know that you will be paid on time every time, and in most cases problems are resolved as they occur. You next to never hear stories of teachers being ripped off by chain schools, or even stories of teachers being treated terribly badly by chain schools.

Most of the problems encountered by foreign teachers in chain schools seem to be centered around personality conflicts with other staff, resentment at having to attend training and do things in a certain way, or just overall cultural concerns. Pay is also a concern as it is often low, but then generally speaking you can get more hours working at a chain which can make up for this.

One concern that has come to light in recent months regarding chain schools regards the governments recent tightening up on regulations. Chain schools often have teachers teach at more than one of their schools and unless you have each of these schools listed on your ARC then you are technically working illegally. Traditionally this has not been a problem as chain schools were generally not the target of police attention. This can no longer be assured and teachers would be well advised to ensure that they are fully legal no matter which school they may work at.

As far as those who claim that chain schools should be avoided, well to my knowledge their are only two people who claim this and despite my repeated requests they have never answered my questions about why.

[sbettinson]

I would actually like to dip in on this thread and offer some information on working for a chain school.

I worked for Hess for a year and found it to be a very interesting, rewarding and fulfilling experience.

The thing that I think a lot of people overlook is that no matter what job you are in, in any industry you are going to have some gripes and groans about some aspect of your working life.

Working for Hess wasn't perfect but it was pretty damn good. Considering I was new to teaching and new to Taiwan they provided all of the training I was going to need to work as a teacher in Hess. They have a great curriculum which means that you just have to focus on how you are going to best teach the material instead of wondering what the hell you are going to teach.

Because it is such a massive company there are lots of opportunities to take part in other things. My girlfriend worked at a summer camp in the South of Taiwan for a week. She got paid a lot of money plus expenses for a week of having fun. Another friend of mine went to teach at a Hess summer camp in the new branch they have opened in Singapore. She had the time of her life.

As well as that you get a guaranteed 20 hours of teaching time a week. OK, the wages may not be as high as some other schools but I was earning the same amount of money per hour as some of my friends working in other schools.

The downside to working at Hess is the homework you have to grade. Depending on your class size and how bad the homework is you might take from 5 minutes to an hour to grade it. This is all unpaid. However, if you are smart you can grade some in the breaktime and at least you are being paid to do it.

I came to Taiwan with no job, no friends, and nowhere to live. I was looking for jobs and had applied to Hess before I left for Taiwan. While I was there they offered me a job in Taichung and so I moved from Taipei where I was hunting for jobs. Considering how scary it was being in a foreign country and not knowing where to go and what to do it was easy street when I started with Hess. They put me in a fantastic hotel for a few nights until I could find an apartment. They took me to the best spots to find one, helped negotiate the terms and even offered me an interest free loan to help me out in the first few months.

It's true that there are some things you have to do like attend training sessions but 99% of them are paid. It's not teaching pay but at least it's better than nothing. I have only ever attended one session that was unpaid but it was only for 2 hours.

Your experience at any school, never mind the chain schools is about how much you are willing to put in. I see many people gripe about unpaid hours but even in my last job where I was salaried I worked more than the stipulated 40 hour week and got no extra for it. It just helps you out with your guanxi as people go on about here. Anything extra I have done has usually helped me out whenever I have been stuck.

I have known a few of my friends have bad experiences within Hess but this was down to relationships with co teachers and the fact that the job was simply not suited to them. Each person you speak to will have a different experience.

The final thing about working in a chain school is that you will get the chance to meet lots of people as there are plenty of people in each school and they all know people at other branches too so you end up with a good group of friends.

My experience was positive and whatever anyone might say I would have no problems in recommending working for a chain school. There's no harm in trying and if you don't like it you can go somewhere else.

Good luck.

Shaun

[clark.w.griswald]

Nice post Shaun.

I would like to add that the training that you receive at chain schools is of course something that you can take away and use at other schools after you leave the chain school. Most schools in Taiwan appreciate this and therefore having started out in a chain school can be a good way of securing better work in your second or third years in Taiwan.

[blueboy]

I have few complaints about Hess, it's been great, but I doubt that I would be taking anything that I sat through in training and apply it to anything else. I would have a hard time applying it to my work at Hess! When I showed up at my branch, the first thing they told me was that I should try to forget everything they told me at the initial training.
Seriously, the training sessions consist of sitting back and watching the trainers struggle for ways to waste your time. Kind of frustrating considering that you are missing your classes that you could be getting paid real money for.
At least they give you water and snacks and stuff like that.

[TaoyuanSteve]

I think very few have actively dissuaded people from chain schools as an option. Perhaps some who do believe the pay to be lower. On first inspection it may appear to be so, but you have to look a little closer than that. How many hours do you get? How much unpaid work will be required and how much time will it take? When classes close, is your school able to replace those hours quickly or are you stuck for long periods of time with half full schedules? Do you enjoy working there? Can you take time off? Are you treated well? The list goes on. In the end, one has to look at end of the month figures, how hard one has worked to get it and how stable it is across the long term. I find there a few Shangri-la type jobs out there. People just don't often get paid signifigantly more than market rates for similar work. That's as true here as in any labour market. There's always a catch. I'd say investigate all job options and look at the whole picture.

[phdinfunk]

I think a chain school is as good as the management.

I worked for 17 months (gave sixty days notice and left in good standing) with a franchise of Shane Schools. I liked the school owners a lot, then we had some problems... I later found out, even from head office, that the owner of that school almost never gets along with women, for instance. However, when times was good, they sure were good, a total hands-off approach to management, easy hours and decent pay.

Chalk it up to personality conflicts, or whatever... actually, I think it all came down to something I should not have spoken aloud in the presence of the school owner, though they had taken a lot of interest in my personal life and insisted that this was normal boundaries in Taiwan -- but even prior to that, when she blew up at me very angrily and for no reason one time, I should have probably made it all appear to be my fault, and I think it caused a lot of resentment.

My experiences showed me that interaction on a professional level in Taiwan is often about "who is boss" more than "what needs to be done." And the old hands have told me in many cases to assent to everything the boss says and then just continue doing whatever you're doing. Meanwhile, if it's a good school, they'll leave you alone and if it's a bad school then they were going to find out a way to penalize your paycheck anyways, you're probably not going to please them, and you should probably change employers...

C'est la vie.

But those lessons and that understanding of Taiwanese school-owners is something that most Westerners probably lack. I mean, in the U.S. the proper way to show respect *IS* to be direct and clear in your communications, to say what you can do and what you'll need more resources to do, and give an estimate of the resources you'll need to do it. That's good business practice and it's pretty ingrained in me from my years of working in the U.S.A. That kind of assertive, clear, direct and specific attitude will get you blown out in a lot of cases in Taiwan. I've seen it happen to a lot of people.

And Taiwanese like to be involved in personal things more than Westerners in business settings. I watched a very professional and well-qualified teacher turn down a job because the boss was getting too personal. That level of personalness was endearing to me at first, but later I found it was also very controlling... and the frigging Taiwanese in a small town all talk, through some crazy network of some kind, about the foreigners in a small town. I lived in Sansia, with 80,000 Taiwanese and 15 foreigners, so there you go.

It's a weird situation and requires a feeling of playing certain cards close to your chest, saying some things and never saying it, and giving what sometimes feels like it should be embarrassing (to them) levels of obeisance to the "boss." All while knowing that your landlady, the security guards, and others may "talk" about anything you disclose or appear to disclose to anyone. Also, maintaining a specific work personality that "feels open" but may not necessarily be so, is a good card to have.

The most common description I heard from my Western friends working there was "Taiwanese bosses are so passive aggressive." You just gotta realize it doesn't feel that way to them, and figure out their game. I've put the way I see their game in Western terms, and tried to make it as cold and clear as I can, but it isn't really that bad. You have to play a specific kind of game in the states too, no? Isn't work culture everywhere designed to hide many aspects of our real humanness and put on a "good face" so the organization can operate more smoothly?

So a lot of first timers work at a chain school, right? Just because those jobs are easy to get from afar. And a lot of people's first year or two probably has a lot of hard cultural lessons... then, if they change, I wonder how much of the improvement was because they went to a "better school" and how much was because they got a clue as to how to interact with Taiwanese management?

Just my thoughts on this:

~J~

[FoundWaldo]

For anyone else reading this I just want to add that I completely agree with comments made by phdinfunk. Right on the money. If you want to teach in Taiwan, you will quickly have to learn how to handle the passive aggressive nature of Taiwanese. You can complain all you want about it, but I think it is important to remember that this is their culture and we are the visitors.

[StayingPower]

This being said, I'd like to add that it's a two-way street, too. If you want to accept blind authoritarianism, suffer from low self-esteem and be a sychophant of sorts, you can kowtow to Taiwanese bosses and live like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs.

If, however, you perceive this cultural difference and nuance, and one that's so prevalent in chain schools precisely because they prey on the unwary, as a byproduct of immoral decisions, lack of personal autonomy and self-expression and the basis of poor leadership, then you decide to work at chain schools or not.

In some Asian countries they've come to realize that blind authoritarianism is a social disease and hinders progress. Or I should say, it hinders ingenuity, the hallmark of progress.

The two-way street is that our cultural should be understood too, lest the Taiwanese bosses want to be prejudiced, which some are, and particularly those at chain schools who must controll a large number of people for the sake of money.

[JZer]

[JZer]

[Rooster_2006]

[JZer]

[markholmes]

There is nothing wrong with chain schools that isn't wrong with any of the independent schools. Some are good, some are bad, with little consistency.

I worked for Kojen for two years and for the most part it was good. One individual manager ruined it for me (and for others) and so we left. But that could happen anywhere. She was fired two weeks after we quit.

If you like the illusion of an easy landing I'd say why not go for a chian school? I would avoid Hess though. They seemed overworked.