Korean Job Discussion Forums

[captain kirk]

The manager chooses when to be a manager. Like when he just wants to kick back he's another teacher. He won't interfere with what the boss wants. The boss just goes ahead and does what he wants. I heard today that there aren't enough students at the new school to pay wages for the teachers. So the owner/boss now pays us with money from his own pocket.

So the boss figures the school needs to be part of a reputable franchise. Not just a hole in the wall hagwon. The mothers don't speak English so all they have to go on is a reputation. And a new school can have an instant good reputation by being part of a franchise.

It looks like I'll be able to do what I want with the time left over after doing the 'army book'. I like the book English Time. But it's odd to be following the franchise book for fifteen minutes and photocopied material for the other twenty. The franchise text is designed for hagwons that don't have foreign teachers. That makes it an attractive franchise pack. Foreign teachers are more expensive to keep.

But next week there will be two foreign teachers here, including me. The owner is an all-right guy I suppose. Though he fired the first Korean teacher who opened up the school. Because her personality was too strong. She wanted Let's Go as a textbook. She got frustrated with management not listening to her. And when she left the whites of her eyes were bloodshot red from stress, she breathed fire, and she kept saying indignantly, 'I have a master's degree!'. The boss said to himself, 'ow, you're over the top', and fired her. The boss, in personality, is like dear old dad. He doesn't want to be bothered. His office is like an executive suite, and he's rarely here.

[jajdude]

Hey CK,

I usually enjoy your posts, and your complaint here is certainly substantiated. I wonder if your boss is related to my superiors.

I feel a similar thing where I work now. The lack of organization is frustrating. I tell everyone concerned: we need new books, and good ones! I can choose them. I have some idea what is good and what and crap. But they insist upon "review". I don't get it. So I photocopy from random materials in the teacher room. But photocopies suck, even when they are from good materials. Kids need books to complete and feel that sense of accomplishment. A teacher (or most of us I assume) needs them to help runclasses more efficiently.

Alas, some Koreans must be addicted to stress, and like to design things in a way that increases it!

To not listen to the teachers is insane. This miltary-like hierarchy of self-delusional self-importance is a real mindbender.

[captain kirk]

Yeah, well, it sure is a real mindbinder. My mind's just about warped and broken today, but it's probably just the full moon, ar-rooo.

So I go in today and the manager repeats that it's out of his hands, and what can he do. The owner wants that franchise program. I expostulate at length, getting a red face and spitting, how idiotic the books are and he rolls his eyes. And tonight I get the feeling I'm not going to take a run at this any more. They can buy this franchise and get me to teach these retarded books and I'm not going to risk my job anymore stridently relating my views. Because it just amuses the manager when I get wound up. And I get this sinking feeling nobody gives a damn what I think, though I know I'm right. And the manager has worked in haggies less than a year; what does he know or care?

Just friggin' conserve energy and put it where it counts, like 'choose your battles'. Although it feels like being a desk mouse, zeroing in on making do with what's left once this decision has been made to get brain-shrinking texts. To add to what can be seen on the worst of days as a soul-sucking, mind-numbing job.

Yeah, the manager bugs me now. But he said today that he's looking at two more months at the school. He's saving his money to put up a website stateside and be a recruiter. He's on a mission at the school, since he's a kyopo and speaks Korean and English, working 11-12 hour days. His apartment is as big as his bed. And on days off he goes fishing Korean style. Which is watching a bob for signs of movement; I couldn't imagine anything more ridiculous to do after being trapped at work those long hours, six days a week. He enjoys getting all wrapped up at work and doing everything, like a whirling dervish. But the really important stuff, like deterring the boss from getting the franchise package with its impotent books, is 'out of his hands'. So he's a cog is all. Spinning around within his alloted influence, like me I guess. And he can be excused, I suppose (even though he prides himself on giving work his all), to have missed the boat on advising the boss because he hasn't worked at haggies for long. And the boss won't take advice.

This is gonna be a goofy one, this contract.

[jajdude]

Yeah choose your battles and play along with the lack of sense of it all.

What can one do?

The pawns serve the king and queen no matter what each really knows.

I like this quote though:

"At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back into the same box."

[captain kirk]

About that quote. The posters arrived for the franchise today. There is an elderly, smiling Korean man who is the founder of the franchise and he looks like the kindly owner and I thought, 'this is an ego thing'. The founder looks like how the owner perceives himself; the enlightened, kind, elderly, Confucian Santa of sorts. There are a lot of influences that put a complex situation, like a hagwon, together. But it would be nice if the King had better advisors. I don't trust those franchise guys. By the way the franchise guys are coming in to be the managers, as well. So not only will there be new curiculum, there will be new heads of state for the fiefdom. My trouble is I don't see myself as a pawn, do you? I'm an arrogant cog!

Because teachers run the school, they are the backbone. They put in the time with the kid-customers. In the classroom the teacher is King. And this King would like to have some say on the teaching materials since they're trash! Time for an office revolution. Elastic bands and paperclips, rulers and lovesticks. Storm the wonjonim's office but he'd be out playing golf.

[harixseldon]

I read the title of this thread and immeditely thought, "Does the OP know my director?" Haha

I'm gone after the 14th of next month, so I'll post my story about how one man ran a growing school into the ground through a series of bone-headed blunders.

[The evil penguin]

Sounds like a good time to chuck a rang around for a bit Kirk....

Alternative title for your thread: How to make good kids bad.

Or: How to kill creativity and enthusiasm in your students.....

Know the feeling. I'd been back at uni in aussie finishing off my post grad teaching degree when i started running out of money.... I've now been back in korea for nearly 3 months.... and planning on leaving again very soon...

After being back in the real world.....well... the BS of korea seems so much harder to take... I'm also at a new hagwon. Beautifully equipped with computers and bright colours and so forth.... A computer with internet hookup in every classroom.... Which we don't use.... Why?? Because we have the "wonderful" textbooks (possibly written by dyslexic monkeys in western Patagonia..... makes you wonder.... if an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite nuimber of typewriters can by chance recreate the works of Will Shakesphere..... then how many are required to write a 'superkids' textbook???) and aren't allowed to deviate from the lesson plan contained within....

And how do make a bad book worse??? Why, very easy my dear Watson... Drag the book over a 3 month period.... 2 pages in 3 days..... when one page might contain 2 useful sentences.... And how do you make the foreign teachers job so much harder?? Easy again... let the korean teacher use the activity workbooks (which contain all the fill in the blank thingos and crossword puzzles and so on). Leaving us the aforementioned 2 sentences a day.... And how do we fill in the remaining
stretch of class time (oh, we can't play games because this is an 'academic' institute) ? Luckily we have a very useful director who is always willing to provide useful teaching tips.... She gave a great suggestion which i wish i could have thought of..... the students should chant the sentences......

Oh... and how do you really improve the work environment?? Get the aforementioned director to skulk outside the classroom taking notes on how often the silly monkey teacher has trouble maintaining full control of his students.... She stormed into my classroom once demanding why 3 of my students were standing up during class.... My attempts to explain the concept of role play fell on deaf ears..

does anybody else find working in korea to be like being stuck somewhere in the twilight zone???

Anyway... the call of the open road is beckoning.... methinks I will soon succumb (spelling??)

Good luck with it Kirk. By the way, sorry to hear about the loss of your chief engineer..... Hope you don't get some idiot just outta uni replacement who revs the crap outta your engines without considering whether or not they can take it any longer.....

[Gopher]

Hey Rapier: I was just reading this post on a break and two kids ran up behind me, not so much to read over my shoulder, but to gape in awe of so many English words.

Anyway, before I could turn around and ask them to leave the teachers' lounge, they saw your icon and started screaming something like "ya-hay," whatever that means. Now I've got a minor incident on my hands.

[sadsac]

No will will ever understand the mind of a Korean hagwon owner. Though our new boss is great. Haggie is only in its second year and she is happy to sit and discuss the merits of certain books and teaching methodologies. I only do conversation, no writing, no grammar, no reading, just sitting and chatting with my students. The more basic levels we use a book to give our conversation focus but most of the time we just talk about how good or bad their day has been. I do agree with the original OP though, so many of the franchises here are such a crock. If you want to look at a seriously flawed program, check out Reading Town USA. Written by PHD's, who can't spell. All the books in in black and white and are so full of basic proofing mistakes it's laughable. No wonder kids despair about ever becoming competent English speakers. Go with the flow and enjoy your time here.

[captain kirk]

Australians are so laid back I can see how they could run a class on sweet nothings. There were some Australians at the last school. Tempers of friendly bears, it's amazing. Totally themselves (Sadsac is Australian).

[rapier]