11. Surprise Teachers Meeting

Teachers meeting:

If at some time period the co-teachers think you are not up to par with their expectations or taking a few more sick days then they’d like or some combination of the above, they will call a teachers meeting and you won’t be told until 30 seconds before it happens, so be ready.

Their crafty sneak attack was alright by me; I had a few things to say to them as well. I told them to their faces, in a surprise teachers meeting that they sprung on me, that they could walk down the hall at anytime to let me know schedule changes. It takes all of 30 seconds. Or they could contact me by sending me a note by student if they were so inclined (lazy). I asked them if my job is important at this school, they say “yes”, then I ask them if they can make time to tell me the information that I need to know and the answer is “no”. Seriously, how difficult is 5 min a week of looking at the lesson that I made without their help (contrary to the contract)?

The sick days have no correlation to job teaching unlike the Korean conception of them. Sick days are given or allowed by some schools, rarely, if you are a good follower and they feel like they want to reward you. Not to really be used if you are really sick as many can attest to. One time I was told by my co-teacher that the VP wanted me to use sick days for my summer vacation where I was seat-warming – well thanks, that’s so nice of them to think of me only when I’m wasting their electricity because they’re idiots. If you or anyone else takes a sick day so be it, the only thing they are allowed to do is tell you if it’s paid or not. Likewise with the job, they can’t discipline you for doing your job, no matter how crappy you teach as long as you attempt to do your job (i.e. teach English in some manner and I mean that in the broadest sense). It doesn’t matter that they don’t like your job and or you; it’s not part of the job. They can be jealous (and they are) that you aren’t held to the same responsibilities and have a different (key word: different) job duty than theirs.

Koreans see you as a subordinate, and will treat you as such by piling on any extra work/duties onto you so that they don’t have to do anything. This is retarded given the fact that your contract says otherwise, and some people such as myself, have a higher level of education than they do. Koreans see young age as stupidity and old age as power. This won’t change anytime soon. You would think that English education would be a shared duty of the English teachers of a school… it’s only common sense. It doesn’t matter that they do more work than you, it’s not your concern, you are a hired contractor that is here to do a task that they themselves cannot do. If they didn’t want you here, they wouldn’t hire you in the first place. Don’t let them sucker you into the, “we’re too busy” and “it’s all your job” BS that they love to mention at any chance.

They said I wasn’t calm for their surprise attack meeting – no really. When you get four Korean teachers, who do absolutely nothing, that think you’re not up to par and blame you, I think you’ll get a bit defensive too. I rebutted with a few choice criticisms of my own... I said if they didn’t want to hear the truth, they shouldn’t make me go to their ridiculous teachers meetings (inquisitions in disguise). They said that last guy was calm and listened to them carefully; I retorted that that guy didn’t stay very long (3-5 months) and didn’t do any work at all – so much for their faulty comparisons.

They mentioned that my quality of work slowly degraded over time, yeah, no kidding. It’s not like I haven’t been asking for help the entire time and getting nothing. Additionally, it’s not like there’s some educational standard to adhere to. They love to mention that you’re supposed to come to them if you have problems… this is funny considering that I do tell them of my problems; it’s probably not important enough for them at the time. They tend to shrug them off. They only start listening when it starts to affect them immediately in some way. Here, I can see myself pointing at the contract trying to explain things to cave people who scratch their heads in befuddlement – considering it’s written in Korean and English, this is amusing. I told them they should watch each others’ teaching abilities, they’d be very surprised and learn a thing or two. The gaps in their skill levels/teaching ability are enormous; mostly on the horrid side though.

If, and only if, you manage to convince someone and things change, they will only change temporarily and usually only for one teacher. It’s a lot of work to get one of many to change their ways, it’s more likely to sway their opinions of you in a negative light… is it worth it? Who knows.

Another topic was classroom management. I figure, the Korean teachers should manage the classroom. This was the unspoken rule that I assumed from the beginning. We, presumably, are mainly untrained in this regard and the Korean teachers’ lack of doing anything else highlights their prime candidacy. Assuming that we the foreigners did in fact try to discipline the students, it would be very ineffectual indeed. The students have been brought up to give the foreign teacher and class an utter lack of respect. This is seen in the eyes of the Korean teachers as well. It is a continual cycle of disregard. This is troublesome since even the Korean teachers themselves have trouble maintaining order over those classes they have let run wild. With Hong and Gang, they lack any control over the class. I wonder how they ever became teachers in the first place. The stereotypical Korean teacher stick-banging is highly inadequate and has diminishing powers of compliance.

Strangely, Korean co-teachers sometimes seem to think of us as the solution to all their problems… this in itself is a problem. They think we come here to do all their work for them, to take the burden of education off their shoulders. When we don’t agree to this ideal and instead want equality based on our hire, we are proclaimed to be the problem, the instigator, the outsider that doesn’t understand.

Teaching here really is a ludicrous game of imaginary boundaries and rules. The Koreans don’t seem to understand that we have no standards in Korea; to them English is esoteric, a mysterious concept that they cannot grasp. As Korean teachers continued to apply more intimidation and lies to an open wound sore from their illogical prodding, my quality of work became even worse.