17. English classroom and others

English classroom and others:

Hopefully, you have the luxury of having the classroom to yourself as your own private office and don’t have to stay with the other teachers in the teachers’ room. I did for about 8 months. I also learned around the second semester, that I could lock the door and shut off the lights during lunch and relax filtered from the rest of the school. Some of your co-teachers may take unkindly to this (Bak and Gang), too bad for them. They will try to lecture you and suspiciously interrogate you on your reasons, but just tell them you are studying, working (how can they prove that you’re not), or whatnot and need a quiet space. As with most “warnings,” this is one you can ignore, they will probably repeat it to you a few times and then quit because it’s a losing battle with no merit for them. If they didn’t want to give you the room, then they wouldn’t have… if it comes with a lock and you use it, so be it.

For the English classroom, the sliding door and its lock are prone to jamming… hence the lock being broken off the (plastic-coated cardboard-filled frame). The sliding door still jams on its rail almost every class period… it’s not a priority to fix; replacing things that aren’t broken is more important.

They threw me into the teachers’ room in the later part of the school year, eh. If you want some peace and quiet you can still escape away to the English classroom if you want. I can see pros and cons with the move to the teacher room. It’s noisier, but the students don’t pester you around other teachers. Also, I believe they won’t try to one-on-one argue with you in front of other teachers.

The teachers’ room is dull; when you are there you will get to see even more inadequacies with the Korean education system. Tax payer money at work includes a teacher that fills her days drinking tea, refilling the hot water heater, sleeping on her desk, staring blankly into nothing... another teacher who sits there and takes 45 minute naps with a headset on. You’ll see Korean teachers shopping online, making private calls, clipping their nails… wasting time in general, including your co-teachers. But, of course, they’re too busy to give you a few minutes of their time. It’s not like teaching English is important to Korean-English teachers anyways.