Thursday, February 4, 2010

30. Everything Else

Often, you’ll have to wonder if doing something is okay… just do it until they tell you that it’s not. They’re not confrontational and it’ll take them a long time to actually build up the courage to tell you otherwise. Also, their logic isn’t very sound, so feel free to poke holes in it at will… I found it quite entertaining.

This school is spending money left and right on everything but education. I’ve never seen a school spend/throw around more money than they do here, in order: new windows, new parking lot, new part of the building with more unnecessary classrooms, new sliding doors for classrooms and teachers room, water dispensers, and new regular doors for other rooms such as bathrooms. Mind, nothing was wrong with the old ones.

One of the last things they added was computer podiums and electronic projectors were installed in the classroom. This I find very amusing and wasteful. Korean English teachers at my school barely used the whiteboard or chalkboard. They are generally amazed at any power point slides that I create, and have quite basic skills, if any, at creating them. They never used the computer podium in the English classroom except to occasionally try to progress my slides in one direction or another. I have seen them teach myself and have talked to some students and other native teachers about this as well; the Korean English teachers are notorious for the “standing still reading from a book” method of teaching. If they ever do use a projector or monitor, it’s to play a movie or a barely-educational lecture on learning English phrases. They already had flat screen televisions in every classroom to show those.

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