::A Geek in Korea::

My schedule was forced to get “creative” today. Due to the organization the school I work for is a part of, to qualify as a member, 20% of classes must be taught by a foreigner. Since my other foreign coworker has left for Canada, and his replacement has yet to arrive, there are gaps where we need a foreigner sitting in the room to count. Also, that sort of “X number of classes with a foreigner in the room” logic is what parents look for when they spend ridiculous amounts of money on a school.

I had to go in early today and sit in classes I hadn’t taught the previous weeks of the intensive classes. I had to go in several hours earlier than normal, and wait an hour between class in the morning. As long as a foreign body was in the class, the parents are happy. After my first set of afternoon classes, I had an hour break before a long block of classes. I was snacking on some pears my wife had cut when my director came in and asked me to “prepare and decide what all foreigners would teach in the new system.”

I have never seen the new system. I have not been trained. I don’t know the materials. I don’t know the length of classes. I don’t know the students. I don’t know a single thing about the new school, and I’ve been asking since I heard about the takeover for MORE INFORMATION, and NOW you think to ask me to come up with a comprehensive FOREIGNER SYLLABUS ON MY SNACK BREAK?

The mind boggles.

Because of the 20% rule, there are amendments to the syllabus provided by the franchise. Foreigners needed be teaching classes that are taught with only Korean teachers according to the franchise materials. All those annoying song and dance classes for pre-readers need a foreign babysitter to comply with the 20% rule to keep the academy association happy.

I was supposed to decide what the Foreign teachers should do when they visit each class. I’d like to restate the point this was the first time I was being included in the decision making process, and it was supposed to for this entirely new set of materials I’ve never seen, taught completely differently, and they want this off the top of my head.

Right now, anyone reading this blog has exactly the same amount of information I did about what should be taught in these classes. Did you come up with an answer in less than 10 seconds? If so, you should talk to my Director, because she really wanted to know my opinion in about as much time.

I was presented with some books, completely devoid of context, for the few levels that foreigners are actually supposed to teach according to this program. That material looked fine. Do I know what the class would look like if I taught it? No. I don’t know. How could I? I haven’t been told what purpose foreigners serve in this new school, and worse yet, I don’t think my director knows either! I’m supposed to do…something? The Korean teacher that handles the class the rest of the time does…something else? How this is all going to come together is a total mystery.

Nevermind that my daily schedule has effectively doubled for every day I’m going to be working until the new foreigner arrives, but they are also expecting me to do all the foreigner planning for this new school on my lunch breaks? Fuck that. I basically stalled and told her I don’t have enough information and that she couldn’t possibly ask me to make that sort of choice without more answers.

She told me to compile a list of questions to ask. Currently, my list of questions is short. “What the hell is going on? Why am I responsible for any of this? Why did you hire a head teacher if you are asking me to do this? When do I get my contract, and how much are you planning on paying me?”

My director offered to send me up to Seoul to get trained like Korean teachers do a week before the school opens. It’s not exclusively for Korean teachers, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of the people there will be, since the only people get trained before this offer were the Korean managers. The central office won’t have a clue what a foreigner is supposed to do either since their franchise DOESN’T HAVE A SYLLABUS FOR FOREIGNERS AT MOST OF THE LEVELS WE’RE GOING TO BE TEACHING.

My school is trying to keep up a healthy reputation, as they are switching over their franchise to something from Seoul. We had nearly 700 people show up at an organizational meeting to apply to get into the school. I didn’t attend, but from what I heard, 450 students took entrance examinations to try to get into the program. Their goal is over 1000 students, which seems wildly optimistic, but the money they are dropping on remodelling the school, and the plans they have are insane, so why not shoot for the moon?

Middle school students won’t leave the school until 10:30 PM according to the schedule. I’m not going to be teaching a single Middle school class. That’s non-negotiable. No way in hell I’m staying that late.  It’s turning into one of those insane upper crust torturous Seoul schools before my very eyes. I’ve got my current contract being broken RIGHT NOW when I stay to teach the last class, and that ends at 7:30 PM.

All these students applying for the school seems like a good omen, until you consider that all the Korean teachers that tried to apply for a job teaching at the school failed the teaching qualifications examination. Seeing as they’ll have to teach American novels at a fluent level, it’s not surprising scraping up a few teachers was a challenge. Several hundred students applying for a school and no one qualified or trained to teach them a month before the deadline?

Yeah, welcome to Korea. Pretty soon all the schools are going to be this way. Now, excuse me, because I have to go to bed extra early because I have morning classes to cover for the rest of the week.