::A Geek in Korea::

Remember the exhaustive search the school did for books for the intensive classes that started today? Let me refresh your memory. I spent three hours with the foreign and Korean teachers personally approving all the books I was supposed to be teaching during the Intensive and Regular course periods. All books I taught a majority of hours on that I did not share with a Korean teacher were my responsibility to choose or at least approve. I spent an entire morning approving nearly all the books used in the entire school. I said "nearly all". Keep this in mind.

My second highest level class from last semester will be taught by no less than four teachers during the intensive period this month. Since the Korean teachers were responsible for finding the book series, I didn’t have a chance to preview the material before today. The book literally arrived on my desk this morning. I gave it a look and told my head teacher, "There are serious problems with the level of the materials in this book. It is not suitable for them. It is incredibly infantile and the children will find this insultingly easy." This is after looking at the book for a minute on my own. One of my Korean coworkers agreed that the series chosen for that level stunk, but that they wanted something easy to let the students get a sense of accomplishment while speaking in class. She seemed to hint that either the head teacher or the director had chosen the book without asking her.

This book was for listening skills. It was arranged in a dictation/test sort of format. The entire lesson for an hour class consisted of "Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening." These students can write entire essays, respond to news articles, and can hold decent conversations. What am I supposed to do with a book that is suitable for children five years younger? I went into class and brought the tape for the dictation with me. We listened to a chant, then did the simple dialog. It was far too basic to hold the students attention. Five minutes later, we had completed my lesson.

The worst student in the class raised his hand and said, "This book is too easy. I want a refund. I won’t waste money studying this." (In Korean. He is the worst student in the class by far.)

Yeah, that’s what I thought was going to happen. I immediately told the students to stop writing in their books. They were confused. I asked them, "Do you want to study this book?" They said no. "If you write in this book, it means that we wouldn’t be able to change. You’d have to buy this book and whatever else we switch to. That’d be impossible. Erase everything, I’ll take care of this."

The simple fact that I am questioning the wise and all powerful director on a book decision means I’m putting my neck out on the line. To suggest switching book series when three other teachers will be using the book, and a syllabus had already been written for the material means I’m really taking a chance.  I don’t know who could have possibly made a syllabus thinking this material was appropriate, but I was about to ask them to throw out their (awful) work. The material was absolutely not suitable, and I refused to teach it.

I went to my director. She happened to be in a meeting, but I called her out just the same. Wasting my time and the students time is costly. This is make or break time for schools trying to sign up and retain students. We needed this sorted out fast, because the same material would be used two more times today. I was the first teacher to use the book, and if I didn’t say anything, no one else would.

I gave the director the materials and told her my objections. Not suitable. Not teachable. Not worth wasting time on. I needed another book, or another series. She defended the choice, saying that the students needed something easy to "Get them talking". She said that tougher material led to "Foreign teacher lead classes" and not "student driven classes". That might be true, but what sort of conversation would I be having with students that needed to read material that easy? I couldn’t even come up with a conversation if I tried, and I’m good at that sort of thing.

As the director polled the opinions of the books from the students (which ranged from, "It sucks" to "I want a refund, I won’t study this."), I staged a coup by asking my foreign coworker what he thought about the series himself. He told me he found it easy, but tolerable. When I looked at the work he was doing with younger students, it was actually the same series, but more difficult work. He was using the level "2" book, while my students were suffering the awful level "3" book. He pointed out that the material in his book was actually harder than my own to the director for me. From there, we went on the check the level "1" books. It seems that the Korean publishers used a weird reverse numbering system that had level "1" being the hardest and higher numbers were easier. In all my years teaching, the progression of books goes from "starter" to "level 1" to "level 2", with each following number being higher. Everyone was surprised to see the mistake.

Once we sorted out the confusion, the students and the director were more than happy to switch the books around. I got to use the more difficult "level 1" books, and the "level 3" books were pushed down to a slightly lower level. They will still be WAY too easy for the students in that class, but that is tomorrow’s fight. While I was pleased I got the book switched and made my students happier, my director tried to get in a dig at me during the break.

She told me, "Well, I’m glad we sorted out the book problem. The next time we choose book materials, you should be more involved in the process. You should be sure to check all the materials to make sure it was suitable for your classes."

HOLD THE FUCK UP. WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?

My jaw actually DROPPED. My coworker chuckled under his breath in a "No, she didn’t just say that!" sort of way.

I replied, " I was very involved in the book process. I helped choose every book we used this morning for three hours on my own time before work. I remember picking every other book for nearly all the classes but this one. I wasn’t responsible for this book being chosen, and it wasn’t shown to me before the class period…" After that, I was sort of at a loss for words. She had walked out to talk to a mother without listening to me respond to her little jab.

For the director to call my professionalism into question in front of the ENTIRE teaching staff while gone out of my way at great risk to fix a problem probably caused by the director herself, and then to not even listen to my rebuttal? Woah. I’m a pretty well adjusted person when it comes to Korean manners flying in the face of what I am used to, but this felt like a slap in the face. A "Let’s keep the job for a month because the money is oh-so-sweet during intensive classes, but let’s immediately start considering other options" sort of slap in the face.