on teaching…

friday morning, i was greeted by excessive humidity and rain as i left the goshiwon (the dorm where i live) to get to class. and to match the gloomy weather, my day was about to get painfully worse.

but before i get into that, here’s a little background of what i do: i work at a hakwon (tutoring center) teaching TOEFL from 8 am to 6 pm (with a 2 hr lunch break) on mon/wed/fri, and from 8 to 10 am on tues/thurs. the hakwon, simply put, is fucked up.  you see, there are millions of hakwons in korea. every korean child attends after-school tutoring and extra classes every day, even during the summers. life can be hard here for these kids. the school and education system are insane, and parents push kids over the edge. incidentally, i think korea, after japan and sweden, had the third highest suicide rates back in the ’80s and ’90s, though i don’t know if it’s related to the school system or just life in general here..

at my hakwon, there is very little organization and management behind the administration. a preview of last week’s admin issues: i had initially been told i would teach the SAT, which was indeed what i wanted to do. but the first day i got there a few days before classes began for “training,” i was told that i would be teaching TOEFL, which i’ve never taught and knew barely anything about. secondly, they didn’t have the books i needed on hand. i had to come in on a saturday and pick them up to prep for the first class last monday. among the problems is the manager, john, a clueless idiot who doesn’t even know he is one. he has very little educational background, and yet, he’s in charge of ordering everyone else around. i wasn’t given a class list nor told what classroom i’d be teaching in until the morning of the first class. nor was i told how i should structure my classes and plan my lessons. nor that on tuesday and wednesday, the kids had a practice test and wouldn’t have class, saving me time and energy. it’s just bullshit after bullshit after bullshit. i’ve been getting really fed-up over the last week. already.

anyway, on friday, on top of the usually admin bs, some of the kids were driving me insane. many are so poorly behaved – terribly chatty, loud and rude. half come to class late. they talk back constantly. the only way to scare them is by telling them to go out into the hallway or that i’m going to call up their moms. these kids have real issues, and i think a number of them could use serious corporal punishment, disciplining, or drugs to subdue their manic behavior. i’m only kidding. or… am i.

other students simply don’t care to learn and participate. there are a number of narcissistic boys who even check themselves out in pocket mirrors and constantly fix their hair during class. others text message friends or watch tv shows on their cells, and just don’t give a flying fuck. if i ask them a question, no one ever volunteers. the thing is, they’re all spoiled brats. they live in the richest part of seoul, and go to prep schools in the states during the school year. i’m not even explaining myself fully. but it’s suffice to say, it’s entirely frustrating, and after just one week, i might’ve reached the last straw.

so after classes on fri, i told john, the idiot manager who’s also been putting a lot of pressure on me since i’m new, that i might quit after this upcoming week. not only can i not deal with the stress from him and the admin, but i hate teaching TOEFL (i get $35/hour but it’s really not that much if you include how much prep time i put in) and the teaching environment (admin, teachers, students) sucks. the other teachers are excessively clique-y, and though outwardly friendly, i can sense the superficiality. for instance, there is a group of about 6 ot 7 teachers that go to lunch together just by themselves every day, and fittingly but also conceitedly, call themselves “the lunch bunch.” on friday, for some reason, one of them invited me to come along. i joined, but it was a little weird. and towards the end of lunch, justin asked me, jokingly yes but nonetheless pretentiously, if i enjoyed lunch with them, and proceeded to tell me that they don’t just let anyone join in and that there’s a, har-har, ‘application process.’ right.

so i’m going to reach some sort of decision about whether i feel up to continuing to work at this place after my classes tomorrow. we’ll see how things go…