Sunday, July 18, 2010

Touche

As a group of us walked from SIBC to the hills surrounding Itaewon last Sunday afternoon, I began to share with my church friends about my hagwon's recent struggles. One of our foreign teachers, Jack, was scheduled to leave this week, I said, and as of that moment had not been given a plane ticket home. He was sure he wouldn't be leaving with his government-mandated severance pay, either. He said even I might not get severance when I leave. It was all because of financial difficulty, I knew. I was furious as I recounted the evidence from the last month: the replacement of two of our staff members with one person, the confession that fellow co-workers weren't getting paid in full, and now the knowledge that they had treated Jack unfairly. Reaching a lull in my story, I blurted, "I feel like Andy!"


The day I found out I was leaving Learning Well hit Andy pretty hard. "I don't show emotion very well,"he confessed in the office moments after my revelation. "But this really effects me." Andy and Brandon were both shocked at the news that the school had arbitrarily picked me to go; they would have rather our boss openly discuss the issue with the three of us and mutually choose a suitable candidate. They thought it unfair for me to be the one to blindly leave. Andy was already unsettled by other things he felt were breaches of contract, but the issue with me proved to be "the kicker," as it were: That was the night he made up his mind to return home. The sense of justice in him couldn't stomach the way I was being treated. At that moment in Itaewon last Sunday, I felt the same about Teacher Jack.


"Are you looking for another job?" my friend Sonja asked. "My hagwon is hiring and they want someone by the end of August." Until that moment, I hadn't thought about leaving.


Sonja went on in her descriptions. Maple Bear, she said, was a Canadian-based franchise oriented around Western educational standards. The program was kindergarten-only, where one teacher was with her students all day, allowing for reassuring consistencies in discipline and scheduling. This meant that teachers like me would no longer have to divide their time between younger and older students, or their energies between morning and afternoon classes. It was a hands-on school, not based primarily on a textbook. Children learned a new language "naturally," Sonja affirmed, through play. They had a solid curriculum set up--for which people had been fired for not using--with a plethora of games, multimedia suggestions, and TPR activities built-in.


"Do you put your own lesson plan together?" I asked her.


"We have twenty hours of teaching time a week, roughly," she replied. "And the rest is usually prep. You don't have to spend all that time at school. I usually do my lesson planning at Starbucks."


The freedom to plan your own lessons? I thought. A curriculum with agreed-upon standards? Activities and extra-curricular suggestions that actually fit the target lesson? This was already starting to sound better. "You have a knack for selling your school," I told Sonja over our Middle-Eastern meal.


"If you want, I can give you contact information and where you can send your resume. If they've already done this to other co-workers, you know they'll do it to you. If you already know you're not going to get your severance, why stay? A contract is only good if two people hold it as valid. If they don't hold to it, why should you?" Touche. I left the restaurant that afternoon with a name and email address in my pocket and a decision to make.

Some Christian friends of mine echoed Sonja's comments, telling me to take the chance. "I mean, it's not great to jump ship every couple of months when things get hard," Amanda told me this week via Facebook Chat, "but when you're looking at a serious situation that looks like it could end very badly for you, and you have another great offer on your door, you have to consider it's God's giving you a way out. [...I]t might not be. But it might not be wrong to take it, either. You know?" She and her husband had been through their share of hagwons and sketchy situations: Just in the 10 months that they've been here, they've changing schools three times out of sheer necessity. I knew they could speak from their experience. As we talked, she shared her husband's thoughts. "Jacob is behind me shouting, 'Jump at it!'"

There was much to weigh as I considered both sides. To broaden my perspective a little, I shot an email to Andy when I got home that night explaining matters and asking his thoughts. If he had been through this before, surely he might have a nugget of wisdom I could glean. I also knew I needed to be more well-informed about current situations at my school. While waiting for Andy's reply, I decided it was only fair to consult Jack.

"Jack, can I talk to you about something later?" I asked as I spied him at the water cooler.

"Yeah, sure. What's going on?"

I had wanted him to tell me more about the financial side of Apple Tree, so that I could weigh the risks and potential gains of leaving--but we didn't quite get that far. "I was offered a job this week at another hagwon," I told him.

"Are you sure you want to leave this place for another hagwon?" he asked. "It's a hagwon. You've invest four and a half, five months here. If you leave, you'll have to do it all over again." I nodded and we both walked off to class.

As I pondered the situation from its various angels, the LORD was working in my circumstances. I started to see the return on my investments into ILS/Apple Tree this week. I shared a story with a new church friend as we traveled to dinner Tuesday night: A struggling student in one of my older classes began to show comprehension that day. The class assignment was to draw and then write what happened first, next, then, and last in Aesop's "Tourtise and the Hare." My struggling student started drawing almost immediately, without complaint or hesitancy--and when I asked him about it, he accurately described his pictures to me. I showed the drawings to his Korean teacher, Vicky, and she was as impressed as I was. "It's because of you," Vicky said.

There were other exciting events this week, as well: My pre-K and kinder students have started a program to teach them how to read and my kinders are super-excited and ready for it. I can't wait to teach them! I was able to counsel two boys in my EX 1 class about their behavior--one who felt devasted that he flunked a spelling test and the other who was too proud that he had aced it. "Come here, Alex," I told the second boy. "I'm gonna teach you a new word. It's called 'humble.' It means that you don't get excited when you win. Don't say, 'Oh, look at me! I won, I won! I passed! Yay!"

I began to notice what impact I really had and how much I've already acclamated to life here at Apple Tree. By the time Friday rolled around, I had this settled peace from God that I am where I should be. My interactions with the teachers this week further affirmed my place in the school. I never had a second chance to discuss the issue further with Jack, but I began to consider his firm advice. Did I really want to start over?

Thursday afternoon, Andy's email arrived. "What would switching to another hagwon do for you?" he asked. "If you're moderately happy in the situation you're in, I would stay remain at the school." He went on about my having to adjust to something all over again, were I to move, and mentioned the thought that these sort of problems would follow me even to the new place. I wouldn't really gain anything by leaving. "If you're happy, stay happy," he cautioned.

I smiled as I read through Andy's words of advice, thankful for his perspective; his message resonated with my heart as I pondered it. By this time, I was sure he was right. "You might laugh at this," I warned him in my reply, "but God used your email to confirm that this is exactly where I need to be." Briefly, I told him how I had arrived at this conclusion. I mentioned how Jack had "echoed" the same advice as Andy--"that a hagwon is a hagwon is a hagwon" and that there'd be no real advantage to me in such an identical situation. It was settled, then: I would stay. "I'll text my friend," I wrote Andy, "and tell her thanks but no thanks."

Another weagukin friend of mine offered a bit of direction this week as well. She suggested I go into the journalism/newspaper business. "Education is a wooly mammoth," she said, "and unless you're at it for years and years, you're just plucking one hair." I told her that was one of my frustrations about teaching, especially in Korea--ineffectiveness. When I confessed to being an English major and to having a desire to write, she went on with some career advice. "Have a goal that you want to stay in Korea for four years. Start looking for other opportunties in Korea because for people like us they are out there. Definitely stay at your hagwon until February [when your contract is up]," she asserted. "But if you're sure you want to be a writer, start applying for copy editing jobs. [Collect a portfolio and s]how them that you've done your homework."

I pondered her suggestions. It's an appealing vocation, certainly geared more towards my field of study than teaching. And Koreans, especially those businessmen who run an English newspaper, are always looking for bright young men and women with a passion for writing and language. There would certainly be no lack of work. It's a good way to gain more international experience, my friend reminded me. It wouldn't be a hagwon, it would keep me in Korea if I so desired, and it might get my foot in the door for better writing jobs. It's definitely worth considering. I haven't thought of what the next step should be after my contract ends in February, but guaranteed the LORD will be there when it comes.

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